'Good. Can you both run?' Vasselis and Stertius nodded affirmation of Iliev's question. 'Then let's move. Kashilli, on the harbour master's instructions. Let's double it and more until I tell you to stop.'
They ran up and away from the beach, following the path the dead had taken. A straight line up to the gates. Here the slaughter had been fierce indeed. Scattered remains of dead lay in a wide arc around the gates. Victims of flaming stones and bolts and of Gesteris's wonder powder, now apparently spent or in very short supply. Dozens had been dismembered here but enough had survived and when the mould weapon was deployed, they had simply rotted the gates.
Only the great iron and steel bands and hinges remained. The timbers were nothing but detritus on the packed ground. The catapults were all silent now, sentinels overlooking a disaster they had been unable to avert. The squad ran in. The mould was gone, just as it was gone from the main street up towards the forum. Just as Iliev had guessed.
'It doesn't last,' he said. 'And it travels in front of them. Stertius, which way?'
Stertius pointed left and they ran up an incline inside the walls. Here, in a street packed with empty buildings and flapping shutters, the noise towards the centre of the city was dulled. The stench, though, was not, and evidence of the flood tide of invading and newly created dead was everywhere. How many faithful had been taken and turned towards the palace, the place that was surely the dead's target.
'We must be following the Gor-Karkulas,' said Vasselis. He was barely out of breath. An ageing man but a fit man. He needed to be. 'If we can find one, take him out, then we can seriously restrict them.'
'Not going to be easy,' said Iliev. 'Just look at all this.'
They'd turned right up a narrow tenement street that led to a small square containing a fountain. The evidence of discarded life was everywhere. Buckets lay on the ground. Hats, bags, dolls, food. The paraphernalia of the citizen. Dropped because it was no longer needed. And the fountain still contained algae.
Stertius directed them around the main forum, away from the heart of the invasion. Noise of the dead march and the flight of Estorr's populace came from ahead and right. And it was moving away left, west towards the only gate that had not been attacked.
'Best place for them,' said Iliev. 'Keep moving, Ocenii.'
Estorr was built in a series of rings, with central spokes spearing out from the dock. Even with Stertius's knowledge of the city, they had to cross a main highway. It led out to the west gate and it was full of terrified people still running at full tilt though the dead were long behind, making their slow advance, in no hurry.
Squad seven and their guests were in a tiny side street. No mould and no death had walked here. Not yet. But the terraces were all empty, their occupants joining the headlong rush out of the city. It was a seething mass ahead. Iliev shivered in spite of himself. All it would take was the touch of one dead hand.
'Kashilli? Make a path. Seven, in his boot prints. Mind our guests.'
'Already as good as done, skipper.'
Kashilli and two others, hammers held horizontally across their chests, barged into the crowd, shouting people aside. There was anger, screaming and punches were thrown. Iliev led Stertius and Vasselis after him. The rest of the squad filling in, trying to keep the path open.
Kashilli was a bull. He snorted, put his head down and heaved forward, the shaft of his hammer connecting with arm, midriff, rib and head. Iliev could hear the protests building as they made halfway.'Then move!' bellowed Kashilli. 'Ocenii sailing here. Move, I said, are you deaf as well as stupid?'
Iliev felt their rate of progress increase. He nodded his satisfaction. To his right and down the hill, they'd brought the street to a halt. To the left, a gap was beginning to appear.
'Run round the outside, Marshal, Master Stertius. We'll hold them. Ocenii, your right hands, press in and keep moving.'
The crowd at the front were letting them go, seeing their insignia in addition to Kashilli's bulk. The squad moved freely. The crowd began to edge around their rear. A scream from growing thousands of mouths travelled up from the base of the hill, near the exit from the forum approach road. Iliev looked again.
The crowd were bunching, rushing. It was a wave and its crest was misted with spores and spattered with green mould. In front of it, the living crowd surged. Squad seven's marine
s stood no chance of holding it
back. Kashilli and a few others had reached the other side of the road.
'Fight your way,' called Iliev. 'Buddy up and move.'
The squad's path was washed away by the weight of people fuelled by a rightful panic. Iliev dived forwards, got in between Stertius and Vasselis and pushed them headlong into Kashilli's arms.
'Get them away up the street. Sludge coming.'
'The squad,' said Kashilli.
‘I’l
l get them. Go.'
Iliev turned back. People were whipping past his vision. Looking deep into the crowd, he could see squad members struggling against - the tide of humanity trying to sweep them away west. He pulled in one, two, and another two, sent them a street west to see if any were carried further up.
The screaming had intensified. The sludge was coming. How hollow the half-joke was now. Iliev took another look. An arm flailed into the street, low down. Iliev crouched and pulled. The marine came shooting through. People fell over him, and others over them. More tried to climb the piling bodies or run round them, jamming the street.
Iliev saw another squad member inching around the squirming, shrieking pile, three deep and struggling. He beckoned with his hand, made to take a pace out but the marine grabbed him hard, sending them both sprawling backwards. The mould engulfed the street and spattered over the alley walls. Iliev scrabbled backwards still further. He got to his feet, cursed and spat.
'How many more have died,' he said. He put out a hand to the marine, who took it and jumped back to his feet. 'But thank you. You saved my life.'
Instant quiet had overtaken the main street at which they stared. Corpses covered in the stinking fetid mould were strewn everywhere, clawed down to their deaths even as they thought they might escape.
'They're moving,' said the marine.
'Then so must we. Let's see who we have left and get to the Hill.'
They turned and ran, dead eyes following them away. Iliev counted on the run up to the processional avenue. Stertius planned to take them through the parks and come down to the palace gates at the last moment along the processional approach at the junction with Del Aglios Way. It would be their moment of greatest risk.
The noise in the city was startling. No one could be unaware of the manner of the death that stalked them all and the timbre of the shouting and calling was genuinely unsettling, even for hardened veterans like the Ocenii. Iliev had lost seven of his squad and it could have been much worse. He prayed to Ocetarus that he wouldn't have to face them and the thought lent him greater determination.
The remaining twenty-six and the two Estoreans ran towards a growing clamour. Although they had expected citizens to be in front of the gates demanding entrance, they hadn't expected the sheer weight. People had stormed up Del Aglios Way, pouring on to the apron in front of the Victory Gates. They were still coming down the processional approach in droves. The gates stood open and citizens were funnelling inside, yelled on by guards on the gatehouse. Enterprising guardsmen had dropped ropes and ladders down the sides of the walls in dozens of places. Knots of people gathered under them, waiting their chance to climb.
'Straight through, Kashilli,' said Iliev. 'They're going to have to close the Victory Gates and we need that understood.'
'Aye, skipper.'
Kashilli began shouting long before he encountered the edge of the crowd that was swirling and moving as people sought to find the quickest way through the gates.
'Ocenii squad coming through. Stand aside. Stand aside for your Marshal and your Prime Sea Lord. Stand aside.'
Bless the conditioned reaction of the ordinary citizen. People prepared to beat each other to death for a final chance of life melted aside. Citizens tapped each other on the shoulder, indicated the charging Kashilli and his charges and a path began to open up towards the corner of the left-hand gate. Whether it was the sight of him that did it or the words he was shouting, Iliev didn't much care. All he knew was that they were within twenty yards before their momentum dissipated and the hammer was waved and used as a crowbar.
Iliev tried to maintain some sense of civility and order. He did not seek to push, using his hand to gesture people aside from this path.
'The Marshal has crucial information that will turn the fight. Clear a path and give yourself the chance to live.'
The press of humanity closed in around them and they were carried left and right in front of the gates. Citizens were hoping to be swept inside in their wake. Kashilli was hollering at the gate guards for assistance. Their movement had stalled completely.
'Kashilli. Let's move on!' shouted Iliev. 'Time's wasting.'
Kashilli heard him above the roar of the crowd and the stamping of thousands of feet, the clamouring for admittance to sanctuary. There was desperation in the air. Word was filtering forwards that the dead were closing in. Iliev was surprised the rot wasn't spreading already.
Belatedly, a line of guards with shields and spears appeared and forged a space across a short area of the gate and outwards. It was enough. They hailed the squad inside and herded them towards the fountain. Behind, citizens continued to flood in. Vasselis was with a guard, demanding the gates be closed and the citizens sent away into the parks. Iliev joined the call. The dead were coming to the palace. Here was not the safe place people assumed. The rot might bring the gates down but any time they could buy had to be worth it.
Inside the courtyard, the mood was ugly and angry. It was packed with citizens. Palace guard were trying to shepherd people away towards the basilica, the Academy, the legion and Ocetanas headquarters, the palace; anywhere that kept the courtyard on the move. It was a battle they were losing.
Iliev could see why. There were people on the fountain. Ascendants hanging on to the shattered remains of the horses rampant statue. Standing in the fountain pool. Whatever it was they were planning, the water was to be their fuel, or that was how Iliev understood them to work.
But the citizens who had got inside to demand sanctuary were also looking for someone to blame. The Ascendancy, as so often, was the scapegoat. A triple line of Ascendancy guard ringed the fountain. Spears were levelled, shields placed, and so far they were keeping the crowd back. Iliev could see furious, frightened citizens pointing, drawing fingers across their throats. Chanting. It was the road to a breakdown of order.
'Kashilli, let's get there. Squad seven with me. Our guests are safe.'
'I hear you, skipper.'
Kashilli the bull swayed and shoved his way through the gathering mob. Three Ascendants stood there with the brave old woman, Hesther Naravny. And her face was fierce enough alone to keep most of them at bay. He could just about hear her shouts. That the Ascendants were their only hope, their only chance of salvation. But the mob had other ideas. Iliev caught the gist of the chanting as he shouldered on. He passed a young man punching the air to the rhythm.
'The dead want the damned. Give the dead the damned.'
Iliev grabbed the man's shoulder.
'Stop. Singing. Now.'
The man focused on him. Just an ordinary citizen but so full of hate powered by fear. And something else.
'They are the enemy. Isn't it obvious why the dead are here?' The man looked him up and down. 'I wouldn't expect you to understand. Establishment man.'
The man turned away to continue chanting. Iliev stepped in front of him and felled him with a punch to the jaw.
'Yes, I'm an Establishment man but not an ignorant bastard.' Iliev turned and began to shout. 'Still your mouths. Still them or die at the hands of those you thought your brothers. Silence for the Ascendants.'
But all it did was fuel the chants further. Men were edging closer to the shield ring. Iliev spat on the ground, caught Kashilli's eye and nodded him on. Kashilli battered people aside with no thought to the injuries he might cause. And by the time the focus of the mob was on him to stop him, he was through the spear line and up on the side of the fountain, balancing there like he would on the corsair spike.
Kashilli really was massive. Iliev had seen him so often the fact had escaped him. He towered above them on the lip, hefting his hammer, glaring at them until the noise diminished by a hair.