The Assassin King

30

The hastily assembled support force had stopped at each garrison and town along the trans-Orlandan thoroughfare. From western Navarne through southern Bethany, Anborn and Constantin had presented Ashe’s articles of command at each of the way stations of the guarded mail caravan and each outpost of Alliance reserve, and come away with whatever meager offerings in men and supplies there were to be had.

In spite of the region being sparsely populated, and contrary to the Lord Marshal’s dark assessment of the preparations Ashe had made for war, he and the Patriarch discovered ready caches of willing soldiers, highly trained and able to depart within minutes. They had been routinely escorting travelers and merchant wares across the continent for more than four years, and knew every side route and alternate pathway from Bethe Corbair and Canrif all the way to the seaport of Port Fallon in Avonderre. Additionally, they had made standard use of the system of avian messengers that Llauron had begun and Rhapsody had established, and so by the time they came to the next successive encampment, they were pleased to discover all available men-at-arms saddled and awaiting them. The soldiers fell in easily, and took over the tasks of maintaining what few heavy weapons the Lord Marshal had brought, as well as the wagon on which the walking machine was being transported. By the time they had reached the last of the outposts they had assembled a small but eager force of slightly less than ten thousand men, mostly career soldiers but occasionally joined by farmers and merchants who had trained alongside them. Anborn was astonished to discover in some of the later garrisons that volunteers had streamed into the surrounding farms and villages just for the honor of getting to ride with the renowned Lord Marshal of the Cymrian War who was coming to the rescue of the holy city.

“Next time we’ll tell them we’re after wenches in the whorehouses of Evermere,” he said to the Patriarch. “We’ll get thirty thousand.” The holy man smiled within the hood of his peasant’s cloak.

In the small farming village of Brindlesgate, the last stop before the southerly road to Sepulvarta, a clutch of young boys of eleven summers or fewer were waiting atop a mule, a nag, and on foot, metal pots on their heads and hoes in their hands. The soldiers quartered in the barracks nearest the village had shooed them off repeatedly, but the youths kept returning, waiting for their chance to join the mayhem. Finally they caught the notice of the Lord Marshal, who ordered the force to wait in the roadway and rode up before them, reining his horse to a stop.

“What have we here? More recruits?” Five young faces stared back at him, mouths agape. “Yes, sir,” the only one who could muster his voice replied.

“Very good,” Anborn said flatly. “Come along.”

The soldiers looked from one to another, then opened the ranks for the boys. “All right, then,” the Lord Marshal said, turning back to the lead, “let’s be off.”

The cohort traveled south, over the Pilgrim’s Road, with the rising sun to their right. After three leagues the Lord Marshal called a halt at the edge of a small area of scrub pines and broke off from the group again.

“I need riders familiar with the following settlements for a critical mission,” he announced seriously, “Southtown, Meadowfork, Hylan’s Landing, and Brindlesgate. If you know the routes to these places, present yourselves.”

The ranks parted, and soldiers from each of the settlements named rode forward. In the rear came the five young boys from Brindlesgate.

“Encamp here,” Anborn instructed. “You are to form the rear guard; all along the road from here to Sepulvarta I will be positioning riders in encampments to carry the evacuation order east to west and to reinforce the fields. Turn back anyone traveling this road until I come through again or you receive orders otherwise. Understood?”

The soldiers nodded and dismounted, but the boys remained atop their steeds or with their makeshift weapons, looking from one to the other.

“But, Lord Marshal,” the brave one blurted as Anborn turned to leave, “we want to go with you, sir. We want to see combat.”

The General looked back. “You will,” he said briskly, ignoring their pleading looks and pointing at the scrub pine. “I need berms made here with pickets set against a possible cavalry charge; a thousand paces to either side of the road as well.” He rode back to the head of the column and the cohort set off, leaving the rear guard behind. “Hop to, lads,” one of the soldiers said as they began unpacking their mounts. “You wanted to see what war is like? War involves a lot of waiting. But remember, preparations are crucial to victory. The entire unit strikes the killing blow, not just the arm of one man.”

The young boys sighed miserably and set to work. The ride to Sepulvarta was invigorating, Anborn observed. There was something deep within the cynical core of his being that had been planted in his youth, a devotion to the military brotherhood that had been with him all his life. Encamped at night, out in the darkness among the fires and sleeping soldiers, he thought back beyond the centuries of war and desolation, looking beyond the betrayal and the atrocity he had witnessed again and again to a time when all he wanted in the world was this, a life of selflessness and defense, of shared sacrifice with brothers-in-arms. For all that he had become acid over the years, had grown to trust very little in the world and hope for even less, there was still in his soul, black and twisted though it was, something that was moved by the camaraderie, the devotion to duty, that he was witnessing again. He recalled how in his youth the mother who did not understand his desire to learn the ways of the sword foisted him off on Oelendra, the Lirin champion of Tyrian, a First Generation Cymrian and hero from the old world. She was the Iliachenva’ar, the bearer of the sword that Rhapsody now carried, and had trained him well, though he had never truly felt her approval, which he craved beyond that of anyone he had known. Anborn leaned back against his bedroll, looking up at a night sky scattered with bright stars, and remembered her words to him. Fight with your strengths as they are, not as you would wish them to be. He inhaled, taking in the acrid taste of ash from the fires, the smell of the stew and horse leather. In those days he had been scrawny, the youngest brother with much to prove. Edwyn Griffyth would learn his father’s ways of architecture and engineering and invention, and would battle with him over his responsibilities as the heir apparent; Llauron would follow his mother’s teachings and go into the Filidic priesthood, serving as protector to the Great White Tree and the Invoker of the Filids, but Anborn, neither in line for the throne nor by temperament suited to the religious life, craved nothing more than to make his parents proud through prowess on the battlefield. The Lirin champion had taught him to know better, to understand that military might must be tempered with a righteousness, to compensate for what he lacked in physical maturity as a young lad with speed and skill born of practice and intelligence. He had seen the same eagerness in the mirror that he had witnessed in the eyes of the youth of Brindlesgate, and understood what a holy thing it was, how easily lost or perverted it could become without a hero, like the Lirin champion, to nurture it in the right way. He smiled wryly, knowing that he was just such a hero to those boys. Oelendra had cautioned him against idolatry as well. You may admire my skill, and seek to emulate my career, she told him early on in his training. But do not confuse that with me. I have made many missteps in my time, have done things of which I am not proud, because, in spite of my godlike longevity, I am mortal. So are you. Learn to forgive your heroes and yourself. At one time or another, you will need to do both if you are going to live this life, the life of a would-be Kinsman. They had both achieved that honor, he mused, so her words must have been true.

Rhapsody had said something much the same to him as they parted. You cannot purge anything that has happened to you, as if it were an impurity of steel to be smelted away in a forge fire. All that has gone before has made you what you are, like notes in a symphony. Whole or lame, you are who you are. Ryle hira, as the Lirin say. Life is what it is. Forgive yourself. The Lord Marshal hesitated for a moment, then rolled stiffly to his side, seized his leather pack, and pulled it closer. He unwrapped the bindings and pulled forth the conch shell she had given him, fondly remembering her pale face in the reflected light of the fire.

At least try to be as whole as you can, if not for yourself, then for the men you lead. And for me. “All right, m’lady,” he said softly to himself. “I suppose there is no harm in trying, especially since you aren’t around to see.”

He lay back against the bedroll and put the shell to his ear. All he could make out was the crashing sound of the sea wind above ocean waves. He exhaled and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of faces he knew he would never see again. The battle for Sepulvarta was lost before it began. For over an hour the defenders waited in trepidation, gazing from the wall at the fifty thousand men encamped outside their city. The army had fanned out until the wall was surrounded on all sides, but then everything seemed to grind to a halt; some of the soldiers made battlefield camps around small cookfires, while the cavalry remained mounted but at ease. The wagons carrying the ballistae and catapults and other weapons of siege remained untouched, while the army itself did little or nothing to advance farther past the line of initial confrontation. If anything, the siege appeared to be one of wills alone, as no further threats were issued, no weapons trained on the gate.

“They are going to wait us out,” Gregory, the sexton of Lianta’ar, said, his voice brittle. He had presided over the quartering of the itinerant faithful, pilgrims, and tourists within the walls of the beautiful basilica, and already was showing the strain of having so many people in the people’s cathedral. “Thankfully food and water is plentiful, and the Lord Cymrian will surely not sit by and allow the army of Sorbold to command the deliverance of the head of the Patrician faith. So we are at an impasse. We will never concede to their demands. Sooner or later we will either be rescued or they will give up in boredom and go away.”

“I hope you are right, Your Grace,” said Fynn uneasily. He was watching the throngs of people milling about in the city streets, far too many to be forced indoors in spite of the orders he had issued, clogging the narrow roadways around the shops and shrines. When a second hour had passed, the falconer of the holy See appeared.

“I am ready to send that message to Haguefort if you still wish to do so, Your Grace,” he said to the sexton. “I see no other choice,” Gregory replied. “Very well, let slip the raptor.” The falconer bowed respectfully and loosed the jesses. The bird flapped its wings twice while on his arm, then took wing and rose into the air, catching a warm updraft and heading north. It ascended to a pitch that was as high as the buildings that lined the street leading to the spire. A shadow streaked overhead, sailing above the gate and over the city streets. Larger than a horse, it shot through the air on the trail of the falcon, then, with a sickening crack, caught the bird in jaws that snapped audibly and swallowed it in flight, sending a shower of bloody feathers spiraling down on the soldiers below. A collective gasp rose from the streets. A moment later the sky darkened with similar shadows. From all sides of the city great beasts appeared in the air above the houses and shops, sailing on wide, batlike wings. They were serpentine in their movements, with long barbed tails that thrashed as they flew; their legs and jaws, however, were insectoid, sharply jointed, like the plague locusts that had been one of their progenitors.

Atop each of them was a rider with a burning bundle of wheygrass stalks soaked in pitch or oil. Within seconds the thatched roofs of several buildings had ignited in flame. Black smoke poured from them, followed by the shouts of witnesses on the cobbled street and screams of terror from those trapped within the buildings.

“What—what in the name of the All-God is happening?” Gregory demanded shakily, interposing himself in front of Fynn.

“With all due respect, Your Grace, get out of my bloody way” the captain of the guard shouted back, shoving the priest to the side and hurrying to the wall. “Fire at the beasts!” he screamed at the archers, who were staring over their heads in shock. Another round of burning bundles descended from above. More roofs caught flame, the glistening white stone buildings that Sepulvarta was famous for glowed pink in the firelight as roofs and carts ignited in the streets below, raining burning ash into the streets and onto the terrified crowds.

“To the basilica!” Fynn shouted to the soldiers in the streets, but his voice was drowned in the noise of panic. He pointed above for the benefit of the stunned archers again. “Fire at the damned beasts!”

One of the archers finally was able to shake off his shock and take aim as the flying lizard soared over his head and landed on a nearby roof. He drew back and let fly, a clean, hefty shot that caught the beast square in the side, just below the wing. The arrow bounced off harmlessly with a resounding thud, the same noise it would make against a cobblestone or brick. “We are surely done for, Fynn thought. “All right, then,” he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “Shoot the rider.” The archer, shaking, complied, another clean shot that made its mark in the split of the man’s cuirass. The rider straightened up sharply, then fell heavily from his monstrous mount into the street below. The captain of the guard and the archer both gasped in delight. “That’s it!” Fynn exclaimed. “That’s how we take them—aim for the riders.”

The beast seemed to stare at them for a moment. Then it stood and launched off the roof with a great leap on its insectoid legs, diving down to the street below, its serpentine head snapping viciously. The pilgrims, cowering in doorways of burning buildings, screamed as if in one voice as it caught a fleeing woman in its razor jaws, snapped her spine with a single bite, then took off in a great leap into the sky again, its prize in its mouth. Madness descended upon the City of Reason.

Fhremus observed the initial assault from the air with satisfaction. He surveyed the smoke pouring into the sky from the center of the city, black and oily with the rancid odor of pitch and burning thatch. A plethora of birds had taken wing, roosting swallows, pigeons and doves that made their nests in the eaves of buildings that were now alight. From within the city, great cries of anguish and horror could be heard issuing forth over the wall. He turned from his seat on horseback and looked up at the titan, who had been standing stock still since they had arrived at the city gate.

“Are you ready, Faron?” he asked, not certain if it was even awake or aware. The milky blue irises in the stone orbs appeared. The giant statue nodded perfunctorily. Fhremus swallowed, then cleared his throat. “Very well, then. Open the gate.”

The gigantic statue flexed its arms and legs, then began to walk forward alone. The commander turned to his aides-de-camp. “At my signal,” he said. They saluted and rode back to the column heads.

The entire army watched as their standard bearer neared the great gate of Sepulvarta, a gate that had not been broached in the thousand years since it was hung. F ire! Fire, damn it!” Fynn screamed to the archers.

The men, reeling from the aerial attack, from the smoke and the burning ash raining down on them from the buildings around them, turned their concentration on the titan and let fly. About half the arrows found their marks. About half of those shattered; the rest bounced off the enormous statue with the same resounding thud they had heard from missile contact with the flying beast.

“Dear All-God,” Fynn whispered. “This must be a nightmare.”

His words were echoed by the deafening sound of stone contacting wood. The archers reloaded, shaking, and let fly again, with the The same result—every arrow that impacted the stone man shattered or was repelled without apparent harm. “Save your arrows,” Fynn cautioned, looking out over the wall at the force surrounding the city. “They’re preparing to storm the gate—hold your fire for those it might actually affect. Stand as long as the arrows hold out, then topple the braziers onto anyone entering the gates. Make that count—it will probably be your only chance. Godspeed, gentlemen—it’s been good to serve with you.”

“You as well, sir,” came a weak chorus of trembling voices.

The wall nearest the gate shuddered as another blow battered the wood, sending splinters flying into the air. Fynn steeled his nerve and looked down over the wall. The stone giant was slamming his fist into the holy gate of Sepulvarta, punching deep holes into the wood, then ripping apart the ancient timbers of trees that had been made of Living Stone with his hands. The gate screamed as if alive as he tore it asunder. In the distance a clarion call sounded from within the Sorbold columns. The archers raised their bows, training them on the front line. With a hissing streak, one of the flying beasts soared over the wall and snatched an archer in its jaws, toppling a few more into the streets below.

The gate crashed open with a sound like thunder in the mountain passes. With a roar, the attacking force surged like a tidal wave into the city of Sepulvarta as the sun began its descent below the horizon.

“A fornication!” Anborn dragged his horse to a shocked halt. The Alliance forces quickly followed suit behind him. As they came to a stop in the center of the Pilgrim’s Road, the force that had assembled with the greatest of speed and had ridden with alacrity to the rescue of the holy city could only stare from atop horses dancing in place at the sight that unfolded before them.

Black smoke billowed from the towers and rooftops of the city, clogging the sky with ash and oily grit. Flames could be seen ascending from the rooftops, dancing off the tower of the Spire and lighting the night sky for miles around.

In the shining reflection of those fires, black winged beasts circled in the hazy air above the city proper, diving occasionally with the snap of an adder striking. And even from where they were, five miles or more off, the sound of screaming could be heard, rending the night.

“Lord Marshal—”

“Silence!” Anborn thundered, shifting atop his horse.

The Patriarch rode to his side and stopped next to him. His great craggy face, hidden within a peasant’s hood, was white as the ceremonial robes he often wore. “What are those figures flying above the city?” he asked, his thunderous voice strained. “I’ve no idea,” said Anborn, “but their presence changes everything. We are going to need a new plan of attack. I was prepared to break a simple siege, which we could do, even outnumbered. But with the enemy attacking from the air—”

“Contemplate it no further,” the Patriarch said, his voice stronger. “The city is lost—to intervene now would be to condemn every one of these men, and us, to death.”

Anborn’s eyes flared in fury. “That is your assessment as a battlefield commander?” he asked icily. The Patriarch shook his head, his eyes burning with angry fire. “That is the assessment of the Ring of Wisdom,” he said. He held up his hand; the clear stone in the ring was glowing as intensely as the sky above Sepulvarta. “I am now consigned to exile; if by turning myself over to the attacking force I could spare the city, I would do so. But that is not their intent. They have just moved the border of Sorbold north by the distance of my lands.”

“Indeed,” murmured Anborn. “And they no doubt expect to use the city as a base to annex as much of the southern Krevensfield Plain as they can.” He yanked back on the reins, ignoring the terrified whinny of his mount. “That area is too vast, too spread out to defend. All the people of those farming settlements and villages are border fodder if we don’t evacuate them to Roland immediately. Take one last look at the citadel, Your Grace; I expect the next time you come through here the place will be in ashes. And if they take the Spire, who knows what they will use it for.”

“I know,” replied the Patriarch. “And the horror of it defies description.”

Anborn was not listening; he had already turned and ridden the line, shouting orders to the troops for the mass evacuation that was to follow.

When daylight came, after a night of pillage and sacking, Fhremus called a halt to the hostilities. “Empty the basilica and seal it,” he ordered; Minus saluted and passed along the command. “Truly it is one of the wonders of the Known World; I’m sure the emperor does not wish to see it damaged any more than was necessary to subdue the city.”

He looked around at the remains of Sepulvarta. The historic white buildings were smeared and marred with soot; whole sections of the city, especially the pilgrim sites, were still in flames, and in the cobbled streets, blood ran in rivers between the stones. “Where is Faron?” he asked Trevnor.

The aide-de-camp shook his head. “I saw him last within the garden district, sir. He broke open the doors of the Patriarch’s manse, as directed, but then he went off on his own; we could not follow him in the smoke.”

“The Patriarch has still not been found?”

“No, sir. And the priests and acolytes in the manse swear they do not know where he is, even under pain of torture.”

“Hmm. Well, keep looking for them both. There is only one gate in the city wall— and Faron did not come back to it, so he must be in here somewhere. He’s rather large to overlook; I’m certain we will find him sooner rather than later.”

Fhremus’s certainty changed a short time later, when a massive hole was found in the wall at the northern edge of the city, torn through by what appeared to be a hand. When finally the earth beneath his feet had cooled sufficiently, Faron stopped. The battle had meant little to him. Destruction sometimes was a primal pleasure, but there was little of that in the sacking of Sepulvarta, though Faron had no idea why. Perhaps it had been the parsimoniousness of the commanders and the soldiers, the troops who were following him like a great pagan or animist god, not realizing that the great animist god was once a quivering pile of pale dying flesh, gelatinous and pathetic, until Talquist had sealed him within this body of Living Stone on the Scales of Jierna Tal. Faron had found the transformation ironic at best, child of the demon spirit that he was, he had come to be sealed within a Vault of Living Stone just as his father had once been.

Titan or no, soldier of incomprehensible strength or carnival atrocity, Faron missed his father deeply. In spite of the abuse he had suffered at his hands, he had been for the most part lovingly cared for by the man whose body the demon clung to, a man that had been called the Seneschal later in life, but in earlier times had been known as Michael, the Wind of Death. He had regaled a fascinated Faron with the exploits of his days as a soldier, had made him long for a body that would allow him to follow his father on such exploits, such joyful outings of murder and pillage, but nature had not been kind to him.

And ironically, now that he had the perfect housing for a soldier, he was alone, being directed by men he cared nothing for, who he could crush with a mere thought. Somewhere on the wind there was a hint of dark fire. Faron had no idea how he was aware of this, but in the depths of his solid being something had stirred, had called to him off to the north, something he recognized from the time before everything had gone sour. Faron reached into the huge leather belt at his waist, once the harness for a team of horses, and clumsily pulled out the blue scale.

It was his favorite, he thought, the card that allowed him to see hidden things, or objects at great distance. He loved the picture that had been drawn on it as well; one side bore the image of a clear eye, the other one an eye shrouded in clouds, much like his own milky blue ones. He could not see anything yet, but there was enough invisible ash on the wind that the scale hummed with life when he held it in a northerly direction. Whatever was there was too far away to be seen yet, but he could follow its path.

And maybe find one of his own kind.

Faron turned his primitive head in that direction and followed the faint whisper of evil creosote, leaving the noise and chaos of the burning city behind him.