The dragon, its shoulders jammed in the breach, shook with the blow. The long neck whipped upward, seeking to pull away, and in the welling gape of the wound in its throat Yan Tovis saw the gleam of bone. Yedan had cut through to the dragon’s spine.
Another gloating shriek announced his backswing.
The dragon’s head and an arm’s length of neck jumped away then, off to one side, and the yawning jaws pitched nose down and hammered the strand as if mocking that first lunge. The head tilted and then fell with a trembling thump, the eyes staring sightlessly.
The headless neck thrashed upward like a giant blind worm, spitting blood in lashing gouts, and on all sides of the quivering, decapitated beast black crystals pushed up from the drenched sand, drawing together, rising to form faceted walls – and from every corpse that had been splashed or buried in the deluge ghostly forms now rose, struggling within that crystal. Mouths opened in silent screams.
Dodging the falling head, Yedan had simply advanced upon the trembling body filling the breach. Using both hands, he drove the Hust sword, point first, deep into the beast’s chest.
The dragon exploded out from the wound, scales and shattered bone, yet even as Yedan staggered beneath the flood of gore the blood washed from him as would rain upon oil.
Hust. Killer of dragons. You will shield your wielder, to keep your joy alive. Hust, your terrible laughter reveals the madness of your maker
.
Yedan’s desire to trap the corpse of a dragon in the breach was not to be – not this time – for she could see the ruined body being dragged back in heaving lunges –
more dragons behind this one, crowding the gate
.
Will another come through? To meet the fate of its kin?
I think not
.
Not yet
.
Not for some time
.
The Liosan on this side of the wound were dead, bodies heaped on all sides. Her Shake stood atop them, two, three deep under their
unsteady feet, and she saw the shock in their faces as they stared upon Yedan Derryg, who stood before the wound – close enough to take a step through, if he so desired, and take the battle into the enemy’s realm. And for a moment she thought he might – nothing was impossible with her brother – but instead he turned round, and met his sister’s eyes.
‘If you had knelt—’
‘No time,’ she replied, shaking the blood from her sword. ‘You saw that. They know what you would seek to do, brother. They will not permit it.’
‘Then we must make it so that they have no say in the matter.’
‘They were impatient,’ she said.
He nodded, and then faced the fighters. ‘They will clear the gate and re-form. Captains! Draw your units back and reassemble to the rear. Sound the call to the Letherii. Shake – you have now stood the Shore, and you stood it well.’ He sheathed his weapon, silencing its chilling chuckle. ‘This is how we shall measure our last days. Here, on this border drawn with the bones of our ancestors. And none shall move us.
‘Shake! Tell me when you have come home – tell me when that truth finally comes to you. You are
home
.’
The words horrified her, but more horrifying still was the answering roar from her people.
Yedan seemed surprised, and he turned to her then, and she saw the truth in his eyes.
Brother, you do not feel it. You do not feel that you have come home. You do not feel as they do!
A flash of something in his gaze, something private between them that shook her as had nothing else. Longing, fear, and despair.
Oh, Yedan. I did not know. I did not know
.
Kadagar Fant, Lord of Light, stood trembling before the corpse of Iparth Erule. This was his third visit to the marshalling area before the gate, his third time down from the high wall to stand before the headless dragon lying on its side at the end of a curling swathe of broken black shards. The golden scales had dulled, the belly was bloating with gases, and capemoths clustered in the gaping mouth of the severed neck, a mass of fluttering white wings – as if flowers had burst from the corpse in some manic celebration.
Aparal Forge looked away from his lord, not ready for him yet. He had sent legion after legion through the breach, and with growing despair watched each one retreat, torn and bloody. Hundreds of his soldiers were lying on dripping cots beneath canopies – he could hear their cries amidst the clatter of weapons being readied for the next
assault – and thrice their number rested for ever silent in neat rows beyond the cutter trenches. He had no idea how many were lost beyond the breach – a thousand? More? The enemy had no interest in treating Liosan wounded, and why would they?
We would kill their wounded just as quickly, and call it mercy. These are the mechanics of war. It’s where logic takes us, every time
.
Overhead sailed three dragons. Like birds startled into the sky, they refused to come down, and had been up there since Iparth’s death. Aparal could feel their rage, and something like hunger – as if some part of them, something reptilian and soulless, wanted to descend and feed on that rank carcass. The remaining seven, sembled since the morning, had established discrete encampments on the barrows to either side of the Great Avenue, with their bespoke legions settled around them. The elites, the true Liosan warriors, yet to draw weapons, yet to advance upon the gate, awaiting only Kadagar’s command.
When would it come? When would their lord decide that he’d seen enough of his citizens die? Common dwellers of the city, commanded by nobles trapped below the select ranks of the Soletaken, soldiers only in name, and oh how they died!
Fury seethed in him at the thought.
But I will not look to my lord. I will not beseech him yet again. Will he only relent when they’re all dead? For whom, then, this victory?
But he knew the answer to that question.
If Kadagar Fant stood alone at the end of all this; if he sat in the gloom of an empty throne room in an empty palace, in an empty city, he would still count it a triumph. Winning Kharkanas was meaningless; what mattered to the Lord of Light was the absolute annihilation of those who opposed him.
On both sides of the breach
.
Do you remember, Kadagar, the day the stranger came to Saranas? We were still children then, still friends, still open to possibilities. But even we shared our shock at his nerve. A human, almost as tall as a Liosan, wearing beneath a tattered woollen cloak a coat of mail that reached down to his ankles, a bastard sword slung under his left arm. Long grey hair, snarled with indifference, a beard stained the hue of rust beneath the thin lips. He had been smiling – they all agreed on that, from the scouts beyond the walls to the guards at the South Gate, to those in the streets who halted to watch him stride towards the citadel at the heart of Saranas
.
And he was still smiling when he stepped into the throne room, and your father leaned forward on the High Throne, making the bonewood creak
.
It was Haradegar – your uncle – who growled and reached for his sword. Too much arrogance in this stranger. Too much contempt in that smile
.
But your father lifted a hand, staying his Weaponmaster, and he spoke to the stranger in a tone we’d not heard before
.
‘
Kallor, High King, welcome to Saranas, last city of Tiste Liosan. I am Krin Ne Fant, Champion of High House Light
—’
‘
Serap’s son?
’
Their lord flinched, and Kadagar, I saw the shame in your eyes
.
‘
My … grandmother, High King. I did not know
—’
‘
She’d have no reason to tell you, would she?’ Kallor looked round. ‘She was virtually a prisoner here – they even sent her handmaids away. Arrived as a stranger, and as a stranger you were determined to keep her. Is it any wonder she fled this shit-bucket?
’
Haradegar’s sword hissed free
.
Kallor looked over at the Weaponsmith, and grinned, and whatever Haradegar saw in the High King’s eyes stole his courage – oh, shame upon shame, Kadagar! Were these your first wounds? I think now that they were
.
The High King faced Krin once more. ‘I promised her, and so I am here. Krin Ne Fant, your grandmother Serap, of the Issgin line, is dead
.’
Krin slowly settled back on the throne, but he now looked shrunken, withering in that bonewood cage. ‘What – what happened?
’
Kallor grunted. ‘What happened? I just told you. She died. Is that not enough?
’
‘
No
.’
Shrugging, the High King said, ‘Poison. By her own hand. I found her at dawn on the first day of the Season of Flies, cold and still on the throne I made for her with my own hands. Krin Ne Fant, I am her murderer
.’
I remember the silence that followed. I remember how dry my mouth was, and how I could not look anywhere but at this terrible, grey man who stood as one without fear, yet spoke words inviting violence
.
But Fant was shaking his head. ‘If … you said “by her own hand
”—’
The smile turned into a snarl. ‘Do you truly believe suicide belongs solely to the one taking his or her own life? All that rot about selfishness and self-hatred? The lies we tell ourselves to absolve us of all blame, of all the roles that we played in that wretched death?’ He raised one chain-clad hand, pointed a finger first at Krin and then with a sweeping gesture at all who stood in the throne room. ‘You all had your parts to play in her death. The doors you kept locked. The loyal servants and friends you took from her. Your ill-disguised whispers behind her back or when she stepped into a room. But I have not come to avow vengeance on her behalf. How can I? The freshest blood of guilt is the pool I now stand in. I could not love her enough. I can never love enough
.
‘
I killed her. One drop of poison each day, for a thousand years
.
‘
By her wishes, I return to Saranas. By her wishes, I bring you this.’ And then he drew from beneath his grey cloak a bedraggled rag doll. Flung it so that it slid to the foot of the dais
.
And in that time word had travelled out, and now standing inside the doors, twenty paces behind Kallor, stood your father’s mother. Serap’s daughter
.
Did Kallor know she was there? Listening to his words? Would it have changed anything?
‘
She was making this for her daughter,’ Kallor said, ‘and took it with her when she fled. Unfinished. In fact, little more than knotted cloth and wool. And so it remained, for all the centuries I knew and loved her. I surmise,’ he added, ‘she found it again by accident. And decided it needed … finishing. On the dawn when I found her, it was settled into her lap like a newborn child
.’
Behind him, Krin’s mother made a wounded sound and sank to her knees. Her servants rushed close
.
Smiling once more, Kallor unstrapped his weapon harness and let it fall to the tiled floor. The clash rang hollow in the chamber. ‘My words are done. I am the killer of Serap, and I await your kiss of righteous vengeance.’ And then he crossed his arms and waited
.
Why do I remember this now, Kadagar? Of course, for all the miserable tragedy of that moment, was it not what came next that truly filled my chest with ashes?
Krin, his hand lifted, fingers pressed against temple, not even looking up as he gestured with his other hand. And whispered. ‘Go, Kallor. Just … go
.’
And how then I finally understood the High King’s smile. Not a thing of pleasure. No, this was the smile of a man who wanted to die
.
What did we do? We denied him
.
I remember how he reached down to collect his sword, how he turned away, his back to the throne and the man seated upon it, and walked out. I saw him walk past the huddle of retainers and the woman kneeling in their midst, and he paused, looked down at her
.
If he said anything then, we did not hear it. If he uttered soft words, none within range ever spoke of them. And then he was walking onward, out and beyond their sight
.
Four years later you swore that you would never sire a child. That all the Liosan would be your children, come the day you ascended to the throne. And I might have laughed, too blind to the future awaiting us all these centuries later. I might have wounded you, as children often do
.
‘Beloved brother.’
Aparal turned. ‘Lord.’
‘Your thoughts were far away. What were you thinking, that could so drag you from this place?’
Was there longing in Kadagar’s eyes? He didn’t think so. ‘Lord, no more than weariness. A moment’s rest.’ He looked to the assembled legions. ‘They are ready. Good.’
As he moved to join his retinue Kadagar stayed him with one hand and leaned close to whisper, ‘
What were you thinking about, brother?
’
A rag doll
. ‘Old friend, it was a moment empty of dreams. A place of grey dust. That and nothing more.’