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Lanta’s fists clenched. ‘Don’t push me, old woman,’ she snapped, gathering up the chain attached to Gilda’s slave collar and jerking her forward. ‘There’s little reason for me to keep you around any more. Your sacrifice may speed along the siege and bring our victory that much sooner.’
Gilda grabbed her chain and tugged in turn, pulling Lanta a step closer to her. Lanta’s free hand dropped to her knife. ‘Then why don’t you?’ Gilda hissed. ‘Instead of the endless threats? Why don’t you just do it? I tire of your company, and frankly this camp stinks of shit. Do you people have no idea how to dig a latrine pit?’
Lanta pulled her knife. ‘Do you want those to be your last words?’ she snarled, pressing the knife to Gilda’s stomach.
Gilda laughed, loud and genuine. ‘Latrine pit,’ she repeated and broke into fresh giggles. ‘Why not? It’ll be something to tell my family when I see them in the Light.’
Lanta dug the tip of the knife in hard and Gilda’s amusement vanished like tears in a lake. ‘When you’re sacrificed, old woman, it won’t be the Light you go to, oh no. Sacrifice sends you somewhere very different. Sends you to the Afterworld, to the Red Gods and all Their faithful children. And when they learn what you are there, they’ll spend eternity tearing you to pieces. And you’ll feel it. You’ll feel everything. You’ll die a thousand times a day, every day, forever.’
There was sweat on Gilda’s forehead and she pulled hard on the chain to make some space between them. ‘That doesn’t sound like fun,’ she managed, but the fire was gone from her voice. ‘But that’s where you’ll go too, isn’t it? Why would you condemn yourself to that?’
Lanta scoffed and, letting her step back, sheathed her knife. ‘That’s not my fate. I will sit with the other Blessed Ones and enjoy the company of my gods. I will watch while the dead are given everything they were promised the Afterworld would provide – endless food, endless scores to settle, endless enemies to kill. They will run and kill and die and fuck in the bloody grass of the Afterworld for eternity. And you will be their favourite toy.’
Gilda licked her lips. ‘I see. Well, when you do get around to killing me, remind me to change my last words, will you? I think “Fuck you, cunt” has a better ring to it and, by all accounts, I’ll get to shout it at you on a daily basis forevermore. Wonder how many centuries it’ll take before it drives you mad.’ That insufferable grin returned. ‘I look forward to ruining your afterlife.’
Lanta’s lips drew back from her teeth, but before she could respond they were interrupted. Skerris, Corvus and Rivil walked along the invisible line that marked safe distance from the small catapults poking out at them from the four towers and the top of the gatehouse interrupting Rilporin’s great western wall.
‘You said the North Rank had been dealt with,’ Corvus said, a scowl marring his brow. Lanta moved closer, Gilda clanking along behind her like a reluctant puppy on a rope.
‘We acted to neutralise the North before leaving the forts to come here, yes,’ Skerris said. ‘I’ve faith in the scheme, Sire, but we’ve had no confirmation as yet that it was successful, though every day they don’t march over the horizon strengthens my conviction we dealt them a fatal blow. It’s possible the rest of the South Rank may come, and if so, combined with the defenders, they’ll very nearly match us in number. We propose that in such an event we would face the South on the field while your warriors ensured the city stays locked tighter than a miser’s purse. Keep the forces separate, crush them separately.’
‘If that day comes, General, we will do as you suggest,’ Corvus said. ‘But I hope to end this before then. I’ve men ready for the day’s push.’
‘As do I,’ Rivil said. ‘Shall we do as before? You take Double First and we’ll assault Second Last? My man Galtas will be going with them this time. He’s orders to infiltrate the palace and see what intelligence he can gather. He will attempt to sabotage one of the harbour gates.’ He gestured to either end of the wall. ‘You’ve seen that they’re secured behind the stump walls that stick out from the towers all the way to the water, but if he gets one open, wet feet or arrow volleys won’t stop us. We’re days away from victory; I can feel it.’
‘The Lady’s will,’ Lanta said and the men bobbed their heads. ‘Victory will come when the gods decide. Continue to play your parts in Their honour, and that victory may be soon. I will pray the assault is successful.’
Corvus came to a halt and faced the Rilporians. ‘Say we did take Rilporin before reinforcements arrive. What then? We end up being the ones besieged. Trapped inside a city we at least don’t know while its citizens and any surviving Palace Rankers use every building and alley as an ambush site to pick us off while the South Rank assaults the walls. You weren’t in Watchtown, Rivil, you don’t know how they used the very streets against us. We’d be massacred. Why not face them on the field, destroy them out here? I say we march out of Rilporin when the South is sighted, face them in open battle.’
Lanta understood his caution and shared his concern. The Rilporians were supremely confident in their forces, while the Mireces didn’t know the city and were far slower on the scaling ladders. The firing of their siege tower was an embarrassment and the second, while built, was lighter and less sturdy. Who knew what damage a direct strike from one of the tower catapults would cause. Though at least this one is fire-proof.
Corvus looked around the group, his face thoughtful. ‘The more I think about this, the more I wonder if we need to take it? Is conquering Rilporin our only option?’
‘What other choices are there?’ Rivil asked, spreading his hands in confusion. ‘What do you propose, that we destroy it?’
He laughed; Corvus didn’t and Lanta saw the path of his thinking stretching before them. We burnt Watchtown and killed the survivors. The gods have told us to cleanse the country of heathens. Why should we bother to take this city if we can achieve our ends with its destruction?
Excitement flared in her belly and Gilda’s chain rattled as she squeezed it. Skerris and Rivil were staring at them both with identical expressions of horrified disbelief.
‘Wait, you can’t be serious?’ Rivil demanded, his voice strident. ‘That’s my city, my fucking capital city and my home, the seat of my kingship. I won’t have you burn it to the ground and slaughter its inhabitants just because the cock-up at Watchtown has made you cowards—’
‘Prince Rivil,’ Lanta snapped in a tone as smooth as ice and just as chilly, faster even than Corvus’s hand went to his knife hilt, ‘we Mireces fear only the gods, as is right and proper. Your countrymen are nothing to us but meat to be ground under our heels. Moreover, we have been fighting, killing and dying for centuries in the names of the gods and we will do anything, anything They command to see Them return to Gilgoras as They deserve. You, meanwhile, have been a convert for a mere handful of years, your soldiers for a matter of weeks. Do not dare speak to us of cowardice, or of not doing all the gods require. You have done nothing but make demands of Them since you first stepped on to the Path. You should be wary lest the Dark Lady’s patience expire.’
Rivil flushed an angry red, but Skerris’s stony glare warned him to mind his tongue. ‘You are as wise as you are lovely, and I apologise for my hasty words,’ Rivil responded with clear effort. ‘It … galls me to think that Rilporin may have to be sacrificed for the glory of the gods.’
‘Nothing that is to the gods’ glory should be galling,’ Corvus put in. Behind her, Lanta heard Gilda snort and mutter something beneath her breath.
‘It is King Corvus you should apologise to,’ Lanta said and Rivil’s lip twitched. ‘It is his courage you have doubted, despite the fact that he himself fought in Watchtown while, so far, you have yet to set foot on the field.’
Rivil’s flush this time was even more pronounced, and Lanta took a brief pleasure in it, though she knew she played a dangerous game. It was not wise to taunt their allies; and, despite her words, victory was far from assured. If Rivil turned on them, or abstained from battle, they could still lose all.
‘King Corvus, my apologies,’ the prince grated. ‘The slowness of the siege wears upon me. But I will not see Rilporin razed to the ground unless there is no other possible route to victory. I will explore all those routes before I agree to such a scheme. Rilporin is mine, the throne is mine, and the gods will see me take my place upon it before long.’
Lanta bit the tip of her tongue to prevent her lips curling in disgust. You are a mewling boy spouting words you cannot understand. I was born into the gods’ bloody embrace, my soul wedded to the Dark Path before you first soiled your linens. And yet you presume to know Their will, Their desires for you? You have no humility, Prince, and you will be shown no mercy in consequence, in this world and the next.
‘If we did destroy Rilporin,’ Skerris said, to Rivil’s clear disgust, ‘then it would leave us without options if the South Rank comes. Capturing the city gives us power to negotiate, walls to shield our wounded, our holy.’ He gestured at Lanta. ‘Without Rilporin, we must fight, must win, on the very day the enemy arrives.’
‘We talk in circles,’ Corvus said, waving his hand and dismissing Skerris’s words, ‘and about things we cannot yet control. I have a third of the men from Cat Valley ready to assault the wall, with more held in reserve should the first wave be successful. The sun is not yet high; we have a whole day’s killing still to come. Let’s get on with it.’
Rivil opened his mouth but Skerris cut in, smooth and oblivious as though he didn’t know his prince was about to speak. ‘At once, Your Majesty. Sire, the Third Thousand is ready, as is Lord Morellis. With your permission?’
‘Yes, yes, send them in. Let’s hope they make a bloody dent in the enemy this time, eh?’ Rivil folded his arms and stood beside Corvus, affecting boredom as though the outcome meant nothing to him, while the two forces reacted to flag and drum and began to move, siege towers rumbling across the plain, assault teams carrying long, flexible scaling ladders scurrying behind them, trying to keep under cover as long as possible.
They picked up speed, only slowing as they wended their way through the debris at the base of the wall, until finally they splashed against the stone and began to climb.
‘My feet are on the Path,’ Lanta murmured. At her side, Gilda let out a noisy yawn and scuffed a foot in the grass.
‘What’s for lunch?’ she asked. Lanta gritted her teeth.
DURDIL (#u12feb8fa-f5b7-5219-8f6f-cb6a72bd368b)
Fourth moon, afternoon, day twenty-two of the siege
Gatehouse, western wall, Rilporin, Wheat Lands
He had three thousand men of the Palace Rank and the two Thousands he’d summoned from the South Rank, who’d arrived five days after the siege began and fought their way into the city from the River Gil. Five fucking thousand, or at least that’s what the numbers on the books said. Hundreds fewer now, and more wounded every day. Five thousand soldiers and more than double that in frantic civilians, a hundredth in hysterical nobles of every stripe, and a fifth in City Watch whose only skill was clubbing drunks and collecting taxes.
Durdil liked numbers to be neat and easily divisible, but right now he’d have settled for any number that had several zeros at the end of it and every one of them friendly, well armed and fucking lethal.
His face was neutral as he stood on the roof of the gatehouse with his hands resting on the waist-high wall. They’d forced back the latest assault after hours of close, bloody fighting, the Easterners and Mireces establishing multiple bridgeheads around their siege towers and ladders. Durdil’s arms and shoulders ached from wielding sword and knife, spear and shield. His voice was little more than a croak these days, and he was drinking honeyed water to try and restore its vigour.
Three weeks of frontal assaults, of ladders and siege towers and those godsdamned never-ending trebuchets sending rocks against the wall.
Three weeks and still no North Rank.
Perhaps there’s unrest on the border. Perhaps word’s reached Listre of our situation and the Dead Legion’s pushing into our lands, using our distraction against us. If the Legion can summon enough numbers, General Tariq won’t risk leaving the northern border open …
We’re on our own.
Durdil watched two men help a third into the stairwell, no doubt headed to the nearest hospital. It sparked a memory and he sighed, added checking on the numbers of wounded to the bottomless list of things he needed to do today. So many demands on his time, from appointing a new major into dead Wheeler’s position to combating the food hoarding, managing the production of replacement arms, and navigating the bloody council of bloody nobles and their endless, bloody stupid demands.
A figure erupted out of the stairwell leading down into the gatehouse and shouldered men aside, clouds of dust drifting from his beard and his enormous shoulders. Renik and Vaunt, Durdil’s surviving majors, spun to face him, hands on sword hilts, squinting up at the giant.
‘Commander Koridam, sir? Commander, it’s me, Merle Stonemason,’ the huge man said, in case anyone could mistake him for someone who didn’t haul blocks of stone around all day. ‘You got a problem, Commander. So we’ve all got a problem.’
‘Merle Stonemason, what news then?’ Durdil asked heavily. ‘I do hope it’s not a big problem. We’ve already got rather a lot of those.’ Flippancy didn’t work on Merle, or on Durdil for that matter, and a cold weight settled into his stomach as the honest brow of the stonemason crinkled.
‘Me and a couple of the lads checked the wall this morning as per your orders, sir, like we done every morning. She’s been taking more of a pounding than a two-copper whore since this siege began and …’
Durdil bit hard on the inside of his cheek. ‘And?’ he asked, straining for calm. He could feel sweat gathering at his hairline.
Merle stroked his beard, loosing a small drift of dust and stone chips to patter down his shirt. He brushed them away and shifted, uneasy. ‘And like said lady of easy affections, the wall’s well and truly fucked, Commander.’
Durdil went very still, blood tingling in every limb as something screamed at him to run, run anywhere, just away. ‘Wall’s what?’ he croaked, resisting the urge to press a hand to the slowly tightening band around his chest. Now was really not the time for another heart twinge.
‘We done some digging around, Commander, on the wall and in the guildhouse. Those repairs you ordered three years ago?’ He pointed to Second Last, the end that the East Rank had been bombarding ever since they’d arrived. Durdil nodded, dumb.
‘Didn’t happen. Oh, they did some superficial work down past Second Tower just to make it look like everything was going to plan, but it’s a veneer of good stone over rotten stone that should’ve been chipped out and replaced. You weaken that wall enough, it’s coming down, sir. Ain’t nothing there to stop it. And …’ He paused, awkward, and Durdil’s chest tightened a little more, ‘far as we can tell from the paperwork, well, the order to make good rather than mend come from the palace, sir.’
Durdil inhaled through his nostrils with a squeak. His majors were silent statues of denial. It was testament to Durdil’s desperation that he got hold of Merle with one hand and dragged him to the outer edge of the wall, the huge man bobbing along behind him like a cork on a stream. Durdil leant between two merlons and jerked a finger across and downwards.
‘You telling me this wall will crumble? When? How long can it stand?’
Merle didn’t protest being manhandled, probably too surprised someone had managed it to take umbrage. ‘Gatehouse is always the weakest point, Commander, on account of the huge fucking tunnel cut through it. But having walked the length of this wall this morning, and done what tests I can without alerting suspicion, I can tell you the section between Second Tower and Last Bastion is just as weak, where the repairs were supposed to get done and weren’t. She ain’t cracking yet, but when she does …’
‘They knew this,’ Durdil hissed, pointing at the trebuchets and the army behind them. ‘Rivil and that one-eyed shit Galtas knew those repairs hadn’t been made. Have they really been planning this for three years?’
‘Couldn’t say, Commander,’ Merle said as though the question hadn’t been rhetorical. Together they watched as one of the trebuchets unwound and unleashed a rock the size of a carthorse. It tumbled end over end towards the wall between Second Tower and Last Bastion, smashing into the stone with a jarring impact they could feel from the gatehouse. Merle leant dangerously far out over the wall and squinted along its length, as though he could see the damage from here.
Then he stood back and rubbed his palms hissing together. He smelt of smashed rock and sweat. ‘If they’re not stopped, Commander, and emergency repairs aren’t made, I reckon they could get through there in a few more weeks. Same with the gatehouse, if they put their minds to it.’
‘I’m not liking this conversation, Merle,’ Durdil said, amazed at the steadiness of his voice. Bile coated his teeth.
‘Me neither, sir,’ the big man said, ‘but them’s the facts.’
Major Renik was pale as snow and clutching at the healing wound in his side as though Merle’s words had reopened it. Major Vaunt had turned to a pair of runners and sent them for Durdil’s colonels, Yarrow and Edris.
Three weeks to full breach and no reinforcements. Nothing from Mace and the West Rank, nothing from Tariq in the north.
Three weeks until there’re Mireces and heathens killing door to door and raping anything that moves.
Durdil bit down on the surge of nausea, sucked in air and tried to think. Merle was watching him with much the same expression as an ox facing the poleaxe. Durdil wanted to punch the merlons but knew it’d not only hurt his knuckles but, if Merle was to be believed, might actually bring the bloody wall down.
‘How many good masons do you have, Merle?’ he asked, working hard at maintaining a neutral tone.
‘Eight.’
‘Is that enough?’
‘For what I think you’re suggesting? No. But I can muster a dozen skilled apprentices for the carrying and the labour once we’ve chipped out the worst stone. O’course, we’re weakening the wall further by doing that. You need to get those trebuchets off us for a day at the least. Mortar’ll take time to set. Day and night’d be preferable, two days and a night ideal.’
‘Impossible,’ Vaunt murmured, ‘not unless we send a suicide mission out there in the middle of the night to disable the engines.’
‘Right now, there isn’t an idea I’m not prepared to consider, suicide missions included,’ Durdil snapped.
Colonels Edris and Yarrow appeared on the top of the gatehouse and Renik moved towards them, speaking quickly and quietly, giving them the latest. Both men swore and then crowded close to Durdil to listen.
‘Get your masons and get on it. I want the stone ready and waiting to be put in as soon as the old stuff is removed. But I don’t want you doing that until you hear from me.’ Durdil glanced past Merle at his officers. They nodded, grim-faced. ‘I can guarantee each one of the masons a lordship and ten gold kings to the apprentices if the wall holds,’ Durdil added, wondering if he could.
Merle looked affronted. ‘I don’t want so much as a copper knight, let alone a gold king or a lordship, Commander,’ he protested, waving hands like hams in the air between them. ‘You can have my skill and my time and my sweat for nothing more than food and drink to keep me working. And I can say the same for maybe half my men. The rest, well, best keep that coin to hand. I won’t mention the lordships and my advice is you don’t either. We’ve seen enough poor nobles lurking around the palace that a title don’t hold as much enchantment as gold. For me, though, my promise is good. Feed me and keep me in water and weak ale and I’ll see you well reimbursed.’
Durdil did a mental adjustment of the man before him and swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. Greatest city in the world, they say, he thought as he resisted the urge to throw his arms around the massive mason.
‘Forgive me, Stonemason, I didn’t mean to impugn your honour. These are … trying times. For now, send me numbers of how many men you need to cut, dress or transport stone, and what help the Watch and the citizenry can be in this matter. I’m afraid we won’t be able to spare you any soldiers.’
‘Send them to me,’ Yarrow interrupted, ‘Second Last is my command. I’ll see it done, sir.’
Durdil nodded and felt the smallest easing of tension. Someone else to share the burden. Thank the gods he’d invested so much time in training his subordinates, in insisting that the best men be stationed in the city to guard the king.
Not that that had saved him.
Merle clapped his hands. ‘Strong backs and uncomplaining natures would be most welcome. At least three score to get us moving at speed.’
‘I’ll get them to the guildhouse by dusk, Stonemason,’ Yarrow said, saluted and disappeared.
‘And the gatehouse?’ Durdil asked as Merle began to edge towards the stairs after him. ‘What can we do with that?’
‘Bar and prop the gates, pile rubble against the inside face of the wall that can be shovelled into the tunnel to seal it. They look like they’re getting through the portcullis at that end, you do seal it. And then pray.’
‘Thank you, Merle. We’ll all be doing that, I think,’ Durdil said. ‘I’ll be here or at the palace until this siege is defeated. You’ll always be able to find me.’
Merle nodded and squeezed back into the stairwell. There was distant thunder as three trebuchets unwound and, seconds later, the whine of stone moving at great speed and the triple shattering boom of impact. Durdil clutched at the wall, not sure if he could feel it swaying or whether his panicked imagination had taken over his senses. Didn’t appear to be any casualties along Second Last, though, and he breathed a quick prayer of thanks.
‘Sir, should we cut the rope to the portcullis? Don’t want them pushing the gate up and engaging the mechanism. It’ll lift straight up and let them into the tunnel and at the door.’
‘No, or not yet anyway. Despite everything, I haven’t given up hope that the North Rank is coming, despite the lack of communication. Perhaps even my son and the West. If they are, we’ll need to support them on the field. That means exiting through the gatehouse at the double to help crush these bastards. So no cutting ropes or sealing tunnels for now.’
‘I hope you’re right, sir,’ Vaunt said a little unsteadily and Durdil realised how young he was.
He slapped him on the back. ‘This siege is going to be bloody, and it may be protracted, but we’ll get there, Major. We have to.’
Colonel Edris forced a reassuring grin he clearly didn’t feel. ‘Damn right we will,’ he added. There was a commotion on Double First and he saluted and then hurried back into the stairwell and along to his command.
‘Commander Koridam?’ a red-faced palace messenger panted to a stop before them.
An endless parade of bloody messengers, each with news direr than the last, he thought.
‘Yes?’
‘The council of nobles requests your presence, and that of your colonels, to discuss matters of state.’
Durdil blinked. ‘Matters of state? You mean the war?’
‘I was not privy to that information, sir,’ the messenger said. ‘If you could proceed with all urgency to the palace?’
‘No. If this is not a military matter, I trust them to resolve it themselves. The only “matter of state” with which I am concerned is the survival of this city and victory. If they wish to discuss the progress of the siege, I will make time for them.’
‘My orders were very specific, sir,’ the man said, and now the flush was embarrassment and worry. ‘You have been summoned specifically by Lord Silais and Lord Lorca.’
