The Crown of blood

I

The only traffic on the road leading to Magilnada was a solitary two-wheeled cart drawn by a plodding abada. Cold sleet rained down on the wagon, whose driver and companion sat huddled in their cloaks beneath an improvised awning of stretched canvas. Water caused the sheet to bow, so that now and then the driver reached up with a stick to poke the awning, sending icecold water sloshing over the sides.

"Still, better than snow, eh?" said Gelthius. His passenger, the Askhan noble called Noran, replied with a doubtful look.

"I like snow, in moderation."

"What's 'moderation' mean?" asked Gelthius.

"Not too much," Noran told him with a sigh. Gelthius absorbed this piece of knowledge with a nod, and stored it with the other long words he had learnt on the journey from the camp.

They carried on, the cart rocking slowly from side to side, the wind bringing gusts of spray into their faces.

"Ever seen Magilnada before?" Gelthius asked. Noran shook his head.

"Not in person," said the noble. "I have seen drawings."

"It's a mighty city, right enough," said Gelthius. "A mighty city indeed."

"I was born in Askh, the greatest city in the world," said Noran. "It takes a lot to impress me."

They rode on for a while longer, until Gelthius spoke again. It had been the same for the whole journey; Gelthius trying to pass the time with chat, Noran answering only reluctantly.

"Pardon my saying, but you don't seem all that happy to be here," said Gelthius.

Noran didn't reply straightaway. He drew his hood tighter to his face and stared up at the mountains. Gelthius thought the noble was going to ignore him, but then Noran spoke. His voice was quiet, his mood sombre.

"Bearing all things in mind, I would rather be in Askh. I have a large house there, and a lodge in the hills I can visit if I fancy some mountain air. I would travel in a covered carriage, out of the wind and rain. Servants would attend me at my slightest word, bringing me good food and splendid wine.

"Instead, here I am on the board of an open wagon, in the pissing rain, my belly half-empty, my clothes soaking to the skin. And what am I about to do? Ride into the city my friend, your general, is about to attack, at no small risk to myself."

Gelthius pondered this for a moment.

"So, why are you here?"

"Because I am an idiot, my odious companion. An idiot who thought he could help a friend."

Gelthius decided not to ask what 'odious' meant, though he might guess at its meaning. The cart hit a particularly deep rut in the road and sent the pair lurching to one side. Gelthius grabbed the wagon seat to stop from toppling from the board. Noran reached over and hauled him upright.

"Careful there. There is no point getting hurt before we even reach Magilnada." Noran directed a sour look at the wagon and the beast pulling it. "Besides, I have no idea how to drive this thing."

The abada had almost stopped at the commotion. Gelthius prodded it with his long stick and it lumbered on again, the traces tightening as it picked up speed. Soon the cart was rumbling and swaying.

"Seems to be you don't want to be here, right enough," said Gelthius. "Me, I can't go nowhere else. I been a cattle thief, a shoemaker, a farmer, a debtor, a rebel and now I'm an Askhan legionnaire. I got food in my belly and clothes that ain't full of holes. I reckon I'm doing all right at the moment. If you've lost so much, why don't you just go back to Askh? Putting aside friendship with the general and all that."

"Go back to what?" Noran's wistfulness grew into bitterness. "The king has exiled me. My family has probably disowned me. My estates are no longer mine."

Noran grew even quieter. Gelthius struggled to hear his words over the noise of the cart's axle, the splashing of the wheels and the pattering of rain on the awning.

"Nothing to go back to; nothing to take back. Neerita's gone. No son. I have nothing left."

Noran stared bleakly ahead, eyes fixed on something else. Gelthius said nothing. He recognised a foul mood when he saw it, and knew that any attempt to cheer up his companion was likely to end in anger. They rode on in silence until the walls of Magilnada could be seen through the rain.

Grey and brown like the mountains from which its stones had been carved, the semi-circular outer wall curved from a cliff face that rose far above the plain. Square towers broke the wall every quarter of a mile, and there was only one gate, protected by fortifications twice as high as the rest of the wall. In the summer, when Gelthius had seen the city before on his three visits as one of Anglhan's turncranks, there had been a second city of tents outside, filled with traders, craftsmen and other visitors. Now the city was surrounded by a flat stretch of muddy grass, in places turned to bog by the rain. Little could be seen of the city within; a haze of smoke from forges and hearths hung over the city.

The stone-strengthened track they were on curved around to coldwards and joined a straighter road; paved with giant slabs, though now much cracked and overgrown with plants. To either side stretched the fields that fed the city, the flat expanse broken by clusters of low farmhouses and long barns. The landscape was still, the only movement the empty branches of scattered trees swayed by the strengthening wind.

Weighed on by such dismal surrounds and Noran's sombre mood, Gelthius tried his best to be happy. He was a free man, in reality and by the law of Salphoria. He had talked to his new comrades in the Thirteenth, and Gelthius had come to the conclusion that life in an Askhan legion was certainly not the worst thing that could have happened to him. And this current job, meeting others in Ullsaard's army that had sneaked into Magilnada, looked to be safer than what the future had in store for his fellow crewmates and rebels.