by David Hair
‘Boss,’ Tabia greeted him anxiously, ‘it’s the Beast of Rym, isn’t it? That’s his banner over to the west.’
‘Looks that way,’ Ramon told her. He squeezed her shoulder in reassurance before moving on to join Pilus Lukaz and his serjants, Vidran, Bowe and Harmon, at the corner of the tower.
‘Is Seth nearby?’ he asked Lukaz.
‘He’ll be here soon – he’s briefing Legate Pelk,’ the pilus replied, pointing at a ballista tower a hundred yards down the lines. ‘Left us here ’cause it was just a quick chat, he said,’ he added in a miffed voice.
Doesn’t like his charge leaving his sight, Ramon interpreted.
‘Hel of a show, sir,’ Bowe said. ‘Can’t be bad, havin’ the enemy all killin’ t’other, eh?’
‘That’s the Rym Lord’s banner, though, innit?’ Vidran asked, in tones of mild interest.
‘It is. Keep an eye on Tabia,’ he asked Lukaz quietly. ‘We’ll bring up more archers. As the panic spreads, we’re going to have desperate men doing desperate things. Keep them out of here.’
‘I’m our best shot,’ Bowe put in, picking up a crossbow leaning against the battlements. ‘They won’ get in ’ere.’
The Shihad was being torn apart by an unholy foe, but Ramon almost felt sorry for them, invaders or not, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that their own situation was worsening.
After five years, the Lord of Rym finally has my lads cornered.
Suddenly a crowd of Keshi spearmen burst from cover below them, hauling a ladder – a pathetic thing that would barely reach the ramparts. ‘Fire!’ Tabia squawked, and a flurry of shafts mowed the lead men down. The rest scattered, except one with an arrow in his calf, who fell to his knees.
Bowe put a quarrel in the man’s chest as he begged for entry and he folded sideways.
‘Dear Kore,’ Ramon breathed. ‘I hate war.’
But it wasn’t over. More tried to scale the walls, some organised and determined, others just flailing about in panic for any escape from the carnage. More arrows flew until finally there was just one man, a ragged archer with a shaft in his right thigh, crawling over the bodies of the fallen and looking up at him with pleading eyes.
Bowe raised his crossbow.
And the wounded Keshi cried out, ‘Ramon Sensini!’
*
Xoredh Mubarak waded over bodies piled two- and three-deep in the market square where Waqar and Beyrami had made their stand. Odd to think of them, the coward and the fanatic fighting together. But it wouldn’t last long.
He had no need to tell his possessed troops what to do; daemons just knew. Inside his skull, Abraxas cackled over this long-drawn-out orgasm of battle, revelling in each death. And hanging over them all was a new presence, one he could see by closing his eyes and looking inwards: a skull-masked woman with a cloud of white hair, who looked equally appalled and enraptured by the killing.
Glamortha, the Angel of Death, the daemon informed him. It was her scream issuing from the mouths of the possessed.
He paused to admire the severed head of the Hadishah commander Shaarvin, caught with his mouth open and screaming at the onrushing darkness, mounted atop a planted spear.
What’s the matter, Hadishah? Is Paradise not what you dreamed?
A venator landed on the carpet of bodies and began to feed, while the hulking Lord of Rym leaped off and lumbered towards him. The gleaming emerald-green skull with a scarlet serpent instead of a tongue, the mask of Cadearvo, Angel of Plague, hung from his belt.
‘Have you captured Waqar?’ he demanded.
‘Soon,’ Xoredh replied. ‘He had the Merozain slut with him.’
Cadearvo bared gleaming canines. ‘Did he now? I want her too. We have personal business.’
Xoredh bowed his head and sent a pulse through the shared intellect of his army.
*
Even as Ramon went to yell, ‘Cease fire—’ Bowe’s crossbow sang and the bolt tore through the air . . .
. . . and slammed into the ground, right beside the crawling Ahmedhassan’s head.
‘Thought you was a decent shot, Bowe,’ Harmon griped.
‘I was distracted,’ Bowe complained. ‘Fucker said sumfing, din’ he?’ He reached for another quarrel.
‘Wait,’ Ramon shouted, ‘wait—’ How the Hel could the man know his name . . . unless . . . ‘Rukka mio, it’s Latif,’ he blurted. ‘Hold your fire – cover me!’
He leaped from the battlements using Air-gnosis, landed on the muddy slope and skidded, then ran. A Keshi erupted from cover, blade in hand, but he knocked the man head over heels with a kinesis blow, slid to the fallen man’s side and studied his pain-glazed face.
He hadn’t weathered well – or he’d been through Hel in the last five years. He was grey-faced from the wound, his beard was ragged and he was unwashed and starved, a far cry from the sleek creature they’d captured at Ardijah. But it was definitely Latif, Sultan Salim’s chief impersonator.
Pushing numbing healing-energy into the leg-wound, Ramon scooped him up and went hurtling through the air, even as his archers opened up on shapes emerging from the shadows to seize him. He landed on the turret, trying to cushion the impact before lowering the man gently to the stones.
‘Get that arrow out if it’s safe,’ he snapped at Tabia; she might be a weaker mage but she was a better healer than he. ‘His life is in your hands.’ He straightened as Lukaz and his squad peered down at the fallen Latif.
‘Well, rukk me sideways with a batterin’ ram,’ Bowe exclaimed. ‘It’s the Sultan of Kesh – y’know – the dead’un.’
*
Seth Korion hurried into the taproom Ramon’s battle-magi were using as headquarters and found Pilus Lukaz and his squad in full battle harness, guarding the stairs – and enjoying a surreptitious tankard of beer. He ignored that, instead hurrying up to the room where a cadaverous, hollow-eyed Keshi was lying. His thigh was heavily bandaged.
This is impossible, he thought. It can’t be him—
But it was.
He’d never truly known if the man was impersonator or the real sultan, but even as captor and captive, Seth and Latif had become friends for a few intense months during the siege of Ardijah. He forgot all protocol as he hurried to the bed, sat and grabbed his hand. ‘Latif? It’s really you? It really is you!’
‘Ai,’ the other man groaned blearily. ‘Seth . . .’ His head lolled, then he rallied and seized Seth’s shoulders, his eyes going wide. ‘Daemons . . . There are daemons inside the sultan and his men – you have to save us! Please, Effendi, I beg you, for the sake of humanity . . .’
His voice trailed off as he fainted away.
Seth engaged healing-gnosis and numbed the worst of what looked to be appalling pain, then turned to the mage hovering over them, a fragile-looking woman. ‘Tabia, isn’t it? How is he?’
‘He’ll live,’ she answered. ‘An artery was pierced but I got to it in time. He’s weak, though.’
Latif groaned and opened his eyes again as Ramon bustled in; he gave the Silacian a weak grin and murmured, ‘My rescuer . . .’
What’s Latif doing here? Seth had no idea. Salim, the man he impersonated, is dead. What’s he gone through since?
‘Did I see you at the Battle of Collistein Junction?’ Seth asked, suddenly remembering a moment during the battle when he’d thought his senses deceived him.
‘Ai,’ Latif said. ‘We thought your line broken, but then there you were – as usual.’ He smiled ruefully, then seized Seth’s hand again. ‘My friend – if we can call each other that – I must ask the impossible of you. Outside, good men are being slaughtered by evil ones. A daemon sits the sacred throne and we cannot withstand him alone – and believe me when I tell you: nor can you. And he will come for you next, of that I am certain. But together, we have that strength.’ He gripped Seth’s hand hard, his face pleading. ‘Prince Waqar knows – speak to him, please. But you must a
ct now, before it’s too late.’
Latif’s pleading tore Seth’s heart, but his request was insane. His smile froze and his mind swirled. Daemons? But such beings can’t be mass-summoned, and not for so long. It’s impossible. I can’t just open the gates based on such a tale . . .
He threw a look at Ramon. Help me, he silently beseeched the Silacian.
Ramon put Latif to sleep with a pulse of mesmeric-gnosis, then looked at Seth. ‘Well?’
‘I don’t know – I want to help him, but that’s beyond belief, isn’t it? Surely it’s just a disease, not some kind of permanent mass-summoning of daemons?’
Ramon had a speculative look on his face. ‘You know what, I think it might be daemons. I fought the Lord of Rym for years and he certainly had a way of making servants of men who’d been his implacable enemies. While plagues stripped the south of people, his armies grew, and they were savage, like those men below. If mass-summoning is possible, and if it’s possible to anchor those daemons in flesh, that would explain everything I’ve faced these last few years.’
They shared a long look, assessing what it was they risked.
‘We have no proof,’ Seth worried. ‘And no time . . . My friend, I have no right to ask, but can I ask you to please, speak to Prince Waqar, see if you can verify this tale. We’ve probably got no more than an hour or two to get to the bottom of this.’
Ramon gestured towards the walls, where the clamour of fighting was growing. ‘Amici, we may only have minutes.’
*
Waqar set his men’s latest fall-back position right below an aqueduct on a ridge of earth overlooking a wall and a road, a scant thirty yards of killing space with not much elevation for defence. He paced behind the lines, exhorting them to courage. Tarita was beside him, her narrow face set and grim.
She’d told Waqar to summon Ajniha and escape, but he’d refused. Now she appeared to feel she couldn’t leave either and he wondered why: it wasn’t loyalty to Kesh, so it could only be ambition or gain.
Or is it love?
Surely not: even in the throes of coupling, he’d never found the real her. She was a comrade, someone he’d made rash promises to, but he sensed that her heart was unmoved, and so was his, although each moment he admired her more for her prowess and steadfast courage.
Perhaps if we had more time . . . but we won’t . . .
Then the enemy’s keening wail drew him back to reality, for yet more black-eyed men and monsters were emerging from the maze of alleys. He still had more than twenty thousand men deployed inside these few remaining city blocks, which was a mighty force, but their enemy was implacable; one they couldn’t stop. They needed to reform behind proper walls, but Xoredh was giving them no respite.
Dear Ahm, I’m going to die today. We all are.
He tested the edge of his scimitar: he’d melted his second-last nugget of silver from Mollachia to re-coat the blade. It would burn away slaying his first few possessed foes; barely an edge in such a battle, but he’d take any advantage.
With a wild scream the enemy charged, this time spearheaded by ogre-constructs encased in steel who came pounding up the low slope towards them. Hundreds of bowstrings thrummed, filling the air with arrows, but the daemon-possessed constructs, almost a third taller and thrice the bulk of the men they faced, hammered into the lines.
They buckled instantly.
Officers roared at the wavering reserves, ‘Stand fast, hold this line—’ as the front rank crumbled. They were pitting mere men against ogre-constructs with outsized weapons, commanding them to stand and fight and die, if only to buy time for others to do the same.
Inhuman courage, religious fervour or bloody-minded perversity, whatever inspired his men, Waqar didn’t care. He was caught up in the same fervent game of delaying death, trading hope for despair as he blasted apart the skull of the next ogre in line. He caught Tarita’s face as she cut down her own foe, disembowelling a beast that could have been her friend Ogre’s twin. Her eyes were glazed over, as if this were a nightmare she couldn’t wake from.
He could almost count the seconds until death.
Then a new factor entered the fray from an unexpected source: archers on the aqueduct above began firing down into the charging enemy – and something about their archery was deadly, for every shaft caused the daemon-possessed constructs and men to crumple and fall, howling in agony. He pulled one such shaft out of a corpse and stared. Silver?
Waqar threw a glance upwards and swore in disbelief: the archers were maroon-clad Yurosi and there were battle-magi among them, sending volleys of vividly hued mage-bolts that scorched the air.
One of them stepped to the aqueduct’s rim, splayed his hands and loosed a torrent of flame over the enemy assailing Waqar’s position, torching dozens of constructs – and even better, it had the rest screaming in agony, even those untouched by the blast. That bought a respite, and every Shihadi present cheered, even for a Yurosi.
Tarita grabbed Waqar’s arm, her mouth going wide. ‘He’s an Ascendant,’ she gasped, her eyes round as platters. ‘That amount of power, he can only be . . .’
Someone like her, Waqar thought. ‘A Merozain?’ he asked. Or a Yurosi Keeper?
Whoever he was, this man’s power had broken the latest attack. The enemy reeled away, leaving writhing corpses covering the slopes. ‘Behead them,’ an officer shouted, and after a moment, men ventured out with axes to butcher the fallen foe. As the defenders rejoiced in their survival and another assault broken, they looked up at Waqar, seeking guidance on how to react to these Yurosi that had come to their aid. Then they all murmured as the Yurosi Ascendant floated down towards them, his sword in its scabbard and his hands aloft, palms showing.
The Shihadi soldiers yelped and waved weapons, but Waqar called, ‘Let him come.’
The Shihadi men melted away from him as the Yurosi landed. He gave Waqar a serviceable genuflection, displaying some knowledge of the harbadab.
‘Prince Waqar Mubarak, I am commanded to make your acquaintance,’ he said formally, in passable Keshi. ‘General Seth Korion, commander of the armies of Norostein, wishes to aid you in your current plight, to the betterment of both our peoples. Will you hear me?’
Waqar’s heart thudded, but he’d survived the royal court too long to take anything at face value, even this. ‘To whom do I speak?’ he asked coolly, ignoring the soldiers straining to hear, sensing their lives were in the balance.
As is my own, and I’ll not sell any of us fecklessly.
The Yurosi bowed again and said, ‘My name is Ramon Sensini.’
The Viper of Riverdown, Waqar thought. An audible gasp ran through the massed Keshi: on the march to Norostein, Rashid had commanded that Korion and Sensini’s names be publicly slandered in a bid to motivate his men. Now those lies threatened to destroy this moment.
‘Hold,’ Waqar shouted again, ‘I will hear this man.’
Beside him, Tarita stepped towards Sensini. ‘I know your name,’ she said, her voice disbelieving. ‘Mistress Alhana spoke of you as a brother to Alaron Mercer. She said it was she who gave you . . .’ She paused, then finished carefully, ‘a special gift.’
‘Elena Anborn?’ Sensini said, his face softening with wonder. ‘Who are you?’
‘I am Tarita, Elena’s maid . . . or I was. I am Merozain now,’ she added proudly.
For a moment Sensini looked flabbergasted, then he laughed. ‘Life is truly a mystery.’ He looked at Waqar. ‘Prince Waqar, we may not have long. Will you trust me?’
Waqar stared, desperately wanting this to be real, but petrified by the man’s reputation. Every Eastern mage knew the name: Ramon Sensini, the man who’d engineered the débâcles at Riverdown and Ardijah, and as recently as a month ago destroyed the vanguard of the Shihad at Venderon.
But only a few yards away Xoredh’s possessed warriors were readying another assault. They had only seconds to make this decision.
‘What do you mean? Do you offer sanctuary?’ Waqar demanded. �
�Must we surrender ourselves? Do you mean to imprison us?’
‘This man knows Alhana,’ Tarita hissed in his ear. ‘What more endorsement could you need, for Ahm’s sake?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ he snapped. ‘We need surety.’
‘General Korion offers surety,’ Sensini insisted. ‘No surrender. You keep your weapons and supplies. We’ll give you sanctuary from these daemons in Copperleaf. Kore’s Balls, will you die procrastinating?’
Waqar looked at Tarita, then right, where a Ja’arathi Godspeaker was labouring up the slope to join them: Zaar. He had clearly been listening, for he hurried to Waqar’s side and murmured, ‘Some would say, “Better to die free than submit to the whim of Shaitan’s minions”. But I would advise that we all choose life.’
‘We’re fighting Shaitan’s minions right now,’ Tarita put in emphatically.
Waqar hated being cornered into anything, but he could see no other way. He turned back to Sensini. ‘Even if I agreed, how could we achieve this? Our men hate each other.’
‘Our men are soldiers, trained to follow orders,’ Sensini replied. ‘If we set the example, they’ll follow.’
Yours might be trained to obey, but in truth, four-fifths of the Shihad are conscripted rabble, Waqar thought sourly. But when he considered the long march here, he realised that they were better than that: the hardships had made them into soldiers. ‘How can we get so many men inside with the enemy fast upon us?’
Sensini gave an irritatingly confident smile. ‘I know a way, but you’ll have to trust me.’
Trust you? You’re the serpent who outwitted all of Kesh! But Waqar quelled his misgivings. ‘Damn this . . . very well, we’re in your hands.’
‘Thank you. I’ll need to contact Seth. I have a relay-stave in my belt . . .’ At Waqar’s nod, Sensini pulled out the stave, conjured, then sent and received a series of messages.
Waqar looked at Tarita, who nodded approval, then at Godspeaker Zaar. He’s a moderate, one of those who preach about the ‘brotherhood of mankind’, Waqar remembered. Perhaps he’s someone we need right now?
Sensini lowered the crackling relay-stave and said, ‘We can get you inside, but it won’t be easy. If we open our gates, we’re going to have to make sure that only your men get inside, or we’re all screwed.’ He glanced at Zaar, ‘No offence, Godspeaker.’
