by J. V. Jones
It also seemed the Whitehog had taken a succession of blows, God bless his small and porcine heart. According to Greenslade the army that had deserted the Crab Gate had quickly fragmented. Various grangelords including Alistair Sperling and Tranter Lennix had split from the main body of the army, believing they could steal a march on Garric Hews and reach Spire Vanis before him. A dog-and-pony race had ensued with a whole fistful of grangelords racing to take the prize. Alistair Sperling had arrived first only to find all gates dropped and barred. Lisereth Hews was outside Almsgate with an army of two thousand, trying to ram her way in. When the good lady spotted Sperling she ordered her hideclads to attack.
“Attacked him herself, by all accounts,” Greenslade had told Marafice, “ahorse and armed with her late husband’s sword.”
That one fact had genuinely frightened Marafice Eye. He found it surprisingly easy to picture Lisereth Hews armed and worked up into a tooth-and-nail frenzy. She had been daughter and granddaughter to surlords; she knew what it took to seize power.
“Lisereth Hews’ hideclads trounced Sperling,” Greenslade had continued easily, confident in his facts. “His men were exhausted; saddle sores burning holes in their arses, horses falling beneath them. Sperling could barely raise a defense. Took a spear to the gut and fell. Lisereth wasted no time and used her momentum to make another strike on the gate. That’s when the storm hit. Twice.”
The smallest upward lilt in Greenslade’s voice had suggested unnatural events. His green eyes had glittered knowingly as he awaited the next question. He was a darkcloak, master of tricks and illusions. The cloak he wore could conceal him from dusk to dawn. He could compel a man to look at him in a crowd, draw smoke away from a fire, and project his voice into the bustling spaces of public halls and squares whilst concealing its origin. Marafice did not wish to know how he did these things. He had learned his lesson at Ganmiddich, and would not involve himself in anything that had the taint of sorcery about it. His name was Eye. Not Iss.
Pointedly he had directed the conversation away from the strangeness of the storm. “What happened to Lisereth Hews?”
“As her hideclads rammed the gate, word came that her son was just to the north. The storm was raging by then, temperature dropping, wind whipping up the snow, but she waited for him. Meantime Garric Hews has called a halt. He knows what’s been happening five leagues to the south at Almsgate but he imagines his mother will have withdrawn. She imagines he will force his way through, and refuses to abandon the gate. Hideclads start deserting her and she orders them shot. Large-scale mutiny breaks out and Hews is fighting Hews in the whiteout. The temperature falls so low that timbers in the gate roof start exploding and tiles begin flying like axes. When it’s all over and done four hundred hideclads lay dead. Most were wounded then frozen alive. Lisereth Hews survived the fighting but not the cold. Garric had to dig his mother’s body out of the snow two days later. It was said her husband’s sword was frozen in her fist.”
Marafice had shuddered. “What of the Whitehog?”
“He retired to his grange. Some believe he should have pushed that last five leagues to meet his mother and he’s lost some support over it. His momentum’s gone, his remaining hideclads are disheartened, the ground’s still too hard to bury the dead. Word is that he’ll rally but it’ll take time.” Again the green eyes had glittered. “All due to a storm.”
Marafice had dismissed the man, and resolved then and there to never use him again.
It was three days later and he knew he would break that resolve and call Greenslade into his presence tonight. Information was his lifeblood. If he intended to approach Hoargate tomorrow he needed to know what to expect.
His father-in-law held Mask Fortress, yet as of three days ago Roland Stornoway had not declared himself surlord. Marafice could not imagine a stranger turn of events. Spire Vanis without a surlord for a month? He did not know the histories and perhaps such a thing had happened before. But he doubted it. He had lived in Spire Vanis all his life, spent twenty-two years close to surlords—first Borhis Horgo and then Penthero Iss. This was not a city that could tolerate a vacuum. Something was happening, but he was not a scholar or a politician; he needed Greenslade and his brethren to help him figure it out.
“All halt!” Tat Mackelroy cried, standing in his stirrups and bellowing down the ranks. “Make camp. All halt!”
Marafice was surprised to see they had arrived at the Vale of Spires. Hours had passed where he had left his progress in the hoofs of his big black warhorse. The sun was failing, dipping into bands of red and silver clouds at the edge of the sky. All farm stench had gone and the air was crisp and gusting. They had approached the granite spires from the east and Marafice wondered how long he had ridden in their long, needle-like shadows and not known it.
Most people believed the spires had been formed by God, given as both gift and warning to the people of Spire Vanis. See my power. A few claimed they had been raised by ancient sorcerer kings who had died in the War of Blood and Shadow, long before the city at the foot of Mount Slain existed. Marafice could not understand the need to explain such things. They were there, you could see them, why invent fancies to turn them into things they were not? What they were was a rough circle of granite fangs that thrust straight out of the bedrock at the center of a grassy plain. Some were as tall as a hundred and twenty feet and others less than thirty. The granite was a dirty off-white color, streaked and potholed with black. To Marafice’s mind they looked like rotting shark’s teeth. He supposed they might be an alarming sight to those who had never seen them before, especially the taller ones that had edges like serrated knives, but he had always found them oddly pleasing.
And it pleased him to make camp here this night. He dismounted and started issuing orders. Anyone who looked even remotely afraid or doubtful was given latrine duty. Marafice had found it worked as well as anything when it came to re-focusing a man’s mind. Feeling full of energy, he hammered posts with the mercenaries and raised tents. Cook fires were a problem as they had run out of timber two days back and had not been able to forage or strip much since. All trees had long since gone from this part of the country, felled to make way for pasture and farms. Marafice thought a fire would be good thing for the men. “Chop down the small cart,” he commanded Tat Mackelroy on impulse. “There’s no reason why the captives can’t walk to the city tomorrow. The wounded can be jammed into the remaining two.”
This turned out to be a spectacularly popular order. Mercenaries and men of Rive Company came together to hack the wooden cart into sticks. One of the old Rive men fetched his stringboard and started plucking out a tune, some outrageously lewd song about a woman who went up a mountain and ended up getting fucked by a bear. Pretty much everyone joined in the chorus. Ale kegs were tapped. The cartbed was reduced to chips. Work began on the wheels. Perish frowned at all the ungodly activity, but had the sense to let it be. He knew the value of such releases to men who had been away from home for too long.
“What should we do with the captives?” Jon Burden was the one sober presence in the camp. As commander of Rive Company, the four clansmen who remained alive were his responsibility.
“Lash them to one of the fangs,” Marafice said. “Take off their boots and razor the souls of their feet. Lightly, but enough to keep them from running. Those men aren’t fools. They would have figured out by now that tonight’s their last chance to escape before we enter the city.”
“Aye,” Jon Burden said, glancing south toward the mountains and Spire Vanis. From here you could just see the haze of gray smoke the city created billowing above the ice fields of Mount Slain. “Always supposing we are allowed entry.”
Marafice had known Jon Burden for as long as he had been in the Rive Watch. They had trained together under Perish; pulled themselves up from lowly brothers to captains, learned how to eat in the grand banquet halls of Mask Fortress without causing grange ladies to faint in disgust, and discovered hard truths about the city t
hey guarded. Marafice would not lie to him. “We’ll see what we see.”
Jon Burden pulled air into his thick powerful chest. The rubies in the killhound brooch at his throat fired in the setting sun. “A pity we had to trade the ram.”
Marafice barked out a laugh. Clapping Burden hard on the shoulder, he said, “Count yourself lucky you never had the pleasure of meeting the Weasel chief firsthand. She’s been figuring in my dreams ever since—and God help me, sometimes she’s naked.”
Burden snorted. “I’ll see to the clansmen.”
Carefully avoiding favoring his left foot, Marafice left the campsite and walked amongst the granite spires. It was colder here, the air still. Odd bits of debris littered the ground surrounding the stones: incense burners, lamb-gut sheaths, glass vials, ale cups, moldering lumps of food. Something that looked a lot like blood had been sprayed against the base of the tallest spire. Marafice frowned at it, deeply disgusted.
“Protector General.” It was Greenslade, slipping between the fangs. Always it was difficult to keep your gaze on his cloak. Somehow it kept sliding off. “You wanted to see me?”
Marafice glanced back at the camp. Walking deep into the thick of stone spires, he said, “What is the latest news from the city?”
Greenslade was not a man to waste time. “Roland Stornoway still controls the fortress. As he’s yet to make a formal announcement about the surlordship. Word is that he’s holding it for his son-in-law.”
“The watch?”
“They’ve been with him right from the start. It’s my guess he’s been telling the captains that by supporting him they’re supporting you.”
It would certainly explain how easy it had been for Roland Stornoway to control Mask Fortress and the city gates. You needed the watch on your side for that. Marafice reached out and touched the closest stone spire. The edges were sharp enough to open skin. “What’s the status of the gates?”
“Hoargate and Almsgate are still closed. Wrathgate remains open for limited hours each day. Stornoway has forbidden the breaks to be put on the gear shanks, so the gate can be dropped at a moment’s notice.”
It made sense. “Who polices them?”
“The watch, though I’ve heard rumors that Stornoway has hideclads garrisoned in all the gate towers.”
Marafice took his hand from the stone. Skin along his index finger had split but not bled. He did not find much comfort in these facts. What was Roland Stornoway up to? The old nutgall was no friend of his. Yet how better to gain access to power than to have a son-in-law as surlord? Stornoway could never have managed such a coup without the Rive Watch. He must have taken power in Marafice’s name.
“My lord. It may be possible to rig the gate.”
“No,” Marafice blasted at him. He would have no tricks and sorceries. He’d had his fill of such foulness at Ganmiddich. The weird green lights, the bad-eggs smell. He would not use unnatural forces ever again.
Greenslade appraised his Protector General and seemed to find him wanting. “As you wish. Tonight my brethren and I go on ahead. We will await you in the city.”
Before Marafice Eye could even begin to frame a reply Greenslade took his leave, the fabric of his cloak swirling around him like dark water. It was dusk now and his figure was lost to the eye within the space of five seconds.
Marafice cursed softly and with feeling. His foot was throbbing and the coldness in his eye socket seemed to freeze half his brain. The good half, the one he needed to make sense of what was happening in the city. Stornoway in Mask Fortress. It was a puzzle he could not solve.
As he made his way back to the camp he passed the granite fang the clansmen had been roped against. They formed a rough circle, one on each compass point. Their feet were bare and bleeding, though not badly. They would survive. Burden had a clean blade. The young one with the brown eyes marked Marafice in silence. He had a couple of fresh bruises on his face and a nasty gash across the bridge of his nose. Jon Burden and Tat Mackelroy had interrogated all four men some days back, and the brown-eyed one had fought back like a demon.
Marafice reminded himself to ask Burden what, if anything, he had discovered. For now, though, he wanted nothing but the peace of his tent. It seemed Greenslade had performed an unwitting service. The darkcloak had succeeded in tiring him out sufficiently to the point where he believed it was possible to sleep.
Small cookfires dotted the camp, and the smell of charring pork fat and onions wetted his mouth. He was pleased to see a large central bonfire had been built as a gathering point. A wrestling match was under way—a member of Rive Company against one of Steffan Grimes’ professional mercenaries—and the cheering and booing was raucous. Marafice watched the match for a while—Rive was looking like dead meat—and then found himself a plate of food and retired to his tent.
He ate methodically in the darkness. He couldn’t be bothered lighting a lamp. Before he slept it occurred to him that the day he’d spent fighting at the Crab Gate had not left him as mentally exhausted as he felt right now. How had Iss managed it, all the intrigue and uncertainty?
An hour before dawn he awoke and gave the order for camp to be struck. Tat Mackelroy helped him into full war armor, snapping latches, strapping buckles and shoving down great wads of linen padding. Marafice looked south toward Spire Vanis and spied the suggestion of light on the edge of mountains and sky. He had been moving toward this moment for years, decades even, yet he had never thought it would come in circumstances such as these. What did Iss used to say? “You cannot plan for the strangeness of being surlord.” Much wisdom seemed to exist in those words.
Mist washed through the granite fangs as Jon Burden, Andrew Perish and Steffan Grimes formed up ranks. The spires towered above them, stone sentinels thousands of years older than the city the army went to claim. Men were quiet. Formally armed and armored, most needed mounting stools to bestride their horses. The foot soldiers—there were a hundred and fifty extra thanks to Yelma Scarpe—stamped their feet restlessly as the cavalry took its own good time to close ranks.
Marafice waited. He found himself not impatient. The stars were fading in a clear sky. Crows were calling in the fields, gathering in readiness to pick through the remains of the camp. When the carts were loaded and the ranks evenly formed, Marafice gave the order to the drummers to sound the slow march. As the booms of the kettledrums synchronized, he trotted his horse to the center of the front line.
“To Wrathgate,” he bellowed. “South!”
An army of three thousand moved out on his order.
Progress was slow for the first hour. Marafice kept both hands on the reins and did not think. Keeping his head forward to avoid his neck piece chafing, he watched the sun rise. When they rejoined the road he caught his first glimpse of the city walls in the distance. A small shock of remembrance charged the sheet of muscle beneath his lungs. The Splinter had gone. The pale limestone tower that had risen six hundred feet above the earth no longer existed. He had been told that it had fallen, but Iss’ death had seized his attention and he had not spared a thought for the city’s tallest tower. Its absence was shocking, the unobstructed view of Mount Slain’s northern face.
Every man in the party felt it. Andrew Perish, who was riding two lines back, cried out the third piety. “God brings destruction so that we as men can restore His order to the world.”
Marafice did not believe in God, but the ancient words pulled at him all the same. Restore order: that would not be a bad thing. Calling out to the drummers he commanded a quick march. They were on the road now; the mules and footsoldiers could keep pace.
The villages they passed through were deserted, and all healthy animals were gone from the fields. When they reached the fork in the road that led east to Wrathgate Marafice took it without hesitation. He could see the great iron edifice of Almsgate, flanked by its twin towers. Tat said the double portcullises were down and they looked like they’d taken a few bashes. A chunk of the gate roof had collapsed and there was a b
ig bald patch without tiles. All was as Greenslade had said.
Marafice’s heart began to pound as they neared the city’s eastern gate. The kettledrums were booming, combining with the clatter of hooves and armor to create a wall of sound. Red and silver pennants flying from Spire Vanis’ limestone walls ripped and darted in the mountain winds. Men were patrolling the ramparts; you could see their heads and the top three feet of their spears. No one was at the gate. No merchants, farmers, tradesmen, scholars. No one. Everyone within the city and without must know that Marafice Eye had come home.
“Is it open?” he asked Tat, his voice wild.
Tat squinted. Wrathgate was built from granite blocks as big as horse stalls. It was a square and bulky gate, the least elegant of the city’s four gates, and it was guarded by two four-sided towers and a stone hood. The gate itself was deeply overhung.
“Portcullis is down,” Tat said quietly.
Marafice felt the state of his body change. Things that had been slack tightened, and others that had been tight loosened in unpleasant ways. “We keep going,” he said, his voice suddenly calm.
When the front line drew within two hundred feet of the gate, the sound of horns blasted forth from the eastern wall. Hundreds of red cloaks stepped into view. Rive Watch. His men. As he looked on they drew their swords in salute. Red steel flashed in the sunlight. The cast-iron portcullis juddered into motion with a great rattling of chains. Clods of snow and turf fell from its spikes.
And there, waiting in the courtyard on the other side, was his father-in-law Roland Stornoway, dressed in fantastically gilded armor that was too big for his small and bony frame, and flanked by a double guard. Hideclads and red cloaks. Marafice had not realized until now that the old goat was still capable of sitting a horse. Seeing Stornoway’s cold and rheumy eyes, Marafice suddenly understood several things.
