Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord (73 page)

“This is not a game . . .” he began.

“I know it’s not a game, brother,” Illian broke in. “And I am not a child, neither is Arendil. You can’t do what we have done and remain children. We’re staying.”

Frentis stared at them helplessly, guilt threatening to force a scream from his breast.
If you die here, it’s my fault!

“Always was a long bet, brother,” Arendil said with a grim smile.

Frentis breathed out slowly, letting the scream die, casting his gaze about their bedraggled company and finding no fear on any face. They all looked at him in silent respect, waiting for orders.
I was made monstrous, they made me better. They brought me back. I came home.

He could feel the rumble in the ground beneath his feet now, building steadily.
Must be a thousand or more.
“Form a circle,” he said, pointing to a slight rise in the ground twenty paces off. “Master Rensial, please mount up and stand with me in the centre.”

He hauled himself onto one of the warhorses, trotting over to the rise and standing with Rensial alongside as the others closed in around them, forming a spiked hedge of drawn swords and raised bows.

The first riders came into view only minutes later, dim figures in the lingering morning mist, twenty men riding hard.
No armour,
Frentis saw.
Volarian scouts . . .
All thought fled as he caught sight of the face of the lead rider. A lean man of middling years with close-cropped hair and pale eyes, his dark blue cloak billowing behind.

“Lower weapons,” Frentis said, dismounting and walking forward on unsteady legs as the blue-cloaked man reined in a short distance away.

“Brother,” Master Sollis greeted him, his voice even more hoarse than Frentis remembered. “You seem to be marching in the wrong direction.”

R
eva could hear the Reader’s voice before she reached the square, making her wonder how such an old man could shout so loud.

“. . . the Father’s Sight is taken from us, stolen by these wretched Heretics . . .”

She sprinted into the square, finding it full of people from end to end, crowding around with eyes fixed on the centre, rapt by the Reader’s words.

“. . . this city is the Father’s gift! The jewel given unto the Loved and named for his greatest servant! But we have allowed the corruption of unbelief to fester here . . .”

“Move aside!” Reva began shoving her way through the crowd, most onlookers making way when they saw her face, others proving more reluctant and she was in no mood to be gentle. “Move I said!” she snarled, the man who reached out to grasp her arm staggering back with a bloody nose. Her passage was a little easier after that.

“. . . cleanse this city! Those are the Father’s words to me, revealed in the Ten Books, though I have laboured long to find another course. ‘Make my city pure again and my Sight will fall on you once more . . .’”

She struggled free of the crowd, emerging to find the square filled with kneeling people, all bound with rope and surrounded by men with swords. She noticed a few of the sword-bearers were priests whilst others were mostly men of middling years, some a little too old to have seen service on the walls. At the sight of her a few grew visibly discomforted, but there were plenty who stared at her with stern-faced defiance, one even stepping forward to block her path as she moved towards the Reader.

Her sword came free of the scabbard in a blur and the man drew up short. With a shock Reva recognised him as the fruit seller who had sold her an apple that first day on the cathedral steps. “Get out my way,” she instructed him, voice soft and full of dire promise. The fruit seller paled and stepped back.

“She comes!” the Reader intoned from the cathedral steps. “As I foretold. The whore’s bastard pupil, the falsely blessed.”

Reva’s gaze took in the sight of Brother Harin, kneeling with a bloodied face in the front row of captives. Veliss knelt beside the healer, arms tied behind her back and a wooden gag secured in her mouth. Arken knelt at her side, hardly able to keep upright, his skin pale and head sagging.

“I have a blessing for you,” Reva told the Reader, breaking into a run, a red haze clouding her vision. “It’s made of steel, not words.”

The Reader’s pet priest tried to stop her, casting an inexpert thrust at her chest with a rapier. It clattered to the tiles along with two of his fingers. The Reader was flanked by his bishops and she found it significant that none came forward to shield him from her charge, most staring in shock or deciding to avert their gaze, although she was sure she glimpsed a smile or two. The old man fell like a bundle of rags as she grasped his robe, forcing him to the steps, sword drawn back.

“The priest!” she said. “Who is he? I know he answers to you.”

“Such sin.” The old man shook his head, madness and wonder in his eyes. “Such corruption of holy flesh. You, the one promised as our salvation, vile with unnatural lust . . .”

“Just tell me!” She forced him lower, the sword point pressing through his robe.

“The bright light of your sacrifice would unite us. It was promised to him by the Father’s own messenger . . .”

“REVA!”

It was the only voice that could have stopped her. She turned to see her uncle hobbling through the crowd, people backing away with heads lowered. He made a pathetic sight, a wasted, dying man shuffling along, using an old sword as a walking stick. But there was dignity there too, a command in the unwavering gaze he cast about him, a few of the sword-bearers lowering their weapons as he made his slow progress to the steps.

Reva let go of the Reader, stepping back as her uncle came to a wheezing halt a few steps below. “I think,” he said in a thin gasp, “our people should like to hear your news.”

“News, uncle?” she asked, chest heaving with repressed rage.

“Yes. The Father’s revelation. It’s time we shared it.”

Revelation?
Reva’s gaze tracked over the crowd, seeing a confusion of expression on the assembled faces; fear and hope but mostly just great uncertainty.
That’s what he offers,
she realised, glancing down at the Reader.
Certainty. The lie of a great truth. Killing him won’t disprove it.

“Lord Vaelin Al Sorna rides to our relief!” she told them, casting her voice as wide as she could. “He rides towards us now with a great and powerful army!”

“Lies!” the Reader hissed, getting slowly to his feet. “She seeks to usurp the Father’s words with lies! Invoking the name of the Darkblade no less!”

“Al Sorna is not the Darkblade!” she shouted as the crowd began to murmur. “He comes to save us. I am Lady Reva Mustor, heir to the Chair of this fief and daughter to the Trueblade. You call me blessed, you believe the Father’s Sight rests upon me. I say it rests upon all of us. And the Father does not reward murder.”

“They shun the Father’s love!” The Reader cast a bony hand at the kneeling captives. “Their presence within these walls weakens us!”

“Weakens us?” Reva picked out the fruit seller who had confronted her earlier. “You! You have a sword. Why haven’t I seen you on the wall?”

The man shuffled and looked around warily. “I have a daughter and three grandchildren, my lady . . .”

“And they’ll die unless we hold this city.” She turned on a priest standing near the steps, a portly man with a thin-bladed sword dangling from his plump hand like a wet twig. “You, servant of the Father, I haven’t seen you either. But this man”—she pointed at Arken—“him I’ve seen, fighting and shedding blood in your defence. Whilst this man”—she pointed at Brother Harin—“works tirelessly to tend our wounded. And this woman . . . ” Veliss’s eyes were wide above the gag, shining bright. “. . . this woman has served this fief faithfully and well for years, and worked without pause or rest to secure this city and ensure all are fed.”

Her gaze blazed at the crowd. “They do not weaken us. You do! You are the weakness here! You come here like the slaves our enemy would make us, bowing down to this lying old man, filling your hearts with easy hate when you know the Father only ever spoke of love!”

She looked at the portly priest once more. “Put that down before you hurt yourself.” He stared at her, his sword falling from his grasp to clatter onto the tiles. She cast her gaze over the other sword-bearers, each dropping his blade as her eyes met their faces, looking away in shame or staring back in wonder.

There was a commotion off to the right as Antesh and Arentes forced their way through the throng, the entire House Guard behind them along with dozens of archers and Realm Guard. Reva held up a hand as they advanced towards the disarmed men, then pointed at the captives. “Free these people, my lords, if you would.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the Reader, his face white with either rage or disbelief. “The cathedral is closed until further notice. Don’t show your face outside it again.” She sheathed her sword and descended the steps towards the Fief Lord, reaching out to him. “I think you need a nap, Uncle.”

He nodded wearily, smiling then blinking in shock, eyes widening in alarm at something behind her. She turned to find the Reader flying towards her, a dagger raised high in his bony hand, yellowed teeth bared in a hate-filled grimace, too fast and too close to side-step or parry. Something blurred in the corner of her eye and the Reader doubled over before her, the dagger scraping a shallow cut on her arm as he collapsed onto the cathedral steps, her grandfather’s sword buried in his belly. He coughed, twitched and died.

She caught her uncle as he fell, cradling his head on her lap, her hand on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart slowing. “Never . . . killed anyone . . . before,” he said. “Glad it . . . turned out to be . . . him.” His hand fluttered to her cheek and she held it there. “Don’t . . . doubt the Father’s love . . . my wonderful niece. Promise me.”

“I won’t, Uncle. Not now, not ever.”

He smiled, his red eyes dimming. “Brahdor,” he whispered.

“Uncle?”

“The man the priest called lord . . . His name . . . Brahdor . . .” The bony hand went limp in her grasp. His eyes still stared up at her but she knew they saw nothing.

◆ ◆ ◆

Fief Lord Sentes Mustor was laid to rest in the family crypt within the manor walls. By Reva’s order only she and the coffin bearers were present. She had wanted Veliss at her side but the lady was too stricken by the day’s events to attend, stumbling back to the manor white-faced and locking herself in her room. Reva sent the bearers away and sat by the coffin until nightfall. It was a plain pine box, incongruous next to the ornately carved marble of her forebears, something she would have to fix in time. Outside the faint thump of engine-cast stones could be heard as they ate another breach into her wall. Antesh reported that it was only another two weeks away from completion.

She had hoped sitting here with the bones of her ancestors might provoke some vision or insight, a cunning stratagem to win the day when the final stone fell. But all she earned was a cold behind and a sense of loss so great it felt as if some invisible hand had scooped out her insides.

She rose and went to the coffin, touching her fingers to the unvarnished wood. “Good-bye, Uncle.”

Veliss opened the door at the seventh knock, red-eyed and pale. A ghost of a smile played on her lips before she turned back, leaving the door open. Reva closed it behind her, watching Veliss sit at her desk where a piece of parchment waited, half-covered in her fine script. “My formal letter of resignation,” she said, picking up the quill. “I think I’ll take you up on that horse, and the gold. When this is all over, naturally. I hear the Far West offers many opportunities . . .”

She fell silent as Reva came to place her hands on her shoulders, eyes raising to meet hers in the mirror as they lingered. “I thought it was a stain.”

Reva bent to press a kiss to her neck, exulting in the thrill of delight as she provoked a gasp. “It washed.” She took Veliss’s hands and drew her towards the bed. “Now it’s a gift.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Is it wrong?
she wondered the following morning.
To feel so good at a time such as this?
She had been fighting to keep the smile from her face all through the council with her captains, scrupulously avoiding catching Veliss’s eye for fear of a betraying grin or blush. Her uncle dead, the Reader slain on the steps of his own cathedral and the city on the verge of destruction, but all she could think about was the wondrous night before.

“It’s just not enough,” Antesh was insisting to Arentes, his knuckles thumping onto the map on the library table. “We’ll hold them at the breaches for no more than a few hours, and all the time you can bet they’ll be making a fresh assault on the walls to draw off our strength.”

“What else can we do?” the old guard commander asked. “This city’s defence rests on its walls. There is no provision, no plan for anything else. My lady”—he turned to Reva—“it might help if we had some notion of how long the Dar—, Lord Al Sorna will take in getting his army here.”

Reva stopped the amused frown before it reached her brow.
He believed me.
Seeing the intent gaze of Lord Antesh she realised the old guardsman was not alone.
They actually think the Father has sent me some holy vision.
“Such . . . details were not revealed to me, my lord,” she replied. “We must plan on holding this city as long as possible.”

Antesh sighed, returning his gaze to the map. “Perhaps if we build towers here and here, just behind the new walls. Pack them with archers to loose down at them as they rush through . . .”

Reva surveyed the map as he went on, noting how circular it was, the empty space of the square in the centre like the bull’s-eye of an archer’s target, the surrounding streets ordered in a circular pattern radiating outwards. She reached for a charcoal stub and began to draw on the map. “We have been thinking on too small a scale,” she told the two lords, tracing a series of black circles through the streets, each one smaller than the last. “Not two inner walls, six. Each to be held for as long as possible. Archers on every rooftop. The streets are narrow so their numbers won’t matter so much. When one wall is breached, we fall back to the next.”

Arentes looked at her plan for a good while before commenting, “It’ll mean tearing down a quarter of the city.”

“The city can be remade, its people can’t.” She looked at Antesh. “My lord?”

The Lord of Archers gave a slow nod. “It seems the Father’s blessing is not misplaced. But it’ll take a mighty effort to have it all done by the time the breach is complete.”

“Then let’s be about it. Besides I think the people will welcome any distraction from the sound of those bloody stones.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Veliss organised work gangs based on neighbourhood allegiance, putting a skilled builder in charge of each one. They worked in seven-hour shifts, no-one was hungry now as rationing had been abandoned in the face of more pressing need. They worked through the night pulling down houses that had stood for centuries, their bricks moulded into the new barricades which had quickly been dubbed the Blessed Lady’s Rings. The taller houses were turned into miniature fortresses with wooden platforms added to the rooftops to accommodate additional archers, each one well-stocked with arrows and weapons. A series of walkways was also constructed across the rooftops, allowing reinforcements to be rushed from one point to another.