Corvus (42 page)

Above them,
Kerusiad Hill rose on its crag like a vision beyond the smoke and roar of the
streets below. They were under two pasangs from Druze’s siege-towers.

“Left here,”
Sertorius shouted above the din. “Up this way.” They turned off the main
thoroughfare, and the crowd was less packed. Men and women were trundling
handcarts down from the hill piled high with their belongings and wailing
children too small to keep their feet. Sertorius led his men against the
current of the exodus, feeling the hill rise under him.

“It’s not far now,”
he said. “Phaestus is in that house on the right, up ahead, the one with the
yellow roof tiles. We do him first.”

“And that little
shit of a son he has,” Bosca snarled. “I want some fun with him before he goes!”

“As long as we
make it quick,” Sertorius said. “Remember, the real prize is at the top of the
hill. And don’t forget the slaves - I want them too. They’re gold on the hoof,
brothers.”

The men around him
growled in anticipation.

The rented villa
had stout doors of iron-studded wood, locked shut against the chaos of the
streets. At a nod from Sertorius, Bosca and Adurnos swooped on a family pushing
a handcart, tossed the children off the vehicle, and when the man protested
beat him down, leaving him a broken bundle in the street with his family
shrieking around him.

“Now, lads, after
three,” Sertorius said.

They crashed the
handcart into the heavy doors, running it up with a roar, and the bolt wrenched
free of the wood. They whooped happily, and poured inside with drawn swords. A
dark-haired man who was in their path stood frozen and was cut down with barely
a pause.

“Phaestus!
Phaestus, you cheating bastard. It is I, Sertorius, come for you!”

They careered
through the house like mad children, kicking over furniture, pawing through
drawers and cupboards. Not a lamp was lit in the place; aside from the dead man
near the entrance the place seemed deserted.

It was Adurnos who
found him, and shouted for the others to join him. They crowded at the door of
the room, breathing heavily.

“The fucker got
away from us boss,” Adurnos said moodily.

Phaestus lay like
a wax image on the bed, a blanket drawn up to his chin. His face was white as
old ivory. Sertorius leaned over and touched it.

“Cold as a fish.
Antimone got to him before we did.”

“Let’s torch the
place,” Bosca suggested. “There’s not so much as a mouse in it - they’ve
cleared out long since.”

“No, no burning,”
Sertorius said. “I’ll not give this son of a bitch a pyre. Let him lie here and
rot.” He straightened.

“Let’s get us that
cart again, lads, Karnos’s house is just up the hill a ways, and I don’t mean
to be done out of my fun a second time.”

They turned and
ran back through the empty house like a dark, flapping gale, a curse spoken by
Phobos and given form.

Rictus was exhausted
, but kept
going out of pure will. He had thrown away his shield and helm, picked up a
discarded drepana, and was fighting his way east through the streets like a
salmon wriggling upstream. In his wake followed Valerian. There had been other
Dogsheads with him, but they had become separated.

Fornyx was still
leading the bulk of the men in the destruction of Kassander’s last stand.

There was no other
kind of ordered resistance left in the city, but the entire population of
Machran appeared to be on the streets, most people trying to make their way
north, to the districts Corvus’s army had not yet captured. They had no plan in
their minds beyond that. Half-crazed by hunger and fear, they had no kind of
plan at all.

The red cloak and
the Curse of God cleared a path for Rictus, people recoiling from him as he
strode along. Or perhaps it was the look on his face. He no longer cared if
Machran stood or fell, if it went up in flames and was burnt to ash. He knew
only that he had to find out whether Karnos had been speaking the truth. If his
family were in this city he would tear the place down brick by brick to find
them. He would have struck down Phobos himself if the god had stood in his
path.

Kassia and Rian
closed the door
shut, slid the heavy bolt across and leaned their backs against it.

“Better in here
than out there,” Kassia said, setting a hand on Rian’s shoulder. “The slaves
were fools.”

“They weren’t
slaves any more,” Rian said. “It was their choice, to stay or go as they
wished.”

Philemos stood to
one side with a short stabbing sword, his soldier’s cuirass too big for him.
His eyes were red-rimmed. “We’ll stay here until things settle down. I can go
out and look, later, see what’s been going on.”

Polio shook his
head. “Young master, do you hear that?”

They went quiet.
The agony of the city rose up Kerusiad Hill, people wailing and screaming in
their tens of thousands, their feet raising a murmur from the earth.

“That is the sound
of a city’s fall,” Polio said, and his face gnarled with grief. “Karnos has
failed. Have you looked to the east? They brought towers to the walls. But the
fighting there is over now - the enemy is inside the city.”

He drew a deep
breath. “I will abide here, and wait for Karnos. If he is alive, he will
return. For the next few days, there is no more dangerous place in the world
than the streets outside this door -especially for the women. Ladies, you must
trust to these walls.”

“My mother wants
to leave as soon as it’s dark - we have people we know in Arienus,” Philemos
said. He looked at Rian.

“You are the head
of your household now,” Polio told him. “It is for you to decide what is to be
done. Your mother must realise that, Philemos.”

The boy nodded. “It
comes hard. It’s new to me.”

Rian reached out
and took his hand.

Kassia stood with
tears running silently down her face, but she managed a laugh. “Listen to us,
conjuring up the worst picture we can! Polio, if ever any two men were going to
live through a disaster, then they are Karnos and my brother. They’ll be back
here, you’ll see. Even if Machran falls, those two cannot be kept down.”

Polio nodded
gravely. “Lady, I believe you’re right.”

“So what do we do?”
Rian asked. “Sit tight and wait for order to be restored?”

“Yes,” said Polio.
From the folds of his snow-white himation he produced a long iron knife. “One
more thing - all of us should arm ourselves.”

“A kitchen knife
will not do much,” Kassia said.

“Better than
nothing,” Rian told her. “Kassia, even if the city is lost, my father’s men
will be out there. Fornyx and Kesero” - she darted a swift, strange look at
Philemos - “and Valerian. The Dogsheads will find us.”

“Friends in both
camps,” Kassia said with a small, bitter smile. “I’m sorry, Rian - I forget
sometimes. You have ties to the men outside the walls.”

“I have ties within
them also, Kassia,” Rian said.

Corvus rode across
Avennan Square
with an escort of Companions. Ardashir was beside him, and thronged throughout
the square were hundreds of spearmen from the commands of Teresian and
Demetrius. These were too spent to join in the general pursuit careering
through the streets of the city.

Many of the men
were sitting on their shields with their helms off, mouths hanging open. At the
moment, they were too glad to be merely alive to yet feel the triumph of the
city’s capture. But as Corvus entered the square and took off his helm, they
scrambled to their feet, and began to smite their spears on their shields and
cheer.

Hundreds of them,
perhaps thousands, standing cheering in that great corpse-choked open space,
the Empirion rearing up white behind them and the agony of the city a backdrop
to their delight. Corvus raised a hand and the cheers redoubled. They began
chanting his name. The sound carried across the city in a wave, unmistakeable,
crushing the hope out of the last few defenders still fighting despair.

Fornyx pushed
through the mass of cheering spearmen. He had his hand on the shoulder of a
tall, broad-shouldered fellow who had the sigil of Machran painted on his
armour. The crowd of spearmen made way for them, shaking their spears in the
tall man’s face. He ignored them, walked along as though in some kind of
reverie, and only when he stood before Corvus did he look up and seem to snap
out of it.

“Corvus,” Fornyx
said, his face split wide in a grin. “I have a prize for you. This fellow here
is named Kassander, and he is the polemarch of Machran. His men laid down their
arms at the foot of the Empirion not ten minutes ago. They were the last. I
promised them their lives and their freedom, for they fought well. I trust you
will respect my promise.”

“Gladly, Fornyx,”
Corvus said. He bent in the saddle and grasped the Cursebearer’s hand. “It was
well done. I should have done the same thing myself.”

He turned to
Kassander, who stood stolid and uncaring, though he did look up at the youth on
the black horse with a wistful kind of curiosity.

“I am glad to see
you alive, Kassander,” Corvus said to him. “I have heard you are a good man.”

Kassander grunted.
He was a picture of carnage, soaked in blood, and he was missing the upper part
of one ear. The blood from the sliced flesh had formed a black bar down the
side of his neck.

“What of your
friend Karnos? Do you know where he might be?”

The question
seemed to pierce the fog. Kassander swallowed, looked up at the sky, winter-blue.
There was not a cloud to be seen, but Phobos was a pale round wisp high up in
it, a ghost with a cold smile.

“Karnos is dead.
He is lying here somewhere. Your mercenaries killed him. He wore a black
cuirass, but I suppose that will be stripped off him by now.”

Corvus’s face
fell. “That is a pity. There was a time I would have wished him dead, but not
now. You and he put up a rare fight, Kassander. I salute you for it.”

Kassander turned
bloodshot eyes upon Corvus. “The city is yours now, and we are all in your
hands. They say that Antimone shows us the hearts of men not only in defeat,
but in victory also. Your name will be tied to this victory forever, Corvus,
and what you and your men do to Machran now will follow you for as long as
there are Macht to remember it.”

Corvus nodded. “I
know this - it is something I have always known. You need not fear for Machran,
Kassander. It will be my capital now, and its people are my people also.”

Kassander cocked
his head to one side, squinting in the sun. “Are they?”

“We are all one
people,” Corvus said softly. “We’ve been fighting amongst ourselves too long.”

Kassander rubbed a
hand over his face, streaking it with blood. “Then let us put an end to it,” he
said.

THE
HOUSE ON THE HILL

The first crashing
impact on the
door had startled them more than the roar of the city’s fall. It was immediate,
personal, and on a human scale. Their fear, which had been an ill-defined dread
before, now lurched into something closer to terror.

No sound outside,
no shouting, nor clamour of a mob. Just the crash on the stout doors of Karnos’s
house, as though a giant ram were charging it with blind malevolence.

Philemos’s mother
became hysterical. She and her two young daughters were locked away in a far
corner of the house. As Philemos shut the door on them, he heard the sound of
furniture being dragged and piled up against it on the inside.

The wide front
doors of the house were solid, oak and bronze. Kassia, Rian, Ona, Philemos and
Polio began hauling furniture in their turn, dragging the beautiful couches
made by Framnos, Karnos’s pride and joy, across the fountain courtyard and
wedging them tight against the gate. Now they heard the grunt of men outside,
the rattle of wheels on the cobbled street before every crash.

“There are armed
men in here!” Philemos shouted. “Come through those doors and we’ll cut your
throats!”

The only response
was a burst of laughter, and then the gates were charged again. The heavy doors
moved inwards, and white cracks opened and closed in the black wood.

“Perhaps we should
go shut ourselves-in different rooms,” Kassia said, her face white and
bloodless with fear. She was thinking of Aise the night she had arrived, that
look in her eye. She could not imagine what had been done to her to make her look
like that, but now it was going to happen. To all of them.

Rian stood calmly,
a kitchen cleaver in her hand. She hugged Ona close to her.

“You have to try
and hide,” she told her sister. “Ona, can you find some little space where
no-one will find you?”

A timber was
smashed free of the doors and skittered across the flagstones of the courtyard.

“Can you do that?
I’ll come and find you later, I promise.”

The child looked
at her dumbly, great dark eyes under a mass of red-brown hair.

“I promise,” Rian
repeated, and her voice quavered on the word.

Ona put her arms
around her sister’s neck, solemn, but eerily untroubled. Then she turned and
ran away. They could hear her feet pattering through the house. Then there was
a moment’s silence. Philemos set a hand on Rian’s arm. She wiped the tears from
her face.

“I wish I had died
at Andunnon, with Eunion. We should all have died there together.”

“I will not let
them touch you,” Philemos said fiercely. “I protected you once before, and I
will do it again.”

The door crashed
inwards, the bolt tearing free of the wood.

They stood side by
side, four people brought together by some whim of Phobos. A sister, a
daughter, a slave and a son.