Iron Winter

43

High on the Wall, fisherman Crimm didn’t want to get too close to the balcony rail. The day was clear and bitterly cold, and the balcony was thick with ice, slick and slippery and bright in the low winter sun that hung in the southern sky, shining straight in his eyes. Plenty of opportunity to go tumbling off this balcony, to go skimming down the length of the incongruously cheerful banners that had been unfurled down the face of the Wall, and to smash his head open on the heaps of rubble at the foot, thus getting himself killed before the day’s action even started.

Ayto, though, wasn’t troubled. He rested easy on the rail, arms folded, mittened hands stuck under his armpits, staring south, oblivious of the drop below. He waited calmly at Crimm’s side, just as they had so often faced a storm at sea about to fall on the Sabet.

Now there was motion on the ice-bound land, far to the south, black specks crawling under a clear blue sky. People approaching the Wall.

Ayto murmured, ‘Is it them?’

‘Not sure.’

‘They are coming up the Way, straight to Etxelur. .’

Despite the obvious approach there was no call yet from the lookouts on the Wall parapet. Crimm wasn’t surprised. You didn’t last long at sea without sharp eyes, and the lookouts would do no better than a couple of fishermen, stranded since the loss of the Sabet. And of course there was always a chance of snow blindness on a bright day like this. To the south, as he looked out now, all of Northland to the far horizon was locked under a covering of ice and heaped-up snow, a panorama in white and black and blue and streaks of silver-grey where ice lay on deeper water. Across a world locked in ice the Wall itself strode, its tremendous face frost-cracked and strewn with icicles, yet standing against the winter as it had defied the sea for millennia. But perhaps it had all been for nothing, Crimm thought, for those whom the Wall had been built to protect were now preparing to attack it.

Ayto stirred. ‘It’s them all right. It’s not just more nestspills. You can see the organisation. They’re moving as a pack. And there’s metal glinting.’

‘Weapons.’

‘That would be my guess,’ Ayto said drily.

The lookouts woke up at last. Calls went up all along the Wall, from the roof scouts, across the balconies and galleries. People emerged to take their places at the rails, grim-faced, scared, shivering with the biting cold, and yet determined to play their part in saving the Wall.

Ywa joined the fishermen, coming out from the inner Wall to the balcony. The Annid of Annids’ quilted coat was open to the waist so that her bronze chest plate could be seen, a very ancient and battle-scarred relic. She allowed herself one glance at Crimm. He took her arm, squeezed it, out of sight of the rest. They rarely had time alone nowadays.

‘So they come,’ she said. ‘The scheme is working. They’ve ignored the other Districts and are heading straight for us, for Etxelur.’

Ayto said, ‘They’re cold and they’re hungry, and even if they’ve got anybody with military experience they aren’t much more than a starving mob. They’re heading for the obvious signs of life-’

‘Which we kindly provided for them,’ Crimm said.

The Wall had been closed to incomers for a month now, a dreadful truncation that had cut off Etxelur and the Annids from the population of Northland. There had been petty assaults on the Wall, easily repelled, but as the hunger mounted in the country everybody had expected a more substantial attack, and plans had been laid, strategies discussed. A central stretch of the Wall had been prepared. With much labour elaborate stone buildings built onto the Wall’s growstone face, themselves centuries old, had been smashed up and prised away to lie in rubble at the foot of the Wall, to make a defensive barrier against the invaders. With the superstructure gone the older growstone core lay exposed, pocked with holes and pits like eye sockets — and a bank of slogans had been revealed, in an archaic dialect, slogans written tall enough to be seen across the countryside:

THE WALL STANDS!

THE LOVE OF THE MOTHERS PROTECTS US ALL!

THE TROJANS CANNOT PREVAIL!

On seeing this, some historically minded folk had expressed nostalgia for the age of Milaqa and Qirum, when Northland had been able to unite against an easily recognised human enemy. Now the enemy was the world itself, and Northlanders turned on each other.

And, built into the fabric of the Wall, the searching scholars had uncovered weapons, a relic of a later generation than those who long ago had defied the Trojan Invasion.

When the scouts reported that a large force appeared to be massing to the south, the Annids ordered banners to be draped down the Wall’s face. The banners, meant for days of celebration, for the midsummer Giving, were incongruous splashes of colour in an ice-bound world, brilliant red and green and purple against the grey-white of the frozen growstone — and in this bleak winter they would surely attract the dispossessed and desperate. The banners, though, had a second concealed purpose, and as he glanced down now Crimm saw engineers and volunteers crawling behind the banners, making frantic final adjustments to the ancient, little-understood weaponry built into the face of the Wall and hidden by the banners. The whole District had become a trap.

‘It should work,’ Ywa murmured. ‘It has to work. I could not bear a war as the farmers wage, not Northlander against Northlander, hand to hand.’

Ayto, still leaning casually on the rail, glanced back at her. ‘Annid, I’d be a lot more sure of success if you’d let us use the fire-drug eruptors.’

‘I told you,’ Ywa said coldly. ‘That’s not acceptable.’

‘I know how you feel about this,’ Ayto said. ‘But — look at them all! If they break through today they will swarm through the Wall like maggots through a corpse and eat all there is to eat-’

Crimm touched his arm. ‘Leave it. It’s the mirrors or nothing.’ Crimm shared many of Ayto’s doubts about the wisdom of the Annids’ strategy. Who wouldn’t? But even if all was lost today, as Ayto knew very well, the two of them, and their families, had their bolthole, in the abandoned cistern deep inside the Wall. Though Crimm still had not decided how he would deal with his relationship with Ywa, if that dire choice had to be made.

‘They’re getting close!’ somebody called, higher up the Wall face.

They all stared out, shielding their eyes against the glare.

The mob was making slow progress, struggling in drifts that could be waist deep. The fresh-fallen snow had been purposely left uncleared before the Wall for many days now — another line of defence. The attackers were just bundles of filthy cloth and fur, armed with hunting knives and clubs and spears, breathing hard as Crimm could tell from the misting of their breaths. There was no sign of any military discipline, any formation. But there were an awful lot of them. Folk the colour of mud against the snow.

Crimm turned to the Annid. ‘Ywa, it may not be safe here much longer.’

‘I will not leave. Whatever the outcome, Crimm, something of old Northland dies today. Never before have we turned on each other on such a scale. And I must be here to witness it. . I cannot believe it has come to this so quickly. But then, I suppose, each of us, however grand, has only ever been a few missed meals from the animal.’

Crimm glanced up at the sun, at the position of the advancing crowd. ‘Time for the scholars’ weapon, I think. We’re lucky with the sun being so bright.’

Ayto snorted his contempt. ‘We’ll be lucky if this stunt makes any difference at all. Typical scholars! Strike at a distance and hope you never have to close with the enemy at all.’

Crimm understood his cynicism. Yet he hoped in his heart that the scheme worked, and the horror of a close fight could be averted.

It was time. He heard the clear voice of Annid Xree calling out final instructions. ‘Be ready to cut the banner ropes. .’

Crimm leaned over the rail. All over the Wall face people came forward to the balcony rails, ordinary folk, clerks and cleaners and barkeeps, looking down nervously at the approaching horde, whose angry cries could already be heard. They held their places, their knives and axes poised.

Xree called, ‘On my three. One — two. .’

A hundred arms, raising axes and blades.

‘Three!’

With a roar the volunteers chopped at the ropes before them. The banners fell away, billowing, some trailing from stray threads. The sunlight struck the Wall, struck shining surfaces exposed for the first time in centuries — tremendous concave mirrors — and was thrown back at the advancing mob, in tight, precise splashes that glared brilliantly from the white of the ice. Those caught in the light threw up their hands to shield their eyes, and cried out in pain. Steam rose from the melting ice, itself brightly lit.

Crimm, dazzled, tried to see. ‘Some are fallen, burned. A lot more are running from the light. Scared out of their wits!’

Ayto shook his head. ‘Never believed this old gear would work.’

‘Those Greeks were clever. It’s said they used mirrors to fry enemy ships in battle.’

‘Yes, but I’ve been to Greece, and the mothers know the sun is a lot stronger down there than it is here. But still, I bow to the scholars. Has it made any difference to the battle, though? I mean it’s not as if we can aim this thing. We can only fry those who kindly wander into the hot spots.’

‘Yes. Others are coming on.’

‘We’ve a fight before us yet.’ Ayto drew his sword from its scabbard, an unfamiliar weapon for a fisherman despite their hasty citizens’ training by the guard.

Now more voices started calling up and down the face of the Wall. ‘Be ready! Here they come!’

Crimm leaned over the rail again. He saw that advance parties of the invaders had reached the tumbled rubble at the base of the Wall. It took them more effort to clamber over the heaped, ice-slippery stuff, and the hungry fighters were already exhausted. And they were greeted by chunks of rubble, frost-smashed thousand-year-old growstone thrown from the balconies higher up and the roof of the Wall, and a sparse hail of arrows.

Yet they came on. Now the leaders were clambering up the face of the Wall itself. Slick with ice it might be, but the ancient growstone was so rough and frost-damaged that it offered plenty of handholds. Crimm saw a man climbing up directly towards him, knife in mouth, arms and legs bare, ruined boots on his feet, so thin he looked like an animated skeleton. Yet he climbed with purpose and strength. His eyes met Crimm’s.

The Annid of Annids was right beside Crimm, looking down as he was. He took her arm. ‘Please, Ywa — get back into shelter. It’s not safe.’

She shook him off. ‘I must be seen, in the Armour of Raka. I must be seen!’

Ayto hefted his sword. ‘Forget about her. Be ready-’

There was a yell from above. ‘Look out!’

Crimm twisted and looked up. Heavy stone blocks were hailing down from the roof, meant for the invader, bouncing down the face of the Wall. Ayto grabbed him and pulled him back.

But Ywa hesitated. And one falling block, carved basalt from some smashed sculpture, caught her neatly on the back of her head, smashing her skull like an egg. Her body slumped over the rail.

‘No!’

Still Ayto held Crimm back.

That skeletal man came over the rail with a roar and hurled himself forward. Crimm raised his sword to parry the man’s lunge, pushed him back, then swept the weapon at knee level, making a satisfying contact with ropy flesh and muscle. The man fell, blood spilling vivid on the growstone surface. Crimm finished him with a swipe that cut his throat.

But before he was still, another came over the rail. And then another.

Crimm charged forward, and beside Ayto fought for his life.