The Last Bastion (8 page)

‘So you see, Vathan, there’s no peace for me and never has been, except for this. I’m done. Kill King Sixfingers and then perhaps I can go home. I’d like to see my sons grow into men, even if they want nothing to do with me. But if that’s not to be then best I stay away. Far away. It’s no hurt what you’re doing, taking me from where I was.’

Mirrahj Bashar listened quietly to it all, and when he was done she didn’t laugh or spit, only shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, forkbeard, but I don’t think that’s your future. We’ll see the walls of Andhun tomorrow.’ She touched his face, a finger on his cheek. Gallow had lost count of the days they’d been on the move since Hrodicslet but it had been more than a week. Like it or not, he was growing a beard.

As she’d said, the middle of the next day brought them to Andhun. Gallow looked up at the gatehouse as they rode beneath it, thinking of the times he’d been this way before. With the Screambreaker more than a decade ago. With Tolvis Loudmouth on the day he’d decided not to go home just yet after all. Walking the other way with Valaric the morning after he’d burned Jyrdas on the beach, with a hundred Marroc howling for his blood. They crossed the square where he and Valaric had stood, side by side, alone against Medrin and his men. He’d never thought to see Andhun again.

Instead of the castle, the Vathen swarmed into the horse market. If they’d been Lhosir they would have kicked a few Marroc for the fun of it, and the Marroc would have shouted back and maybe thrown stones and fistfuls of dung, and
then before you knew it there would have been blood and dead men all over the place. The Lhosir liked a fight, and once they started they weren’t that keen on stopping. But the Vathen simply told the Marroc to go and then waited, and the Marroc went and no one killed anyone.

‘Last chance, forkbeard.’ Mirrahj came and sat beside him after she’d eaten with her ride. She offered him a piece of gristly meat and a skin of water. ‘I’ll give you to the ardshan tomorrow. If you’re who you say you are, he’ll remember your face and kill you slowly. I’ve been kind to you, forkbeard, kinder than others might have been. Tell me where the sword is. The ardshan will get it out of you in the end anyway.’

‘In the desert of Aulia, far beyond the southern mountains.’ Gallow smiled and drank the water. Mirrahj snatched the meat away from him.

‘You’re lying to me, Gallow Foxbeard of the Lhosir.’

‘It’s the only answer I have for you, Mirrahj Bashar of the Vathen.’

‘If I let you go?’

‘But you won’t.’

‘I might promise to kill you quickly and without pain.’

‘I wouldn’t believe you.’

‘What if I told you that I meant to find the sword for myself and overthrow the ardshan and proclaim myself Daughter of the Weeping God and rule over all my people?’

‘Then you’re no different from any other.’ He almost smiled. ‘A dull answer. You can do better.’

Mirrahj Bashar laughed and threw the meat to him anyway. ‘Enjoy it. It’s the last you’ll see.’ She made as if to leave and then stopped and looked at him intently. ‘You know what I think? I think you’re telling me the truth when you say you left it behind. I think you’re telling me the truth when you say it’s cursed and when you say you want nothing more to do with it. All that happened to you, you choose
to blame on Solace. Foolish, but then you
are
a forkbeard. There’s a change in your face when you talk about things that matter, and so I believe you, all of what you say except the where.’ She shuffled closer. ‘You
did
leave it behind, but not in Aulia. That’s the lie. So where is it, forkbeard? It’s somewhere closer, isn’t it?’

Gallow shook his head and looked away. Saying nothing, that was the best defence when the questions started. The whole truth or else say nothing at all.

‘If you’d left it somewhere that was beyond grasping, you’d have told me, safe and sure that it didn’t matter. So it’s not in Aulia, but if you didn’t lose it in Aulia then you brought it back.’

Gallow caught her smiling at the corners of her eyes. He shrugged.

‘Nothing to say, forkbeard? You left the sword up in the mountains, didn’t you? There’s a road from Andhun that heads south on the other side of the Isset. Goes all the way up there. The Marroc call it the Aulian Way. Not too hard to guess where it goes.’

‘It’s on the other side of the river,’ murmured Gallow. ‘There’s no place to cross. You know that.’

‘Oh, but there is. Go far enough and there must be. Tell me, forkbeard. Tell me and take me to it and I’ll let you live. I’ll let you go. I know what it’s like to want to go home.’

Gallow shook his head. Mirrahj got up and patted him on the shoulder. Later she came back and brought him the remains of a roasted goat’s leg, one with some decent meat still on it, and Gallow knew it was a goodbye of sorts. Made him wonder if Medrin’s Lhosir would have treated Mirrahj Bashar as kindly if they’d taken her. Probably not, all things considered. He ate his fill, rolled onto his side and let his thoughts drift. If they killed him, so be it. Tomorrow was another day.

8

KING SIXFINGERS

I
n the darkness of the new moon the Legion of the Crimson Shield slipped into the waters of the Isset in a hundred tiny boats and pushed away from the banks. Each had a muffled paddle, but for the most part there was no need for them for the river was already beginning to swell with the first meltwater from the mountains. In each boat a handful of soldiers hid under fur cloaks, eyes at the front to watch their way, tugging on strings to one man at the back trailing a paddle in the water to steer them. There were no words, no whispers. They floated in silence.

On the far side of the river Thanni Ironfoot and two dozen men had crossed the Isset at dusk, hours before the little boats left. Now they ran, trotting along the bank in ones and twos, watching for Vathen. It was a dangerous sport. There might not be any Vathan sentries on the river at all so far north of Tarkhun and the massing Lhosir army. Or there might be any number. If that was the case then Ironfoot and his hunters had to find them and kill them quickly and without alarm, and all the while they had to stay ahead of the little boats, and that meant they had to run through the night. Which was just as well, because the night was as cold as an ice witch’s kiss.

Three miles short of Andhun they found their first watchers. Three Vathen, clustered up close to a fire. The cold was a blessing, Ironfoot reckoned. Man stood around for long away from a fire on a night like this, he froze and
died. So the Vathen were beside their fire, two snoring like old drunks while the third sat on a log, head drooping and jerking back up again. Ironfoot got close enough to hear the Vathan’s breathing. The Vathan’s head jerked up one last time. Ironfoot came from behind and covered the space between them in three long strides, clamped a hand over the man’s face and opened his throat with a long-edged knife. He held the Vathan good and tight well after the blood stopped spraying out towards the river. He’d done it quietly enough, but by then the other Vathen had stopped snoring. They’d stopped breathing too. The Lhosir cleaned their knives and ran on.

A mile out of Andhun they slowed. The banks of the river grew steeper as the Isset closed in on the sea, as though the land itself had risen to try and keep the water back and the river had simply cut deeper and deeper. A steep ridge rose in front of them and Ironfoot smelled smoke. He crept closer and saw a Vathan down by the bank, awake and alert. He threw a stone. The Vathan looked the other way and Ironfoot ran silently up behind him and split the back of his neck with an axe. Then he waved the men running behind him to a halt, made a circling motion and pointed to the ridge. He took a moment to catch his breath and then led them away from the river at a fast jog, following the bottom of the slope until they’d covered a good half a mile; then they climbed it, quiet as thieves. The men with the best legs went on over and down the other side to keep on to Andhun; the rest followed him, creeping back along the top of the ridge. He had no idea how far behind the little boats were by now, but no real distance.

Close to the river again he could finally see what he was dealing with – fifty or sixty men, so surely at least one other sentry watching the river and probably two. He waited for his Lhosir to get ready. They looked at one another and closed their eyes and muttered words to the Maker-Devourer, then
went forward on their hands and knees, silent as owls. Close up he could hear the Vathen talking, the handful who were awake – away on the side of the camp looking down over the Isset. Half his men spread out behind him and got on with the business of slitting sleeping throats. He led the rest himself, just four, creeping silently through the night like shadows, closer and closer to where the Vathen sentries—

A shout broke the silence behind him. What or why made no difference and he didn’t look back, just rose and rushed forward. The Vathen turned. They saw him coming, but only so the surprise was still written on their faces when he ran his spear into the belly of the first and buried his axe in the face of the next. The other two sentries cried out before they died but it made no difference now. The Vathen were waking up faster than his Lhosir could kill them. Then again, his Lhosir were in mail and furs and had their spears already in their hands. Made for an interesting fight for a while. Short, maybe a hundred heartbeats before it was done, but tense as a drawn knife.

When they were finished, Ironfoot looked out over the river where the Vathan sentries had sat. He could see the first shapes in the water, silently drifting with the current towards Andhun. Hard to see what they were without a moon, but then he didn’t need to see to know they were the boats.

When the first shouts woke him, Moonjal Bashar jerked upright to see the dark shape of a man standing over him. The man had a spear raised ready to run him through. In that moment Moonjal couldn’t have said whether the man was a Lhosir or a Vathan or a Marroc but the sight was enough. He threw himself sideways, rolled as far and fast as he could and tipped himself off the side of the ridge. He tumbled and bounced down the slope and landed in a thicket beside the river, too winded to do more than lie still.

‘Where are you, bandy-legs?’ When he looked back he could make out the shape of a man coming cautiously down the slope after him. The words gave him away: a forkbeard. Moonjal stayed exactly where he was, still as a mouse. The Lhosir wouldn’t see him unless Moonjal moved or the forkbeard trod on him. The man had a shield as well as his spear and he probably had a sword or an axe on his belt. Moonjal had all of these things too, only they were lying on the top of the rise next to the furs where he’d been sleeping.

He was shivering already.
That
was what was going to give him away. Or the mist of his breath. Cursed cold!

The forkbeard wasn’t stupid. He was coming at a steady pace, not rushing, keeping his shield low to guard his legs, poking his spear into each clump of grass. He was heading the right way too. ‘Come on, horse boy. Come and play.’

Moonjal’s fingers touched the haft of the knife strapped to his calf. It was a nice knife, an old piece of Lhosir steel sheathed in Aulian gold and looted from Andhun. Strapping it to his calf had been to make sure no one stole it but he’d not say no to luck, however it came. He bent forward now, fingers closing around it, as slowly and gently as he could, trying to stay invisible.

A twig snapped beneath him as the knife came free. The forkbeard’s head whipped round, looking right at him. The man growled under his breath. ‘That you, horse boy?’ He was coming straight at Moonjal now, crouched low, shield covering almost all of him, spear jabbing. Moonjal froze. If he moved a muscle, the forkbeard would see him now, or hear him. If he tried to get up and make a dash for it, the forkbeard would run him through with his spear. If he tried scrambling deeper into the thicket . . . He had no idea how thick the undergrowth was. He might get away or he might not, but the forkbeard would still be after him and he’d still be on his hands and knees.

The Lhosir eased in closer. Moonjal stayed absolutely still,
hoping the forkbeard didn’t tread on him. A snapped twig.
Could
have been an animal. The forkbeard stopped with his feet so close they were practically touching Moonjal’s arm. The Vathan heard him breathing, slow and harsh, the long deep breaths of a stalking hunter. He was whispering to the air, ‘Where are you, Vathan?’

The bushes rustled and shifted above Moonjal as the forkbeard lunged with his spear. Moonjal held his breath. The spearman took another cautious step. His foot came down on Moonjal’s leg and slid sideways. Moonjal jerked – couldn’t help it – and for a moment the forkbeard lost his balance. He grunted in surprise. Moonjal rammed the knife into the forkbeard’s thigh, nice and high under the skirts of his mail, and hacked hard. The forkbeard staggered back, tripped and fell. For a moment as he toppled over they were face to face in the blackness, but then the forkbeard was down and Moonjal was hauling himself to his feet and never mind the thorns that shredded his hands. He started to run but then realised the forkbeard wasn’t moving. When Moonjal went back to look, the forkbeard was dead. The grass around him was sticky and wet with blood.

Shouts rang out from the top of the ridge. He crouched beside the body for a moment and looked up. The slaughter was still going on but no one else was coming down. Good enough. He stayed with the forkbeard long enough to help himself to the man’s shield, helm and spear, but by the time he’d armed himself, the sounds of fighting were dying down. He could hear voices, forkbeard voices, which meant his ride was destroyed or fled and the forkbeards had won, and that was when he realised he had no idea how many of them were here, just a short march from the walls of Andhun, in the middle of the night and on the wrong side of the river.

He dragged the dead forkbeard into the thicket and started to strip him. He was mostly done when the first of the boats began to drift by. At first he couldn’t imagine what
the large misshapen lumps were, then he saw one of them move, saw a forkbeard head poke out from under the furs at the front, and understood. But by then it was too late.

King Medrin Sixfingers, king of the Lhosir and the Marroc and bearer of the Crimson Shield of Modris the Protector, peered at the walls of Andhun rising ahead on either side of the river. The Vathen had spent three years making sure he couldn’t simply build a fleet of boats and cross the Isset into the eastern half of the city and now only a fool would try an assault from the river. There were walls along the eastern bank and lookout towers and simply nowhere for boats to land short of the harbour. There were a dozen sentries, all carefully protected from arrows and archers in walled-in posts that could only be reached through long stone passages from as far away as the city gates, and each lookout had a bell and a small fire to light, both of which could raise the alarm. Three full rides of Vathan warriors had their barracks along the river defences, armed with thousands of javelots. The ardshan’s Aulian tinker had shown the Vathen how to make little stone throwers and ballistae to fire their javelots harder. They had a good collection of Marroc fish oil too, for throwing into the river and setting the water alight. More to help their eyes than to burn Lhosir maybe, but to the Vathen watching the river either was as good as the other.

For three years Andhun had been split in two like this, and for three years Medrin had waited, but no more. He gave the word, and the little boat that carried him turned towards the shore still a full half-mile from the city walls. Behind him a hundred other boats did the same.

Only a fool would try an assault from the river.

At the edge of Andhun harbour, among the rocks and the breaking waves at the foot of the cliffs, a handful of men
encased in iron rose out of the water and clawed their way to the shore. No one saw them come. There were caves at the bottom of the cliff and some of them led up into the castle. A few of the iron-skinned men clambered into them, but most crept and scraped along the foot of the cliffs. The passages under the castle were no secret any more. They’d be guarded and the ironskins had other duties tonight. They walked around the cliff paths, fourteen of them clinging to the shadows. Now and then they stopped, pausing as idle eyes awake in the middle of the night swept across them. They were no ordinary men, these warriors. They were the Fateguard, servants to the Eyes of Time, all Lhosir once but something else now, thieves and murderers and rapists and traitors, the worst
nioingr
, outcasts handed over in chains to the white ship that sailed now and then to the land of the Ice Wraiths. Now they had come back.

The Eyes of Time had not made them to be subtle tools but they had instincts beyond those of ordinary men. They slipped through the edges of the lower city, away from the castle, away from all the places where the Vathen might keep watch, sidling through the darkest narrowest alleys where the Marroc lived. Once they saw a Marroc thief coming the other way. The thief saw them too. He squealed and ran to cower in the darkest place he could find. They let him go – he’d not warn any Vathen, after all. They climbed steep and narrow alleys, closer and closer to Andhun’s gates, past the door to the Grey Man inn and along the very same alley where Valaric and Gallow had once held half an army of Lhosir at bay long enough for the Marroc to flee to their ships and boats – or so the story was told among both the Marroc and the Lhosir in their very different ways.

There wasn’t much to be done about the gatehouse itself. There were Vathan guards outside the doors, standing close to their braziers and rubbing their hands, and then there were the doors themselves, thick iron things held shut and
barred from the inside. The Fateguard entered the square. They walked quickly now, keeping to the shadows for as long as there were shadows to be had, then brazenly out in the open.

‘Stop! Who goes there?’

The Vathen were quick to pick up their spears and shout the first alarms. When one turned and ran, a Fateguard threw his spear and brought him down. The guards screamed and threw themselves forward. The Fateguard barely slowed their pace. They shattered spears and bodies and bones without a thought and then the Vathen were dead or fled and broken.

One of the Fateguard stood before each iron door and placed a palm against it. Fingers of brown rust spread across the iron like cracks in glass – across the door and across the skin of the Fateguard alike. The fingers spread in fast fits and starts, fattening as they went until both the doors and the skin of the Fateguard were crazed with brown cracks.

Alarms sounded up and down the city, then finally a bell from the castle itself. More Vathen came but they were too few and too late. The Fateguard ringed the gatehouse doors, their iron skins turning aside the Vathan spearheads, their swords striking with the deadly speed of snakes. A dozen Vathen died, their blood spreading in dark puddles across the stones. The last few backed away, fearful yet entranced. The iron doors were flaking and so too were the two Fateguard whose magic was eating them. Both were pitted and cracked. Dead leaves of corroded metal peeled away and snapped and fluttered to the ground. With a crack one of the rusting Fateguard snapped at the waist and toppled sideways. His hand remained pressed to the door, welded in place by the rust. The rest of his armour broke into pieces as it hit the cobbles. The armour was hollow now, nothing but dust left of the man who’d once been inside.