Memories of Ice

  Thumping boots approached from Gruntle's right. A half-dozen Grey Sword squads emerged from the smoke, the front two ranks with swords and shields, the rear two with cocked crossbows. They crossed in front of the caravan captain and took position behind the pile of bodies at the gateway.

  A wayward wind swept the smoke from the street's length to Gruntle's right, revealing more bodies—Capanthall, Lestari, and Pannion Betaklites, continuing down the street to a barricaded intersection sixty paces distant, where there was yet another mound of slain soldiers.

  Gruntle jogged towards the troop of Grey Swords. Seeing no obvious officer, he elected the crossbow-woman nearest him. 'What's the situation here, soldier?'

  She glanced at him, her face a flat, expressionless mask covered in soot, and he was surprised to realize she was Capan. 'We're clearing out the towers up top. The sortie should be back soon—we'll let them through then hold the gateway.'

  He stared at her. Sortie? Gods, they've lost their minds! 'Hold, you said.' He glanced at the arched passage. 'For how long?'

  She shrugged. 'Sappers are on their way with work crews. There'll be a new gate in a bell or two.'

  'How many breaches? What's been lost?'

  'I wouldn't know, citizen.'

  'Cease your chatter over there,' a male voice called out. 'And get that civilian out of here—'

  'Movement ahead, sir!' another soldier shouted.

  Crossbows were readied over the shoulders of the crouching swordsmen.

  Someone called from outside the passageway, 'Lestari Troop—hold your fire! We're coming in!'

  There was no relaxing evident among the Grey Swords. A moment later the first elements of the sortie trundled into view. Cut and battered and bearing wounded, the heavily armoured foot-soldiers began shouting for the Grey Swords to clear a path.

  The waiting squads split to form a corridor.

  Every Lestari among the first thirty who passed through was encumbered by a wounded comrade. From beyond the gateway the sound of fighting drew Gruntle's attention. It was getting closer. There was a rearguard, protecting those bearing the wounded, and the pressure on them was building.

  'Counterattack!' someone bellowed. 'Scalandi skirmishers—'

  A horn moaned from high atop the wall to the right of the southside block tower.

  The roar was growing from the killing field beyond the gateway. The cobbles beneath Gruntle's boots trembled. Scalandi. They engage in legions of no less than five thousand—

  Ranks of Grey Swords were assembling further down Inside Port Street, swordsmen, crossbowmen, and Capanthall archers, forming a fall-back line. An even larger company was gathering beyond them, along with ballistae, trebuchets and hurlers—the latter with their buckets of scalding gravel steaming like cauldrons.

  The rearguard stumbled into the passage. Javelins sliced among them, glancing off armour and shield, only one finding its mark, sending a soldier wheeling with the barbed shaft through his neck. The first of the Pannion Scalandi appeared, lithe, leather-shirted and leather-helmed, wielding spears and scavenged swords, a few with wicker shields, pushing against the yielding line of Lestari heavy infantry, dying one after another, yet still more came on, voicing a keening warcry.

  'Break! Break!'

  The bellowed command had an instant effect, as the Lestari rearguard suddenly disengaged, spun round and bolted down the corridor, leaving their fallen behind—to be claimed by the Scalandi, dragged back, vanishing from sight. Then the skirmishers boiled down the passageway.

  The first line of Grey Swords re-formed in the wake of the Lestari. Crossbows snapped. Scores of Scalandi fell, their writhing bodies fouling the efforts of those behind them. Gruntle watched as the Grey Swords calmly reloaded.

  A few from the front line of skirmishers reached the mercenary swordsmen, and were summarily cut down.

  A second wave, clawing past their fallen kin, surged towards the line. They withered beneath another flight of quarrels. The passageway was filling with bodies. The next mob of Scalandi to appear were unarmed. Whilst the Grey Swords loaded their crossbows once more, the skirmishers began dragging their dead and dying kin back through the passageway.

  The door to the left-side block tower slammed open, startling Gruntle. He spun, hands reaching for his Gadrobi cutlasses, to see a half-dozen Capanthall stumbling into view, coughing, blood-smeared. Among them: Stonny Menackis.

  Her rapier was snapped a hand's length down from the tip; the rest of the weapon, down to and including the bell-hilt and its projecting quillons, was thick with human gore, as was her gloved hand and vambraced forearm. Something slick and ropy hung skewered on the thin blade of the main gauche in her other hand, dripping brown sludge. Her expensive leather armour was in tatters, one crossing slash having penetrated deep enough to cut through the padded shirt underneath. Leather and shirt had fallen away to reveal her right breast, the soft, white skin bearing bruises left behind by someone's hand.

  She did not see him at first. Her gaze was fixed on the gateway, where the last of the corpses had been cleared, and yet another wave of Scalandi was pouring through. The front ranks fell to the quarrels, as before, but the surviving attackers rushed on, a frenzied, shrieking mob. The four-deep line of Grey Swords split once more, wheeled and ran, each half sprinting for the nearest alley to either side of Port Street, where Capanthall archers stood, waiting for a cleared line of sight on the Scalandi pursuers.

  Stonny barked a command to her few comrades, and the small troop backed away, parallel to the wall. She then saw Gruntle. Their eyes locked. 'Get over here, you ox!' she hissed.

  Gruntle jogged up to them. 'Hood's balls, woman, what—'

  'What do you think? They boiled over us, through the gate, up the towers, over the damned walls.' Her head snapped back, as if she had just taken an invisible blow. A flat calm settled over, her eyes. 'It was room by room. One on one. A Seerdomin found me—' Another jolt ran through her. 'But the bastard left me alive. So I hunted him down. Come on, let's move!' She snapped her main gauche back at Gruntle as they hurried on, spraying his chest and face with bile and watery shit. 'I carved him inside out, and damn if he didn't beg.' She spat. 'Didn't work for me—why should it have for him? What a fool. A pathetic, whimpering…'

  Hurrying in her wake, it was a moment before Gruntle understood what she was saying. Oh, Stonny…

  Her steps slowed suddenly, her face turning white. She twisted round, met his eyes with a look of horror. 'This was supposed to be a fight. A war. That bastard—' She leaned against the wall. 'Gods!'

  The others continued on, too dazed to notice, or perhaps too numb to care.

  Gruntle moved to her side. 'Carved him from the inside out, did you?' he asked softly, not daring to reach out and touch her.

  Stonny nodded, her eyes squeezed shut, her breath coming in harsh, pained gasps.

  'Did you save any of him for me, lass?'

  She shook her head.

  'That's too bad. Then again, one Seerdomin's as good as another.'

  Stonny stepped forward, pressing her face into his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her. 'Let's get out of this fight, lass,' he murmured. 'I got a clean room, with a basin in it and a stove and a jug of water. A room, close enough to the north wall for it to be safe. It's at the end of a hallway. Only one way in. I'll stand outside the door, Stonny, for as long as you need. No-one gets past. That's a promise.' He felt her nod. He reached down to lift her up.

  'I can walk.'

  'But do you want to, lass? That's the question.'

  After a long moment, she shook her head.

  Gruntle lifted her easily. 'Nap if you've mind to,' he said. 'You're safe enough.'

  He set off, skirting the wall, the woman curling up in his arms, her face pressed hard against his tunic, the rough cloth growing wetter there.

  Behind them, the Scalandi were dying by the hundreds, the Grey Swords and Capanthall delivering dread slaughter.

  He wanted to be there with
them. In the front line. Taking life after life.

  One Seerdomin was not enough. A thousand would not be enough.

  Not now.

  He felt himself grow cold, as if the blood within him was now something else, flowing a bitter course along his veins, reaching out to fill his muscles with a strange, unyielding strength. He had never before felt such a thing, but he was beyond thinking about it. There were no words for this.

  Nor, he would soon discover, were there words to describe what he would become, what he would do.

  The slaughter of the K'Chain Che'Malle by the Kron T'lan Imass and the undead ay had thrown the Septarch and his forces into disarray, as Brukhalian had predicted. The confusion and the immobility it engendered had added days to Shield Anvil Itkovian's preparations for the siege to come. But now, the time for preparing had ended, and Itkovian was left with the command of the city's defences.

  There would be no T'lan Imass, no T'lan Ay, to come to their rescue. And no relieving army to arrive with the last grain of the hourglass. Capustan was on its own. And so it shall be. Fear, anguish and despair.

  From his position atop the highest tower on the Barracks Wall, after Destriant Karnadas had left and the stream of messengers began its frenzied flow, he had watched the first concerted movement of enemy troops to the east and southeast, the rumbling appearance of siege weapons. Beklites and the more heavily armoured Betaklites marshalling opposite Port Gate, with a mass of Scalandi behind and to either side of them. Knots of Seerdomin shock troops, scurrying bands of Desandi—sappers—positioning still more siege weapons. And, waiting in enormous, sprawling encampments along the river and the coast, the seething mass of the Tenescowri.

  He had watched the assault on the outside fortification of the Gidrath's East Watch redoubt, already isolated and surrounded by the enemy; had seen the narrow door battered down, the Beklites pushing into the passageway, three steps, two steps, one, then a standstill, and moments later, a step back, then another, bodies being pulled clear. Still more bodies. The Gidrath—the elite guards of the Mask Council—had revealed their discipline and determination. They expelled the intruders, raised yet another barricade in place of the door.

  The Beklites outside had milled for a time, then they renewed their assault.

  The battle continued through the afternoon, yet each time that Itkovian pulled his attention away from other events he saw that the Gidrath still held. Taking enemy lives by the score. Twisting that thorn in the Septarch's midst.

  Finally, near dusk, siege weapons were wheeled about. Huge boulders were hurled against the fortress's walls. The pounding concussions continued as the last of daylight fell away.

  Beyond this minor drama, the assault against the city's walls had begun on all sides. The north attack proved a feint, poorly executed and so quickly recognized as insignificant. Messengers relayed to the Shield Anvil that a similar cursory engagement was under way at the west wall.

  The true assaults were delivered upon the south and east walls, concentrated at the gates. Itkovian, positioned directly between them, was able to directly oversee the defence on both sides. He was visible to the enemy, and more than one missile had been fired in his direction, only a few coming close. This was the first day. Range and accuracy would improve in the days to come. Before long, he might have to yield his vantage point; in the meantime, he would let his presence mock the attackers.

  As the Beklites and Betaklites rushed the walls, the ladder-bearing Desandi among them, Itkovian gave the command for counterfire from the walls and block towers. The ensuing slaughter was horrific. The attackers had not bothered with turtles or other forms of cover, and so died in appalling droves.

  Yet such were their numbers that the gates were reached, battering rams deployed, and breaches effected. The Pannions, however, after pushing through the passageways, found themselves in open concourses that became killing grounds as Grey Swords and Capanthall archers launched a withering crossfire from behind barricades blocking side streets, intersections and alley mouths.

  The Shield Anvil's strategy of layered defence was proving murderously efficient. Subsequent counterattacks had been so effective as to permit sorties beyond the gates, a vicious pursuit of fleeing Pannions. And, this day at least, none of the companies he'd sent out had gone too far. Discipline had held among the Capanthall, the Lestari and the Coralessian companies.

  The first day was over, and it belonged to Capustan's defenders.

  Itkovian stood on trembling legs, the coastal breeze building to dry the sweat from his face, sending cool tendrils through the half-visor's grille to brush his smoke-reddened eyes. As darkness closed around him, he listened to the rocks pounding the East Watch redoubt, and turned for the first time in hours to view the city.

  Entire blocks were aflame, the fires reaching into the night sky, lighting the underbelly of a turgid canopy of solid smoke. I knew what I would see. Why then does it shock me? Drive the blood from my veins? Suddenly weak, he leaned against the merlon behind him, one hand pressed against the rough stone.

  A voice spoke from the shadows of the tower's doorway. 'You need rest, sir.'

  Itkovian closed his eyes. 'Destriant, you speak the truth.'

  'But there will be no rest,' Karnadas resumed. 'The other half of the attacking force is assembling. We can expect assaults through the night.'

  'I know, sir.'

  'Brukhalian—'

  'Aye, it must be done. Come forward, then.'

  'Such efforts are increasingly difficult,' Karnadas murmured as he strode up to stand before the Shield Anvil. He laid a hand against Itkovian's chest. 'The illness of the warrens threatens me,' he continued. 'Soon it will be all I can do to fend against it.'

  The weariness drained from the Shield Anvil, vigour returning to his limbs. He sighed. 'I thank you, sir.'

  'The Mortal Sword has just been called to the Thrall to give account of the first day's battle. And no, we were not fortunate enough to hear of the Thrall's destruction beneath a few hundred balls of fire. It stands intact. However, given those that it now houses, we would no longer wish such a fiery end.'

  Itkovian pulled his gaze from the streets, studied the Destriant's red-lit face. 'Your meaning, sir?'

  'The Barghast, Hetan and Cafal, have taken up residence in the Main Hall.'

  'Ah, I see.'

  'Before he left, Brukhalian asked me to enquire of your efforts to discover the means by which the bones of the Founding Spirits will be spared the coming conflagration.'

  'I have failed, sir. Nor does it seem likely that I will have opportunity to renew my efforts in that direction.'

  'That is understandable, sir. I will convey to the Mortal Sword your words, if not your obvious relief.'

  'Thank you.'

  The Destriant strode to look out upon the east killing field. 'Gods below, do the Gidrath still hold the redoubt?'

  'Uncertain,' Itkovian murmured as he joined the man. 'At the very least, the bombardment has not ceased. There may be little but rubble there now—it's too dark to make out, but I believe I heard a wall collapse half a bell ago.'

  'The legions are marshalling once more, Shield Anvil.'

  'I need more messengers, sir. My last troop—'

  'Aye, exhausted,' Karnadas said. 'I shall take my leave and do as you ask, sir.'

  Itkovian listened to the man make his way down the ladder, but held his gaze on the enemy positions to the east and south. Hooded lanterns flashed here and there among what appeared to be troops arrayed in squares, the figures jostling and shifting behind wicker shields. Smaller companies of Scalandi skirmishers emerged, moving cautiously forward.

  Bootsteps behind the Shield Anvil announced the arrival of the messengers. Without turning, Itkovian said, 'Inform the captains of the archers and trebuchets that the Pannions are about to renew their assault. Soldiers to the walls and battlements. Gate companies assembled, full complement, including sappers.'

  A score of fiery balls rose skyward f
rom behind the massed ranks of the Pannions. The missiles arced, their sizzling roar audible as they passed high over Itkovian's head. Explosions lit the city, shook the bronze-sheathed floorboards beneath his feet. The Shield Anvil faced his cadre of messengers. 'Go.'

  Karnadas rode his horse at a canter across Tura'l Concourse. The huge arch fifty paces to his left had just taken a hit on one corner of the pedestal, spraying broken masonry and burning pitch onto the cobbles and onto the rooftops of the scatter of tenements beside it. Flames billowed, and the Destriant saw figures pouring from the building. Somewhere to the north, at the very edge of the Temple District, another tenement block was engulfed in fire.

  He reached the far side of the concourse, not slackening his mount's pace as he rode up Shadows Street—the Temple of Shadow on his left, the Temple of the Queen of Dreams on his right—then angled his horse again to the left as they reached Daru Spear—the district's main avenue. Ahead loomed the dark stones of the Thrall, the ancient keep towering over the lower structures of the Daru tenements.

  Three squads of Gidrath commanded the gate, fully armoured and with weapons drawn. Recognizing the Destriant, they waved him through.

  He dismounted in the courtyard, leaving his horse to a stabler, then made his way to the Great Hall, where he knew he would find Brukhalian.

  As he strode down the main aisle towards the double doors he saw that another man was ahead. Robed, hooded, he was without the usual escort provided strangers to the Thrall, yet he approached the entrance with a graceful assurance. Karnadas wondered how he had managed to get past the Gidrath, then his eyes widened as the stranger gestured with one hand and the huge doors swung open before him.

  Voices raised in argument drifted out from the Great Hall, quickly falling silent as the stranger entered.

  Karnadas increased his pace, and arrived in time to catch the end of a Rath' priest's expostulation. '—this instant!'

  The Destriant slipped through the entrance in the stranger's wake. He saw the Mortal Sword standing near the centre millstone, now turned to regard the newcomer. The Barghast, Hetan and Cafal, were sitting on their rug a few paces to Brukhalian's right. The priests and priestesses of the Mask Council were one and all leaning forward in their seats—their masks conveying caricatures of extreme displeasure—with the exception of Rath'Hood who was standing, the wooden skull visage of his mask arched with outrage.