The veteran remained outside it, still spinning, still roaring, sword high in the air.
Five thousand Pannions and the Septarch himself looked on, in wonder, disbelieving, profoundly alarmed by the man's wild, bestial stamping on the cobbles. Then, with a silent snarl, Kulpath shook himself and raised one gauntleted hand.
He jerked it down.
The air of the concourse blackened as fifteen hundred bows whispered as one.
Eyes snapping open, Itkovian heard that whisper. He saw, with a vision filling his awareness, to the exclusion of all else, as the barbed heads plunged into the shielded turtle that was the Grey Swords. Shafts slipped through here and there. Soldiers reeled, fell, folded in on themselves.
Nilbanas, pierced through by a hundred arrows or more, whipped round one last time in a haze of blood droplets, then collapsed.
In roaring masses, the Pannion foot soldiers surged into the concourse. Crashed against the locked shields of the surviving Grey Swords even as they struggled to close the gaps in their ranks. The square was shattered, ripped apart. Battle turned to slaughter.
Still standing, the Mortal Sword's whirling blade raged with black fire. Studded with arrow shafts, he stood like a giant amidst feral children. And fought on.
Pikes drove into him from all sides, lifted him off his feet. Sword arm swinging down, he chopped through the shafts, landed amidst writhing bodies.
Itkovian saw as a double-bladed axe separated Brukhalian's left arm from his body, at the shoulder, where blood poured unchecked as the severed, shield-laden arm fell away, frenziedly contracting at the elbow as would an insect's dismembered limb. The huge man folded to his right. More pikes jabbed, ripping into his torso.
The grip on the sword did not falter. The burning blade continued to spread its devouring flame outward, incinerating as it went. Screams filled the air.
Urdomen closed in with their short, heavy blades. Began chopping. The Mortal Sword's intestines, snagged on a sword tip, unravelled like a snake from his gut. Another axe crashed down on Brukhalian's head, splitting the heavy black-iron helm, then the skull, then the man's face.
The burning sword exploded in a dark flash, the shards cutting down yet more Pannions.
The corpse that was Fener's Mortal Sword tottered upright a moment longer, riven through, almost headless, then slowly settled to its knees, back hunching, a scarecrow impaled by a dozen pikes, countless arrows.
Kneeling, now motionless, in the deepening shadow of the Thrall, as the Pannions slowly withdrew on all sides—their battle-rage gone and something silent and dreadful in its stead—staring at the hacked thing that had been Brukhalian… and at the tall, barely substantial apparition that took form directly before the Mortal Sword. A figure shrouded in black, hooded, hands hidden within the tattered folds of broad sleeves.
Hood. King of High House Death… come to greet this man's soul. In person. Why?
Amoment later and the Lord of Death was gone. Yet no-one moved. It began to rain. Hard.
Kneeling, watery blood staining the black armour, making the chain's iron links gleam crimson.
Another set of eyes was sharing Itkovian's inner vision, eyes that he knew well. And in the Shield Anvil's mind there came a cold satisfaction, and in his mind he addressed the other witness and knew, without doubt, that his words were heard.
I have you, Rath'Fener.
You are mine, betrayer.
Mine.
The sparrowhawk twisted through the wind-whipped rain clouds, felt the drops like nails as they battered its wings, its splayed tail. Lurid flames glimmered in the city below amidst the grey, blackening buildings.
The day was drawing to a close, but the horror did not relent. Buke's mind was numb with all that he had witnessed, and the distance afforded him by his Soletaken form was no release. These eyes were too sharp, too sharp by far.
He banked hard directly over the estate that was home to Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. The gate was a mass of bodies. The mostly ornamental corner towers and the walkways along the compound's walls were occupied by silent sentinels, dark and motionless in the rain.
Korbal Broach's army of animated corpses had grown. Hundreds of Tenescowri had breached the gate and poured into the compound earlier. Bauchelain had greeted them with waves of deadly sorcery—magic that blackened their flesh, cracked it, then made it curl away in strips from their bones. Long after they were dead, the spell continued its relentless work, until the cobbles were ankle-deep in charred dust.
Two more attempts had been made, each more desperate than the last. Assailed by sorcery and the implacable savagery of the undead warriors, the Tenescowri had finally reeled back, fleeing in terror. A company of Beklites fared no better later in the afternoon. Now, as dusk swept in behind the rain, the streets surrounding the estate held only the dead.
On wearying wings, Buke climbed higher once more, following the Daru District's main avenue westward.
Gutted tenement buildings, smoke billowing from rubble, the fitful lick of flames. Seething mobs of Tenescowri, huge bonfires where spitted human flesh roasted. Roving squads and companies of Scalandi, Beklites and Betaklites, Urdomen and Seerdomin.
Bewildered, enraged, wondering where Capustan's citizens have gone. Oh, you have the city, now, yet you feel cheated none the less.
His acute vision was failing with the fading light. To the southeast, hazy with rain and smoke, rose the prince's palace towers. Dark, seemingly inviolate. Perhaps its inhabitants held out still. Or perhaps it was, once more, a lifeless edifice home only to ghosts. Returned to the comfort of silence, such as it had known for centuries before the coming of the Capan and Daru.
Turning his head back, Buke caught glimpse of a single tenement building just off to his left. Fires surrounded it, but it seemed the squat structure defied the flames. In the glow of the banked bonfires, he saw red-limned, naked corpses. Filling the surrounding streets and alleys.
No, that must be a mistake. My eyes deceive. Those dead are lying on rubble. They must be. Gods, the tenement's ground level isn't even visible. Buried. Rubble. There cannot be naught but bodies, not piled that high… oh… depthless Abyss!
The building was where Gruntle had taken a room.
And, assailed by flames, it would not burn.
And there, lit on all sides from below, the walls wept.
Not water, but blood.
Buke wheeled closer, and the closer he flew, the more horrified he became. He could see windows, shutterless, on the first visible floor. Packed with bodies. The same on the next floor, and on the one above that, directly beneath the roof.
The entire building was, he realized, virtually solid. A mass of flesh and bone, seeping from the windows tears of blood and bile. A giant mausoleum, a monument to this day.
He saw figures on the roof. A dozen, huddled here and there beneath makeshift awnings and lean-to shelters. And one, standing apart, head bowed as if studying the horror in the street below. Tall, hulking. Broad, sloping shoulders. Strangely barbed in shadows. A cutlass hung heavy in each gauntleted hand, stripped and gleaming like bone.
A dozen paces behind him a standard had been raised, held upright by bundles that might be food packs, such as the Grey Swords issued. Sodden, yellow stained with dark bars of blood, a child's tunic.
Buke drew still closer, then swung away. He was not ready. Not for Gruntle. Not for the man as he was now, as he had become. A terrible transformation… one more victim of this siege. As are we all.
Blinking, Itkovian struggled to make sense of his surroundings. A low, damp-blighted ceiling, the smell of raw meat. Yellow lantern light, the weight of a rough woollen blanket on his chest. He was lying on a narrow cot, and someone was holding his hand.
He slowly turned his head, wincing at the lash of pain the motion elicited from his neck. Healed, yet not healed. The mending… incomplete…
Karnadas was at his side, collapsed onto his haunches, folded and motionless, the pale, wrinkled pate of
his bowed head level with Itkovian's eyes.
The hand gripping his was all bone and deathly dry skin, icy cold.
The Shield Anvil squeezed it slightly.
The Destriant's face, as he lifted it into view, was skeletal, the skin mottled with deep bruises originating from the joints of his jaw; his red-webbed eyes sunken within charcoal-black pits.
'Ah,' the old man rasped, 'I have failed you, sir…'
'You have not.'
'Your wounds—'
'The flesh is sealed—I can feel as much. My neck, my back, my knee. There is naught but a tenderness, sir. Easily managed.' He slowly sat up, keeping his expression calm despite the agony that ripped through him. Flexing his knee left him bathed in sweat, suddenly chilled and lightheaded. He did not alter his firm grip on the Destriant's hand. 'Your gift ever humbles me, sir.'
Karnadas settled his head on Itkovian's thigh. 'I am done, my friend,' he whispered.
'I know,' the Shield Anvil replied. 'But I am not.'
The Destriant's head moved in a nod but he did not look up.
Itkovian glanced around. Four other cots, each bearing a soldier. Rough blankets had been drawn up over their faces. Two of the priest's cutters sat on the blood-gummed floor, their backs to a wall, their eyes closed in the sleep of the exhausted. Near the small room's door stood a Grey Sword messenger, Capan by her features beneath the rim of her helmet. He had seen a younger version of her, among the recruits… perhaps a sister. 'How long have I been unconscious? Do I hear rain?'
Karnadas made no answer. Neither surgeon stirred awake. After a moment, the messenger cleared her throat. 'Sir, it is less than a bell before midnight. The rain came with the dusk.'
With the dusk, and with a man's death. The hand holding his slackened in increments. 'How many soldiers here, sir? How many do I still command?'
She flinched. 'There are one hundred and thirty-seven in all, sir. Of these, ninety-six recruits. Of the Manes who stood with you at the cemetery, eleven soldiers survive.'
'Our barracks?'
'Fallen, sir. The structure burns.'
'Jelarkan's Palace?'
She shook her head. 'No word, sir.'
Itkovian slowly disengaged his hand from Karnadas's limp grip and looked down upon the motionless figure. He stroked the wisps of the man's hair. Moments passed, then the Shield Anvil broke the silence. 'Find us an orderly, sir. The Destriant is dead.'
Her eyes widened on him.
'He joins our Mortal Sword, Brukhalian. It is done.'
Following these words, Itkovian settled his boots onto the floor, almost blacking out at the pain in his ruined knee. He drew a deep, shaky breath, slowly straightened. 'Do any armourers remain?'
'An apprentice, sir,' she replied after a moment, her tone brittle as burned leather.
'I shall need a brace for my knee, sir. Anything he or she can fashion.'
'Yes, sir,' she whispered. 'Shield Anvil—'
He paused in his search for his surcoat, glanced over. The woman had gone deathly white.
'I—I voice the Reve's Thirteenth Law. I request… rightful punishment.' She was trembling.
'Punishment, sir? What was your crime?'
'I delivered the message. From Rath'Fener's acolyte.' She reeled at her own words, armour clunking as her back came up against the door. 'Fener forgive me! I sent the Mortal Sword to his death!'
Itkovian's eyes thinned as he studied her. 'You are the recruit who accompanied me and my wings on the last excursion onto the plain. My apologies, sir, for not recognizing you earlier. I should have anticipated the intervening… experience, writ so clearly upon your face. I deny your voicing the Reve, soldier. Now, find us that orderly, and the apprentice.'
'But sir—'
'Brukhalian was not deceived. Do you understand? Moreover, your presence here evinces your innocence in the matter. Had you been party to the betrayal, you would have ridden with him at his command. And would have been dealt with accordingly. Now go. We cannot wait here much longer.'
Ignoring the tears now streaking her mud-spattered face, the Shield Anvil slowly made his way to a heap of discarded armour. A moment later she swung about, opened the door and fled out into the hallway.
Itkovian paused in his hobbling. He glanced over at the sleeping cutters. 'I am the bearer of Fener's grief,' he intoned in a whisper. 'I am my vow incarnate. This, and in all that follows. We are not yet done here. I am not yet done. Behold, I yield to nothing.' He straightened, expressionless once more. His pain retreated. Soon, it would be irrelevant.
One hundred and thirty-seven armoured faces looked upon the Shield Anvil. Through the streaming rain, he in turn surveyed them as they stood in their ranks on the dark street. Two warhorses remained; his own—chest wound a red welt but fire undimmed in the eyes—and Brukhalian's black destrier. The messenger held both sets of reins.
Strips from a banded cuirass had been lashed to either side of Itkovian's damaged knee, providing sufficient flex for him to ride and walk while offering vital support when he stood. The rents in his chain surcoat had been mended with copper wire; the weight of the sleeve was noticeable only on his left arm—there was little strength in it, and the skin between his neck and shoulder felt stretched and hot over the incompletely knitted tissue beneath. Straps had been rigged that would hold his arm at an angle when it bore his shield.
'Grey Swords.' The Shield Anvil addressed them. 'We have work before us. Our captain and her sergeants have formed you into squads. We march to the palace of the prince. The journey is not far. It appears that the enemy is chiefly massed around the Thrall. Should we happen to encounter roving bands, however, they will probably be small, and most likely Tenescowri and thus ill armed and untrained. March, therefore, in readiness.' Itkovian faced his lone captain, who had only days earlier been the master-sergeant responsible for the training of the Capan recruits. 'Sir, array the squads.' The woman nodded.
Itkovian strode to his horse. A makeshift mounting block had been prepared, easing the transition into the saddle. Accepting the reins from the messenger, the Shield Anvil looked down upon her. 'The captain will walk with her soldiers, sir,' he said. 'The Mortal Sword's horse should be ridden. She is yours, recruit. She will know your capacity by your seat, and respond in accordance to ensure your safety. It will not avail you to defy her in this.'
Blinking, the young woman slowly nodded. 'Mount up, then, sir, and ride at my side.'
The ramp leading to Jelarkan's Palace's narrow, arched gateway was unoccupied, swept clean. The gates themselves had been shattered. Faint torchlight glimmered from the antechamber immediately beyond. Not a single soldier stood on the walls or revetments. Apart from the drumming rain, there was naught but silence to greet Itkovian and his Grey Swords.
Point squads had scouted to the gate's threshold, confirming that the enemy was nowhere to be seen. Nor, it seemed, were there any surviving defenders. Or bodies.
Smoke and hissing mist filled the spaces between stone, sheets of rain the night sky overhead. All sounds of fighting in other sections were gone.
Brukhalian had asked for six weeks. Itkovian had given him less than three days. The truth of that gnawed within him, as if a broken blade or arrowhead still remained in his body—missed by the cutters—buried in his gut, wrapping its pain around his heart.
But I am not yet done.
He held to those words. Back straight, teeth gritted. A gesture with one gauntleted hand sent the first scouts through the gateway. They were gone for some time, then a single runner returned, padding down the ramp to where Itkovian waited.
'Sir,' the woman reported, 'there are Tenescowri within. In the main hall, we believe. Sounds of feasting and revelry.'
'And are the approaches guarded?' the Shield Anvil asked.
'The three that we have found are not, sir.'
There were four entrances to Jelarkan's main hall. The double doors facing the gate on the other side of the antechamber, two flanking portals in the chambe
r itself that led to guest and guard rooms, and a narrow, curtain-shielded passage directly behind the prince's throne. 'Very well. Captain, position one squad to each of the two side entrances. Quietly. Six squads here at the gate. The remaining five are with me.'
The Shield Anvil carefully dismounted, landing mostly on his undamaged leg. He reeled none the less at the jolt that shot up his spine. The messenger had followed suit and now stepped to his side. Slowing his breathing, he glanced at her. 'Get me my shield,' he grated.
Another soldier assisted her in strapping the bronze shield to Itkovian's arm, drawing the supporting sling over his shoulder.
The Shield Anvil lowered the visor on his helm, then slid his sword from its scabbard while the captain issued commands to the five squads arrayed around them.
'Those with crossbows to the second line, stay low and keep your weapons cocked but lower still. Front line overlapping shields, swords on guard. All visors down. Sir,' the captain addressed Itkovian, 'we are ready.'
He nodded, said to the recruit, 'You are to be on my left. Now, forward at my pace.'
He strode slowly up the rain-slick ramp.
Fifty-three silent soldiers followed.
Into the antechamber, the squarish, high-ceilinged room lit by a single wavering torch set in a bracket on the right-hand wall. The two squads assigned to the chamber split to either side as the Shield Anvil led his troop towards the broad hallway where waited the main hall's double doors. The patter of shed rain accompanied them.
Ahead, muted through the thick, oak doors, was the sound of voices. Laughter tinged with hysteria. The crackle of burning wood.
Itkovian did not pause upon reaching the entrance, using shield and mailed fist to thrust open the twin doors. As he stepped through, the squads behind him spread out to take command of his end of the long, vaulted chamber.
Faces snapped round. Gaunt figures in rags lurched up from the chairs on either side of the long table. Utensils clattered and bones thumped to the floor. A wild-haired woman shrieked, scrabbled madly towards the young man seated in Jelarkan's throne.
'Gentle Mother,' the man rasped, reaching out a shiny, grease-stained hand to her, yet holding his yellow-tinged eyes on Itkovian all the while, 'be calmed.'