There was a difference between the soldiers of the General Fyrd and the Select Fyrd. The latter were proud of their warrior status, in competition with each other for the attention of governors and immortals; they kept their swords razor keen. They jumped quickly to their feet as we walked by.
Most of the archers were Select Fyrd, as it takes so long to train them; they were waiting by Lightning’s pavilion and he nodded at a couple almost familiarly. His goldfish-armor shimmered.
We reached the area of the General Fyrd, soldiers who weren’t trained, or new recruits who were much less well-equipped. The main armories were in Wrought, my wife’s manor. On Castle’s command they provided every man with shield, broadsword, and pike, but the drafted farmers in the General Fyrd could not afford more than this very basic equipment. They were dressed in worsted and muddied denim, hardly a glint of steel apart from ill-fitting battlefield spoils. These men and women shambled to their feet, still holding trays of food. Their camp was carelessly kept, their patched tents stood unevenly. Some tents were simply frames from which mosquito netting hung, weighted at the bottom.
It was one of Tornado’s duties to direct the General Fyrd. Tornado was sitting cross-legged on the grass, stripped to the waist, sliding the edge of a battle-ax across a huge whetstone with a sound like sawing. A paunch hung over his cracked belt. At two and a half meters tall he was the biggest and strongest of the Castle’s Eszai, unbeaten for one thousand years. He had brown hair shaved very close to the scalp. It looked weird together with the rug of hair growing on his chest and a little on his shoulders. The hair didn’t cover pale scars, thick as my finger and long as a span, which crisscrossed his chest and stomach. Slabs of muscle shifted on his sunburned shoulders as he manipulated the ax. An ancient sunburst tattoo on his forearm undulated as the muscles moved.
Unlike most of the Eszai, Tornado had never owned anything—no lands, and no more wealth than beer money. His reputation hung on risking death in the very thick of the action. If he hadn’t faced death so eagerly, so often, he wouldn’t be so practiced at dealing with it. Tawny and I are similar in that our links to life are more tenuous than people expect.
Tawny’s well-chosen girlfriend, Vireo Summerday, was also gigantic. She was scratching her leg by poking a stick through the joints of her plate armor. I couldn’t fathom Vireo, she was neither terrified of nor attracted to me. She wouldn’t call a spade a spade if she could call it a fucking bastard. Lightning bowed to her; she winked at me.
“Good morning,” said Lightning.
“Yo,” said Tawny. “All right, Jant?”
“…Considering.”
“I’ve been ready bloody ages and nothing has happened,” said Tawny. “When do we get to fight?”
“You will be commanding the Hacilith men and those from Eske.”
“The townies,” I said.
“Nothing changed there then.”
Lightning said, “When the Insects attack, fall back. There will be shield walls to channel them if necessary. We will drive them into the sixth corral. You should attempt to advance through the Wall. Dunlin believes it possible that we can breach their defenses and redeem more land.”
“Whoa! Hang on. You what? Want me to go behind the Wall? No way, little one. I’ll be on my own because townies are chickenshit, like you know. They’ll run so fast they’ll fly, by god! Behind the Wall, like, not bloody likely.”
“It’s Dunlin’s main aim at the moment,” said Lightning.
“If you thought with yer balls rather than yer heart you’d not let a soft bloody Zascai get in the way of how Eszai have always done stuff.”
“Have we not recently decided to support the King of Awia?”
I interrupted, “But last time a thousand people died.” If I had been on the field and not unconscious during the skirmish, the Castle might have fared better. Lightning seemed about to make that point, so I decided to keep quiet. Tawny complained for a while but accepted; he doesn’t have enough willpower to argue with Lightning.
“Look, Tawny,” I said. “The Emperor backs Dunlin, so we’ve got to do it. We can’t guess why the Emperor makes such plans. They might come in useful a century from now.”
He respected me; he knew that my experiences have given me calmness, a knowledge that sets me apart from day-to-day concerns. He sensed this, and he admired such steadfastness.
“Whatever you say, Jant.” Tawny poked the bright edge of his ax with a grimy thumbnail. “But culling Insects should be a waiting game. I’m buggered if I want to stir them up.” He used the ax to steady himself as he stood. I stepped back a little, overawed by his size. He stretched and muscle on muscle tautened under fat.
“Be careful—” Lightning began.
“Get lost, lover-boy,” said Tawny. “I’m doing my job which is, like, cutting up Insects. I know I’ll survive, behind the Wall or underground or anywhere. Dunlin’s trying to save civilian lives. It’s good that he cares for them, but he’s trying
too hard
.” He buckled the ax to his chain belt, plucked at Vireo who had been eavesdropping in the background. In Plainslands he said, “Let’s go, love. Everything round here with wings is crazy.”
“What was that?” Lightning asked. I gave a loose translation; he watched them go. “Aren’t lovers content in their own little worlds?” he said.
I
n the pavilion, I was left alone while Lightning went to address the archers’ ranks and the neat phalanxes of Select Awian infantry. They had blue plumes on their helmets, heraldic creations of carved bone and cuir-bouilli and faience, finely wrought iridium chain mail over their wings. I took the chance to go through all his belongings searching for my drugs. I found a couple of letters that would have been interesting if I hadn’t been so feverish. No cat. I called Lightning all the names under the sun. Left a devastated mess behind. Sat down on the grass. Started shaking with an advance on withdrawal—the effect of panic.
Well. Plan B. I found my compass, pressed a button and the silver casing clicked open like a shell. There was a twist of paper inside, ripped from the edge of a map. It’s vital to have more than one stash. With a long thumbnail I cut a line of cat on the compass glass, rolled up a five-pound note, and snorted it, north-south.
Oh,
yes
.
I let the worries dissolve, one by one, and drop from my mind. Not even immortals are built to take so many misgivings. Wiping my nose on the back of a hand, I considered the forthcoming fight. I was wearing bangles, faded jeans, and a cut-off T-shirt which read “Hacilith Marathon 1974.”
I gazed at the heap of my silver scale armor, a byrnie adorned with smaragd and onyx, a helmet decorated with knot work, with a high white plume. It matches black-on-silver vambraces. A belt and a sword-hanger, a circular shield; my sword’s grip has two snakes wrapped around it. I have pauldrons for my wings, inscribed “For god and the Empire.” I have latten greaves. I have a black cloak, thin taffeta with a niello silver fastening. I have pinked black leather gauntlets, embossed with Castle’s Sun and my sign, the Wheel.
Sod that. I strip my T-shirt off, shove my ice ax in the back of my belt, and consider myself ready to fight anything.
“Jant?” It was Dunlin, and he was looking amazed. I swept a low bow. “Your Majesty.”
Dunlin said, “Comet, Tornado is already hacking at the Wall. You must be in the air as soon as possible.” I was irritated until I realized that the true purpose of Dunlin’s endless rallying and righteous enthusiasm was to make him feel better. “What did the Emperor really say?” he asked me. He was shrewder than I gave him credit for.
“San conceded the sagacity of everything you’ve done,” I said.
“Did he have a message for me?” Dunlin’s hand rested on an ornate sword hilt. “Am I valuable to the Emperor? Am I noticed by him?”
“There isn’t time to go into details!”
“Then after the battle, Rhydanne. I know you remember court word-perfect and I have to know.”
“Your wish.” I shrugged. I wanted the bright air, not to be cornered in a tent by the Awian King. I didn’t want this man I admired to make reference to my Rhydanne ancestry.
Dunlin regarded me carefully; cleverness would hide in the wrinkles round his eyes. His eyes were gray but not flecked—like silver coins—and he could outstare me, which few can do. He said, “You must remember to relate my Lord Emperor’s opinion of our victory last week, in which Tawny and I were in the melee.” There was a sheen of sweat on his red-brown neck.
His straightforwardness pushed me into telling the truth for once. “You want to join the Castle Circle, don’t you?” I said.
“Good guess, Comet. More than you can ever know.”
“Your Highness. There’s nothing I can do.”
He turned, sliding his blade in its scabbard, and with his broad back to me said, “In a lesser time I might have achieved a place, but not now. Over the years I have seen thirty of you fight and, to give an example, I can’t wrestle as well as Tornado, I can’t handle a longbow like Lightning, and I can’t move as fast as you.”
“There hasn’t been a new entrant to the Castle for ninety years.”
“Doesn’t matter. Lightning says three might come along at once.”
“We value your service in providing a link between the Castle and the common people,” I recited, following him out of the tent.
“Oh yes. Allow us mortals our dream.” All mortals dream, it seems, of joining the Castle Circle. Always pushing for immortality. Always seeking to stop the spin of the wheel of fortune, as it rips through their hands, leaving splinters. How splendid it would be to be eternal, and safe. But at the same time it is daunting to join such a fellowship. The dispositions of the other Eszai are unknown. Make the wrong move, and the pack draws together against you. A new Eszai wouldn’t know that the most forbidding are the least dangerous.
The best I could manage was, “Immortality has its disadvantages.” The Awian smiled like he didn’t believe me. I told him I’d trade every minute of my long life to own, briefly, his lands and riches. There’s no point in being eternal if you’re eternally in debt.
“Immortal or not, you can fly,” he said, longingly.
“Well, sometimes pleasure pays.”
“Come on, Jant,” he said, far more cheerfully. “Let me see you fly!”
T
he Sun standard’s long shadow fell on tent-cleared ground. I heard the battering rams crash against the Wall. Their solid wheels squealed and jarred on the rubble, making the ground shake. Two battering rams, working in tandem. The jangled shouts of Tawny’s fyrd got louder after each crash. The tightening sensation in every muscle as my drug kicked in twisted and heightened that already terrible sound.
“I’m going to take a closer look,” I said. I began to jog, in a slight curve, into what little wind there was. Spikes on my boot soles held in the damp grass. I loped, leaned forward, started to run. To sprint. I charged downhill, and when I thought I’d reached top speed, I found a little more. A little more, a little more, till it was too fast to breathe.
Speed is a state of bliss.
I forced down half-spread wings. Feathers slapped the ground, but on the next beat I jumped and their downward movement pushed me up. I felt a meter of lift but the effort was agony.
I jump, and I keep going up.
My body took over, my mind dull with pain. Every beat tore at the muscles in my waist. I quickly made it up to a clear height. I looked down and saw tiny people. I started to climb more shallowly, settled into a gradual pace that rowed me upward, completed the curve into a wide circle so I was above Dunlin. I rejoiced in stretching the full length of my wings. I loved to feel the airflow as I pulled them down. At the end of a stroke, my fingers, long feathers, touched each other three meters beneath my stomach. I savored the resistance, which bent the wrists as I threw them back up through the air again. The air felt heavier than Tawny’s weights. My wings are like long arms, and flat silver rings on the elongated fingers clacked together as I closed my hands for the upstroke. My weight hung from the small of my back. I kept my real arms crossed over my chest, sometimes spreading them to help with balance.
With great effort I fought my way up to a height where the fyrd had lost all individuality and were just areas of heraldic color. The General soldiers’ ranks were dotted with movement as anxious faces turned up to see me.
Still the battering rams dragged back and surged forward, impacting against the Wall. Surly thermals formed above the Wall; I tried one long enough to get a close look. Five meters tall, the Wall stretched away east and west, a bright white ribbon against the forest canopy; it ran farther than I could see from cloud base on a clear day. Close up, the surface was uneven, and it was not built exactly in a straight line—irregularities showed where previous battles had scarred it and where the Insects had encountered difficult ground. Although mostly creamy white, the Wall varied in texture because it was built from anything the Insects could carry or drag.
So it’s best not to look too closely. The sweating soldiers on the battering ram had a close view, as the Wall fell apart in fist-sized chunks, like chalk. Hardened Insect spit held it together. It was smooth like ceramic, and sometimes with froth set hard as stone. Inside were chewed tree branches, furniture from ruined villages, armor from old battles. There were also the shells of dead Insects, pieces of tents and weaponry, and children who disappeared many years ago. Here and there a rotting arm or a horse’s backbone protruded out, faces could be seen within it, unevenly preserved when the milky saliva set hard. Tawny’s fyrd had moved aside the rolls of barbed wire and were hacking at the Wall with hammers. He saw me and waved. I tipped my wings to him.
“Can you see behind the Wall?” he bellowed as the battering ram came to another shuddering halt.
“Oh, yes,” I said.
“How many Insects?” he yelled. Thousands of glossy brown bodies were gathering on the other side of the Wall. Each the size of a man, they clustered at its base, feelers touching. More and more gathered, running out of tunnel mouths, from underground.