Authors: Anthony Ryan
Some of the richer citizens also chose to leave, fear of the Red Hand did not fade quickly. Vaelin managed to intercept the one-time employer of the man who had set fire to Ahm Lin’s shop, a richly attired if somewhat bedraggled spice merchant, chafing under guard at the eastern gate as Vaelin questioned him. His family and remaining servants lingered nearby, pack horses laden with assorted valuables.
“His name was carpenter, as far as I knew,” the merchant said. “I can’t be expected to remember every servant in my employ. I pay people to remember for me.” The man’s knowledge of the Realm tongue was impeccable, but there was an arrogant disdain to his tone Vaelin didn’t like. However the fellow’s evident fear made him suppress the urge to deliver an encouraging cuff across the face.
“He had a wife?” he asked. “A family?”
The merchant shrugged. “I think not, seemed to spend most his free time carving wooden effigies of the gods.”
“I heard he was injured, a blow to the head.”
“Most of us were that night.” The merchant lifted a silken sleeve to display a stitched cut on his forearm. “Your men were very free with their clubs.”
“The carpenter’s injury,” Vaelin pressed.
“He took a blow to the head, a bad one it seems. My men carried him back to the house unconscious. In truth we thought him dead, but he lingered for several days, barely breathing. Then he simply woke up, showing no ill-effects. My servants thought it the work of the gods, a reward for all his carvings. The next morning he was gone, having said no words since his awakening.” The merchant glanced back at his waiting family, impatience and fear showing in the tremble of his hands.
“I know you were not complicit in this,” he told the merchant, stepping aside. “Luck to you on your journey.”
The man was already moving away, shouting commands to put his household on the road.
He lingered for days,
Vaelin mused and the blood-song stirred, sounding a clear note of recognition. He felt the familiar sense of fumbling for something, some answer to the many mysteries of his life, but once again it was beyond his reach. Frustration seized him and the blood-song wavered.
The song is you,
Ahm Lin had said.
You can sing it as well as hear it.
He sought to calm his feelings, trying to hear the song more clearly, trying to focus it.
The song is me, my blood, my need, my hunt.
It swelled within him, roaring in his ears, a cacophony of emotion, blurred visions flicking through his mind too fast to catch. Words spoken and unspoken rose in an incomprehensible babble, lies and truth mingling in a maelstrom of confusion.
I need Ahm Lin’s counsel,
he thought, trying to focus the song, forcing harmony into the discordant din. The song swelled once more, then calmed to a single, clear note and there was a brief glimpse of the marble block, the chisel resuming its impossibly rapid work, guided by an unseen hand, the face emerging, features forming... Then it was gone, the block blackened and shattered amidst the wasted ruin of the mason’s home.
Vaelin moved to a nearby step and sat down heavily. It appeared there had been but one chance to know what message the block contained. This verse was over and he needed a new tune.
He was called to the gate at midnight, Janril Norin limping to his room in the Guild house to wake him.
“Scores of horsemen on the plain, my lord,” the minstrel said. “Brother Caenis requested your presence.”
He quickly strapped on his sword and mounted Spit, galloping to the gatehouse in a few minutes. Caenis was already there, ordering more archers onto the walls. They climbed the stairs to the upper battlements where one of Count Marven’s Nilsaelins pointed to the plain. “Near five hundred of the buggers, my lord,” the man said, voice shrill with alarm.
Vaelin calmed him with a pat to the shoulder and moved to the battlement, looking down on a small host of armoured riders, steel gleaming a faint blue in the dim light from the crescent moon. At their head a burly figure in rust stained armour glared up at them. “You ever going to open this bloody gate?” Baron Banders demanded. “My men are hungry and I’ve got blisters on my arse.”
Shorn of his armour the baron was smaller in stature but no less bullish. “Pah!” he spat a mouthful of wine onto the floor of the guild house chamber which served as their meal hall. “Alpiran piss. Don’t you have any Cumbraelin to offer an honoured guest, my lord?”
“I regret my brothers and I are guilty of exhausting our reserves, Baron,” Vaelin replied. “My apologies.”
Banders shrugged and reached for the roasted chicken on the table, tearing off a leg and chomping into the flesh. “I see you managed to leave most of this place standing,” he commented around a mouthful. “Locals couldn’t have put up much of a fight.”
“We were able to effect a stealthy seizure of the city. The governor has proved a pragmatic man. There was little bloodshed.”
The Baron’s face became sombre and he paused for a moment before washing down his food and reaching for more. “Couldn’t say the same about Marbellis. Thought the place was going to burn forever.”
Vaelin’s disquiet deepened. The Baron’s unexpected appearance was unsettling, and it seemed he had dark news to impart. “The siege was difficult?”
Banders snorted, pouring himself more wine. “Four weeks of pounding with the engines before we had a practical breach. Every night they’d sally out, small parties of dagger men, sneaking through our lines to cut throats and hole the water barrels. Every bloody night a sleepless trial. The Departed know how many men we lost. Then the Battle Lord sent three full regiments into the breach. Maybe fifty men made it out again, all wounded. The Alpirans had set traps in the breach, spiked pits and so forth. When the Realm Guard got held up by the pits they sent bundles of kindling rolling in, all soaked in oil. Their archers set them blazing with fire arrows.” He paused, eyes closed, a small shudder ran through him. “You could hear the screams a mile away.”
“The city is not taken?”
“Oh it’s taken. Taken and taken again like a cheap whore.” Banders belched. “Blood Rose licked his wounds and drew his plan well. In truth I think his assault on the breach was a grand ruse, a sacrifice to convince the Alpirans they were facing a fool. Two nights later he drew up four regiments opposite the breach, making ready to assault. At the same time he sent the entire remaining Realm Guard infantry against the eastern wall with scaling ladders. He gambled the Alpirans were concentrating their strength at the breach and didn’t leave enough men to defend the walls. Turns out he was right. Took all night and the cost was high but by morning the city was ours, what was left of it.”
Banders lapsed into silence, concentrating on his meal. Vaelin let him eat and found his gaze lingering on the baron’s perennially rust stained armour. On seeing it up close for the first time he noticed those parts of steel plate not besmirched with corrosion gleamed with a polished sheen and the rust itself had an odd waxy texture.
“It’s paint,” he said aloud.
“Mmmm?” Banders glanced over at his armour and grunted. “Oh that. A man should try to live up to his legend, don’t you think?”
“The legend of the rusty knight?” Vaelin asked. “Can’t say I’ve heard it, my lord.”
“Aha, but you’re not Renfaelin.” Banders grinned. “My father was a boisterous, kind hearted fellow, but over fond of dice and harlots and consequently unable to leave me much more than a crumbling hold-fast and a rusty suit of armour, which I was obliged to wear when answering the Lord’s call to war. Luckily my father had managed to pass on something of his skill with the lance and so my standing grew with every battle and tourney. I was famed as the Rust Knight, loved by the commons for my poverty. The armour became my banner, made me easy to find in the melee, something for the peasants to cheer and my men to rally to, once I had fortune enough to hire some of course.”
“So this is not the original armour?”
Banders laughed heartily. “Faith no, brother! That’s all rusted to uselessness years ago. Even the best armour rarely lasts more than a few years in any case, battle and the elements take their toll. We have a saying in Renfael: if you want to be richer than a lord, become a blacksmith.” He chuckled and poured himself more wine.
“Why are you here, baron?” Vaelin asked him. “Do you bring word from the Battle Lord?”
The Baron’s expression sobered once again. “I do. I also bring myself and my men. Three hundred knights and two hundred armed retainers and assorted squires, if you’ll have us.”
“You and your men are most welcome, but will Fief Lord Theros not have need of your services?”
Banders set aside his wine and sighed heavily, meeting Vaelin’s eyes with a level gaze. “I have been dismissed from the Fief Lord’s service, brother. Not for the first time, but I suspect the last. The Battle Lord bid me offer my command to you.”
“You quarrelled with the Fief Lord?”
“Not with him, no.” His mouth was set in a hard, unyielding line and Vaelin sensed it was best to let the matter drop.
“And the Battle Lord’s word?”
Banders pulled a sealed letter from his shirt and tossed it on the table. “I know the contents, to save you reading it. You are instructed to make the city safe against imminent siege. Order patrols from Marbellis spied a great host of Alpirans making its way north. They appear intent on bypassing Marbellis and seizing Linesh with all dispatch.” He took another, deep gulp of wine, wiping his mouth and belching again. “My advice, brother, commandeer the merchant fleet and sail your men back to the Realm. There isn’t a hope of holding this place against so many.”
“At least ten cohorts of infantry, another five of horse and assorted savages from the southern provinces of the Empire. Near twenty thousand in all.” Banders’s voice was light but all present could sense the weight behind his levity. Vaelin had called a council of captains in the Guild house, having had Caenis search the city archive for the largest and most accurate map of the northern Alpiran coast.
“I thought there would be more,” Caenis said. “The Emperor’s army is supposed to be beyond counting.”
“Indeed there are more, brother,” Banders assured him. “This is just the vanguard. The few prisoners we took in Marbellis were happy to confirm it. The force marching on this city is the elite of the Alpiran army. The finest infantry and cavalry he can muster, all veterans of the border wars with the Volarians. Don’t underestimate the savages either, all warriors born. It’s said they spend their lives worshipping the emperor like a god and fighting each other over petty insults, which they’re happy to put aside when he calls them to war. Seems they like the taste of defeated enemies.”
“Siege engines?” Vaelin asked.
Banders nodded. “Ten of them, much taller and heftier than anything we have, can sling a boulder the size of musk-ox over three hundred paces.”
Vaelin glanced around the table gauging the reaction of the other captains to the baron’s words. Count Marven was rigidly controlled, seemingly wary of betraying any emotion which might undermine his jealously guarded status. Lord Marshal Al Cordlin had paled visibly and kept clutching his recently healed arm, a faint sheen of sweat beginning to show on his upper lip. Lord Marshal Al Trendil seemed lost in thought, stroking his chin, eyes distant. Vaelin assumed he was calculating if he could escape with all the spoils he had looted at Untesh. Only Bren Antesh seemed unaffected, arms folded and regarding Banders with only a mild interest.
“How long do we have?” Caenis asked the baron.
“Brother Sollis put them here.” Banders tapped a finger to the map spread out on the table before them, picking out a point about twenty miles south-west of Marbellis. “That was twelve days ago.”
“An army that size couldn’t cover more than fifteen miles a day,” Count Marven mused in a deliberately measured tone. “Less in the desert.”
“Gives us maybe another two weeks,” Lord Marshal Al Cordlin said, his voice was pitched slightly high and he coughed before continuing. “Ample time, my lord.”
Vaelin frowned at him. “Ample time for what?”
“Why, evacuation of course.” Al Cordlin’s eyes cast around the table, seeking support. “I know there aren’t sufficient ships remaining to carry the whole of the army, but the senior officers could be got away easily. The men can march to Untesh…”
“We are ordered to hold this city,” Vaelin told him.
“Against twenty thousand?” Al Cordlin gave a short and somewhat hysterical laugh. “More than three times our number, and elite troops at that. It would be madness to…”
“Lord Marshal Al Cordlin I hereby relieve you of your command.” Vaelin nodded at the door. “Leave this room. In the morning you will be escorted to the harbour where you will take ship for the Realm. Until then keep to your quarters, I don’t want the men infected with your cowardice.”
Al Cordlin rocked back on his heels as if struck, beginning to babble. “This is… Such insults are unwarranted. My regiment was given to me by the king…”
“Just get out.”
The stricken lord cast one more final glance at the rest of the captains, finding either indifference or wary discomfort, before moving to the door and making his exit. “Any more suggestions of evacuation will receive the same response,” Vaelin told the council. “I trust that’s understood.”
He turned his attention back to the map, ignoring the chorus of affirmation. Once again he was struck by the barrenness of the region, marvelling that three large cities such as Untesh, Linesh and Marbellis could exist on the fringes of such trackless desert.
All dust and scrub,
as Frentis had said.
Haven’t seen a tree since we landed…
“No trees.”
“My lord?” Baron Banders asked.
Vaelin gave no reply and kept his attention on the map as something stirred, the seed of a stratagem nurtured by a faint murmur from the blood-song, building to a chorus as his eyes picked out a pictogram about thirty miles south of the city; a copse of palm trees surrounding a small pool. “What’s this?” he asked Caenis.