The City (13 page)

Fell said coldly, ‘Because your commanding officer tells you, Broglanh.’

‘Yes, sir. And I see why Indaro would be wanted,’ Broglanh went on, and Indaro heard an unfamiliar note of slyness in his voice. ‘She’s a swordmaster and you’d want that in the bodyguard. But me, I’m …’

‘Should I regret my decision, soldier?’

‘No, sir.’

Broglanh turned and was trailing Indaro out of the tent when their commander volunteered calmly, ‘It should be obvious.’

They turned and stared at him.

‘What do you both share?’ he asked them.

Indaro’s brain had gone numb. When they said nothing he shook his head.

‘You both bear Family names,’ he said. ‘This increases your chances of being admitted to the Thousand. It is not just, perhaps, but it is so. Is that what you wanted to hear, Evan Quin Broglanh, that you have been chosen for this mission not for your bravery, or your keen intelligence, but for an accident of birth?’

Broglanh said nothing, but he smiled and nodded.

‘Good luck,’ Fell Aron Lee repeated, and turned away.

THEY WERE GIVEN
mounts and, with garvy in the lead, they rode out into the quiet night. It was a long ride, following the City wall, always in sight on their left. Sometimes they rode in its moon-shadow; at others it was a dark ribbon in the distance. They rode through silent army camps and past settlements of the lost and desperate, people prepared to live on the front line, or to die, to clean up the mountains of debris an army left in its wake.

Much of the time they journeyed across an empty land, where the great wall resembled the ruins of an old house left untenanted among green lawns. Sheep and goats cropped the grass in its lee, and the occasional tired nag turned to stare, as if in envy, as the warhorses cantered past.

At one point in the night Garvy led them through a gate in the wall. Indaro looked up as the high timber doors opened for them. She had never travelled in these parts and had no idea where they were. They had seen not a soul for an hour. There were ancient runes carved deep into the stones above the gate. Garvy spoke to guards in an echoing stone courtyard, lit by flickering torches, presenting papers and quietly answering questions. The soldiers protecting this distant outpost seemed watchful and efficient, but as they rode on through Indaro looked down and saw eyes staring at them as if in envy.

The three followed the wall inside the line of ancient stones until
the next gate where, with the guards’ permission again, they crossed back to the outside. Indaro turned in her saddle and looked back, wondering at their diversion, but there was nothing to see, only innocent grassland and the moonlit wall snaking towards the horizon.

It was close to dawn when they reached the emperor’s encampment. Their first warning was a cry in the darkness; then a troop of lightly armoured riders appeared in the gloom. Garvy called a halt and they waited tensely, surrounded by silent horsemen, the creak of leather and clump of hooves and snort of horses’ breath welcome in their ears after so many quiet leagues. Again papers were presented and questions asked, and then the troop rode into the camp.

‘About time,’ a gravelly voice said irritably. The speaker was a bushy-bearded warrior wearing the black and silver livery of the Thousand. ‘I’m Fortance,’ he grunted at them. ‘We’re ready to leave. Fresh horses. Lively!’

They swiftly remounted. Indaro saw Garvy hand Fortance their papers, then turn away and ride off without a word. Then the Wildcats were ordered to the column and took their place behind a dark, featureless carriage. Black and silver helms turned to watch them.

Within a short while a group of dark figures hurried from a nearby building to the high carriage. There was a flurry of movement. Some climbed into the imperial vehicle and some out again, servants perhaps, she thought. Then one figure came out and paused, looking round at the waiting riders and fidgeting horses. He was tall, caped, with light hair which gleamed in the torchlight. He raised a pale hand and light flashed off a jewelled ring. Indaro could barely see through the helms and feathered plumes nodding in front of her, but she felt a thrill through her spine as she tiptoed and craned to glimpse him. The emperor dipped his head and disappeared into the carriage. Then the armoured door swung shut, and the troop moved off.

Indaro realized the emperor’s bodyguard were flanked by many more regular troopers, maybe hundreds. She had often been accused of arrogance, but now she could not help wondering what difference two Wildcats would make in this moving sea of armour and weapons. She glanced at Broglanh and caught his eye. He grinned at her, clearly delighted. She knew how he felt. They were moving forward, they had a clearly defined task, and were free, if only for one day, from the carnage of the battlefield.

They rode at a trot, in close formation, through the dawn light.
They were heading north. Indaro saw her moon-shadow bobbing on the armoured back of the trooper in front of her. Close on her left were hooded riders. She felt hemmed in, as if she were under escort herself, and was curious how far they had to go, whether the ranks would ease out as they travelled. She felt a sensation of unreality, that she was riding just a few horse-lengths behind the emperor, the Immortal. She wondered idly if he was facing front, or sitting looking back towards her through the windowless walls of the carriage. The conveyance was pulled by a team of twelve. Indaro guessed it was heavily armoured. Despite that, she would have given a year’s pay not to travel in such a vehicle, a sitting duck for enemy action. If I were in charge, she thought, the emperor would travel by horse, with merely two or three protectors, while a decoy was sent by carriage with hundreds of guards.

The company was opening out, and there was a horse’s length between her and the rider in front. Indaro felt she could breathe more easily. It was more than half a year since she had ridden, and it was good to feel the saddle under her thighs, the familiar movement, the noise of leather and the heavy breath of the horse. Her mind drifted to the riding lessons when she was small, the grey pony she called Mousey …

Her eyes on the shiny armour in front of her, her mind in the past, she saw one of the horses immediately behind the carriage rear up as a sound like thunder exploded in her ears. The horse plunged screaming on its side, blood spraying from its neck, then another blast to her right threw horses and riders like rag dolls.

The mount in front of her faltered, perhaps injured, and Indaro dragged out her sword, standing up in her stirrups to find the enemy. The emperor’s carriage was speeding away from the threat, the team of horses leaning into the traces, the bodyguard closing around from the front to compensate for the casualties at the rear.

Then another, more thunderous, explosion in front of the conveyance flung riders and their mounts into the air. Panicked horses tried to run from the noise and the tall carriage slowed, lurched and stopped; then, with infinite slowness, toppled over.

For a moment there was empty ground between Indaro and the emperor’s carriage and she kicked her horse towards it. Then the earth rose up in front of her and an armed warrior appeared magically at her mount’s hooves. He thrust his sword at the horse’s belly and
Indaro dragged on the reins, leaned down and chopped his arm off. He staggered, his mouth wide open in a scream. Indaro could hear nothing. She was deafened by the explosions.

More enemy soldiers erupted from the ground, from hidden dugouts. Stiff from crouching in holes, they were unequal to an armed rider, and Indaro slashed and cut her way through sluggish heads and necks, trying to reach the emperor. Beside her she was aware that Broglanh had been unhorsed and she glimpsed him fighting grimly, beset by enemy soldiers, one arm hanging uselessly.

Through the swirling dust she saw someone crawling weakly from the broken door of the carriage, a beardless boy, injured but still moving. An enemy lanced a sword into her horse’s chest and it fell. She slid to the ground, sword still in hand, killed the enemy soldier, then ran towards the carriage. She helped the wounded youngster, thrusting a shoulder under his arm, wincing as his weight dragged on her injured side. She pulled him away and helped him to the ground in the inadequate shelter of a dead horse. She saw he was barely in his teens, his eyes dark and wide. He was dressed all in green silk and there was a random piece of wood stuck in his chest. She was surprised he was still alive.

She turned back to the carriage, and spotted movement, someone struggling under the shattered frame. Then she saw an enemy soldier running towards it, fast as an athlete. Indaro slid her knife from its sheath and threw it at his head. It stuck in his neck and he staggered, but he managed to throw the missile in his hand before he fell. It missed the carriage and rolled under the hooves of one of the struggling horses. Indaro dragged air into her lungs and raced towards it, but she had moved hardly three paces when there was a huge explosion and, in deathly silence, the black carriage was torn to pieces in front of her eyes.

Indaro was hit by the soundless blast and thrown to the ground, rolling, protecting face and eyes. Then she was up again and running to the wreckage. But there was nothing left there, just two twisted bloodied torsos, charred and broken. Her breath caught in her chest, and her heart felt pierced. The emperor. Her emperor. Dead.

Through the whirling dust she saw Fortance. He was staring at the bodies. He had a head injury and the tears pouring down his face made tracks in the blood. Then he saw her and shouted soundlessly. He pointed to the east, where she could see enemy soldiers
fleeing towards the sunrise, their work done. Fortance held his wrists together in front of him, nodding urgently at her. She understood. ‘Take prisoners.’

Through the dust, among the dead and dying, she saw an uninjured horse, a grey mare, wandering, trailing her reins. Indaro ran to her and grabbed the reins and took a second to stroke the mare’s nose, looking into her eyes, then leaped on her back. She kicked the flanks and, well trained, the horse chased towards the escaping enemy.

On a small rise a group of enemy warriors were making a stand, surrounded by City soldiers. Swords thrust and hacked and clanged, but Indaro could hear nothing. Neither could the Blues. She cantered up behind them and slashed a warrior’s head from his shoulders with one cut. She saw her fellows shout out in triumph. She killed two more, one with a thrust to the chest, one skewered under the arm. The City soldiers, heartened, tore into the enemy with renewed strength. Indaro remembered Fortance’s order. When there were just seven enemy left alive, she gestured to her comrades, wrists together, until they nodded their understanding. As they bound their prisoners’ hands, she trotted the horse slowly back to the wreckage. The last few enemy, all injured, were being herded together for questioning later, when they had regained their hearing. But discipline had reasserted itself among the City ranks, and they did not need to hear orders as they set about tending the wounded, despatching the injured horses. A screen had been set up around the wreckage of the carriage and men of the Thousand solemnly stood guard. Too little, too late, Indaro thought.

She found Broglanh sitting among the wounded, waiting patiently for someone to tend his broken arm. His face was grey with pain, and she helped him get comfortable, leaning against a tree stump. He was talking to her, as if she could hear what he said, but she thought he was rambling. She spoke to him too, words of reassurance unheard. She spotted a canteen on a wandering horse, took it to Broglanh and helped him drink. He said something to her and grinned and she knew he was joking. He had not realized the emperor was dead. She smiled.

At last there was a buzzing in her ears, she swallowed several times, and her hearing came back, tinny and faint.

‘Can you hear me now?’ she asked Broglanh. But he had passed out, his broken right arm cradled in his left hand.

Indaro stood and looked around her. Warriors trained in the surgeon’s craft were treating the most badly wounded soldiers. The prisoners had disappeared, taken away for interrogation. She searched for a while for the boy dressed in green, but could not see him. She assumed he had died. Then she spotted Fortance shouting orders at a group of riders, sending out scouts to look for other enemy soldiers. She walked over to him.

‘Your orders, sir.’

Fortance looked at her. His face was still bloody, but his tears had been wiped away. She guessed his days as an officer of the Thousand were numbered. Only death and dishonour awaited him.

‘Indaro, yes?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The company will divide. One group will go post-haste to the City with the emperor. You will go ahead with that group.’

Conflicting emotions battled in her breast. She knew she had acquitted herself well, and was glad Fortance had noticed her. Yet Fell Aron Lee had charged her with protecting her lord, and she had failed to do so. If she had been faster, quicker on the uptake, quicker on her feet, she could have stopped the assassin. She had assisted an unknown lad before she helped her emperor.

‘Yes, sir.’ Then she said formally, ‘I’m sorry, sir, I couldn’t stop him.’

Fortance nodded. ‘You did well, soldier. You probably saved the emperor’s life.’

For a moment the words meant nothing. Then, ‘Saved?’ she repeated.

Fortance said, ‘The Immortal was injured. But he will recover, thanks be to the gods.’

Indaro stared at him, speechless. It was impossible that anyone had survived the Blues’ sorcerous explosion. And she was certain, as sure as she was of anything, that when she had seen Fortance after the blast, the man had thought his emperor dead. She opened her mouth, then thought better of it, and turned away.

She spent the next hour walking among the wounded, giving them water and stitching the most superficial wounds. Finally they were ordered to mount and she ran to the waiting grey and climbed into the saddle. The emperor had been removed to a baggage cart and a canvas screen erected around him. It was an undignified conveyance,
but experienced surgeons were a long way away and it was necessary to get the Immortal back to the City as soon as possible. Fast riders had already been sent back for help.