Lord of Ashes

THIRTY-THREE

Nobul was exhausted but it wouldn’t beat him. It was a matter of not giving in to it, of ignoring the aches and fatigue, but when you were dead on your feet all the ignoring in the world wouldn’t do you any good. He’d slept at least, but that had probably been a mistake. When you woke, that’s when all the hours of swinging a hammer and taking a beating would catch up with you. The stiffness would seep into your joints, the cuts would sting that much more and the bruises would be so sore you couldn’t even touch them. Whatever mad rush of blood you’d had the night before that kept the pain away was gone and all you had to stop yourself weeping from the hurt was the power of your will.

A lot of the other lads had succumbed to it. He’d heard weeping aplenty over the last couple of days, in the early hours of dawn when the Khurtas retreated back north and all that remained was the aftershock of battle. When you took a look around and saw your mates lying dead in a pile of their own guts. When it was time to ask yourself why you’d been the one to live.

Thoughts like that could drive you mad. There was no fairness to war. Sure, you could tip the odds in your favour by being the meanest, hardest bastard on the battlefield, but when your time was up that was it. The Lord of Crows wouldn’t give a shit how tough you were, he’d come for you just the same.

Nobul had never believed in any of that religion crap, but he could understand why men did. Especially when every day you were facing a painful end. Thinking there might be something waiting in the hereafter could well make the knowledge you were gonna die that much more bearable. It might keep you going when it all seemed lost. Nobul Jacks didn’t need any of it, though. He had enough to keep him going. He had his hate.

No matter how much pain he was in, no matter what aches ailed him, that hate would keep him going until the end. Until he could swing his hammer no more. Until some Khurta came screaming at him with just enough fury to put him down.

But until then …

Someone was standing beside him breathing heavily. Nobul glanced up to see Dustin looking at him warily. He’d known the lad a while, fought with him over the past weeks, but there was a distance between them now, like Dustin had no idea how to approach Nobul since he’d seen the Black Helm in action. They’d never been the best of friends, never had a long, lingering chat over beers, but some part of Nobul felt sorry about that. He’d never revelled in being feared, but it just seemed to follow him round.

Couldn’t be helped now, though.

‘What?’ he said rising gingerly to his feet, using the wall to help him more than he’d have liked.

‘It’s Kilgar,’ replied Dustin, taking a step back as Nobul stood to full height. ‘He took a spear to the guts in the last assault. They don’t think he’s gonna make it through the day. He’s been asking for you.’

Nobul nodded, gesturing for Dustin to lead the way. There weren’t many people he’d have taken the time to see, to sit by their bedside as they breathed their last, but if he owed anyone in this city then it was probably Kilgar. The one-eyed fucker had taken him into the Greencoats when he’d had nowhere else to go, and he’d saved his life on the wall. Sparing the bastard a few moments at the end was the least Nobul could do.

Dustin led them down to what they were using as a makeshift infirmary — an old storehouse and stables knocked through to make one big building. It was eerily quiet as Nobul walked in, there was no one groaning, no one crying out for the priest. Here and there a Daughter of Arlor was tending to a wounded man with a damp cloth but other than that there was no movement. It was almost peaceful.

Kilgar was in one corner, Bilgot sat next to him. The fat lad looked a bit leaner than he had done last time Nobul saw him. His face was ashen beneath the grime and it was obvious he was about ready to bawl his eyes out.

As Nobul approached, Kilgar waved Bilgot off then held out his hand. Nobul took it, feeling how weak the serjeant’s grip was. He was stripped to the waist, the dressings round his stomach turned red and there was an unmistakable stink of infection.

‘They can’t do nothing for it,’ said Kilgar, seeing that Nobul was looking at his wounded guts. ‘Khurtas cover their weapons in all sorts of shit. If they don’t get you on the battlefield, infection will get you later. This spread bloody quick, though. Must have been some dirty bastard kind of poison.’

‘You comfortable?’ Nobul asked. ‘You need water? Food?’ It seemed only right to ask. He didn’t have anything else to say.

‘No point wasting it on me,’ said Kilgar with a grin. It turned into a grimace and he coughed, spitting a fleck of blood across his cheek. Nobul gripped his hand tighter until the coughing fit had gone.

‘I always knew who you were, you know,’ he said when he’d finally calmed enough to speak. ‘From that first day you were stood in the courtyard of the barracks. I recognised you straight away. The fucking Black Helm. Here to be a Greencoat. I knew you must have been in some kind of shit, or times had gotten bloody hard.’

‘I appreciate you keeping it to yourself,’ said Nobul.

‘Weren’t nobody’s business but yours, I reckoned. I guessed you had your reasons. And why was I gonna argue having the Black Helm as part of my watch? There was no one gonna mess with us. Not with you around.’

Nobul nodded, though he doubted the truth of it. There’d been plenty to mess with him over the past weeks. There’d been a lot of men almost done for him too, but he was still here and they were dead.

‘She came, you know,’ said Kilgar, his one eye drifting to the ceiling.

‘Who?’ asked Nobul.

‘The Red Witch. She stood right where you are now.’

Nobul knew exactly who he was talking about. He’d seen her on the roof of the Chapel of Ghouls a few weeks previous but not known her name then. He’d seen her on the wall too, though he’d given her a wide berth. He wasn’t ashamed to say she frightened the fuck out of him.

‘What did she want with an old warhorse like you?’

Kilgar smiled. ‘Me and her go a long way back. Not many people trust that woman, but for some reason she’s always made me feel safe.’

Nobul had no idea what Kilgar meant by ‘safe’ but he wasn’t about to ask. ‘And what did she say to you?’

Kilgar looked at Nobul then. He fixed him with his one eye and there was some kind of peace in there. ‘She told me I’d done enough.’

Nobul nodded at that. ‘I reckon she’s right.’

For a moment something burned in Kilgar’s eye, something of the old warrior coming back. ‘But you’re not done, Nobul Jacks,’ he said, gripping Nobul’s hand tight. ‘You’re a long way from fucking done.’

Kilgar closed his eye, his hand going slack. Nobul couldn’t say whether the serjeant was dead or passed out, but he placed that hand gently on the bed anyway and took a step back. With nothing left to say he walked out of the makeshift infirmary.

As he made his way back up towards the wall he knew Kilgar was right. The aches and the pains were still there, but Nobul wasn’t done by a damn sight. He’d make sure he didn’t die on no bed either. He was going down in the fight, screaming and roaring and spitting his last breath at the enemy.

When he got back to the wall he saw a crowd had gathered. Archers were congregated in ranks and the nervous silence told him something was wrong. Nobul ran up the steps, hefting his hammer, expecting the worst. The Khurtas hadn’t attacked in the day yet, but he wouldn’t put it past them to change their tactics.

He squeezed past some of the levies till he made it to the front, looking out between the merlons. Over on the plain, just beyond the range of their arrows, were about a thousand Khurtas. They didn’t look ready to attack, they were just standing there waiting.

As they all watched, a single Khurtic voice rose up as it had done that first night. It was a loud call, something long and nasty in their ugly tongue, answered by a choral groan as the Khurtas fell to one knee, all one thousand of them at once. That voice continued to chant, and the thousand with it answered. They punched themselves in the chest all in unison, changing the tone of their cries as they did so, screaming their lungs out. Nobul could see why some of the lads would be terrified of that, but the Khurtas weren’t moving. They were no danger from this distance.

‘It’s a war salute,’ said a voice at Nobul’s shoulder. He turned to see Bannon Logar standing next to him, his armour more dented and bloody than he’d last seen it but the old man’s eyes were more alive than Nobul remembered. ‘It’s a tribute to one of our warriors.’

‘Which one?’ Nobul asked.

‘You know which one, lad. The Black Helm killed one of their war chiefs. You’ve challenged for the tribe. They’ll be sending their best to test you.’

As if the old man had heralded it, the Khurtas split apart, allowing someone to walk through their midst. At first Nobul thought it might be Amon Tugha himself. The prospect of fighting that Elharim bastard filled him with no particular thrill, but when he could finally see their champion he was even less keen to jump straight into the fight.

The Khurta was bigger than the one he’d killed on the roof of the gatehouse. From this distance his features were hard to pick out but Nobul could still tell he wasn’t pretty. He stood at the front of his thousand and bellowed, just standing there with a war maul over his shoulder, shouting his shit in Khurtic like it might make the walls of Steelhaven crumble.

Nobul took his helmet and placed it on his head, then climbed up on the battlements as best he could without looking an old, tired bastard. As he pointed his hammer forward at the giant Khurta all the noise stopped. They looked at each other across three hundred yards until the Khurta hefted his own massive hammer from his shoulder and pointed right back. Then, as one, the Khurtas turned and headed back north.

There were audible sighs of relief as they went. Nobul watched for as long as he could before he climbed back down off the wall. Last thing he wanted was to fall — that would have been a fucking stupid way to go after all his posturing.

Duke Bannon gave him a nod, a wicked grin on his face. ‘You show them, lad,’ he said, before walking off with the rest.

At least Bannon was looking forward to what was coming. And Nobul reckoned it would be pretty humiliating if he couldn’t live up to the old bastard’s expectations. Not that it mattered much.

Humiliation didn’t matter a shit if you were dead.