The Devil's Armour (Gollancz S.F.) (97 page)

The machine must not be harmed
.

‘The machine will not be harmed!’ hissed Thorin.

Colonel Thayus flicked a troubled gaze at him. ‘Baron Glass?’

‘Hold your post, Colonel,’ Thorin snapped.

He was confident the battle in the city would not take overly long. If need be, he would ride into Koth himself.

By the time the Norvans had breached the gate, Lukien was already upon them.

He had galloped ahead of Breck and Aric and all the others, leading the charge against the invaders with his
broadsword swinging overhead and his bronze armour gleaming in the sunlight. Beneath his breastplate, the Eye of God flared with furious power. Lukien could feel the strength of Amaraz flood his body, making his muscles and sinews burn with vigour. As he tucked himself low on his horse, he chose his first target. A chariot had broken past the mass at the gate and was galloping madly toward the Liirians. A shower of arrows miraculously missed the war machine as it dodged the shafts flying through the sky. The spearmen in the chariot drew back their long weapons, homing in on Lukien as he raced toward them. Lukien counted the seconds, timing his attack. Four brawny stallions snorted closer. Behind him, Lukien heard Breck’s call, warning him off. Ignoring his friend, Lukien fixed his one eye on the chariot driver.

At the moment when they should have collided, Lukien turned his horse hard left, barely dodging the four beasts and scraping the armour of his own horse against the chariot’s side. The spearmen, muddled by his closeness, fumbled with their weapons for a better shot. Lukien’s blade was already cutting the air effortlessly, racing for the driver’s neck. With no time to duck, the driver’s head popped cleanly off his shoulders, rolling backward through the air as the chariot went by.

Lukien whirled his horse around. Now leaderless, the horses carried the chariot to Breck, whose sword danced past the confused spearmen. The team whinnied, rearing back, spilling the spearmen into the streets. With no time to pursue them, Lukien turned against the tide of Rolgans. He could see the Rolgan leader now, fighting his way into the city. Royal Chargers poured onto the field. Overhead the blast from Aliston’s archers continued to pepper the Norvans beyond the gate. Crossbowmen raced forward, diving to the ground to fire their weapons. Lukien threaded through the melee, seizing on a mass of Rolgans riding toward him. They had seen his bronze armour and the way he’d dispatched the chariot.

‘Come, then, damned ones!’ he challenged, shaking his sword.

He punched the sides of his stallion and barrelled forward, levelling his weapon. From bravado to terrified, the faces of the Rolgans drained. Each raised a defence, one by one shattering easily under Lukien’s barrage. He could feel the glamour of the amulet on him, pumping his body with blood. His skin burning, he fell upon the first horseman, cracking open his breastplate and pulling out his blade in a fiery stream of scarlet. The remaining Rolgans quickly flanked him, hacking to reach him with their swords. Lukien brought up his blade, driving it through the chin of the nearest man. When next he pulled his sword free, the man’s face exploded. A rain of blood showered his armour as Lukien turned on the final horseman. The big man with an axe cried out in fury. The weapon raced forward. Lukien’s blade came up to face it, catching its shaft. As the blades slid together, Lukien pressed against his sword and leered at his foe.

‘Pray now, Rolgan,’ he sneered, ‘for in a moment you’ll be dead!’

Contemptuous spit ran down the Rolgan’s cheek as he muscled Lukien backward. The amulet burned on Lukien’s chest. Bolstered by its frightful magic, Lukien freed his sword and swung it hard, slicing into the soldier’s neck. The Rolgan howled and dropped his axe. As the weapon tumbled down Lukien’s sword whistled again, silencing the big man’s screams.

All around, chaos reigned. Lukien drew back to survey the field. Breck was nowhere to be seen, lost somewhere in the melee. Suddenly all the Chargers who had been his friends became little more than faceless heroes, fighting and dying in droves. Lukien raised his sword to rally the men, knowing their cause was hopeless.

‘For Liiria!’ he cried. ‘For your freedom, men, join me!’

His armoured horse bucking beneath him, Lukien let the red glare of the amulet light his furious face. Chariots
thundered past, their men tossing javelins through the air like lightning bolts. Suddenly encircled, Lukien laughed insanely.

‘Fight me, pigs! I am cursed to live forever! I am the bane of your lives!’

Fixing his glare on the nearest chariot, Lukien raced after it, determined to gut its three riders.

Major Nevins had sent all his horsemen into battle on the hill, but knew now it wouldn’t be enough. He hadn’t really expected to hold out until midmorning, and so he considered the rising sun a small victory. But dead men were piling up around him, and Major Nevins realised his time as a soldier was growing short indeed. As he battled on, wiping sweat and blood from his brow as he fought to hold the road, he called hoarsely to his men to regroup near the yard, to confront the spearlike attack of the enemy and quite probably die.

The defenders had started the day with less than six hundred men. Nevins had not taken a count of his dead, but he could tell by the bodies in the road that he had lost at least half of them already. There were still a handful of men in the library itself, including Van who had dug in at the west wing, but the bulk of Nevins’ force was by now slain or exhausted. Overhead, the shots from the catapults continued to hammer the library. They had torn a great rent in the main façade, sending it crumbling down around Nevins and his men. As he stared at the heartbreaking wound in the library, Nevins realised what a folly it had been for them to think they could defend it. Now they were trapped.

‘Fall back!’ he cried, continuing to rally his men. He galloped through the chaos, shouting for Murdon. ‘To the yards, Murdon! Get to the yards!’

Murdon heard his commander’s cries and tried desperately to disengage, but the enemy was everywhere suddenly, flooding against him and his brigade like a tidal wave. If they could make it to the yards . . .

But they did not. Nevins watched in misery as a team of Norvan axe-men cut past the perimeter and made for Murdon’s position. Murdon, confused in all the combat, did not see the weapon slicing toward his head.

‘Fate no!’ cried Nevins, watching Murdon’s head split open, the axe-men storming over his fallen body.

Unstoppable
, thought Nevins. The wall of Norvan mercenaries continued to rise up the road, gathering speed no matter how many barriers he threw in their way. With no choice but to fight on, Nevins raced for the yard to make his last stand.

Rodrik Varl was surprised it had taken all morning to secure the road, but at last it was done. As his mercenaries pushed the remains of the Liirians into the yards around the library, Varl and the men around him rode to the front of the battle. An uneasy quiet had settled over the hill as the Liirians dug into their positions around the broken walls of the library. Varl’s men were thick in the road, almost choking it in their own zeal to crest the hill. Behind them, a great battering ram was being dragged slowly up the winding avenue, large enough to splinter the doors of the place once the way was cleared. Rase and a handful of his men greeted Varl as he finally reached the hilltop. The Liirian arrows from the library had temporarily stopped.

‘Roddy, it’s ours,’ Rase called from horseback, waving his comrade closer.

Varl rode to him, keeping a careful eye on the library. The top of the hill was a vast plain with grounds much larger than Varl had anticipated. Though they had crested the road, the real work could now begin. It would be dirty work to dig out the defenders, he knew, with all the unknown dangers of the huge library itself.

‘Call a halt to the catapults,’ Varl said to one of his men. ‘Cease fire.’

The man, named Five-Finger Frain because he only had one hand, had already anticipated the order. He rode back down the hill toward the catapults, relaying Varl’s command.

‘Rase, keep your men back,’ said Varl.

Rase, too, already knew what to do. He called to his men to hold their positions. All at once the fighting stopped. The Liirians in the yard, some on horseback, many waiting behind rocks and fallen parts of the wall, stared out across the field. One man – an officer by the looks of him, sat atop a filthy horse at the forefront of the broken army. He glared contemptuously at the mercenaries as he waited for their move.

‘You there,’ Varl called to him, riding forward. ‘Do you speak for these men?’

The question baffled the officer, who looked around hesitantly, no doubt waiting for some Norvan trick. Chancing an arrow in the chest, Varl rode out from the safety of his men, until only fifty yards separated him from the Liirians.

‘I’m Rodrik Varl, commander of this army,’ he declared. ‘I offer you surrender.’

The officer stared at him in disbelief. Behind him a Liirian shouted an obscenity at the Norvans. The officer held up a hand to silence his men.

‘I’m Major Nevins,’ he said. ‘I’m in command here. What is this surrender you offer?’

‘Your lives spared, your territory ours,’ replied Varl. ‘It’s over, Major. You cannot win and you know it. In an hour you will certainly be dead. In twice that time so might everyone else.’

‘You’re a boaster, Norvan,’ sneered Nevins. ‘We are prepared to fight.’

‘Yes, I’m sure that’s so,’ said Varl. ‘But why die terribly when you can live? This library is ours, Major. Your city is
ours. You are a Liirian, a man of the Fate? Then see the truth – the Fate has made this so, and you cannot change it.’

Nevins’ face went from defiant to ashen. There was no disputing Varl’s words, and both men knew it.

‘Look out there,’ said Varl, pointing to the city below. ‘That army is not this army. This army is mine. It follows my orders, but I have no sway over the army now taking your city or the monster that leads it. And we do not have all day for this, Major. Surrender now, and we’ll grant you safe passage off this hill, all of you, before Baron Glass can stop you.’

The impossibility of the offer showed on Nevins’ troubled face. ‘You would do this? Defy orders?’

‘I have no love for that madman,’ said Varl. This time he gestured to Glass’ far-away command post. ‘Even now he watches us from his hillside. Your time is short, Major.’

The men behind Nevins began coming out from their hiding places. A pair of lieutenants rode up beside him. All of them watched the major desperately.

‘There are women and children here, Norvan,’ he said. ‘What promise do you make us that they will be unharmed?’

‘You have my word, and that should be good enough for any man.’

‘Your word is useless to me,’ said Nevins.

‘Maybe, but it’s all any of us have. I could kill you right now, Major. Consider that at least.’ Varl threw his sword down into the dirt between them. ‘Trust me.’

Baron Glass spent the hours of morning hearing reports from his messengers and remaining as detached as possible from the battle unfolding below. Lord Demortris had made good progress and his Norvan army had taken the main avenue of Koth, pushing the fighting into side streets. According to their scouts, Kaj and his Crusaders had taken a good bit of the eastern city, too, forcing Breck’s
commander, a man named Andri, into house-to-house fighting. In some places, Thorin could see plumes of smoke rising from the city. Around Lionkeep a leaping fire raged, spouting blackness into the air. Chancellery Square had become a battleground too, its once proud parade field flooded now with Vicvarmen and handfuls of Royal Chargers. At the library, Rodrik Varl’s men had taken the road. Messengers continued to return from Library Hill with encouraging reports, claiming the Liirians had engaged them first but that the battle had quickly turned in their favour.

Bored with sitting atop his horse, Baron Glass had removed his helmet to stand beneath a tree where he could receive the constant flow of scouts and confer with his aides. They were in no danger at all on the hillside, surrounded by bodyguards and a safe distance from the fighting below.

But by the time noon came, Baron Glass had endured enough of the tedium. Sure that Koth’s main avenue was secure and eager to feed the demanding Kahldris, he dismissed his messengers and told his aides to make ready to ride. Hearing his orders, Kahldris flared to life within him. The armour seared Thorin’s flesh. He felt his head rush with staggering energy.