Darksoul

by Anna Stephens

  ‘Merle, my good man, give me good news,’ Durdil said, forcing cheer into his voice. Please, gods, give me good news.

  Merle looked like he’d been asked to tell lies in front of the temple godpool. ‘Well, we’re ready to go when you are, Commander. Have been for a week now. Stone’s here, chisels and men are here, mortar’s ready to be mixed. Just that trebuchet that’s the worry now. Any chance?’

  I can’t stop that trebuchet loosing for an hour, let alone the time you need, and if you think I can then you’re madder than a stoat down a fat man’s trousers.

  ‘Out of interest, if you completed the repairs while the treb kept loosing, what would happen?’ Durdil asked.

  Merle’s dusty eyebrows rose high. ‘Depends how far the bad stone stretches. If we have to chip deep into the wall, then it’ll be so weak she won’t withstand more than a few hours’ bombardment. Half a day at the most. And that’s with only the one engine loosing at it instead of all three.’

  ‘That bad? All right, and we need to make the repairs soon, do we?’

  Merle folded his massive arms. ‘You’re already gambling more than you’ve got to bet with, Commander. Them moving the two other trebs definitely bought us time, but that’s gone now. If we don’t make these repairs today there’s no point in us making them.’

  Durdil puffed out his cheeks and flapped his hands around. ‘How about if we prop the wall on the inside and do the works like that?’

  Merle coughed a laugh. ‘Prop the wall? Sir, it’s three times the height of a man. Prop it with what?’

  ‘Masts from the boats in the harbour,’ Hallos said when neither of them seemed to have an answer.

  Merle frowned up at the wall looming over them. ‘It’s a possibility, Commander, but I wouldn’t want to stake my reputation on them holding.’

  Just your life then. And all of ours too.

  ‘All right, we’re out of options,’ Durdil said heavily. ‘The fact is we can’t reach that siege engine and stop it. I’ll send five Hundreds to the harbour to protect the dockworkers unstepping the masts. Start work chipping out the stone now and prop it when they arrive. The treb will loose until nightfall, so pray the masts hold it up until then. Get the new stone in as soon as you can, before dark if possible. If you can, work through the night and with luck and the Dancer’s grace, the mortar will have dried by dawn.’

  Merle scratched his scalp. ‘You’re putting a lot of faith in those masts, Commander, and in the drying properties of good mortar. It’s my lads who’ll be inside the wall if she comes down.’

  ‘And it’s my lads who’ll be on the top of it, fighting and dying all day and all night, too. We’re under siege, Merle; every single one of us is risking death now. Can you do it?’

  Merle stared at the faces of his masons and their apprentices, at the mounds of dressed stone, the tubs of sand and limestone waiting to be mixed. Then he clapped his huge hands once. ‘Work’ll go slower in the dark, sir, so we’ll need plenty of torchlight to see by, and if you’ve got men up there fighting, well’ – he pointed to a bloodstain – ‘not sure my lads want to be killed by a hundredweight of soldier and armour dropping on their heads. Still, we’ll give it our best and leave the rest up to the Dancer.’

  Durdil stepped forward and looked up into Merle’s honest, dusty face. ‘I don’t think we can leave this one to the gods, Merle. If you don’t manage this, we all die.’

  Merle’s chest inflated so much he nearly pushed Durdil back a step. ‘Aye, Commander. We understand. We won’t let you down, will we, boys?’ There was a chorus of grim affirmation and the masons turned away from Durdil, stepped up the wall and the indecipherable markings scratched in chalk and, without another word, began to chisel.

  ‘You’re a credit to your trade and to Rilpor. I have no doubts you’ll succeed. Anything you need today, Colonel Yarrow up above will see you get it. Once night falls, come to me.’

  Merle bobbed his head, and Durdil nodded again and headed for Last Bastion and the North Gate. The harbour nestled behind the stump wall had been probed but not assaulted; the boats remained intact, their masts the only thing between Rilporin and defeat.

  Durdil had been asleep for approximately three and a half seconds when someone burst into his room and yelled him awake.

  ‘What?’ he grunted, knuckling grit from his eyes and letting out a long, protracted groan as his muscles sparked into rebellious, agonised life.

  ‘I said, they’ve built a sow and it’s heading for the gatehouse. Looks like they’re going to try rope and tackle to bring down the portcullis. If they manage it, they’ll slap pitch against the gates at this end of the tunnel and set the whole thing on fire.’ Vaunt’s voice was calm as ice, but there were hectic spots of colour in his cheeks.

  ‘The room above the tunnel’s manned, correct? They’re opening the murder holes?’ Durdil asked as he staggered upright and squinted as Vaunt flung open the shutters. He looked out – mid-afternoon, apparently. Still not enough sleep.

  Durdil shrugged into chainmail and jammed a helmet on, ignoring Vaunt’s protest that he should be in plate armour. ‘No time,’ he snapped, buckling on his sword and snatching up vambraces and gauntlets.

  He strode to the door and out into an eerie, silent Second Circle and then jogged heavily towards the gate into First Circle. Vaunt caught him up, slung him a waterskin and then a heel of bread with butter spread as thick as his little finger was round. Durdil’s eyelids sagged and he groaned at the taste, mumbled thanks as Vaunt reclaimed the waterskin and replaced it with a thick pink wedge of what turned out to be lamb.

  Gods, food. His stomach reminded him that as welcome as the meal was, it was nowhere near enough and that he’d forgotten to eat before tumbling into his cot – and that, actually, there were a few more points his body would like to raise now that he was awake, such as the unexpected rigours of battle, the bone-deep bruises from swords and axes trying to hammer through his armour, the general lack of food, water, sleep and a spare minute to take a godsdamned piss, if you please.

  Durdil bit down on the meat, turned to face the closest wall, hefted his chainmail and let loose a stream of golden urine that glinted magnificently in the sun. He groaned again.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Vaunt asked worriedly. ‘Blood in your piss, sir? I can get Hallos and—’

  Durdil grunted around the chunk of meat in his mouth and then shook his head, finished up and stuffed himself back in his trousers, remembering to wipe his hand on his sleeve before taking the meat out of his mouth.

  ‘I’m fine, let’s go,’ he said and forced himself into a run again, pounding through the killing field beneath the curtain wall, where an enemy would be trapped between the walls and so vulnerable to arrow shot from above – gods, don’t let it come to that – on towards the gatehouse on legs that really shouldn’t shake this much and in through the door and up and up and up the stairs to the level of the wallwalk, where Edris and Yarrow had the command.

  And Renik, too, apparently, though the man was supposed to be sleeping. I’m supposed to be sleeping. So’s Vaunt.

  ‘Show me.’

  Renik gestured to an arrow slit and Durdil pressed his face to the stone and looked down, still chewing the fatty lamb and trying not to drool. The sow was an upturned cart with plates of metal and animal hides nailed to its bottom, the legs of a dozen men visible underneath as they carried it as protection above their heads and made their way towards the gate.

  He could see the ropes unfurling behind them and knew they’d be attached to grappling hooks that they’d latch on to the portcullis. As soon as they’d hooked on, the squad on the other end of the rope would start cranking, hoping to pull the portcullis free of its housing before the defenders could sprint the length of the tunnel and unhook them.

  Standard manoeuvre, one we know how to counter … Durdil’s eyes tracked the long ropes trailing from behind the sow. Looked as though they stretched back to the trebuchet, now facing away from the
city as though it was going to hurl rocks into its own army.

  ‘Fuck the gods,’ Durdil breathed and grabbed Renik by the shoulder, pulled him to the arrow slit. ‘What happens if they connect the ropes from the portcullis to the treb’s throwing arm?’ he hissed. ‘Could it work?’

  Renik paled and swallowed. ‘Dangerous,’ he said. ‘Either it flips the treb, shatters it, snaps the ropes or rips free the portcullis. Three of those will be lethal to the men around it. The fourth could well be lethal for Rilporin.’

  Durdil spun from the window and shoved Vaunt towards the stairs. ‘Get those fucking hooks off the portcullis right fucking now.’

  Vaunt didn’t hesitate, didn’t protest a major shouldn’t be doing something like this, didn’t mention the arrow shot he’d be under from the men in the sow the second he got close to the hooks. He just dodged a knot of soldiers and threw himself down the spiral staircase.

  ‘Help him,’ Durdil shouted, and the men gaped for a second and then followed. ‘Renik, get a Hundred and muster this side of the gates. If they get that portcullis open, hold them there until I can get you reinforcements.’

  ‘Sir,’ Renik said and bolted for the same staircase that had swallowed Vaunt.

  ‘Edris, Yarrow, whose command is under the least pressure?’

  ‘Mine,’ Edris said, ‘we’ve had them pinned back for a good few hours now.’

  ‘Right, fifty men. Fetch both the stingers stationed outside the gate into Second Circle. Vaunt’s going to stop the sow tearing open the portcullis if he can, but if not I want those stingers rolled into the tunnel and loosing at any advance. Renik’s your support. Do not let them through that tunnel. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, Commander,’ Edris said and saluted. Durdil returned the gesture. ‘It’s been an honour, sir.’

  ‘Shut up, Edris. I’m not sending you out to die,’ Durdil said, and they both knew he was probably lying. ‘Dancer’s grace. Go.’

  Durdil was almost at the stairwell in the back wall when half a dozen blue-clad men slammed through the door from Double First’s wallwalk. The first hurled a dagger. So much for this wall being under control.

  Durdil threw himself out of its path and dragged his sword from its sheath. He snatched up a shield from the pile stacked inside the doorway and charged. Yarrow was a second behind him, despite his command being Second Last.

  The Mireces Durdil faced was covered in blood from the flap of scalp hanging in his eye. He feinted left and then right, attacked left and Durdil whipped the shield laterally across his body, turning side-on behind it. The sword clattered off the shield boss and struck sparks from the stone floor. Three more Mireces circled behind him, grinning, two engaging Yarrow, the other looking to stab Durdil in the back.

  Durdil parried a flurry of attacks, backing slowly across the room, but then reinforcements from somewhere arrived and together they drove the Mireces back through the door on to the allure. Durdil followed with his shield up. The wallwalk was a chaos of men in Mireces blue – too many – and Palace Rank green struggling and screeching in mad dances across the stone. Splashes of red that were the Personal Guard here and there, but for every defender there seemed to be three attackers poking up over the wall from the ladders.

  Durdil cut through a gap between two of his men, shoved a Mireces hard in the back so he impaled himself on a Ranker’s sword, punched his mailed fist into the face of another and sent him back-flipping off the wall in a spray of teeth and blood, and then he was in the thick, his blood singing and his feet sure. His fifty-six summers fell from his shoulders like an unneeded cloak and he killed his way towards the siege tower and the Mireces around it.

  Durdil put his weight behind his sword and forced the tip through a man’s ribs from behind; he’d been too busy sidestepping out of the bridgehead to notice Durdil’s approach. He screamed and then stopped as the blade stole his breath, the sound strangled, pathetic, a consumptive child’s last whimper. He fell to his knees and Durdil put his boot on his shoulder and wrenched his sword free. It grated against ribs, slid soft and silky through lung, and emerged with its length dull and black with blood.

  Yarrow was at his side now and Durdil slashed past him and took the nose and cheek from a Raider. The man screamed blood and pain and Yarrow finished him with a graceless shove over the wall into the attackers waiting below.

  A swift glance showed him the sow was almost at the portcullis; he needed to be down there. ‘Can you hold?’ He grabbed Yarrow’s arm. ‘Colonel, can you hold?’

  ‘I – yes, Commander. On my honour we’ll hold.’

  ‘Good. I’ll station a runner in the gatehouse; you need further reinforcements, let me know. Though I don’t expect you will.’ His meaning was clear and he saw Yarrow take it. The colonel swallowed, nodded again. ‘This is the biggest push we’ve seen from them. I’d say don’t be a fucking hero, Colonel, but I need you to be.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’ Yarrow wiped sweat from his face and managed a grin that was more a grimace. ‘Been a while since …’ His words trailed off as he stared up and over Durdil’s shoulder, and Durdil turned to engage, sweeping his blade in a wide diagonal to cover as much space as possible, the rest of him tucked tight behind his shield. His blade thunked into the wooden haft of a two-handed axe wielded by a giant wearing a blue tent over his chest and shoulders, bracers on his arms that might have been adapted from horse armour.

  Durdil ducked under the swing and the giant let the momentum spin him in a circle, Palace Rankers, Personals and Mireces alike scurrying out of range and falling into each other to avoid the whining blade. Durdil came back up in time to meet the Mireces face to face, hacking his sword upwards to slice into a thigh, skitter out and across chainmail and graze the man’s armpit. The giant howled and swung again, the blade smashing into the stone where Durdil’s foot had been and sending shrapnel hissing into the crowd. A fragment caught him on the pauldron and bounced up into his face, stinging his lip.

  Durdil danced backwards, sword and shield raised, adrenaline sharpening his sight and tempering the poisons of worry and fatigue with just a little more sweetness.

  He leapt in again, screaming and slashing and then skipping out of range – or what he thought was out of range. The giant grinned and the axe hummed in a flat arc towards him, inexorable as time. Durdil reversed fast, but his heels hit a body and he slammed on to his arse, tailbone smashing into stone, the agony blinding him with tears. The Mireces arced his axe upwards, spun once more, and sliced it down towards Durdil’s face.

  He knew the impact would shatter his sword before his head but he swung anyway, a desperate parry to buy himself one more instant of life. Durdil’s sword met only air and he opened eyes he didn’t realise he’d shut to find the giant standing slack, axe hanging loose, an expression of puzzled incomprehension on his bearded face. He jerked, jerked again, and Durdil heard the sound of metal cleaving flesh. The giant went to one knee and behind him Durdil saw Yarrow, a Mireces axe in his hands, chopping at the stump that was a man like he was felling winter firewood. Blood juddered into the air, scarlet droplets hanging against the sun for an endless instant before raining on them all.

  And still he didn’t die. Instead he twisted, throwing an arm over his shoulder and grabbing for Yarrow. His hand closed on the colonel’s sleeve and tugged him forward; Yarrow crashed into his back and the giant grabbed again, harder, and tried to pull him over his shoulder and on to the stone in front of him. The colonel bleated and Durdil realised it was up to him to do something.

  He lurched upright, tailbone creaking protest, and punched the Mireces in the teeth, his gauntlet mashing the man’s lips to pulp and shattering enamel. The man blinked and focused glazed eyes on him. Durdil punched him again and Yarrow pulled away, leaving a vambrace, a sleeve and a fair amount of hair and skin in the giant’s possession. Durdil punched a third time as Yarrow stepped into space and pirouetted, the axe leading, trailing a gleam of sunlight from its edge and slamming into the side of
the kneeling Mireces’ neck.

  Durdil heard a triple scream, one from the Mireces, one from Yarrow of triumph, and one that must have been his own, his throat suddenly raw and echoing. The Mireces’ head sagged to one side, the neck partially cut through, and he could see the dull shine of bone in the meat and gristle and spurting, fountaining blood. Yarrow didn’t bother with a second blow. The giant fell and they left him to bleed to death, bubbling breath and shrieks and life into the air.

  ‘Thanks,’ Durdil gasped.

  Yarrow raised a finger in acknowledgment, too busy sucking in air to answer straight away. He hacked a harsh, dry cough and attempted to spit over the wall.

  Durdil rubbed his arse and winced. That’s going to be a bastard of a bruise. He glanced along the wall; the bridgehead was contracting, pressed on all sides back towards the ladders. ‘Hold,’ he said one more time, and then started eeling through the press around the bridgehead, making for the nearest tower and set of stairs.

  The trebuchet released and there was the scream of rope under immense tension; the entire gatehouse shuddered, dust exploding into the sky as the enemy attempted to rip the portcullis free.

  ‘Shit.’

  CORVUS

  Fourth moon, afternoon, day thirty-one of the siege

  East Rank encampment, outside Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  ‘Did it work?’ Corvus asked. He stood by Lanta, Rivil and Skerris, Valan and the Godblind a few paces behind.

  The noise from the gatehouse had been like distant stone and metal beasts tearing into each other, and all was obscured by dust. Rivil was silent as he stared through the distance-viewer at the gatehouse, Corvus twitching with the desire to snatch it from his grip and look for himself. The trebuchet they’d used to rip out the grate was a twisted wreck littered with corpses and splashed with blood; one of the ropes from the portcullis to the throwing arm had snapped under the force and scythed through the warriors under the sow, cutting them in half before whipping into a squad of Rankers standing fifty paces distant. Not distant enough, it seemed. The Lady’s will.