Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (74 page)

"That is hubris, and the gods delight in punishing such," Silwa said.

"Surely it is not hubris if well earned," Michael replied. "Else must even the great and virtuous learn to walk small? It does not seem so from the tales I was told."

"And yet in every great tale there is a tragedy, one brought on in great part by arrogance," Silwa countered. "Gabriel died, Simon and Miranda found no peace in Corona after their return to it, Ameliora gave her life in vain when Lucilia surrendered anyway the next day. Do not let your momentary successes blind you to the traps that line your road."

"I shall try, ma'am," Michael said, adopting a humble tone.

Silwa shook her head. "A pity, that so often the lesson must be taught the same way. Yet so often it is the only way."

"Hey, Michael! Get up, breakfast is ready."

Michael's eyes opened, obedient to the command of Amy summoning him back into the waking world. He found her standing over him, a soft smile playing on her face, Char sitting on her shoulder while Amy scratched behind his ears.

"Right, there you are. I'm sorry if you had to leave a satisfying dream behind." Amy held out a stick, upon which was skewered some sort of roasted rodent. "Have a squirrel."

Michael sat up, taking the offered meat. Around the small camp-fire - Char's doing again, Amy's new friend had proven very helpful - he saw Tullia sharpening her new blade while Jason practiced spells from his new wand. Gideon sat with Fiannuala, drawing maps in the dirt of where Aureliana might be found.

Lady Silwa meant well, without a doubt, but as Michael looked around his bold companions he found he could not imagine so grand a company ever coming to grief.

They have lifted up my heart and soul.
Michael thought.
Where once I dwelt in darkest pit, their hands have lifted me out and raised me higher than the tallest tree in Eena, and now I stand overlooking the world and knowing for the first time in so many years its beauty and its majesty.

For three days they marched roughly northwards, while the sun filtered through the gaps in the trees and cast its mottled light upon them. Fiannuala led the way, being the most familiar with the woods, carrying a spear in her hand and a bow across her back. Michael followed on close behind, since only his eyes and his Aurelian blood could actually see the ancient ruins. He wore the manicae the dryads had given to him, and in addition to his spatha he now wore the leaf-blade of Eena that had been their gift to him also. Gideon came after, Duty restored to its proper place at Gideon's hip alongside Piety. The captain of their band moved through the woods as he moved through every place, with a catlike grace and lordly elegance. His green eyes were constantly darting every which way, the easy confidence of his gait belying the caution that was ever-present.

Behind came Tullia, festooned with weapons now, including her old gladius, the Aurelian blade, and her wide array of knives. She protected his Highness, who now carried no less than four conduits for his sorcerous talents. Wyrrin came after, and then after them Amy, her cloak of salamander scale flapping behind her and the living salamander perched upon her shoulder, chittering every so often.

In this way they went, over tree trunks and around bushes, through clearings and across forest streams, through the sunlight and the shadow as it mottled upon their skin.

Their search developed in high spirits. On the march, Fiannuala would sing in the soft, lilting tongue of the dryads. Michael could not understand the words but the soft sound of her voice, the rolling melodies, both were enchanting to him. On the second day Amy began to compete with her, singing naiad ballads at the top of her voice in a rough mixture of naiad and Imperial. Michael would never have said so out loud but Amy did not have quite so fine a singing voice as Fiannuala; but the subject of the songs, from what he could tell of them, was much closer to his own heart, being the naiad equivalent of the Coronim tales of which he was so fond, and Amy was able to sweep him away to a world of undersea tourneys and the quests of bold knights faithful to Turo. Lord Gideon, despite much pleading, showed the same stalwart spirit which had served him so well in the wars and refused to be drawn into rendering an Imperial marching song no matter how often he was asked.

Each night, Michael told a part of the story of Aurelia and her duel with the Eldest One, leaning over the small camp-fire as he whispered of deeds bold and desperate, of gods vile and heroes noble, and of magic so powerful that the entire world had trembled in terror of it.

It gladdened him more than words could say to spend his days in such a company. Not since his mother’s passing had he known such peace, such contentment, such happiness even. Yes, for the first time in years he would confess to happiness. For so long he had dwelt in winter’s chill, but now the summer sun had burned away the snow and he felt half a child again, able to believe that these halcyon days would never pass.

Michael’s tale of Aurelia was finished by the fifth night, and on the sixth day Michael stepped through a particularly thick grove into a wide sunlit clearing and beheld before his eyes the dead city: Aureliana.

"Stop!" Michael called out before Fiannuala smacked into the wall face-first. "We have arrived."

The outer wall was wholly white, or at least it had been built that way, and in the height of its pomp the walls might well have shone brilliantly in the light of the sun. But now they were rent with innumerable holes where the Imperial siege engines had smashed through them, scarring the defences and leaving mounds of fallen stone everywhere. The breaches where the legions had stormed the walls were clearly visible to him, steep piles of rubble that must have been a trial to scramble up in armour while carrying sword and shield. The surviving sections of the walls were covered in dirt, overrun with vines creeping up them, their colour ruined, the stone fallen into disrepair, cracking from the inside out.

From what he could see of the dead city beyond the walls, visible through the breaches and the damage of the siege engines, the settlement itself was falling to pieces in much the same way, buildings wrecked or falling into ruin.

And so too Davidheyr shall be, in the end. The Empire's flag will fly only in tomes of dusty history, Corona's storied past shall live only in old tales of no interest to any but whey-faced scholars, and some young warrior shall stare at the ruins of David's city and be made melancholy as he is reminded that his world, too, shall come to an end and be forgot in time.

"I don't see anything," Fiannuala said.

"You wouldn't," Gideon murmured. "Only Michael can see it."

Fiannuala frowned. "I don't like feeling left out." She raised her hands, and snaking vines burst out of the ground, scattering the soil in little clumps as they went. They surged towards the walls like an attacking army eager to storm the city, but as they were about to touch the walls they suddenly stopped, shuddering and shaking like an old man feeling the cold.

Fiannuala snorted. "I can't move them any further. I push at them but nothing happens. Have I hit a wall?"

"Not physically, princess, not yet, but I suspect you have hit a magical barrier of some kind," Michael said. "The same kind, one assumes, that hides the city from your eyes."

His Highness leaned upon his shepherd's crook. "How do we enter a city we cannot see?"

"By following a guide who is not blind," Tullia murmured. "Michael, can you see a way in?"

Michael hesitated. "I can see a breach or two, but I am not certain how practical they are."

"The soldiers climbed up them, they can't be that impractical," Amy said.

"They are steeper than you might think," Michael replied. "I would almost suspect someone of half rebuilding the walls."

"Cynane?" Gideon murmured.

"Possibly," Michael replied softly. "Wyrrin?"

"Yes?" Wyrrin asked

Michael pointed in front of him, up the nearest breach. "Can you, with your claws, try and scrabble up the wall? Follow the direction of my finger straight ahead. If you get up the rest of us will try to follow."

Wyrrin tilted his head to one side, snorted, then said, "If it can be done, it will be done." He began to run, his tail swinging behind him as his legs pounded, his head bobbing up and down as he moved. He ran on swiftly, past Michael and straight for the breach, dust rising up behind him. Then, with a great cry, Wyrrin leapt up in the air, his powerful legs carrying him up above the rubble. He began to descend, and Michael saw that he would land halfway up the breach already.

Then Wyrrin stopped. For a moment he hung suspended in the air like a toy held by an invisible child, then he was hurled backwards with a cry of pain. Michael caught him before he hit the ground, and the two of them were carried backwards, bounced along the grass until Michael's rear felt like it had endured a beating for some crime and they lay in a tangled heap nearly twenty feet back from where Michael had started.

"I am sorry," Wyrrin gasped in between deep breaths.

"There is no call for sorrow or apology," Michael said. "I used you ill, that is all."

"It seems we are not going to enter Aureliana in the way the soldiers did," Jason muttered.

"Clearly, your highness," Michael replied.

He led the way around the circle of the walls looking for a complete hole that might have afforded them better chances, but finding none. Eventually he led them to the city gate, a black iron structure decorated with an image of Aurelia, banishing the Eldest One. Strangely, the gate itself was intact, showing no hint of damage or the effects of age.

"Gideon," Michael said. "When the Empire laid siege did they not attack the gate as well as the walls?"

Gideon frowned. "It was broken down by the Seventeenth Legion Demodocia Auxilia, who claimed the honour in vengeance for the destruction of their city. Captain Caius Usebius and Sergeant Titus Castra of the fifth company were the first men through after the gate was breached. Why?"

"This gate looks like it was raised yesterday," Michael said.

"Cynane's magic most likely," Gideon said. "I believe that if you open it the rest of us will be able to see the city within."

Michael nodded and stepped up to the gate. Tentatively he reached out for it.

"Careful," Amy warned.

"We have to try, our Amy, or we'll never get inside."

"That might not be such a bad thing," Jason said quietly.

Michael ignored him, placing his hand upon the smooth, cold iron. It did not attack him, as the city wall and its magical barrier had struck at Wyrrin, but the city did not reveal itself to his friends either.

Nothing, in short, happened.

Michael scowled, leaned upon the doors, and thrust against them with all his strength.

Nothing happened.

Taking a deep breath, Michael tried again. The stillness of the gate mocked his feeble efforts.

"Here, Michael." Amy trotted up to stand beside him. "I'm standing in the right place, yes? I'm not going to be shoving on the wall or anything."

"No, you are well placed," Michael said. "Thank you."

"No worries," Amy said. "Now: one, two, heave!"

She put her shoulder to the gate at the same time as Michael renewed his own assault against it.

It did not move.

Fiannuala joined them on the other side of Michael, and Wyrrin too, all pushing against the gate with all the strength at their command. It resisted them more staunchly than the city had resisted the Empire's assault.

"Maybe there's something wedged against it on the other side?" Jason said.

"It would have to be something awfully heavy for us not to be making it budge an inch," Amy said. She struck the gate with her fist, causing a gong-like sound that she didn't seem to hear, but doing no damage to the gate itself. She turned to Jason. "Try firing some magical arrows at it and we'll see what happens."

"I don't really expect that will do any good," Jason said.

"Well have you got a better idea?"

"Blood," Michael said, cursing himself for his foolishness as realisation struck him. "Blood, my blood. I must prove beyond a doubt that I am of Cynane's line. How could I have forgotten, when it is so obvious. And I pride myself on my knowledge of tales and legends, yet one of the most basic motifs eludes my thinking." Drawing his spatha he sliced open his left palm, letting the blood trickle onto the ground for a moment before rubbing it upon the gate. He left a trail of blood across the metal.

A bell tolled across the city, a heavy and dolorous sound, and with a grinding, clanking, rattling noise the gate into Aureliana ground open, revealing in full the ruins that Michael had glimpsed before. The eyes of his friends widened, and Michael guessed that they could now see what he had seen from the start.

"You can see that time has taken its toll," Jason said. "And yet, less than you would think considering the circumstances. More magic?"

"I would not discount the possibility," Gideon replied. "Thank you Michael, well done."

"I did little to be proud of," Michael said.

"Even so," Gideon replied. "We shall go in once you have had that hand bandaged up."

"There is no need."