Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 (87 page)

“The – the envoys have returned, Chancellor,” stammered his aide, from the door.

Tali and the chancellor were in the great dame’s chambers, which he had appropriated, by a blazing fire.

“Then send them in. What did Grandys say?”

“Th-there’s a m-message,” said the aide. His arms hung low, his feet dragged.

“What is it, damn you?”

The aide opened a brown sack and dumped the contents on the chancellor’s gleaming table. “This.”

The severed heads of the chancellor’s three envoys rolled halfway across and stopped, their clouded eyes staring at him.

Tali recoiled. The chancellor let out a strangled gasp.

“What’s Grandys saying?” said Tali, turning so she would not have to look at the heads, which had been severed a good few days ago and were past their best.

“I should have thought that was obvious.”

“Not to me.”

“It means that he, unlike every other foe I’ve ever dealt with, is utterly unpredictable. How can I fight such a man? I’ve no idea what he’ll do next.”

“I don’t know.” And Rix was in the hands of this monster, unable to help himself.

The chancellor’s sardonic eye turned to her, as if he had read her thought. “How could Rixium have gone off with the man? How could he be so weak-willed?” He spat into the fire.

In the shadows behind him, Tali saw Glynnie stiffen. The chancellor had taken her on because she was the perfect maidservant, but if he could have seen the look in her eyes now he might have thought otherwise. Was she grieving for Rix, Tali wondered, or burning for him?

He cleared his throat, pointedly. Rix’s betrayal was a theme the chancellor kept returning to, like a dog to a bone he’d gnawed all the meat off but could not let go.

“Grandys ensorcelled him,” said Tali, wishing the chancellor would have the severed heads removed. “You know that.”

“But for Grandys to do it so easily, surely Rix must have wanted it, subconsciously?”

“What if the enchantment on Maloch wasn’t protecting Rix for himself,” said Tali, “but because of the connection to Grandys?”

The chancellor started, and so did Glynnie, though she recovered quickly and stepped further back into the shadows.

“How do you mean?” said the chancellor.

“Did Maloch deliberately lead Rix to Precipitous Crag so he could attack the wrythen, terrorise Lyf with the reappearance of the sword that had cut his feet off, and weaken him from fear? Did Maloch direct Rix to Garramide so he’d paint the mural of the opalised man from images Maloch had previously shown him? A mural that would call Rix to recover Grandys’ petrified body from the Abysm.”

“Are you suggesting all this was foreordained?” said the chancellor.

“Not foreordained. But I do think there’s a malign purpose at work, and it comes from the enchantment on the sword.”

“Which makes this just the latest step in a two-thousand-year-old battle.”

“Lady Ricinus gave Maloch to Rix and told him to wear it, but he disliked the sword on sight,” said Tali. “Perhaps he sensed the magery in it. And the moment he strapped it on, he must have come under its influence. What if his great-aunt didn’t sent it to Rix as an innocent gift, but in the hope that it would influence him to bring Grandys back?”

In the shadows, Glynnie drew in a long, hissing breath. The chancellor’s dark brows knitted.

“If you’re right, the sword was never protecting Rix for himself, but only for what he could do for its master.”

“How are you going to save him?” Glynnie’s face was twisted in anguish.

“Save Rixium?” barked the chancellor. “I’ve already condemned the swine twice. I hope Grandys puts him down like the Herovian dog he is.”

“No, you don’t,” said Tali.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because Rix may be the only one who can save us from Grandys.”

“Right now I’m more concerned about saving us from Lyf. Now get out!”

Tali went.

Given the way the peace conference had ended, Lyf must feel more embittered than ever, and more convinced that Hightspall had planned the breach of the safe conduct to bring Grandys there. What would Lyf do? He must be watching the news of his old enemy’s progress with alarm, perhaps terror.

Was he planning a great new campaign? Or thinking that, before the worst happened, he had better secure his people’s ultimate refuge, Cython? Either way, Lyf must also be giving thought to the Pale, and whether he could allow them to remain at the heart of his empire.

Their doom, she felt sure, was coming ever closer. She had to find out what Lyf was up to, and there was only one way to do that. Despite the risk, she would have to spy on him again.

“The – the envoys have returned, Chancellor,” stammered his aide, from the door.

Tali and the chancellor were in the great dame’s chambers, which he had appropriated, by a blazing fire.

“Then send them in. What did Grandys say?”

“Th-there’s a m-message,” said the aide. His arms hung low, his feet dragged.

“What is it, damn you?”

The aide opened a brown sack and dumped the contents on the chancellor’s gleaming table. “This.”

The severed heads of the chancellor’s three envoys rolled halfway across and stopped, their clouded eyes staring at him.

Tali recoiled. The chancellor let out a strangled gasp.

“What’s Grandys saying?” said Tali, turning so she would not have to look at the heads, which had been severed a good few days ago and were past their best.

“I should have thought that was obvious.”

“Not to me.”

“It means that he, unlike every other foe I’ve ever dealt with, is utterly unpredictable. How can I fight such a man? I’ve no idea what he’ll do next.”

“I don’t know.” And Rix was in the hands of this monster, unable to help himself.

The chancellor’s sardonic eye turned to her, as if he had read her thought. “How could Rixium have gone off with the man? How could he be so weak-willed?” He spat into the fire.

In the shadows behind him, Tali saw Glynnie stiffen. The chancellor had taken her on because she was the perfect maidservant, but if he could have seen the look in her eyes now he might have thought otherwise. Was she grieving for Rix, Tali wondered, or burning for him?

He cleared his throat, pointedly. Rix’s betrayal was a theme the chancellor kept returning to, like a dog to a bone he’d gnawed all the meat off but could not let go.

“Grandys ensorcelled him,” said Tali, wishing the chancellor would have the severed heads removed. “You know that.”

“But for Grandys to do it so easily, surely Rix must have wanted it, subconsciously?”

“What if the enchantment on Maloch wasn’t protecting Rix for himself,” said Tali, “but because of the connection to Grandys?”

The chancellor started, and so did Glynnie, though she recovered quickly and stepped further back into the shadows.

“How do you mean?” said the chancellor.

“Did Maloch deliberately lead Rix to Precipitous Crag so he could attack the wrythen, terrorise Lyf with the reappearance of the sword that had cut his feet off, and weaken him from fear? Did Maloch direct Rix to Garramide so he’d paint the mural of the opalised man from images Maloch had previously shown him? A mural that would call Rix to recover Grandys’ petrified body from the Abysm.”

“Are you suggesting all this was foreordained?” said the chancellor.

“Not foreordained. But I do think there’s a malign purpose at work, and it comes from the enchantment on the sword.”

“Which makes this just the latest step in a two-thousand-year-old battle.”

“Lady Ricinus gave Maloch to Rix and told him to wear it, but he disliked the sword on sight,” said Tali. “Perhaps he sensed the magery in it. And the moment he strapped it on, he must have come under its influence. What if his great-aunt didn’t sent it to Rix as an innocent gift, but in the hope that it would influence him to bring Grandys back?”

In the shadows, Glynnie drew in a long, hissing breath. The chancellor’s dark brows knitted.

“If you’re right, the sword was never protecting Rix for himself, but only for what he could do for its master.”

“How are you going to save him?” Glynnie’s face was twisted in anguish.

“Save Rixium?” barked the chancellor. “I’ve already condemned the swine twice. I hope Grandys puts him down like the Herovian dog he is.”

“No, you don’t,” said Tali.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because Rix may be the only one who can save us from Grandys.”

“Right now I’m more concerned about saving us from Lyf. Now get out!”

Tali went.

Given the way the peace conference had ended, Lyf must feel more embittered than ever, and more convinced that Hightspall had planned the breach of the safe conduct to bring Grandys there. What would Lyf do? He must be watching the news of his old enemy’s progress with alarm, perhaps terror.

Was he planning a great new campaign? Or thinking that, before the worst happened, he had better secure his people’s ultimate refuge, Cython? Either way, Lyf must also be giving thought to the Pale, and whether he could allow them to remain at the heart of his empire.

Their doom, she felt sure, was coming ever closer. She had to find out what Lyf was up to, and there was only one way to do that. Despite the risk, she would have to spy on him again.

“It’s impossible,” Rix said quietly, when the sun rose to reveal the mighty fortress that was Castle Rebroff. “It’s got every form of defence known. And what do we have?”

A thousand young, foolish men, most of whom had never picked up a sword until a few days ago. Only a thousand, because Grandys had left most of his recruits behind. None of his men had ever fought in a proper battle, and their opponent was the brilliant Cythonian general, Rochlis, who had won dozens of battles and lost none.

Grandys had marched his force the thirteen miles from Swire to Rebroff in darkness, arriving at their destination an hour before dawn. The castle was half a mile away, over the hill and down. They had to advance across a meadow that provided no cover, then pass a thirty-foot-wide moat before they could attack the walls or the gate. The attack would not happen until the mid-afternoon, for he wanted his men rested and fed. It was his only concession to the rules of warfare.

Once the camp was quiet, Rix went across to Grandys, who was perched on a boulder, his eyes glittering like black opals in the starlight. They were on the flank of a stony hill; knee-high tussocks of a coarse, sharp-bladed grass were scattered all around.

“How are we going to attack?” said Rix. “The wall or the gate? Or both at once?”

“The gate,” Grandys said impatiently, as though that were obvious. “Only divide your forces when you can delegate them to another leader as good as you are.”

“How can we breach the gate? It looks mighty strong, and we don’t have a ram.”

“I’ll think of something when we come to it.”

Had any other man said that, Rix would have known they were insane. And maybe Grandys was. Who knew what might have gone wrong inside him in all those ages he had spent petrified? Yet he exuded such arrogant self-confidence that Rix half believed him.

“What about the moat?” said Rix.

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m beginning to have doubts about you, Ricinus. You obsess about every tiny detail.”

“My instructors taught me that a good leader has to know every detail of his command. And control every aspect of the battle plan.”

Grandys sneered. “Any of them ever won a battle? Or even fought one?”

“Well, no,” Rix admitted. “Until this war started, there hadn’t been one for a thousand years.”

“No wars? None at all?”

“No.”

Grandys looked incredulous. “Why didn’t somebody start one?”

“Start a war just so the men could get battle practice?” cried Rix.

“Of course. Heroism in battle is man’s highest ideal.”

Rix took a while to come to terms with that. Whenever he thought Grandys could sink no lower he revealed an even baser iniquity. “Did you start wars to get battle practice?”

“At least a dozen.”

“A lot of men must have been killed. Good men, maimed and brutalised, dying in agony.”

Grandys yawned. “But the ones who survived were all the better for the practice.”

He lay back on the snowy grass, wearing only his shirt and kilt, and did not seem to be troubled by the cold. Was that a side effect of being turned to stone?

“You can’t know every detail of your command,” said Grandys, harking back to what they had been talking about several minutes ago, “That’s your officers’ job, not yours. Nor can you control every aspect of the battle plan. There are too many imponderables, too many loose cannons, too many fingers of fate.”

“What do you see as the commander’s job?” asked Rix, fascinated despite his reservations, or because of them.

“To have a vision no one else has ever had before,” said Grandys, holding up a thick finger. He raised a second finger. “To lead by example, so forcefully that your men will follow you anywhere.” He studied his ring finger for a minute or so, then raised it as well. “To be a master of improvisation. No matter what the situation, to turn whatever is to hand to your advantage.”

“What if you can’t?”

“There’s always a way.”

“I don’t see it,” said Rix.

“Suppose you were to attack me now, while I’m unarmed. I left Maloch in my tent.”

Grandys reached out lazily, plucked a blade from one of the coarse yellow tussocks of razor grass and drew its edge across his unarmoured palm. A line of blood welled out. “With this I could sever your jugular before you realised I held a weapon.”

He tore a long spine off one of the low thorn bushes scattered around the boulders. Milky sap oozed from the base of the spine. Grandys held it up.

“You wouldn’t even see this in my hand, yet in under a second I could have it through your heart, your kidney, or any other vulnerable place that presented itself.” He reversed the spine. “If I were to dab the white sap into your eye, it would burn it out of your head.

“Weapons lie in the most innocent of objects,” Grandys went on, reflectively. “Any good general can design a battle plan. And once the plan is recognised, any good opponent can make a new plan to defeat the first. But how can they defeat an enemy who has no plan, who’s so trained to improvise that he can turn any object, and any situation, to his advantage? They can’t, and it drives them mad with frustration.”

Grandys chuckled, lay back and closed his eyes.

“Besides,” he said a few minutes later, “I thrive on being the underdog, on taking on foes with far greater armies in impregnable positions –
and destroying them
.”

“But even so, to attack such a mighty fortress with only a thousand raw recruits – why didn’t you bring the rest?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t be the underdog, would I?”

A minute later he was snoring as though he had not a worry in his opal-armoured head.

Rix eyed the razor grass, then Grandys’ exposed throat. The armour had gaps there, where the muscles flexed. It was tempting, but the command spell still held him and he did not think he could ever break it. Was he bound to Grandys unto death?

Grandys roused at 1 p.m. “Get the men up. We march at one-thirty.”

“You’re attacking in full daylight?” said Rix. “We’ll have no element of surprise.”

“We don’t need it,” said Grandys, impatiently. “Besides, if we don’t go now we won’t be feasting in the Great Hall by dinner time.”

He had to be insane, and there was nothing Rix could do.

He made sure the men were in their ranks, and all had their water bottles, rations, weapons, shields and helmets. You could never tell what unblooded men would leave behind, or forget to do. Grandys might not care about the little details, but Rix tried to think of everything.

Grandys raised his voice so all could hear him. “I lead the march, and the attack. We’ll head down the track until we’re just outside arrow-shot from the walls. On my signal, we charge the gates. Keep watch on me. I’ll give new orders when we’re close. March!”

They began to march out.

“That’s the entirety of the plan?” said Rix. “But they’ll see us. They’ll be ready with archers and shriek-arrows, bombasts and grenadoes and fire-flitters, and all their other chymical weaponry we can’t fight —”

“Weren’t you listening?” said Grandys. He thumped Rix playfully on the shoulder and turned away.

This was going to go wrong. Disastrously wrong, and Rix would be stuck in the middle while a thousand poor, stupid kids were slaughtered. And he, leading the attack with Grandys, would be one of the first to die.

Marching in their ranks, they passed down the slope to the meadow and across until they were almost within range of the walls. Grandys raised his right arm. Everyone stopped.

Castle Rebroff looked even more formidable from here. It had towering granite walls, not cored with rubble but solid stone all the way through. The gates were made from many crisscrossing layers of hardwood, each layer reinforced with iron on both sides. The water in the moat was at least ten feet deep and the steep banks were bare, greasy clay that would be a nightmare to climb. How many of the men could swim? Few people in Hightspall could. And there were hundreds of guards on the walls, able to fire on the unprotected army from shelter, while Rochlis was said to have another thousand battle hardened troops inside.

“I am Axil Grandys,” Grandys bellowed at the gates. “The Five Herovians have come back from the dead. With might and magery I will take Castle Rebroff by nightfall. Surrender now or die, for I take no prisoners.”

Several of the guards on the wall laughed, though the mirth soon died into an uneasy silence. Every Cythonian had been taught about Grandys and his impossibly daring deeds in the early days of the Two Hundred and Fifty Years War. Now the man himself had come back from the dead. Back from stone.

An archer fired an arrow, which soared out towards Grandys. He watched it fall, unmoved, until it smashed against his opalised chest.

“You cannot win,” he said.

A guard let out a fearful cry. He was hastily dragged out of sight.

“No?” said Grandys. “Excellent. I hate surrenders. Charge!” He spurred his horse forward.

Rix had no choice but to go with him. The golem-like Syrten was on his left, on foot; the cadaverous Rufuss riding a long way to the right. Rix could not see Lirriam or Yulia, though he had no doubt they were there, if only to prove Grandys’ initial words.

Arrows began to fall. Rix held his shield up but it only covered part of his body and his horse not at all. Behind him, men were screaming in agony, falling, dying. He did not look back.

A bombast came spinning through the air towards them. It was the size of a large beer barrel and packed with enough alchymical material to blow down a three-foot-thick wall – or kill several hundred soldiers if it landed among them. No Hightspaller had yet mastered the basis of its shattering power. The rare bombasts that did not go off on impact were liable to explode when anyone tried to open them.

Grandys spurred across until the bombast was flying directly for him. Yet again, Rix wondered if the Herovian was insane. If it exploded, not even he could survive it.

Grandys reached up with both hands as if to catch the bombast like a football. The impact drove him backwards out of the saddle and slammed him into the ground. Rix froze. The soldiers let out a great cry of dismay. Was Grandys dead? Had he broken his neck? Was the bombast about to explode?

He rolled over, bounced to his feet, then punched his right fist through the end of the bombast. Tearing out a thick fuse like a red chuck-lash, he raised the bombast high. Evidently he had rendered it harmless.

Grandys signalled to Syrten, who went lumbering across to intercept a second bombast in one arm, and then a third with the other. Dozens of arrows were fired at him, and many hit, but none could penetrate the thick opal encrustations that had been created by Lyf’s own magery.

A fourth bombast, aimed higher, soared way over their heads and landed in the middle of the army, going off with a shattering blast and scattering men, and pieces of men, across a hundred yards of the meadow. Rix could not help himself. He looked back and the carnage was so terrible that he threw up on his saddle horn.

“On!” roared Grandys, waving Maloch above his head. “No setback can stop us. On!”

He sprang into the saddle and spurred on, holding the bombast under his left arm and Maloch with his right. Whether through sheer luck or the protective magery of Maloch, no arrow fell on him or his horse.

He calls the death of a hundred man a
setback
? Rix thought. He’s a monster; and I’m following him, so what does that make me? But the command spell would not let him go.

He hurtled in Grandys’ wake. No magery protected Rix now, and until a few days ago he had been Lyf’s number one enemy, so every soldier on the wall would want the credit for killing him. His shield could not protect him from a side-on shot, and he expected to die with an arrow through the head or belly at any moment.

His horse, struck by three arrows at once, stumbled and went down. Rix barely heaved his feet from the stirrups before it hit the ground and rolled. Had he been trapped in the saddle it would have broken his pelvis, if not his backbone.

He got up, aching all over, and ran. Grandys was a hundred yards ahead, approaching the moat, beyond which was the great gate. But he wasn’t stopping. He was spurring his horse on as though intending to jump the moat.

It wasn’t possible. No horse could jump that distance.

And neither could Grandys. His horse was falling towards the water when Grandys scrambled up onto the saddle, his broad feet spread, and leapt forwards. His weight pushed the unfortunate horse down and it hit the grey water with a colossal splash. When it cleared Rix saw Grandys, who had landed halfway up the greasy clay slope, dig in his heels and drive himself upwards. Arrows were raining down around him, and breaking on his chest armour, but none hit any unarmoured place.

Away to the left, Syrten was lumbering towards the moat, converging on the gate with a bombast under each arm. Dozens of arrows shattered on his encrusted skin. As many more were stuck into the bombasts, quivering with each of Syrten’s thumping footfalls. Fifty yards to the right, Rufuss was across the moat and climbing the wall like an armoured stick insect. He reached the top unharmed and began dealing death to the defenders with cold deliberation.

An arrow sliced across Rix’s right arm and blood flooded out, but if he stopped to attend it the archers would pierce him with a hundred more. He leapt over the edge of the moat, skidding on his boot soles down the slippery clay towards the water, then dropped his shield. He was a strong swimmer and could go a reasonable distance bearing the weight of his sword, but carrying a shield was out of the question.

Now Syrten was running straight down the bank of the moat. Could he swim? Would he even float? Rix could not imagine it. Syrten ran into the water and disappeared in spray, as if he were intending to pound across the bottom and up the other side.

Rix sheathed his sword and dived deep, arms out in front of him. The water was deeper than he had thought, around fifteen feet. At least, at that depth, the force of the arrows would be spent.