And all at once, that cry was taken up.
She saw the Liosan reel before it, saw the enemy ranks buckling as the Letherii surged into them, again and again.
A sudden gap before her. A Liosan, settling on one knee, one shoulder sliced open, down through the joint, the arm hanging. Seeing her, he struggled to rise. He was old, his face lined, and the look in his eyes was bleak.
Pithy’s sword swing was awkward, but all of her strength was behind it. She clipped the edge of his jaw before the blade cut deep into his neck. Blood spurted, gushed all over her. Shocked by the hot deluge, she stepped back—
And that one step saved her life. A spear thrust caught her head, bit into her helm. She felt the blade edge cut into her scalp, grind along the bone of her skull – and then she was pulled away.
A burly man dragged her close. ‘Never mind that – y’still got your head, don’t you? Seen my sword?’ he asked. ‘I dropped the fucker – you’ll know it ’cause it’s still in my hand – never mind—’ He bent down and came up with a wood-cutter’s axe. ‘Errant’s horse-humped earhole, what the fuck is this? Never mind – to the back line with you, Captain Pithy. I started this and I mean to finish it up.’
Nithe? Never Mind Nithe? Is that what they call you?
‘
This is ours!
’ The chant went on and on.
Hands took hold of her. She was being pulled out. Her first engagement against the Liosan. Her first taste – of everything. The slaughter. The hurt. The anger. The falling light.
All of it. All of it. Oh, gods, all of it!
Suddenly she stumbled clear.
Winced at the blinding glare of the strand, as tendrils of agonizing light writhed overhead. Down, on to her knees. Down, on to her side. Sword and helmet away. Sounds, dimming, fading …
Someone drove a pair of knees against her left hip. Blinking, she looked up at Skwish, saw the knife in the witch’s gore-drenched left hand. ‘Don’t even think it,’ Pithy said in a growl.
The witch grinned.
Then was gone.
The last end of the rout, a scattering of Liosan, converging as they dragged wounded comrades back through the breach, vanishing into blinding light. Yedan Derryg’s sword was unaccountably heavy in his hand, so he let the tip crunch down into the soaked strand.
‘Prince!’
‘Address that front line, Sergeant – get our wounded and dead out of there.’ He glared at the breach. The blackened, weeping mar in Lightfall. Too damaged to do anything as miraculous as heal before his eyes, but the first probe of the enemy had been denied.
The Liosan had taken as many of their dead and dying with them as they could, but there were still scores and scores, bodies heaped up at the base of the first berm. ‘Get a crew to start piling them up, against the breach. Make a wall, but tell them to be careful – make sure the fallen are actually dead or near enough as to make no difference.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He lifted his gaze as a shadow crossed the Lightfall, just above the wound. Bared his teeth.
A new voice spoke beside him. ‘That was closer than I liked, Prince.’
He turned. ‘Bedac. Was it you behind that last push?’
‘Far right flank,’ the woman said.
‘Nithe? Could’ve sworn that was a woman’s shout.’
‘Nithe got his hand chopped off. Didn’t bleed out, thankfully. Captain Pithy took that flank command, sire. Nithe made it back in time to drive a wood-axe into the skull of one of the last Liosan on that side. Hard enough to break the handle.’
Yedan frowned. ‘What’s a wood-axe doing in our ranks? My orders on weapon choices were clear enough. That reminds me – Sergeant! Collect up the better Liosan weapons, will you?’
‘Got plans with your trophy, Prince?’
‘What trophy?’
She nodded down at his sword.
He glanced at it. A Liosan head was impaled on the blade, from the top of the skull down and out through the neck, which had already been half severed. He grunted. ‘No wonder it felt heavy.’
Yan Tovis stood at the forest verge. Watching them dragging bodies clear, watching others tossing limbs and rolling corpses into the pit.
None of it seemed real. The triumphant and suddenly exhausted Letherii ranks along the berm were settling to catch their breaths, to check on weapons and armour, to take the skins of water from the youths now threading through the ranks.
They think they’ve won
.
Without Yedan and his Watch, that front line would have quickly crumpled. Instead, the survivors now felt bold, filled to bursting. In this one clash, something had been tempered. She knew what she was seeing. A fighting force cannot be simply assembled. It needed that brutal forge and it needed all its fires quenched in the blood of battle. Her brother was making something here.
But it would not be enough.
She could see how her own Shake were looking on, no different from Yan Tovis herself. Yedan was not about to expend the Letherii ranks as if they were useless skirmishers, not with what he’d now made of them. He would pull them back, holding them in reserve during the next battle.
They probed to test our mettle. Next time, we will see their true fury. And if that beachhead is established, then the first dragon will come through
.
Her Shake watched, yes, and thought about their own time to come, their own stand against the Liosan. Few of the Letherii were trained as soldiers, and that was no different from the Shake. But Yedan’s Watch would be there, solid as standing stones.
Until they start falling. They can only do so much. They’re Yedan’s most precious resource, but he must risk them each time. And, as they begin to fall, why, he’ll have a new crop of veterans to draw upon. These very Letherii here, and then from among our own Shake
.
It’s so very … logical. But, dear brother, it’s what you do best, isn’t it?
How can I kneel to this? By doing so, do I not make it all … inevitable? No. That I will not do. But I will take my place among my people, on that berm. I know how to fight. I might not be Yedan’s equal in that, but I’m damned close
.
It’s carved into the souls of the royal line. To stand here, upon the First Shore. To stand here, and to die
.
They were stacking Liosan corpses, making a wall across the breach. The contempt of that gesture was as calculated as everything else Yedan did.
Rage is the enemy. Beware that, Liosan. He will make your rage your downfall, if he can
.
You cannot make my brother angry. He’s not like you. He’s not like any of us. And his army will follow his lead. They will look to him and take inside what he gives. It’s cold. Lifeless. They’ll take it in and it will change them all
.
Your army, brother. My people. I can’t win this, but neither can you
.
She collected her sword belt from the stump of a felled tree, strapped it on. Settled the helm on her head and fastened the clasp. Tugged on her gauntlets.
Her people took note. They faced her now, and watched as their queen prepared to fight.
But what are they thinking?
Why do they even look to us? My brother? Me? See where our love for them has taken them. See all those limp, lifeless bodies tumbling into the pit
.
They watched this calm, silent woman readying for battle.
They didn’t know, of course, about all the howling going on in her head, the anguished screams and the poisoned helplessness eating at every hidden edge. No, they knew nothing about any of that.
She saw her brother. Gesturing, giving orders.
He turned then, and across the distance he faced her.
Should she lift a hand? Acknowledge his achievement? This first triumph? Should she draw her sword, perhaps, and lift it high? Would he respond in kind?
Not a chance. But then, look at me. We see each other, yes, and neither of us does a thing to reach across. How can we? We are co-conspirators in the slaughter of all these people
. Yan Tovis turned, found one of her messengers. ‘Aras, deliver the news to Queen Drukorlat. The breach was repelled. Acceptable losses. We await their next attack.’
The young girl bowed and then hurried off, into the forest.
When Twilight looked back down to the strand, her brother was nowhere in sight.
It was now a road, of sorts. The white dust soaked in blood, churned into reddish-brown mud, straight as a spear shaft between Saranas’ Wedding Gate and the Breach. Shivering, Aparal Forge watched the wagons burdened with the wounded drawing closer. To either side of the narrow track the massed legions prepared for the real assault. Heads turned to watch the broken remnants of the Forlorn Hope file past.
Well, that was proof enough, was it not? Kharkanas was occupied once more. The infernal Shake had returned, or someone much like them, and were determined to contest the breach. Madness, all of it. Glancing up, he saw four of the Thirteen still veered, their vast wings flashing gold in the ceaseless light. The Draconean blood had finally taken them, he knew. They had surrendered for ever to the chaos. Among them was Iparth Erule, who had once been a friend. ‘Son of Light,’ he whispered, ‘beware your chosen, now that the blood of the Eleint rises, to drown all that we once were.’
The door behind him swung open, cracking against the stone wall. Aparal flinched, but did not turn round.
‘If you had followed, brother—’
‘But I did, Son of Light.’
Kadagar Fant swore, was suddenly beside Aparal, hands settling on the alabaster merlon. ‘That last pass – we were almost through! See my children still on the wing? Where are the others?’
‘Lord, the Mane of Chaos frightens them. If they surrender to it for too long … Son of Light, you could lose control of them—’
‘When I am veered they well comprehend my power – my domination. What more is needed to bend them to my will? Do you truly believe that I do not understand the nature of the Eleint?’
‘The risk, Lord—’
‘It frightens you, does it, brother?’
‘I fear we might lose control of our own people, Lord, and not through any flaw in our purpose, or leadership. Iparth Erule and his sisters no longer semble. The blood of the Eleint has taken them, it has stolen their minds. When they cease to be Tiste Liosan, how soon before our cause becomes meaningless? How soon before they find their own ambitions?’
Kadagar Fant said nothing for some time. Then he leaned forward over the wall and looked straight down. ‘It has been some time,’ he said in a musing tone, ‘since we last set a traitor upon the White Wall. Brother, do you think my people begin to forget? Must I remind them again?’
Aparal Forge thought about it. ‘If you feel it necessary, Lord.’ He held his gaze on the column crawling towards the Wedding Gate.
‘This is new,’ the Son of Light said.
‘Lord?’
‘I see no answering fear in you, brother.’
The Mane of Chaos, you fool. It devours fear like bloody meat
. ‘I am as ever your servant, Lord.’
‘So much so, I now see, that you would risk your own life to speak your mind.’
‘Perhaps.’
As I once did, long ago, when we were different people, not yet who we are now
. ‘If so, then I will add this. The day you cease to hear me will be the day that we will have lost.’
Kadagar’s voice was so quiet that Aparal barely made out what he was saying. ‘Are you that important, brother?’
‘I am now, Lord.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I am the last among your people to whom you still listen, Lord. You look down upon this cursed wall and what do you see? Brave warriors who disagreed with you. The rotting remnants of our priesthood—’
Kadagar whispered, ‘They opposed the path of the Eleint.’
‘They did, Lord, and now they are dead. And four of the Thirteen will not return.’
‘I can command them.’
‘As it pleases them to appear loyal, so that shall remain, Lord.’
Veiled eyes lifted to meet his gaze. ‘You draw close, brother Aparal Forge, so very close.’
‘If my counsel is treason, then condemn me, Lord. But you will not see fear, not in me. Not any more and never again.’
Kadagar Fant snarled and then said, ‘There is not time for this. The legions are ready, and I need you down there, commanding the assault. The enemy beyond the breach was surprisingly weak—’
‘Weak, Lord?’
‘I will accept bold words from you, brother, but not outright rudeness.’
‘Sorry, Lord.’
‘Weak. Indeed, it seems they are not even true Shake. Devoid of Tiste blood entirely. It is my thought that they are mercenaries, hired because the Andii now in Kharkanas are too few to personally oppose us. In fact, I now believe that the Shake are no more. Gone, like a nightmare before the dawn.’
‘They fought surprisingly well for mercenaries, Lord.’
‘Humans are like that, brother. Decide on something and there’s no moving them. You have to cut down every last one of them. Until not one is left breathing.’
‘The surest way to win an argument,’ Aparal commented.