The Broken Isles

THIRTY

‘Another dull night,’ Randur muttered.

‘Sorry, sir?’ the guard replied.

‘I said it’s another dull night,’ Randur repeated, leaning in the doorway.

The guard remained impassive. He was a broad young lad, possibly little older than Randur was, and he had stood outside of their chamber now for three nights without saying anything.

‘Wouldn’t you rather be on the battlefield?’ Randur enquired. ‘You know, strutting your stuff, cracking open a few Okun skulls, that sort of thing?’

‘The commander’s orders were for me to remain here,’ the guard replied, looking forward, stood to attention. ‘And that’s where I’ll stay. Sir.’

‘It’s all right,’ Randur said, ‘you can slouch. You can sit on the floor if you must. Want a chair? Don’t stand to attention for my sake.’

‘Orders were to protect yourself and Lady Eir, sir.’

Folding his arms, Randur sighed and peered down the gloomy corridor. ‘See that, down there? Bugger all, that’s what’s down there. Nothing but shadows. Shadows aren’t going to be much of a threat. Why not grab some vodka and join me for a few card games? We’ll keep the stakes low — I know wages aren’t what they used to be. Fuck it, why not head downstairs and open up the Imperial coffers for kicks?’

‘Wouldn’t be prudent, sir,’ the guard replied.

‘Relax, I was joking,’ Randur muttered. ‘Well, suit yourself, anyway. Let me know if there’s any excitement and I’ll give you a hand dealing with it.’

Randur closed the door and strolled back into his chamber. Eir had just finished washing herself after another day at the hospital, and looked thoroughly dishevelled and all the more charming for it.

‘You’ve not been hassling that poor soldier again, have you?’ Eir asked, drying her hands on a towel.

‘He loves it,’ Randur declared, and reclined with a grunt into a cushioned chair. ‘Besides, he’s not lying dead on a battlefield, so putting up with me is a much more preferable situation to that, I’d say.’

‘Randur, don’t speak of the war like that. We could be doing well — it’s just that nearly every garuda was needed — so we simply don’t know.’

‘Yeah, that’s true. Have to give the commander his dues, he knows what he’s doing.’

‘That he does,’ Eir replied.

‘Does Brynd still want you doing this hospital stuff now you’re supposed to be overseeing things?’

‘The commander has no choice in the matter,’ Eir replied defiantly.

‘Well, I guess if you’re the boss, then he doesn’t,’ Randur replied. ‘So, what’s my new position in all of this — did you talk about that before he left?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘As in, I’m your partner, right? So if you were a bloke in charge, and I was your wife, I’d get some kind of duties. . titles perhaps?’

‘Are you angling for a title?’

‘I’d not say no to one,’ Randur declared with a grin, standing up. He sauntered over to Eir’s side and put his arms around her. ‘I have the airs and graces of someone who deserves a title, don’t you think?’

Eir burst into laughter. ‘Even if you do say so yourself. Randur Estevu, I’ve got a name for you-’

A knock on the door.

‘What is it?’ Eir asked, stepping away from Randur, as if to appear more professional.

The guard poked his head around the door. ‘Um, Lady Eir, one of the other Citadel guards has just come to me with a report of a little trouble outside.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘A mob, my lady.’

‘Well, what does this mob want?’ Eir enquired.

‘Not entirely sure right now, I’m afraid. Just an initial report of a massed gathering approaching the Citadel.’

‘Nothing inherently wrong with that,’ Randur observed. ‘It’s a strange city. People have their little meetings. Reckon it’s something to do with the gangs?’

‘There are well over a thousand of them, sir,’ the guard grunted.

Randur whistled. ‘Reckon we should take a look?’ he said to Eir, with enthusiasm. ‘Could be a little excitement. Hey, could be a big brawl!’

‘Randur!’ Eir protested. ‘You shouldn’t be excited at such things.’

He waved a hand. ‘I could do with some entertainment. I’ll head up onto the roof to get a better view.’ He turned to the soldier. ‘You up for a little excitement?’

‘It might be advisable. .’ the guard agreed. Randur swore he could see a glint of excitement in the lad’s eyes. No one deserved to be this bored in life.

Randur reached for his sword, strapped it firmly to his waist, slung on a long overcoat and buttoned it up to his collar. ‘Sure you don’t want to join us?’

‘I’ve had a long day,’ Eir replied. ‘I’ll let you boys play combat.’

‘Very decent of you,’ Randur smiled.

‘What’s your name?’ Randur asked as they jogged along the corridor.

It felt good to get a little blood pumping through his veins again, to have something to do. He half hoped there would be a serious situation, if merely to relieve himself of his boredom.

‘Private Drendan, sir.’

‘Drendan,’ Randur repeated. ‘So what exactly did you see?’

‘Well, it could have been the gangs, sir, but it could have been something more serious.’

They trotted along and up the many flights of stairs until they managed to reach the rooftop. The soldier, much fitter than Randur due to his military training — and Randur’s own laziness — reached the door well before Randur. He opened it and allowed Randur to step through first.

A strong wind hit him as he ventured out onto the roof of the Citadel. He immediately faced the sea, and Drendan guided him to the side of the building that faced the danger.

‘Over there, sir.’ Drendan pointed to a few buildings immediately to the south, where a cluster of people were loitering. Randur followed his outstretched arm, struggling to see in the poor light of dusk. At the base of a tall building, by an alleyway, he could see a group of young men, each of them carrying some kind of weapon. On the other side of that building, another few men could be seen brandishing swords. Then over to the next building, and the next, and so on, until Randur concluded that nearly all the streets behind must be filled with people.

‘What do you suppose they’re playing at?’ Randur asked.

‘This is serious trouble, sir.’

‘Yeah, you might be right. They’ve not come at the Citadel yet, have they?’

‘Not yet. But they might be doing so as we speak.’ Those individual clusters began to drift slowly forward, coalescing into a massive crowd, one that promised to be larger than the Night Guard homecoming not that long ago.

‘They’re heading this way,’ the soldier observed.

‘What should we do?’ Randur asked.

‘We fortify the Citadel.’

‘How many is we exactly?’

‘There are several soldiers who have remained here.’

‘Several. Several soldiers against fuck knows how many of them.’

‘The Citadel is well built, sir.’

‘It had better be,’ Randur muttered. ‘Come on then.’

When they were safely within the heart of the Citadel, Drendan saw to it that all potential routes of entry were locked, the main doors barricaded, the portcullis, which rarely saw use, was lowered, and all windows on the lower floors — not that there were many — were sealed and boarded. It took less than ten minutes, and all the while the noise of the crowd outside began to intensify.

They held a quick meeting with most of the military personnel present, as well as Eir, who was annoyingly optimistic about their odds.

‘So we have seventeen men — and myself,’ Eir said. ‘Not to mention we have quite a few of the administrative staff, each of whom could be given a sword and not remain idle. There’s also that cultist, Blavat I believe her name is, who spends most of her time experimenting in the basements. I’d say that puts us in a better position than we thought previously.’

‘She has a very good point,’ Drendan said.

‘I could try reasoning with them first, however?’ Eir offered.

‘Too dangerous, my lady,’ Drendan said. ‘My limited experience suggests an angry mob isn’t in the mood for negotiation.’

‘If this is the case,’ Eir said, ‘one of us must use one of the underground exits to get a message out via garuda, to locate Brynd wherever he is and to inform him that the city is under threat.’

‘Any ideas as to the numbers out there?’ Randur asked. ‘At least a thousand, right? So how can we possibly hold them off? Come to think of it, why the hell are we under siege in the first place?’

‘From what I can gather, it is gang-led violence. Some of their anti-Empire chants suggest that they are against our rule.’

‘They picked the right bloody time for it,’ Randur said, ‘what with the Night Guard away.’

‘This sounds more of a planned effort,’ one of the older guards said, ‘if they waited for the main forces to go, leaving us defenceless. It is a cold and calculated attempt to remove a major Imperial structure.’

‘That means they won’t stop until they’re inside here,’ Drendan said.

‘Not on our watch,’ Randur declared.

‘Agreed,’ the old guard said. ‘We are sworn to you, Lady Eir, to protect you and your seat of power.’

‘Oh, give me a sword, for Bohr’s sake. I can protect myself.’

Randur smiled and handed her his own blade. ‘That she can, lads — she had one of the best in the Archipelago teach her.’

‘Are you certain, Lady Eir?’ The guard had a genuine look of concern. He was clearly of a generation that wasn’t used to noble ladies knowing their way around a blade.

Eir pointed the tip of her sword towards him. ‘I have never been more certain in my life. If this Citadel falls, I shall go with it. It is important that this building remains — it is the hub of everything that Commander Lathraea has worked for. It contains Imperial wealth, food stores, documents relating to distribution of monies from the bank, the allocation of grain. . I could go on, but I hope I get my point across. This building must not fall.’

‘Yes, Lady Eir,’ the soldiers muttered as close to unison as they could manage.

The Citadel was built with defence in mind. The walls were high and, unless you possessed special powers, relatively non-scalable. It was built to an old design, redesigned, hacked back, and new sections added with the same stone so, over the years, it was impossible to know what was left of the designer’s original vision. Old-style grates were available so that hot oil could be poured down over those assaulting the main door, and this task was left to two soldiers. The crenellations provided adequate cover from which to launch arrows at those attacking. Someone managed to make contact with the cultist, who reluctantly agreed to lend some explosive relics to the cause.

It was a piecemeal and very slow operation.

Randur became immensely frustrated at the fact that success simply meant that the status quo was maintained. There seemed no way of actually winning — all they were doing was holding off one group of bodies, for another wave to come crashing against the doors and walls. There were a few valiant efforts to scale the walls: ropes were launched upward, only to be cut by the handful of soldiers on the roof. Eir and Randur found themselves directing things more than being much use.

As the hours rolled towards midnight, there was an explosion that managed to blow a gap in the front of the portcullis. Moments later came a second blast.

The gathered defenders reconvened to discuss a new plan of action.

Everyone’s tone was noticeably more panicky now. There was a great deal more urgency to proceedings. People spoke over one another until Eir managed to calm everyone down to develop a solution.

They concluded that, should the doors be breached and the gangs make it into the courtyard, it did not necessarily mean that the Citadel could be accessed easily. The courtyard could be sealed off, and Randur suggested they could hold the gangs in there for a little longer, cutting off routes to the rest of the building as best they could. Having ascertained what would happen if the gangs did breach these boundaries, they planned to close down the Citadel section by section, wearing the attackers down, throwing in more relics, drawing more blood.

A third blast came a few minutes later.

An enormous metallic scraping sound suggested the portcullis was being removed. The cheers were more audible, the noise of the mob accumulating within the confines of the walls. Still they couldn’t see the numbers of assailants they’d be dealing with.

Blavat, the cultist, had set off a couple of relics in the entrance way to the Citadel — Randur didn’t know what exactly; he could only hear the screams — but it managed to buy them some more time. They locked doors, barricaded passageways, drew down further, smaller portcullises, the presence of which surprised everyone but the guards. It seemed the Citadel was not only built well for an external defence but also for an internal one.

They ran back along corridors, sealing themselves in, moving up a level.

The gangs passed the cultist trickery and flooded in. The noise was intense and frightening. Randur could hear the vile chants now, the names, the curses, their promises. Their anger filtered up through the stone.

As they moved up a stairway, between the cold walls, Randur caught a glimpse of the courtyard below. ‘Eir, look. There are hundreds of them.’

‘They mustn’t get up. We must keep them there, locked in, and wear them down.’

‘They’re not going to just go. They’ll stay until we’re dead.’

‘If that happens, then so be it, but we must hold until the commander returns.’

‘That could be any time. It could be days. It could be weeks.’

‘It could be soon, too, we’ve just no idea.’

The gangs were milling about the place now, as if they were in an iren. With nowhere to go they had been stalled. Somehow one of them had managed to get up on the raised platform, several feet above the ground. It was too dark for Randur to identify him, but he seemed to be giving instructions. . no, he was rallying them.

‘Could Blavat throw something in there to kill them all?’ Randur asked. He noticed Eir cringe at his intentions.

They looked down the line at the grey-haired cultist, who simply shrugged. ‘The military have taken most of my damaging relics for their operations. I have very few of use any more. At best, things that give off smoke, things that may slow down time for them. .’

‘That’ll do,’ Randur said.

‘All it does is make it appear as if they’re wading through treacle, and it doesn’t last for more than a few hours.’

‘I don’t care,’ Randur said. ‘It’s our best chance of holding them off.’

Blavat ran up the stairs to her quarters. Randur and Eir waited by the window as the soldiers continued their work of barricading themselves in.

A few moments later, something whistled outside like a firecracker and exploded over the thugs below.

It was difficult to observe fully, but the crowds below were very definitely moving slowly. It was bordering on comical, the way the man on the platform walked in a painfully slow manner back and forth. Was he aware that he had been slowed down? Randur couldn’t be sure.

‘There,’ Blavat said, returning breathlessly. ‘It’s done.’

‘Thank you,’ Eir said. ‘Has it got them all?’

‘No, only those in the courtyard.’

‘There will still be a few kicking about then,’ Randur muttered. ‘It’s bought us time — and time is our best weapon so far. I’d say we should continue barricading ourselves in, working up the levels, and setting traps, all the way up to the roof. We’ve food on the levels above. We can last a longer siege. If they can’t get to us, we’ll be fine.’

‘I agree,’ Eir said. ‘We just wait it out. Wait for the commander to return. But what about. .’ She moved in to whisper, ‘What about Rika?’

‘She’s higher up. We’ll think about her when — or if — we have to.’