The Long War 03 - The Red Prince (57 page)

Fynius withdrew Leg Biter and took a second to make eye contact with the dying man at his feet. ‘This is your lesson, man of the One.’

He strode into the square, taking his place within the huge semicircle of Twilight Company, each blade dripping with blood.

‘Men of Ro,’ he growled. ‘Men of fucking Ro.’

The boss clerics were almost bowled over with surprise. They fumbled at their scabbards, pointing at spreading pools of blood.

‘Consider this a lesson,’ he boomed. ‘This lesson will result in your death. If you have words, say them now.’

Lord Mobius, the man most responsible for the troll shit they found themselves in, stood to the fore. He was flanked by dozens of his minions and dozens more were quickly assembling behind their glorious master. They emerged from buildings and ran down roads, swarming like maggots across a rotting corpse. None of them looked superior now. Their chins were not thrust out and their noble foreheads were creased with confusion.

‘You have killed noblemen of the One,’ replied Mobius. ‘Who in the stone halls beyond do you think you are? We are men of Ro... of Tor Funweir. You are nothing... it is our right to rule you and your peasant nation... who are you?’

Fynius chuckled, splitting his face into a broad smile. The Purple fool still thought he had authority. He still thought he had power. ‘Who do I think I am?’ he replied. ‘Well, we could speak about that for decades. Unfortunately, your lifespan is not measured in such huge quantities. And those are shit last words. Try again.’

‘Kill them!’ shrieked the Purple man.

He was a fool and he had ordered his men to attack before they were fully assembled. Most had not buckled on their sword belts and many had still to enter the square. The clerics who were ready ran at them in small pockets, with no organization or unity. So much for the fabled military craft of the Ro.

‘Let me end Mobius,’ he said with a smile as his men attacked.

The clerics were skilled. They wore strong armour and knew how to use their swords. Their weakness was that their foolish leader had ordered them to fight a superior force. Each cleric had at least two opponents and died in a futile attempt to cover his fellows. It was a shame. They were good fighters and deserved a better death. Fynius decided to take it out on Mobius.

He outflanked a cleric and drew Leg Biter across his neck. He thrust at the back of an exposed leg, driving another to his knees. There was no duelling or honourable one-on-one fighting, there was just an outnumbered force being cut down.

Then Scarlet Company arrived and things grew much worse for the men of Ro. The new combatants appeared from the mount, rushing down the hill with frenzy in their eyes. For the people of South Warden, this was more than a fight. They were killing the men who had conquered them, killed their families, their friends, and had tried to enslave them.

Fynius dodged a well-aimed thrust and saw the attacker decapitated by Vincent. Then he was face to face with Mobius. The chief Purple man was vibrating with anger. Veins pulsed on his face and his sword hand shook. Not with fear, but with readiness. He was about to explode.

The cleric appeared mad. He attacked with suicidal abandon, swinging his longsword in circles and forcing Fynius on the defensive. He knew how to fight. This would be difficult if they were fighting a duel. Luckily, Twilight Company didn’t believe in fair fights and quickly had the cardinal surrounded.

‘Is that foam in your mouth, Purple man?’ he quipped. ‘It’s a shame when the mind goes before the body.’

He defended himself admirably, using his sword to keep the attackers at bay, but he couldn’t fight all the men who wanted to kill him. He killed two, but his movements were wild and uncoordinated. An axe thrown from Scarlet Company hit his thigh, then a sword thrust caught his underarm. Fynius let them cut him, standing back until the Purple man was on his knees, bleeding from a dozen minor wounds.

‘Leave him!’ He waved the attackers back. They obeyed without question. A few men of Scarlet Company appeared to want to be the one to kill Mobius, but still they obeyed.

‘Got any more words?’ he asked, resting Leg Biter across his shoulders.

Mobius panted and his face screwed up. His mouth quivered and his eyes bulged. ‘She loves me,’ he gargled, blood and bile on his lips.

‘She’ll get over it,’ he replied, swinging Leg Biter at the man’s head.

Cardinal Mobius of Ro died suddenly, a Ranen broadsword embedded in his brain. Fynius tilted his head and followed the dying man’s eyes. They pulsed and flickered, looking surprised or maybe indignant. A common barbarian of Ranen had killed a nobleman of the One God. The very idea!

Fuck him and fuck his God, thought Fynius.

* * *

‘Well, they will be dealt with by those they have wronged,’ replied Bronwyn, unsure whether she should speak the whole truth.

A Red knight rushed into the tent. He was fully armoured and flustered.

‘My lord general, there is some commotion in the city.’

Malaki Frith turned slowly, keeping his narrow eyes on her face.

‘Define commotion for me?’ he asked.

‘The clerics have abandoned the walls and we heard steel on steel.’

He reacted straightaway, rising from his chair and straightening his tabard. ‘Dealt with, you say?’ he addressed Bronwyn. ‘Sinking feelings are a curiously common sensation here in the Freelands. I think the cold disagrees with me.’

‘General?’ queried the knight. ‘Shall we enter the city?’

He paused, sharing a glance with Fallon and the other knights in the tent. He took a moment to breathe in deeply and close his eyes. Then he drew his sword and levelled the point at Bronwyn.

‘What is going on in the city? Answer in simple words, and answer quickly.’

She was startled and raised her hands. Micah stood up and glanced around, looking for some way to defend himself and Bronwyn.

‘Sit down, boy!’ roared the general. ‘Answer, my lady.’

The other men of the Red drew their weapons and stood stony-faced and solid as a brick wall.

‘I thought you lot had honour,’ barked Micah. ‘What the fuck is this?’

‘If something has happened to the clerics, the Ranen broke parlay first. What were you, my lady? A distraction? I suppose it’s the only way you could defeat us... through trickery.’

He made it sound so much worse than Fynius. She thought of herself as a diplomat, even as the sword point hovered inches from her face.

‘I have the men to annihilate your companies, however many you have left. You should appreciate your position,’ said the general.

Fallon had not stood up or drawn his sword. His demeanour had not changed and he had simply leant back in his chair. If anything, he looked amused. ‘You’re not going to kill her, general,’ said the seated man. ‘You and I agreed, enough have died. The One and Brytag agree on this.’

They all looked at him. For a moment he appeared taller and stronger. The words, simple but powerful, carried sufficient weight for Malaki Frith to withdraw his sword. They were more than words and more than a man spoke them.

‘Agreed,’ said the general quietly.

‘What are you?’ blurted out Stone Dog, squinting at Fallon.

The swordsman stood up. He smiled and the tent appeared to brighten. ‘I’m an exemplar,’ he replied. ‘I speak for the One God.’

‘And I’m a wheel of fucking cheese,’ replied Micah.

Fallon didn’t stop smiling. ‘That explains the smell.’

The senior knights sheathed their swords. Whatever was going to happen in this tent, it would be at the behest of Sir Fallon of Leith, and he did not appear hostile. Something else was happening that she didn’t understand. Though she felt it was a good thing. Whoever he was, Bronwyn was sure that he wasn’t their enemy.

As Frith sat down, Warm Heart poked his head through the tent flap and growled, as if to ask if things were okay. She nodded at him and his huge bulk retreated back outside.

CHAPTER 10

SAARA THE MISTRESS OF PAIN IN THE CITY OF RO WEIR

T
HE ABBEY OF
Oron Kaa was imprinted upon her memory. The smooth dome and the high minaret, the slave pens and the jagged, rocky harbour. The sun-kissed fields of blood and despair. The expressionless minions, responding to the whim of their mistress. The buzzing insects, appearing each sunset to maintain the structure. The visions were as real as the bed she lay on, the flesh next to her, and the wind that blew through the open window. She remembered the matron mother. Her wrinkled face, full of hate, her craggy fingers, long and thin, the whip-crack of her voice, denying rest and peace to her acolytes.

An uncontrolled mind was dangerous. Saara was supremely skilled at marshalling her thoughts and maintaining focus, but pieces of her past were leaking into her present. A long life, spent in beautiful pain and debauchery, was seeping from her broken mind to pound at the back of her eyes.

She remembered men and women she had killed, their faces screaming at her. She remembered the deepest deserts of Far Karesia, the heat battering her face. She remembered days, years, decades, centuries. Every moment.

Men spoke to her about the dark-blood. He was dead and they wanted her to be happy, but she couldn’t be. They said that the Thief Taker was a broken wreck of a man. Her mind didn’t permit her to care. Keisha was gone, stolen by the one assassin to escape her, and she was sliding further and further away from reality and couldn’t concentrate.

She had lost many phantom thralls – King Sebastian, Archibald Tiris, cardinals Mobius and Severen, even the young squire, Randall – but the deaths of Shilpa and Sasha had almost destroyed her mind. She was still whole, but she had used up much of her power battling the Gorlan and now she was weak.

She didn’t trust her eyes, her ears or her mind. They lied to her. She wanted to slip into a peaceful sleep, wrapped in a warm blanket of Shub-Nillurath’s love, but her mind would not permit it. So much had happened. So much beyond her control. She bore the burdens of five dead sisters. Their thoughts, their memories, everything. Each dead enchantress was like a new section of her mind opening. An unwelcome intrusion into her already troubled thoughts. She had summoned Isabel the Seductress, her last remaining sister, and planned to use her mind to relieve some of the burden. It would probably send Isabel insane, but it would allow Saara some respite. She didn’t care if the Seductress had to be chained in the catacombs, so long as it allowed the Mistress of Pain to think clearly.

Behind her eyes, vivid images chipped away at her reason. The Red Prince haunted her. He had been the last thing Cardinal Severen and Archibald Tiris had seen. They had both been afraid of him and both of them had died with his name in their minds. Saara was not afraid, but she knew now that conquest would not he as simple as she had expected. The foolish men of Ro and Ranen did not appreciate their own inferiority. They fought with tenacity, unaware of the serene path of compliance that was within their reach. If only they would give in, their pain would stop and they could live their lives in pleasure, forever lulled into beautiful servitude. But Alexander Tiris was attempting to rally these lesser men and he was not without power.

Her thoughts were unhelpful. To worry about a single man and his tiny army was a distraction. She had a hundred thousand Hounds mustered around Ro Weir, and more in the Fell. The Red Prince could not reach her, let alone cause her harm. And the thousand Young were almost fully grown.

A knock on her bedchamber door.

‘I am not yet ready to rise,’ she snapped, reluctantly opening her eyes.

Next to her, blood seeped from the dead body of a handsome young wind claw. She had consumed his power before she slept and had been too weary to remove the corpse.

‘My lady,’ said Elihas of Du Ban through the door, ‘your faithful are gathering.’

‘They can wait,’ she replied in a throaty growl.

‘There are three hundred Ro and almost as many Karesians.’

She screamed. ‘Then three hundred Ro and almost as many Karesians can wait!’

Elihas didn’t respond and she heard his boots on the wooden floor as he strode from her door.

She flailed on her bedside table for her rainbow pipe and a candle. She sat up and rubbed sleep from her eyes and drool from her mouth. She lit the pipe and drew in a deep lungful of smoke. It took the edge off, but nothing more. She had servants searching the city looking for the strongest rainbow smoke available and she had been using it to calm her mind for months. The substance was called green in Kessia and was the most mellow of a rainbow merchant’s wares. The black used by the Hounds was like a war-hammer to the head in comparison.

Saara had spent too much time asleep. Since her battle with the Gorlan, she’d woken for barely two hours a day. The rest of the time she had been at the mercy of vicious nightmares about Oron Kaa, the matron mother and the Red Prince.

She rose from her bed and washed herself in a free-standing basin of clean water. Dried blood and sweat coated her body and she wished for a trusted body-slave to scrub her back. The layer of grime came off reluctantly and she took an hour to make sure she was properly washed. Her large flock had been summoned to the lower courtyard and she must not appear slovenly.