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“We’ve both kept eyes on you as you grew up,” she went on, her voice softer than her glare. “We were hopeful that you might become a leader some day. Not a ruler. A leader. Somebody who might command the love of the legions, as proficiently as your father had their respect. Unfortunately, your father died before you were prepared to take command. Doubtless, Kynortas thought he had more time, but time is short for us all. “What do you know of the Sutherners?” she demanded unexpectedly, leaning forward to hear his answer. “They’re small,” offered Roper, shrugging. “Eh? Small?” She sat back again
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They have no time, and so they must consume. They each want to see change in their own lifetime. We know that we just have to wait and change will come.”
“Just think. Uvoren does not leave this fortress because he knows that it is you who takes the blame while the Black Kingdom burns. You are nominally in command and he is waiting until frustration against you reaches boiling point. He is waiting, Lord Roper, for the point when he can usurp you and know that the reaction will be one of relief. Time is against you, so you must act fast.”
“Uvoren is a great servant to the country and one of our mightiest warriors. But he guards his unit jealously. He will often exclude those who have more right than most
“I am firmly against the practice. To be the unit they can be, the Sacred Guard must fight as one, undivided by petty rivalries. He tried to turn the rest of the unit against you?”
“That would be my honour, lord,” said Helmec dutifully. He could hardly refuse; not now he had confided his discontent with Uvoren’s leadership.
Beyond the Hindrunn’s southernmost extremity, from outside the Great Gate, Uvoren dispatched a messenger. A handful of subterranean tunnels aside, the gate was the only way in or out. It pierced the Outer Wall; a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot-high wave of dark granite that marked the edge of the fortress. Studded with bronze cannons and crowned with
As the messenger continued and the passage was sealed behind him, the darkness pressed against his eyes. Just discernible above as deeper pools in the blackness were the charred “murder-holes,” through which sticky-fire would pour onto any soldier who made it through the Great Gate.
The roads fed a tight neighbourhood of sturdy stone dwellings, all remarkably alike; built from granite, roofed in slate and guttered with lead.
Sparks drifted across the street, and here the messenger was briefly reminded of a story he had once heard, that the Sutherners thought the Anakim were fallen angels. In this ringing place of metal and smoke, it was difficult not to be reminded of hell. To a Sutherner, that might seem to be where this road leads: a pit, or a staircase that leads down, down, down.
Somehow, though it was all built with slaughter in mind, the fortress felt a good place. Throughout, fresh water flowed along custom-made paths, willing in its assistance of Anakim business. It was open and light, with no construction more than two-storeys high save the towers, Central Keep and the eye-capped pyramid. It was fresh and clean; un-soured by waste, sewage and plague. And everywhere were those little gardens of fruit-bearing trees and bushes, adding life to this stone colony. Something about it spoke of clarity of thought and purpose.
Only will, and wild.
“I have an enemy, my lord,” Roper continued. He spoke haltingly, as though he were talking to the living Kynortas. He would have had little patience for these emotions. “It is Uvoren and I think he is going to kill me. I want to die on the battlefield. Please, let me die on the battlefield. He could do it now and I don’t think anyone would stop him. But he’ll play with me more.” Roper took a deep breath again and blinked. For the first time, the thing before him appeared dead. “And I’m going to kill him first. Do you hear me, Father? I’m going to kill Uvoren. I’m going to win the loyalty of
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The Jormunrekur had all the best swords. His father’s war-blade had, perhaps, been even finer. Bright-Shock, it was called. Its blade glittered with diamond-dust, embedded in it during its forging.
The lictor, still refusing to bow, turned back to his soldiers while Roper marched towards the silver eye. This he had learned already; men in a group might condemn and scorn him, but they grew much less brave if singled out.
When in battle they used the lighter, Unthank-silver that all the best Anakim blades were made of; it was almost miraculously easy to wield. The echoing clang of the blades made the training hall sound like a foundry. The guardsman closest to Roper was another face he had memorised: Gosta, one of Uvoren’s war council. Most of the rest of the Guard fought with tight, economical movements; disciplined and fit. Gosta was more like a rabid dog, slashing harvestman-style at his evidently intimidated opponent and spitting vile curses as he forced the man back. Suddenly, Gosta lunged and beat aside
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“You know what the handle is, my lord?” asked Gray. “Tell me.” “Mammoth ivory. The tusks of a great beast, long since gone from this world. But they roamed this land in their thousands when our ancestors first arrived.” Roper looked down at the cream and black marbled handle of Cold-Edge, wondering if that could be true. “They arrived to find a frozen land. The landscape sliced apart by rivers of ice and earth so cold that trees could not grow, if the Academy is to be believed. Our ancestors, the first Anakim, carved out a home in the ice. They made fire from animal bones and shale and turf
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“He has many qualities. But he will ignore yours; do not return the favour.”
“So I can rely on your support when I speak in Uvoren’s war council, Gray?” asked Roper. “Certainly, lord,” said Gray. “But I would suggest that you shouldn’t play your hand too soon. Currently, Uvoren does not believe you can seriously challenge his leadership. Make sure that the first he knows of your gaining influence is when you have enough power to force his hand. You need to marry and gain
Even so, there was a saying among the legions: “Never fight Pryce.” His movements might be wild, but they were an order of magnitude faster than any man Gray had met. He was also well-balanced, with exceptional footwork and any who had seen him fight in combat understood the saying all too well. Never fight Pryce. His brutality and energy overwhelmed most of his opponents, and he appeared invulnerable to pain. The theory was that even if you could deliver a lethal blow to Pryce, he would still have the time and inclination to savage you with his own sword or, if you had somehow disarmed him,
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“So you’re going to back him? That child who inflicted the ignominy of a first ever retreat on a full call-up?” “That was the correct decision,” said Gray without hesitation. “We might still have won the battle if he’d advanced, but at a terrible price. Honour is everything, but I refuse to accept a definition of honour that places higher regard on tactical suicide than it does on the security of future generations.” “You may be right,” deferred Pryce. “But still: a boy, on the Stone Throne?”
He was trying desperately not to hate the captain, but simply saying to himself over and over again: “There’s no need to hate him; just defeat him” was having no effect. He despised Uvoren.
Anakim had no writing, but when memorising long verses they used small, crude pictograms in linear fashion to be broadly representative of a theme and to ignite the memory. Roper scratched out a chain, the ink black as the night.
Roper could not afford to leave to chance anything that was within his control.
At that moment, Roper preferred hatred to contempt. Perhaps he would no longer be thought of as a boy.
It was brutal and clever. It had Uvoren written all over it and Roper was reminded forcibly of the Chief Historian’s words when they had met in the Chamber of State: The greatest warriors can fight in any theatre. Roper needed a response. He needed to become someone who could not be killed without uproar ensuing, making Uvoren think twice before attempting such a tactic again.
Bellamus had learned long ago that the right environment was often all that it took to dismantle someone’s defences.
For the Anakim informants, Bellamus had ordered a chair constructed to suit their larger proportions, and one for himself as well, so that the two of them could sit on the same level. Every word of his introduction, every gesture, he had trialled before. It all depended on that, he had discovered. If the right tone was not set at the beginning, there was no hope for the interview. Any hint of antagonism, and Bellamus would find himself frozen out.
“The third kind is the opposite of an unga. A badarra: a person for whom you feel great respect, or distant affection, but with whom you don’t get on particularly well. They might be a serious person, but one who is especially
Bellamus liked to start with the easy questions: the words. He had known what kipsanga meant. He had mispronounced it deliberately, to bleed the first little piece of information from Adras. He had known about unga and badarra too. It was how he opened his informant, and how he gauged how willing they were.
What was the significance of wilderness? How was the Anakim manifestation of memory different from his own? Why did the Anakim not run in the face of his advancing army? Why was it, that in spite of their harsh and unyielding way of life, they never rebelled? How was such tight control maintained in a land which had no writing? Such questions were not easily answered and required an informant of unusual thought, willingness and eloquence. Bellamus had to use every advantage at
He was learning more simply by being north of the Abus, in this place which had seemed so nightmarish from the other side of that dark stretch of water. The southern bank was tilled and manipulated: neat furrows creating levels on which crops could be raised and some measure of order imposed. Here, in the Black Kingdom, the land was so twisted by the roots of giant trees that there could be no hope of tilling it, or perched so steep on the sides of mountains that it was a wonder that earth clung there at all. And yet the Anakim clearly had no difficulty existing here. The forests the
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Attacking the Black Kingdom was like venting rage on a mountain. It looked on at his efforts, indifferent to them. And look on it did. In some way, this land was powerfully reminiscent of a single organism; one of incalculable age and significance.
Bellamus did not trust many people. He did not really trust Aramilla either. He knew she felt affection for him (based, he thought, on an interested regard), but he did not believe he was of particular importance to her. She would try to help him because she enjoyed this game and the risk that came with it, and she enjoyed him too. He entertained her, but if he were to task her with anything that might mean sacrificing something she valued, he knew he would face her cold amusement. He could not trust her, but he trusted her subtlety. He had never seen her pour words like wine into the king’s
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If it did not go in the direction she wished, Aramilla would say nothing, preferring silence to discovery.
The entire court was in her thrall. The weapons she used shifted imperceptibly, so that as soon as you felt you were beginning to resist her, you would realise you were capitulating in some other way. If you were a man, she would start with a look of undecided interest, as though you were somebody different, but she was not sure what to make of you. Impress me. When, inevitably, you made a clumsy joke, she would meet it with a laugh; a noise Bellamus thought he had only heard her make in earnest a few times. It sounded...
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If you were a woman, her methods were more relentless. She would shift between charm, humour and callous mistreatment, until you were persuaded of the futility of resistance. To argue against her was as exhausting as it was fruitless, and, if you did not, then she was good company. Capitulate and she could be a generous mistress. Just do not forget your place.
These thoughts circumnavigated Roper’s head as Helmec rapped on the door of Tekoa’s house. Roper had tried summoning him to his own quarters in the Central Keep but his messenger had returned shaken, delivering the news that if Roper wished to see Tekoa, he would have to go and meet where Tekoa could have a comfortable chair and goblet of birch wine.
It was the way he carried himself. Imperious. Energetic. He looked like an older version of Pryce; dark-haired, handsome and unscarred. He halted suddenly when he saw Roper still arranging himself on the chair and glanced down at the globe, which had been replaced lopsidedly, as though it had been as sickened as Roper by their encounter. Tekoa looked at Roper through furrowed brows and straightened the globe. “You little bastard,”
should have forced the legions to endure the slaughter of climbing a slick ridge while being deluged with arrows. Only, then they’d have had to fight through men who outnumbered them by thousands with an exposed flank. Maybe I should have insisted on that course of action and saved myself the castigation I have endured since my return. But a victory where we lose half the legionaries is no victory at all,” Roper finished, his voice slightly raised. The injustice still rankled. He was hated by the very men whose lives he had saved; by the women whose husbands, brothers and fathers he had
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“You wish to know why I turned down Uvoren’s offer of alliance? Why I am countenancing yours? Because retreating that day was the right decision. And it was
I recognised that even in the midst of my fury. I thought I could follow a man who takes such hard decisions. And now I have met you …” Tekoa watched Roper intently, as though expecting him to spontaneously combust. “You are hopelessly out of your depth,” he declared at last. “You are a butterfly in a tempest. But still so calm. Still unbowed. Still curious enough to play with my bloody possessions. I could gamble with you. What about you, Keturah? Will you gamble with me? Is this a man you could follow?”
“His death releases me from obligation to his puppy! His puppy, who oversaw the first retreat of our forces in the field in two hundred years and the first ever retreat of a full call-up of legionaries. I fail to see why we should be listening to a boy of no merit, who
“It ill-befits this noble council for half its number to bay like a pack of dogs. Possession.” Tekoa cast the word in their direction and it sobered his enemies at once. There were a number of cardinal sins to a subject of the Black Kingdom. Foremost was self-pity. Then perhaps jealousy. Second to these alone was possession: acting as part of a mob, rather than as an individual. Allowing base emotions like hatred, scorn and even adulation to cloud one’s judgement and turn one into an unproductive, unthinking animal.
“In summary, Captain, that you have no need to be out of your seat. The Black Lord is about to speak.” Those Vidarr at the table, who were many, rapped their knuckles on the ancient oak in support of Tekoa. Roper noted the Chief Historian adding to the noise, her unshakeable gaze fastened on Uvoren.
“Our martial reputation lies in tatters. Nobody stands before this horde as it commits atrocities. This land used to be entirely dark to the Sutherners. For every man who set foot north of the Abus, a severed head was thrown back onto its southern bank. Invading armies were met with uncompromising steel. We torched their lands with impunity when they threatened our people. The Sutherners whispered about us. We were unconquerable: a hornets’ nest that they dared not kick for the vengeful swarm that they would unleash upon themselves.
“Their victory is assured as long as we skulk behind high walls, facing none of the terror that those outside experience. I am ashamed! Our subjects have placed all their trust in the legions and we have shackled them. Our women sacrifice their sons, brothers and fathers to our army with a glad heart, knowing there could be no destination more valiant or force more committed to the defence of this realm. They work tirelessly to support our ability to resist. Imagine their dismay in knowing an invading army is on their doorstep and we do not even have the guts to take them on. Our lads train
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“Roper makes an admirable appeal to sentiment,” he declared over the hubbub. “Where was his fighting spirit when he was last on the battlefield?” “You should have seen it, Uvoren,” said Roper coldly. “It was much in evidence when I rode after my father’s body. Or when I fought alone in the waters. Tell me, where were you then?”
They mustered the legions that would be under Roper’s command in front of the Central Keep. Though it was scarcely more than a half-call-up, close to forty thousand men, rank on rank with armour sand-burnished and gleaming, they still made a magnificent spectacle.
Cold-Edge was sheathed at his side. He was dressed in his steel cuirass, oiled and polished, with overlapping layers of steel providing a flexible defence for his shoulders and upper arms. Inlaid into the cuirass in silver wire was a snarling wolf and a skirt of chain mail protected his thighs. High leather boots inlaid with concealed strips of metal covered his calves and a black cloak enfolded him.
