The Crown of the Usurper (The Crown of the Blood)

by Gav Thorpe

  The smoke was also a good ploy on the part of Ullsaard's opponent. Even in the rolling clouds of fume the columns could be seen and heard, but their exact numbers were hidden. It made the most sense for the gate to be the target of the strongest attack, but Lutaan knew this also and might instead try to overwhelm one of the other walls. It was a matter of bluff and double-bluff. The best Ullsaard could do was keep a careful watch and be sure to respond quickly as the battle developed.

  He wanted to be down in the courtyard, spear and shield in his hands, ready to fight himself, but reason told him that he needed to maintain a loftier view. If his presence would make a difference, he would fight where needed, but he would not know where his presence would have the greatest impact unless he kept a proper overview of the battle; and that meant being on the balcony, and keeping one ear cocked for a shout from one of the men tasked with bringing reports from the lakeward side of the compound and the wall to coldwards.

  Swirls and shadows in the smoke showed the snaking lines of the three-pronged attack. The company coming up the road was closest, but only by fifty paces or less. Lutaan had timed the assault well and all three columns would arrive at about the same moment. Ullsaard was certain that there were more men to coldwards than dawnwards.

  He looked for Captain Gelthius, but the Salphor was not in the spear thrower tower and not in the courtyard. Irritated, Ullsaard swept an eye over the men, looking for someone else who could be trusted with the orders. Leaning over he saw his Companion almost directly below the balcony, on the steps of the main door, ready to defend the entrance if the enemy should break through the gate or come over the walls.

  "Muuril, move ten men to the coldwards wall," the king called down. "And stay there yourself."

  "Aye, King," replied the sergeant, lifting his spear in acknowledgement. Ullsaard watched as names were called out and ten men were brought back from around the gate and on the wall behind the hotwards outbuildings. The group trotted out of sight around the corner of the stable wing.

  Despite the smoke, Ullsaard could see ladders being carried over the heads of the lead companies. They were not tall ladders – the compound wall was not even twice the height of a man – but there were lots of them.

  "Archers, target the ladder carriers!" Ullsaard shouted. "Slow them down."

  The twang of bowstrings and hiss of arrows slicing air disturbed the quiet. The king could also hear the tramping of the Twenty-first, getting louder and louder on the road. He fancied he heard the voices of the officers calling out, shouting words of reproach or encouragement. The crackle of the flames was not so loud as it had been, and though the light from the fires had died down, the rising sun was more than making up for the loss.

  "Duskwatch, third hour," came the shout from somewhere below, follow by the clang of a knife pommel hitting a bell. "Third hour!"

  Ullsaard smiled. Lutaan had told the king to his face exactly when the attack would reach the walls, and he was out by only a matter of a couple of hundred paces. Ullsaard admired that sort of boldness, even as he also respected the organisation it had required to get three thousand men into position at such a precise time.

  "At the wall!" The shout was from the spear thrower crew. Ullsaard turned around and looked up at the men, who were swivelling their machine to coldwards. One of them saw the king looking and pointed. "Hundreds of them, king, at the coldwards wall."

  The rope of the spear thrower snapped as the bolt was loosed into the smoke. Ullsaard could hear the shout of an officer giving the command to charge and the insults being hurled back by Muuril and others.

  It was a relief, in a way, that the fighting had started. Ullsaard was committed, and all he had to do now was what he knew best – fight and win.

  VI

  Pulling at the sweep reminded Gelthius of his time on Anglhan's landship. He fell into the rhythm quickly, grunting the stroke to Aduris. Gebriun sat down by the tiller, shivering.

  "Take my cloak," said the captain. "Water's nearly freezing."

  Gebriun did as he was told, unfastening Gelthius' cloak and wrapping about his shoulders as he returned to the stern. Gelthius glanced over his shoulder now and then to see how far away they were from the dark blot in the smoke that was the shoreline. He could see the villa rising up against the lightening sky, perhaps four casts away, maybe less ; more like two hundred paces.

  "Keep going, almost there," said Gelthius. The muscles in his lower back were already protesting; just a couple of years ago Gelthius would have worked all day at the landship's crank without a problem. On the other hand, when he had first been brought into the Thirteenth Gelthius had been hardly able to walk a couple of miles before his shins were agony and his feet were numb. Times had changed his body.

  He rowed in silence, teeth gritted, until he heard the scrape of the keel and felt the boat shudder and then tip sharply to the right.

  "Shit," said Aduris. "The underwater stakes!"

  "What?" asked Gebriun as Gelthius locked his sweep and moved to the front of the boat. He peered over the gunwale and saw a log not far beneath the surface of the lake, its sharpened tip wedged between two planks.

  "The king has the shoreline covered with stakes to stop boats."

  "And you thought you'd just mention this?" snapped Gebriun. The legionnaire looked at Gelthius, body quivering. "I can't swim no more, captain. If I get in that water again, I'll drown."

  "I can't swim," said Aduris as Gelthius' gaze fell on him. The sentry shrugged apologetically.

  "Right, we'll lever off," said Gelthius, returning to his sweep to pull the oar from its place. "Grab hold of this and push down when I say."

  He managed to guide the flat of the paddle between the stake and the hull, where he thought it would lift the boat away from the spike.

  "Go on, with all our weight," said the captain, grabbing hold of the sweep and leaning on to it. Nothing happened and Gelthius tried harder, spitting as his arms, already sore from rowing, started to tremble. The haft of the sweep was bending dangerously, and Gelthius worried that if it snapped he would get dagger-sized splinters in his face.

  There was a crack of wood and the boat lurched again. The sweep had held, but the hull had not been so strong. Gelthius saw water gurgling through a hole below the waterline. On the positive side, the boat was drifting again, turning in the wind.

  "We've got a leak," said Aduris, staring in horror at the water dribbling into the bottom of the boat.

  "Best row quick then," said Gelthius, pulling the sweep from the legionnaire and sitting down. "We'll get to shore before we sink if you get your arse down here and start rowing!"

  Aduris complied and the two of them found their beat soon enough. The boat started to get a bit heavier in the bow as more water came in, and as it became more sluggish progress became harder.

  "I'll bail, keep rowing," said Gebriun. He snatched off Aduris' helmet as he stepped along to the bow, and used it as a pail to eject water back into the lake.

  Using his sweep to steer now that Gebriun was not at the tiller, Gelthius managed to keep the boat pointed at the shoreline, despite the wind trying to push the boat around and the anchor-like effect of the water still coming into the prow. It was with some relief that he heard the scraping of wood on stone as they reached the shore.

  Panting, he leaned on the sweep, grateful to be back on dry land. It was only after a few moments that he remembered that they had been hurrying for a reason.

  "Come on, we have to find Faasil before he can do anything," said Gelthius, hauling himself from his seat, pushing the oar aside. He jumped from the boat, sandaled feet landing in the shallow water. His shield and spear he left behind; he knew that if he was too slow they wouldn't help at all. Splashing to the bank, the captain called out, bringing the other sentries hurrying through the smoke. The noise of bronze crashing against bronze echoed from the villa and walls; the battle was in full fury and the shouts of both sides joined with screams of the injured.

 
"Faasil? Where's Faasil?" the captain demanded. Behind him, Gebriun and Aduris did the same from the boat.

  "In the courtyard, I think," said one of the sentries, appearing with lamp in hand. "I think he volunteered to be at the gate."

  "At the gate?" Gelthius lost his footing for a moment, and the sentry grabbed his arm to keep him upright. The captain's chest felt heavy and his stomach shrank into an even smaller, tighter ball. He stumbled towards the villa, shouting, but his voice was lost in the tumult of the battle.

  VII

  Lutaan seemed determined that he would force his way in over the coldwards walls. It was the longest line to defend, running down to the lake, and the Twenty-first were coming again and again. At the middle of the line, Muuril had a good vantage point to see what was going on, though his opportunities to do so were few and far between as the intensity of the fighting waxed and waned.

  The enemy legionnaires approached under cover of their shields. The spear thrower took a toll of the advancing men, but not enough to break their ranks or determination. On reaching the wall, the men of the front and third rank used their shields as a roof while the second rankers pushed the ladders into position. The spears of the fourth rank were used to drive back the men behind the wall and then when a gap had been opened the officers would give the order; the men of the front rank would open up their shields and the second rank would surge up the ladders with swords and knives, trying to get too close for the defenders to use their spears.

  It was a tactic the legions had used for decades, probably more than a century, and Muuril had put it into practice a few times during the advance into Salphoria. If the men were coordinated, brave and trusted in their officers, it was a sure way of taking a low wall such as the one that surrounded the villa.

  Fortunately for Muuril and the rest of the Thirteenth, the warriors of the Twenty-first were neither experienced nor disciplined enough for the manoeuvre to be carried out flawlessly. The ranks did not close together properly when a man fell to a lucky arrow shot or the spear thrower, and so the defenders were able to throw stones and loose more arrows into the exposed ranks. Without complete protection from above, the second rankers would push up their ladders to be met by a row of jagged speartips thrust down by Muuril and his men. When the fourth rank attacked, they presented a wavering, broken line of pikes rather than a thicket of spearpoints to drive back the men at the wall, which left the second rank in even more danger when the order came to make the assault.

  As much as he wanted to see the traitorous bastards of the Twenty-first made to pay for their actions, part of Muuril was pleased to see that more than half the time the officers had seen that the defenders were still in position and had called the companies back, ready to attack again; it was good to see captains prepared to keep their men alive.

  "Come on you useless cunts!" Muuril roared, leaning right out over the wall to plunge his spear one-handed into the shoulder of a man who had been left unprotected by the shield of the legionnaire to his right. The soldier fell back, blood gushing from the wound, which left the man to his left exposed to a second jab from the Companion.

  The company beneath him weren't even trying to scale the wall; Muuril could see the bodies of the dead from the first three assaults being dragged back through the ranks to clear the footing at the base.

  "You picked the wrong side, you shit-stinking, wet-nosed whoresons of bitches." Muuril rammed his spear against the side of a legionnaire's helm, sending the man sprawling into the muck that had been churned up from rain, blood and the tread of hundreds of men. "You think you can beat the Thirteenth?"

  The sergeant knew he was bleeding from a few small cuts – one on his chin was particularly sore, and he had a gash on his right hand that would need a few stitches later. The men around him were also bearing their injuries without remark; four men had been killed and about twice that number had been carried away to the side of the villa to pass away or recover as their injuries dictated. There was no dedicated surgeon, only an orderly, and he was too busy fighting to look after the wounded.

  The coldwards wall stretched for about seventy paces and was now manned by thirty of the defenders, shoulder-toshoulder along its whole length. Down by the lake, a high rampart thick with stakes extended outwards for a quarter of a mile, ensuring nobody could slip around to Duskwards. The staked ditch around the wall was angled in such a way that the men struggling out of the trench were ripe targets for the spear thrower and bow men. Unable to keep their shields in front of them as they negotiated the slope, the soldiers of the Twenty-first had lost dozens of their number in the first moments of their initial assault.

  Looking to Dawnwards, Muuril saw that the fighting extended around the corner of the wall and towards the gate. Not far away, about twenty paces from where he was standing on a brick step behind the wall, the sergeant saw a knot of about twenty legionnaires with their shields covering them from every direction like a protective shell. Their armoured carapace was butted up against the wall and the sergeant couldn't tell was happening beneath; but he had a very good idea. Under the cover of their shields they were scraping and chipping away at the stones and mortar, hoping to weaken the wall enough that they could pull it down with grapples and line.

  "Picks!" he shouted, pointing to the cluster of shields. "They're trying to break the wall. Fetch the oil."

  The defenders of the villa had no lava, but they had secured as much lamp oil and animal fat as they could, and now a clay pot of the bubbling, searing liquid was manhandled to the top of the wall, the spears of the carriers thrust through the pot's handles. Muuril grimaced as the scalding contents of the pot were poured over the attackers; thick, hot sludge splashed onto the other men around the defensive shell and seeping through the gaps in the shields. There came howls of pain and shrieks as the men beneath the shield roof broke apart, some dropping weapons and shields to clutch scalded arms and faces, some fleeing back through the press of bodies behind them as the rest of the legionnaires on the wall thrust down with their spears into the disorganised mass of warriors below.

  "Grim," muttered the sergeant, returning his attention to the immediate vicinity.

  The company that had been attacking his position withdrew, stepping backwards with shields raised. Here again the inexperience of the Twenty-first made them vulnerable. A veteran legion like the Thirteenth was able to part ranks enough to allow one company to pass through another, providing a seamless and constant reserve to the fighting line. The Twenty-first could not manage such a thing, especially with one company retreating in some disarray, and so it took some time for another company to come forward and take the place of the one that had left, giving Muuril a chance to reorganise his defenders, sending some more men down towards the lake where he had seen a few attackers actually getting to the top of the wall, and generally giving the defenders time to catch their breath.

  Muuril was doing just this when he heard his name being shouted from down the side of the villa. He saw Gelthius limping towards him as fast as he could, and behind him ran a man naked save for a cloak wrapped around his body.

  "What happened to your leg?" the sergeant asked. He turned and jumped down to the next step of the rampart behind the wall.

  "Cramp," growled Gelthius. "Faasil's a traitor, where is he?"

  Muuril took this in with a blank stare, and then his gaze drifted over to the naked man. It was Gebriun. Muuril stared for a moment, not sure he believed what he saw, and then the words of his captain sank in.

  "Shit," said the Companion. "He's at the gate. Follow me, captain."

  Muuril vaulted down to ground level. He pointed to where about half a dozen men were clustered at the front of the compound, adding their weight to the timber braces that had been wedged behind the gate. The wood of the gate was splintered and broken in many places and shook again from the impact of a ram. Muuril set off across the courtyard, looking to see which of the men was Faasil; all of the legionnaires had their back to him.
r />   Gelthius shouted out Faasil's name and one of the soldiers turned. Seeing the captain and sergeant advancing across the yard, Faasil panicked. He thrust his sword into the throat of the man next to him and barged away the supporting strut he had been holding. The other legionnaires were too busy with what they were doing to see what had happened and two more were cut down by the traitor. Faasil then dragged himself up the steps to the right hand platform built as a temporary gate tower overlooking the wall. Two more legionnaires toppled from the scaffold, blood trailing from their guts as Faasil shouldered his way to the wall itself. With a last glance at Muuril, the legionnaire jumped, disappearing from sight.

  "At least he didn't…" Gelthius' words died away as the timbers of the gate cracked again, sending splinters flying through the air, the remaining men at the braces sent sprawling. With a screech of tearing metal, one of the gates twisted on its hinges, and Muuril stared through the widening gap, right at the face of a young soldier of the Twenty-first, who seemed to be as surprised as Muuril that the gate had fallen.