Impossible Things (7 page)

The sun was as high in the sky as it was going to get at this time of year. Kael emerged from the council session with knots in his shoulders and grabbed a passing student at random to run down to the ship with his message. The kid, a Bard by his clothing, ran off like a frightened rabbit.

Kael made his way to the Militis training grounds, discerned which group were the most skilled and informed one of them that he’d be a gold aureus richer if he could beat Kael in a fair fight.

Of course, Kael didn’t fight fair if he could help it, but the lad didn’t realise this until it was too late. Kael kept his aureus, but in deference to the fact that the lad had fought him for ten minutes and nearly cost him his sword at one point, he gave the boy ten denari.

‘What’s your name, lad?’ he asked.

‘Tyro Marcus Glorius Livius Militis, my lord,’ said the boy, who was tall and blond and had an arrogant cast to his features. And no wonder: a name like Glorius Livius said that both his parents were Chosen. The kid had been born Child of Two Marks at the least. Even if his Mark had never manifested, he’d still have been raised like a prince.

Kael was beginning to regret giving him the denari. His defining memory of the Glorius family was that they were richer than Kael would ever be.

‘I know you’re a Tyro, kid. That’s why you’re here. Work on your footwork.’

He picked up his sword and turned to leave. Behind him, the Glorius kid muttered, ‘Work on your footwork,’ in the sort of tone that had Kael wondering if he’d get away with turning back and stabbing the boy.

No. Probably not.

A lad from Kael’s horde was waiting by the training ground, a large chest on wheels by his side. Kael motioned to him to follow to the changing rooms, and the boy opened the box to reveal the gleaming black piles of Kael’s dress armour, heaped like giant malevolent beetles.

‘Are the rest of them here?’ Kael asked as he stepped into the fine black chain mail that went under the plate armour. The stuff wouldn’t stop a rubber arrow, but unless things had radically changed at the Tower, he didn’t expect he’d need it for actual bodily defence. Dress armour was all about putting on a show.

‘They’ll meet you outside, sir,’ said the boy. He was maybe twelve or thirteen, the nephew of one of his men. Kael didn’t need to ask if he could fight – he could probably best half the lads in the training ring. He didn’t take helpless children along in his horde.

‘Did you get me a horse?’

‘Yes, sir, a black destrier. He’s used to armour, too. Sir Verak has a chestnut who bucked and reared when we tried to dress him.’

Kael smiled. ‘He’ll love that.’

‘We’ve just caparisoned him for now, sir, although Sir Verak says we can try for the armour if you really want.’

‘No, the caparison is fine.’ Let Verak ride a horse wearing skirts. The spectacle was the thing.

The boy – Kael thought his name might be Lars, but wasn’t about to embarrass either of them by getting it wrong – began to fasten the ornate plate armour over the top of the mail on his legs. Kael’s dress armour was made from steel containing an ore that turned it to a matte black, and he’d had replicas of his marks carved and enamelled in red over his arm and chest. At every join, the plate was studded with red and black crystals that flashed in the light. Unlike some Warriors, he had decided against bearing his sigil on his breastplate, which made the black and red all the more stark.

‘How’s the ship?’

‘Shipshape, sir. Almost nothing to do to it.’ Lars buckled plate armour to his legs. ‘Steward wants to know when you want to leave next, and where to, and he’ll get it provisioned.’

‘Soon as possible. We’ll sail on the tide tonight if we can. We’re already cutting it fine, this time of year.’ Kael rolled his shoulders and pulled on his mail shirt. It was made from the same black steel as the plate armour and seemed to suck the light from the day.

He shook his head when offered the coif, however. He wasn’t actually going into battle – and what was the point of dressing like Krull the Warlord if no one could see his face?

Over the mail shirt went the enamelled breastplate, buckled to the backplate at the shoulders and sides. Kael took a deep breath to test the fit, and nodded. He hated being trussed up like this, truth be told. A man couldn’t fight half so well when he was wearing half a ton of steel.

Lars tied on the vambraces, then laced the shoulder plates to the breastplate. Kael knew all this stuff had special fancy names, but he’d be buggered if he was going to sit around learning them all like a first-year Tyro.

‘Will you want the gauntlets, sir? Or just gloves?’

‘Gauntlets,’ Kael said. He’d take them off as soon as he’d made his entrance. ‘Carry my helm, would you?’

The boy nodded and scrambled into his surcoat. Every man of the horde who marched with them on these occasions wore the same coat: black on the left, red on the right, with the crest of Krulland emblazoned across the chest in bright silks.

Kael marched from the changing rooms across the training ground and was gratified to note that this time, everyone stopped to look. Even Glorius’s boy, although his handsome face was schooled into a sneer.

Waiting at the gates to the Academy, causing a hell of a disturbance to traffic, was a century of his men, each of them armoured and coated and helmed, the relentless darkness of their dress armour like a black hole in the noon light. They saluted, fists to breastplates, with a deafening clang.

Kael saluted right back and swung himself up into the saddle of the huge black destrier Lars held ready for him. Behind him to the right, Verak stilled his horse, with Karnos flanking to his left. Ahead of them, Johann the signifer stood with Kael’s mighty banner.

‘Stand you ready?’ Kael roared, and a hundred men roared back, ‘Aye!’

‘Show off,’ muttered Verak, and Kael hid a smile.

‘We ride,’ he called, and the men saluted again, marching after the three horses in perfect time.

Just as he’d told Ishtaer, people generally got the hell out of his way, and that was never truer than when he was putting on a show. After a few hundred yards the crowds had formed an avenue, watching in awe.

‘What’s it like being the most feared man in the Empire?’ Verak asked, riding up beside him. On the other side, Karnos did the same. His men knew about pageantry just as well as he did.

‘Oh, you know,’ Kael said offhandedly. ‘The money’s good but the hours aren’t great.’

‘And the uniform is frankly appalling,’ Karnos grumbled.

Verak laughed. His arms were a golden cockerel on a maroon field, plain and uncluttered with the detritus of family legacies and victory cantons. Karnos, on the other hand, came from a line sparsely populated with undistinguished Chosen, and had inherited arms bearing an ass and a beaver. Worse, the purple and yellow diagonal stripes of the background were described in heraldry as ‘bendy sinister purpure and gules’. Kael had laughed so hard when he first heard the description of the sinister bendy ass and beaver that he’d nearly choked.

‘Put me in Krullish livery then,’ the grizzly Healer had said, but Kael refused. Partly because the man was Chosen and had the right to bear his own arms, and partly because it was so damn funny seeing his face when he had to wear the stuff.

‘How’s our girl settling in?’ Verak asked as the horde passed under the Queen’s Gate and began down the Processional Way, flanked by bas reliefs and walls made of jewelled and enamelled bricks so bright and vibrant Kael’s armour seemed dull in comparison.

Kael shrugged, which was a noisy business when he wore so much armour. ‘Hard to say. She’s still a frightened little mouse, but she seems to forget some of that when she gets to healing. Madam Julia has accepted her at any rate.’

‘Julia Quintia?’ Karnos rumbled. ‘She’s running the place now, is she? No surprise. Intelligent woman.’

‘Sensible too,’ Kael added, because in his experience the two didn’t always go together.

‘What did Scipius say?’ Verak asked.

Kael sighed. ‘Doesn’t believe she’s really a Warrior. I showed them she could fight—’

‘What? No she can’t!’

‘Yes, she can, a damn sight better than any other half-starved slave I’ve ever seen,’ Kael said bluntly.

‘Especially considering she can’t see,’ Karnos added.

‘Right,’ said Kael. They passed under the Warrior’s Gate, the second of many along the Processional Way. Kael supposed they’d been built in antiquity as additional defences for the Tower. Despite the crowded streets of the city pressing right up against the Tower, the Processional Way was still the only entrance to it. He didn’t know precisely why some of them were named for the Chosen. Probably there was some legend about it. Probably that had been explained in the same class as the silly names for armour.

‘What will you tell the Emperor about her?’ Verak asked, and Kael glanced at him in surprise.

‘Why should he need to know?’

Both men stared at him in silence.

‘Look, until we’re really sure she is Thrice-Marked then what’s the point in getting him excited?’

‘He’s the Emperor,’ Verak said. ‘He’ll find out sooner or later.’

‘And then you’ll be in the shit for not telling him,’ Karnos added.

Kael made a face and stared out at the overly decorated walls of the Way.

‘And don’t sulk,’ Verak said.

Kael rolled his eyes.

The Tower was so huge that the Empire liked to pretend it went right up to the sky to touch the gods themselves. Kael thought this was a load of bull, but he had to admit the place was impressive. Roadways spiralled around it, right up to the top, which made him baulk the first time he was summoned there. But inside were several huge elevators, operated by pulleys and teams of horses, enough to carry the cartloads of goods the inhabitants of the Tower required every day.

The horde approached the King’s Gate, where men in the Emperor’s livery saluted them and waved them into the outer courtyard, where the two spiralling roadways began to chase each other around the Tower. The place was heaving with people and horses and goods, but they all went markedly quiet as Krull the Warlord rode through.

A steward hurried forward to tell them the Emperor awaited in the Mirrored Court.

‘Hear that, lads? The Emperor awaits me. Didn’t think he awaited anyone.’

The steward smiled nervously and beckoned them on. Kael rode forward, Verak and Karnos flanking him, the men remaining where they were. It never failed to impress when his men obeyed silent orders, and yet Kael couldn’t figure out why. Did people think they were all psychic? Didn’t they realise he told them what to do in advance?

‘Oh, I hate this bastard thing,’ Karnos muttered as they approached the nearest elevator.

‘Not as much as your horse will,’ Verak replied.

They rode in, the gate was shut and they waited as instructions were given to the relevant team. ‘Take us to the exit below the Mirrored Court,’ Kael said, and while the steward looked puzzled he agreed. He fastened the two sets of gates and the three men swung down from their horses, in Verak’s case not a moment too soon. Kael stopped laughing when the creature tried to bash his friend’s skull in, and left his own calm, battle-trained horse to Karnos while he helped Verak steady the terrified chestnut.

The Mirrored Court was less than a third of the way up the Tower, but Kael was still beginning to regret bringing the horses with him. By the time they arrived, the cage stank of urine, and by the steward’s mortified expression Kael suspected not all of it had come from the horse. He flipped the man a gold aureus and led the horses out to the bright sunshine of the roadway, where the chestnut calmed almost instantly.

The roadway was bordered by a wall of about waist height, but that was the only barrier between the horse trough they led the animals to and a few hundred feet of nothingness. Kael gazed out over the city huddled on its rock, the eight major roadways spreading out from the Tower like the spokes of an immense wheel, and past it to the glittering harbour and the sprawl of buildings on the shore. Beyond them, fading into the mist, rolled fields and forests and, somewhere in the distance, mountains.

And far, far beyond that, over the sea, lay Krulland.

A horse’s snort brought him back to the Tower. ‘Remind me who thought riding horses was a good idea?’ Kael said, watching Verak soothe the chestnut. ‘I’ve seen cornered mice with more sense.’

‘If we were all three inches high, I’m sure we’d ride mice,’ Karnos said.

A boy waiting nearby with a cart sniggered. Kael shot him a look that had him hiding behind his master.

‘Next time I’ll ride in on a bull,’ he said.

‘Oh, aye, famously calm are bulls,’ Verak said, splashing water on his slightly yellowed boots.

‘Impressive though,’ Kael said thoughtfully. ‘Get a Bard to sing to one, maybe we could train it to be ridden.’

The other two stared at him.

‘What? Bet you no one else has ever ridden a bull into the Mirrored Court.’

‘Yeah, and there’s a reason for that!’

Kael winked and swung back into his saddle. ‘Aye. That reason being, no one else is Krull the Warlord!’

Karnos snorted. Verak rolled his eyes. But both men mounted up and followed him up the roadway, around a full turn of the spiral, falling automatically into formation. By the time they reached the outer courtyard of the Mirrored Court, Verak’s horse had recovered from the elevator, and Kael doubted that any rumours of a less-than-impressive exit from the contraption would go very far. It was amazing what being a big guy on an armoured horse did to frighten people.

They rode past the elevator banks and towards the portcullis that shielded entrances to every level of the Tower.

‘Krull the Warlord,’ Kael yelled, not bothering to slow his horse. ‘His Imperial Majesty awaits me.’

The portcullis was lifted and the three of them rode on.

‘We getting off any time soon?’ Karnos wanted to know.

‘Nope.’

‘Just checking.’

Inside the Tower the floors and walls were inlaid with an even higher level of enamelled and bejewelled insanity than the Processional Way. They rode down a corridor lined with gilt and jewels and courtiers in rich clothing who stared in astonishment at the three warhorses bearing down on them at a steady pace. People began to look nervously at the huge doors to the Mirrored Court, standing closed with only a couple of footmen and a major domo to guard them. From behind the doors came a babble of voices, some shouting, some laughing, some singing along to lute music.