The Grim Company

Fire And Blood

Dawn arrived on the second day. The air felt thick and still, as if the world was holding its breath in anticipation.

Sasha wanted to vomit. She hadn’t slept a wink, but her nerves were afire and she felt more awake now than she had since she’d pushed those last dregs of precious powder up her nose back at Farrowgate. Ahead of her she could see the massive holes the great siege weapons had inflicted on Dorminia’s walls. The damage was far too severe to be repaired in the brief respite the trebuchet operators had afforded the city’s defenders. The gate itself still stood, though that was no coincidence.

There had been a wizard on the wall last night. Two of the ballistae had been set aflame and one of the trebuchets had lost an arm. Brianna had concluded that the wizard could only be the Halfmage. Thereafter they had directed the bombardment away from the gatehouse. Apparently the strange crippled mage who had helped her small group depart the harbour unnoticed over a month ago was none other than Cole’s mysterious contact. The revelation hardly allayed her fears.

General Zolta’s men had circled around the hills north of the city under the cover of darkness. They had taken with them most of the undamaged catapults and ballistae. The trebuchets were too large and unwieldy to navigate the hilly ground. Zolta’s company would launch a salvo from the eastern side, splitting the attention of Dorminia’s defenders in half. General D’rak’s men would wait in reserve until the city had been breached.

‘You ready for this, lass?’

Brodar Kayne had insisted on staying close to her. Sasha would be lying if she pretended she didn’t appreciate the gesture. She could feel dozens of eyes on her, crawling all over her skin. It wasn’t just the mercenaries, whose attentions could at least be explained by the fact that her mere presence in the army was a bizarre sight. Three-Finger leered at her whenever the opportunity arose, stripping her naked with his dark, feral eyes. Jerek stared too — though his gaze held only honest hatred. There was almost a strange comfort in that.

‘I’m ready,’ she replied, gripping her crossbow tightly in her left hand. She’d strapped a short sword to the belt at her waist, for all the good it would do. She hardly knew one end of a blade from the other, and had no intention of getting involved in any kind of melee if she could help it.

Sasha had read unlikely tales about women who had never lifted a sword in their lives leading armies and chopping down soldiers like firewood. That was the stuff of fantasy, the delusions of cosseted fools who had never felt the terrible strength of a man pinning them to the ground.

She was no fool. She was a survivor.

Dark-skinned men jostled her on every side. The company would advance on the gate ten abreast. She found herself alongside Brodar Kayne, Jerek and several mercenaries she didn’t know. Three-Finger was nearby. The Shamaathan assassin had departed with General Zolta’s force.

‘Still no sign of Isaac,’ she whispered to the old Highlander beside her. ‘It’s like he disappeared.’

Brodar Kayne frowned. He was already perspiring profusely. It was shaping up to be the hottest day of the year so far. ‘Isaac’s a weird ’un. I expect he’ll turn up somewhere.’

‘This is doing my fucking head in,’ Jerek grumbled. ‘All this bullshit. You see the enemy, you charge in and you fuck him up. Not stand around with your cocks out.’

‘Aye,’ said Kayne. ‘Seems these Sumnians do things a bit different. Hang in there, Wolf. We’ll get to the fighting before you know it.’

Jerek spat. Sasha looked away to hide her disgust. Unfortunately her eyes met Three-Finger’s, who gave her an obscene wink. She stared back at him unflinchingly, fingering the trigger in her hand, but someone buffeted her in the back and before she knew it they were advancing on the city.

The army halted again just out of bowshot range. Sasha could see tiny faces peering at them from behind the battlements. Her palms were sweating, the handle of the crossbow so slick it felt as though it would slip from her hand. The sun was a red furnace right overhead.

Brianna’s voice suddenly resounded from the very front of the column, so loud it hurt Sasha’s ears from where she was positioned halfway down the line fifty yards back. From their reactions, it was evident the defenders on the wall could also hear the wizard’s magically amplified words.

‘Fellow Dorminians! I ask you to lay down your weapons. We come not to seize the city but to liberate it. To rid you of a dictator. Put down your bows and swords and you will not be harmed.’ Silence followed as they waited to see what effect Brianna’s plea would have. Sasha swatted a fly away from her face and stared up at the clouds. A mindhawk circled high above.

The archers on the walls were not soldiers, she knew. They were farmers and tradesmen, forced into service by Salazar and the Watch. Most of them probably loathed the city’s Magelord, but it was a sorry truth that the familiar oppression of a despot was often preferable to the unknown.

Now they had a singular opportunity to change things for the better: to replace a ruthless tyrant with a benevolent patron who would offer Dorminia liberty as well as protection. Sasha didn’t know much about Thelassa, but the wizard Brianna — whom she had so grown to respect over the last couple of weeks — gave her ample reason to trust the enigmatic White Lady.

She held her breath. The defenders were visibly agitated. For a moment she thought they were going to down arms and surrender — but then, all of a sudden, order was apparently restored. There was a pause, and the White Lady’s adviser received her answer.

The volley of arrows landed just short of the mage. Brianna shook her head and turned to General Zahn beside her. She uttered a few words. The bald-headed behemoth, who still hadn’t bothered to don any armour, crossed his arms in front of his scarred chest and faced his men. ‘We charge!’ he bellowed. The general needed no magic to carry his cavernous voice down the column.

The mercenaries in the row directly behind their general carried a huge battering ram. The ten men detached from the column and shifted around so that their burden was aiming directly at the western gate. They broke into a run.

Sasha felt her breath quicken. The mercenaries ahead of her began to trot, and then to sprint, and before she knew it she was being swept along behind them. Brodar Kayne kept pace beside her. ‘Stick close to me,’ he said.

A rain of arrows fell from the sky directly overhead and her heart climbed into her throat. I’m going to die, she thought dully, watching the missiles descend — but the hail of arrows seemed to hit an invisible barrier. They slowed suddenly and then fell harmlessly to the ground. Another wave of arrows plummeted towards them, and they too stopped short before clattering to the hard turf. She glanced at Brianna. The wizard was concentrating hard, sweat dripping from her hair. She was mouthing arcane words, clearly a spell of some kind to shield the army from the archers.

The battering ram had reached the city. It crashed against the gates with a bone-shaking impact, causing the wooden barrier to crack slightly. The mercenaries trotted backwards, lined up the ram again, and then dashed forwards once more, driving the log into the gates with enough force to buckle one.

Behind them, several groups of mercenaries broke off from the column, making for the breaches in the city walls. The rest waited, weapons readied, preparing to pour through the gates just as soon as they fell. Sasha slowed, and then gasped.

Something was wrong. There was an alien sensation in the air — a throbbing, terrifying tension that made her muscles seize up and bile rise in her throat. All around her mercenaries cried out in shock. Some dropped their weapons. Brodar Kayne’s greatsword didn’t waver, but the old Highlander’s teeth were grinding together so hard she could hear them. ‘Magic,’ he managed to whisper. ‘Salazar.’

There was an awful whining noise. It was coming from Brianna. The wizard was convulsing, staring up at something in the distance. Sasha followed her tortured gaze, saw the summit of the Obelisk looming above the walls and knew that the Tyrant of Dorminia was flexing his might. Red spittle ran down Brianna’s chin and her eyes bulged as if they would burst from their sockets at any moment. He’s killing her.

‘So… strong…’ Brianna uttered.

‘No!’ screamed Sasha. The dying wizard looked at her, blood leaking from her eyes to run like tears down her cheeks.

Then, incredibly, she began to straighten. Her bones splintered and jutted from her shattered body as she forced herself upright. ‘Get inside… the city…’ she said, her face a bloody mess. She jerked again as something snapped in her back. ‘Salazar,’ she managed, spitting out half of her tongue. ‘This… is for you.’

And she exploded. Blood and viscera sprayed the mercenaries closest to her, but something else emerged from the mage’s corpse: a bolt of glowing red fire that hummed for a second or two and then roared off at blinding speed towards the Obelisk. It struck the top of the great tower in an explosion of falling masonry and flame. When the dust cleared, a smoking hole the size of a house was visible.

Sasha wanted to run away and never look back. Instead she took a deep breath and raised her crossbow. The pressure inside her was gone. Salazar’s sinister magic had been broken by Brianna’s final sacrifice. All around her men were reclaiming their weapons from the ground. The mercenaries in front of the damaged gates of the city hauled the great battering ram up between them. They took a few steps back, unleashed a great war cry and launched themselves forwards. The wood splintered and the gates were torn away from their hinges.

Crimson Watchmen immediately poured through the breach, swords raised. The mercenaries tossed the battering ram aside and drew their own weapons as their comrades rushed in to help. Brodar Kayne nodded, gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze and moved to join the fray.

Sasha took another deep breath and followed.

The crossbow clicked. The bolt missed her target, sailing harmlessly wide. Sasha swore, reached down and drew her sword as the burly Watchman leaped the bodies of two of his fellows and brandished his own blade. Before he could reach her a Sumnian plunged a spear into his side. It sank deep, piercing his chainmail, and he staggered. The mercenary was on him in an instant, his long dagger plunging into the soldier’s neck. He went down, choking on blood. The black-skinned warrior pulled his spear free of the corpse and returned to the huge melee just ahead.

Sasha had no idea how much time had passed since the battle began. They had been forced back from the gates by the Watch, and now the soldiers formed a wall of crimson in front of the entrance to the city. Behind them, she knew, an unknown number of militiamen waited.

There were still a few archers on the battlements and occasionally an arrow would pick off a stray mercenary, but the bulk of the conscripts were apparently engaged in defending the breaches in the wall. From what she had seen, the archers were poor shots. With the fighters on both sides packed so closely together, they were as likely to hit their own men as the enemy.

She narrowed her eyes, trying to make sense of the chaos. The Sumnians were clearly the superior fighters, faster and more skilled, but their leather armour offered scant protection from the Watch’s swords and the arrows from above. General Zahn bellowed instructions from a nearby hillock, his four guards forming a shield wall around him. In the distance she could see General D’rak’s company eager to engage. They were awaiting the signal from Zahn, but it didn’t look as if that was coming any time soon. The western gate and the three major breaches in the city wall formed choke points that greater numbers would do little to penetrate, and there was no sense in providing more targets for the archers.

Another Watch soldier noticed her and came sprinting over just as she finished reloading her crossbow. This time Sasha put the quarrel in his stomach, stopping him in his tracks. He lurched away, clawing at his midriff, his agonized cries haunting her from where she knelt in the shallow depression. A few archers had taken shots at her, but she was at the very limits of their range and the arrows had gone far wide.

She tried to calm her nerves as she watched Kayne and Jerek cut a bloody swathe through the Crimson Watch. The two men were like forces of nature, Jerek a whirlwind of axes chopping at arms and legs while his older companion moved as serenely as a cloud before striking like lightning. He seemed able to read every single blow before it landed. Even as she looked on, Kayne sidestepped a sword thrust and smashed the pommel of his greatsword into his attacker’s face, dropping him like a sack of potatoes, and then spun around to dodge another Watchman’s overhead swing. An arrow took the soldier in the back at almost the exact moment he stepped into the Highlander’s path.

Sasha shook her head. The old barbarian had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time.

A loud grunting drew her attention closer to her hiding spot. Three-Finger was grappling with one of the city’s defenders, stabbing him repeatedly through a hole in the man’s armour. Blood splattered his scabrous face but he kept on stabbing long after the soldier had stopped twitching. He saw her watching him, gave her a yellow grin which turned to a bellow of pain as an arrow suddenly pierced his shoulder.

She squinted up at the battlements. The militiamen had returned to the wall in force and were now raining arrows down indiscriminately, hitting mercenaries and Watchmen alike. Dark-skinned Sumnians and scarlet-clad Dorminians fell to the ground, pierced by missiles.

There was a sudden blur to the side of her. Like damned souls escaping from the gates of hell, the White Lady’s pale servants glided past with unnatural speed. The women went straight past the fighting, ignoring the arrow-strewn killing field, and began scaling the walls with their bare hands.

Sasha’s mouth dropped open in shock. They crawled up the stone like spiders — a sight so unnatural it filled her with sudden horror.

The first of the women reached the top and disappeared over the side. A moment later the broken body of a militiaman tumbled over the wall, his head at a crazy angle to his neck. More conscripts fell from the wall, dropping like flies.

Sasha glanced at the hillock again and saw General Zahn gesturing wildly at General D’rak and his company. The thousand mercenaries raised their weapons and began to advance.

She reached for another bolt and her hand came away empty. She hesitated for a second, then discarded the spent quiver and drew her sword. The mercenaries and Watchmen were locked in combat outside the walls, while just inside the city pandemonium had broken out. The White Lady’s servants were seemingly unstoppable, moving with blinding speed and striking with bare hands that carried the force of a hammer blow. They twisted and spun and attacked from impossible angles, bending like quicksilver to avoid the desperate lunges and swings of the Watch and militiamen. Soldiers fell with their heads crushed, their necks broken, their spines shattered.

She had to look away. Not even the Watch deserved this. Salazar was their true enemy. Brianna’s last desperate act had disrupted his magic, but she knew he was still up there in the Obelisk, watching them, waiting until he was sufficiently recovered to launch another deadly spell.

Come on, Cole. You can’t fail. If you do, there will be nothing left of the city but corpses.

You can’t fail.