‘For gods’ sake, try and look confident and noble. These people are looking to us for reassurance.’
In response, he saw Quintillian straighten and the guardsmen become more proud and alert. There was little they could do to make the coming days easier for the people, but a little confidence went a long way. There was an endless supply of clean drinking water from the city’s wells, and enough food to last them years without hard rationing, but fear and despair could lose a war just as thoroughly as military failure or broken walls.
Through the sea of nervous faces they passed, trying to exude a confidence that in truth entirely eluded Kiva, and he was more than grateful as they emerged from the Gate of Swords into the wide span of the military harbour, protected by its encircling walls and the twin artillery-topped towers that guarded the harbour entrance.
Three ships sat at jetties, each a small coastal galley, built for speed and not strength. Almost the entire fleet was currently active somewhere in the Eastern Sea, which the Pelasians called the Sea of Winter Storms. It was a depressing sight when facing an imminent siege, even if the Khan’s forces were entirely land-based and he could do nothing about blockading the ports. If all else failed, they could ship the populace out of the city slowly, but if the city was in danger of falling, the empire would go with it. Without Velutio, the emperor and the senate, what was the empire, after all? No, they had to hold Velutio. If the city fell, then the heart and soul of the empire would fall with it.
Even as they reined in close to the dock, a light courier vessel bearing the wolf insignia of the imperial guard with the radiant crown of Titus Tythianus rounded one of the great harbour towers and came skipping across the water towards the wharf, its oars rising and falling in perfect unison. Kiva found that he was holding his breath.
‘Can you see?’ he whispered nervously to his brother. Quintillian didn’t answer and as Kiva glanced at him, he saw something of the same fear reflected in the prince’s eyes. His heart twisted as the long-suppressed knowledge of what had passed between wife and brother resurfaced. He fought it down. This was not the time.
He stood, almost vibrating with nerves, as the ship closed on them. Finally, he could make out the figures standing at the stern of the vessel where there was plenty of deck space. Titus was a figure that stood out in any circumstances, his wild hair and untamed beard looking often more lupine than the wolf-pelt shoulder-cloak he habitually wore. And a small party of guardsmen stood with him.
Kiva almost collapsed as he picked out the two female forms amid them, their swarthy skin clearly identifying them. Both were dressed in ordinary clothing, and not the imperial finery he was used to, but that was hardly a surprise. What they must have been through…
As the ship pulled up alongside the jetty and the sailors began to throw out lines and secure them, Titus crossed to the captain and spoke to him urgently. The port master was crossing the dock now with a clerk, converging on the jetty’s end where the emperor and his entourage waited. The official bowed low and waited patiently.
The first figure off the ship was Titus, who vaulted across the narrow gap between there and the jetty without waiting for the boarding ramp to be run out. Landing heavily and cursing, rubbing his knee vigorously, Titus straightened slowly and threw a cursory salute to Kiva and Quintillian, frowning in surprise at the presence of the latter.
‘Well, well, well. The prodigal brother returns. Had enough of wandering in the woods?’
It was lightly said, but Titus’s expression was not one of mirth or pleasure, and Kiva felt a curious tightness in his chest. Marshal Tythianus was one of their oldest friends, son of their father’s closest ally, and a man not given to over-seriousness. Something was weighing upon Titus, and that realization made Kiva’s breath catch in his throat.
The marshal cast a look around the port.
‘All the ships in the south, facing off against Ashar, I take it?’
Quintillian nodded. ‘Good to see you, Titus. They are, though I’ve sent for the lion’s portion of the army to return. We’re facing another threat, worse than the Pelasians.’
Titus stretched. ‘Some eastern warlord, I understand?’
‘Yes. You’re oddly well-informed, Titus? A new Khan who’s united the horse clans. They’re closing on the capital even now. I’ve mustered all the forces I can spare at the Tyras River to slow the enemy, since they’re moving with siege engines. Hopefully it’ll give us time to gather enough manpower to hold them off. Between the forces pulling back from the south, the army and the allied tribes from the north, we should be able to stop them if we can delay them long enough to muster everyone in the city.’
‘I think you need to start replanning,’ Titus said darkly. ‘Don’t count on the northerners.’
‘What?’ Kiva, whose eyes had been on the women at the rear of the ship moving slowly towards the boarding ramp, ripped his gaze round to the hirsute marshal before him. ‘Don’t tell me the tribes aren’t coming?’
‘Oh, they’re coming,’ Titus said, his eyes glinting. ‘We caught sight of them moving around the northern shore of the Nymphaean Sea about three days from here. A massive force, they are.’
‘Then we…’
‘Kiva, they’re not coming to help you. They’re marching under a rebel lord called Aldegund, who bends his knee to this eastern invader of yours. You’re about to get squeezed between the horse clans and a rebel army.’
Quintillian rubbed his face wearily. ‘Then there’ll be nowhere near enough men to hold off the Khan. And worse still, the northerners will be familiar with siege warfare in a way the horse clans aren’t. Shit. Even if we pull in every loyal man and arm every farmer we can find, we’ll be nowhere near strong enough to hold Velutio.’
‘But we can’t evacuate. Can’t let the city fall.’ Kiva, from the corner of his eye, saw the two Pelasian women being helped ashore a few paces away by Titus’s men. Jala and Nisha – no sign of Zari. As they stepped onto the solid boards of the jetty, Nisha looked up in relief and caught sight of Kiva with a smile and a respectful bow of the head. The emperor could not help but note the bandage around the maid’s hand, the arm tucked carefully in at her side and, worst of all, the missing eye and the scars that surrounded it. He shuddered. Behind the maid, Jala alighted, but her eyes remained on the ground before her and she did not look up and meet the eyes of those awaiting her. Kiva felt another lurch of nerves.
‘…so this ship will be prepared to leave again within the hour,’ Titus was saying, and Kiva pulled his gaze from his wife back to the conversation of which he had missed part.
‘For Pelasia?’ he said, catching a thread.
‘Yes. If I take the empress and we explain to the Pelasian high command that the empire was not responsible for her plight, but rather a rebel, then Ashar might be willing to throw his support behind us.’
Kiva felt a sudden thrill of realization. If the army could all pull back from the south, and the Pelasian forces came with them as allies rather than enemies, they could still win this.
‘But it will take too long,’ Quintillian said in a hollow tone. ‘Within the week we will have both the Khan’s army and Aldegund’s at the gates. And there’s every chance that the northern rebels will have ships coming from the west too. Even at the fastest speed possible and even if Ashar and his generals fall over themselves to kiss and make up, you’ll not be able to get back here for almost two weeks with any force to be reckoned with. If there’s anyone among them with a working knowledge of siegecraft, Velutio could be rubble and ashes before you get here.’
Kiva’s eyes were back on Jala, who still looked at the ground beneath her feet. What was wrong with her? He gritted his teeth and turned back to Titus and Quintillian.
‘No. It won’t be too late. Don’t underestimate Velutio, brother. If we can rouse the resistant spirit of the people, with the walls that have never been breached, we can hold until the Pelasians and the southern army come. You and I. We are the sons of Dari
us. Grandsons of Kiva Caerdin. We’ve taken our father’s empire and given it a new golden age and I will not see that age end now under the hooves of some eastern warlord or some rebellious pseudo-barbarian.’
Quintillian took several slow, deep breaths, his forehead creased as he pondered matters. Finally, he straightened, and when he looked once more at Kiva, he was the old Quintillian again – the man who had fled Velutio months ago.
‘Everything happens for a reason, Kiva. The gods abhor blind chance. I went east shrouded in doubt and solitude, and despite everything that happened to me, I brought advance warning of the Khan and his men. Jala and Titus – and Nisha – have clearly been through a lot out west, but they’ve brought us warning of this Aldegund and his rebel army. Hardship has given us a tiny advantage. We have not been caught with our breeches down as was so clearly the intention. And two of the marshals have survived the purge the enemy planned. Moreover, with Jala returned, we have the solution to our problem in our hands. Jala can defuse the tensions in the south and bring back our allies to save the day.’
He grinned. ‘You’re right, Kiva. We can do this. And we will. I can look to the defences of the city and the placement of the forces we have. You can rouse the city and organize everything else. And when the time comes, we will stand side by side on the battlements and show the Khan what the sons of Darius can do. The empire will not lie down and offer its throat to the invader.’
Kiva’s answering smile faltered as he saw Quintillian’s eyes flicker up and over his shoulder. He turned. Jala looked back down in an instant, and the emperor felt his heart break once more. Jala couldn’t look at him? But she could with Quintillian? And as if some barrier had been broken or some decision made, now Jala looked up again and fixed Kiva with a warm smile. A moment later she was in his arms, clutching him tight, as though anchoring herself to him against the storm winds of fate. Had he not caught that tiniest moment between her and Quintillian, all would now be right with the world.
Forcing his shattered heart into a deep, secret place, where it could desiccate without being seen, the emperor shared a moment of reunion with his empress that raised smiles from even the hardy guardsmen Titus had brought back with him from the west.
‘Don’t get too attached,’ Titus snorted. ‘I need the empress again within the hour.’
‘And we have a war to plan,’ Quintillian said, stretching.
Kiva held tight for a long moment and when, finally, Jala released him and stepped back, turning to Titus and the ship that was already resupplying for the desperate journey, he sighed and whispered, inaudibly under his breath.
‘Goodbye, my love.’
Chapter XXV
Of Enemies New
The two brothers stood atop the Eyrie – the tallest tower of the city walls by a clear 20 feet – each gazing off in a different direction. The late spring weather, usually so predictable and pleasant in the central provinces, had turned sour last evening, with black clouds from the north bringing a torrential downpour that washed the streets of Velutio and left the stonework of the walls slippery and glistening. The torrent had let up just after dawn but had left in its wake a leaden grey sky and that fine constant drizzle that soaks a man to the bone as surely as any downpour.
Pushing back the hair plastered across his forehead, Quintillian watched the new arrivals. The army of Lord Aldegund was an impressive and curious sight. Formed from roughly even numbers of imperial troops that had been swayed by the renegade lord’s gold or promises, and of barbarians from beyond the border, it bore the signs of an imperial army at war, but with the chaotic form and lack of organization of a barbarian warband. Clearly the Fourth Army, which had been based in the northwest and was the only sizeable military group not committed against Pelasia, had succumbed en masse to Aldegund’s pay wagon, for Quintillian would be willing to bet that over half that army was now bearing down on Velutio, a neat, ordered column amid whooping groups of warriors waving axes and spears, some stripped to the waist to display the designs etched upon their torsos.
Aldegund’s force alone would be enough to overwhelm the poor defenders of Velutio in due time. They travelled without siege engines or a supply train, and Quintillian had to nod to Aldegund’s plan there. Lands that owed fealty to him as a lord stretched most of the way from the northwest to this end of the Nymphaean Sea. With enough time and organization, his army could – and almost certainly did – have supply drops ready at the end of each day’s travel, making a slow wagon train unnecessary and allowing the army to move fast. And that last two days from the other side of marble-sheathed Danis to the capital could be done with supplies carried by the army itself. Aldegund, the prince would wager, had worked everything so that he had to move only at the very last minute in order to join up with his new overlord. Had he moved earlier he would have risked giving the game away and landing himself with his own war in the north.
Quintillian wondered what had happened to the troops from the Fourth Army who had remained loyal. It seemed highly unlikely that they were still hale and intact.
He heard a grunt from Kiva and turned to look.
Kiva, clad in fine armour over a tunic of white and purple, and every bit the warlike emperor, was watching the other enemy. The huge space below the walls and beyond the moat had been cleared of shanty towns and tents and shacks over the past few days, all free citizens being brought back inside the walls for safety, and the first of the horse clans had arrived yesterday before the rains came, casually setting up their great circular tents in place of the demolished structures as though on some sort of summer outing. The enemy had quickly learned their folly when Quintillian had given the artillery their orders and stones and missiles rained down on those tents, killing and wounding hundreds before the riders pulled back out of artillery range and began to set up camp once again. Then, gradually, the bulk of the horse clans had arrived, joining their vanguard and assembling in a huge gathering that seemed to be organized by clan with tiny gaps between them, as though none wished to be entirely associated with their neighbours. And between the moat and the horse clans’ camp lay a sward covered in abandoned tents, loose horses and the pulverized and impaled corpses of those who’d been so overconfident.
It had given Quintillian some hope for the coming days that the clans had been so completely unprepared for what they were facing. They had never seen somewhere like Velutio, and even with the Khan telling them what they would find, they were still clearly completely baffled by such a place.
Then, this morning, almost synchronized with the arrival of Aldegund’s vanguard, the Khan’s baggage train and artillery had arrived.
Kiva had felt his heart skip as he peered off through the rain at the seemingly endless shapes of timber monstrosities being wheeled across the low rise in the distance beyond the camp. He could feel the resentment emanating from Quintillian, who had unwillingly contributed to the construction of these nightmares that would shortly be brought against them.
For the briefest of moments, both brothers glanced off to the south, as though something had drawn their attention. The sea was just visible from here as a lighter grey smudge between the land and the glowering clouds. The sea was empty, of course, but somewhere beyond the horizon, Titus and Jala raced for Pelasia and with them sailed all the hopes of Velutio and the empire.
‘What will happen first?’ Kiva breathed, turning back to the assembling hordes before them. Quintillian dragged his attention back from the endless stretch of water.
‘Unless the Khan considers a parlay, then it’ll be a few trial sorties. The barbarians at least know what they’re dealing with, but even they will want to know what Velutio is like compared to the smaller border fortifications they’ve faced in the past. The horse clans will have no idea, and I doubt even the Khan, for all his care and stratagems, will be able to resist an initial attempt just to see what we can do.’
Kiva nodded. ‘And our response? Full? Measured? None?’
‘Depends on e
xactly what they try, but I want to keep our strength and numbers as an unknown quantity to the enemy. They now must realize that we had at least a little warning, if not enough to be prepared, and will be wondering just how many men we have. I want our true peril to be a secret as long as possible.’
‘I understand.’
They watched for almost an hour in silence as the drizzle gently saturated the world, the troops lining the walls stamping their feet to return life to cold toes, every pair of eyes locked either on the gathering barbarian army outside the northern walls or the fascinating and deadly nomad horde to the east. On a rise at the near side of the nomad horde, a large tent was being erected with banners and streamers outside. The Khan’s own tent, presumably. Finally, Quintillian nudged Kiva, who’d been gazing out to sea again as though he could will Titus back. The marshal pointed off into the nomad camp, and Kiva frowned into the mizzle. A sizeable group of riders was gathering there, around a central party that seemed to be swarming over a wooden frame. The emperor chewed on his cheek as he watched, unable to determine what precisely was happening, though it clearly presaged some sort of foray.
Finally, the horsemen filed out into two groups, each of perhaps a hundred horses, and Kiva and his brother could see what they had been concentrating on. A ram. A huge tree trunk had been carefully adzed and tied around all along its length with ropes. Now, those ropes were held by riders. The trunk was lifted from the floor by thirty horsemen and secured so that they moved slowly forward, the ram bobbing between the lines of horses. It took a few moments for them to come into a concerted pace that allowed them to move without the trunk smashing into one of them. Kiva squinted. There was some kind of decorative head on the ram, but he couldn’t quite see it at this distance in such grim weather.
Quintillian chuckled next to him. ‘Every day they waste on such ridiculous ideas is another day for Titus to complete his task.
Insurgency (Tales of the Empire Book 4) Page 30
