The Grave Thief: Book Three of The Twilight Reign (60 page)

The force with the Menin standard at the front wasn’t the biggest Teral had ever seen, but as he looked at the three groups forming up outside bowshot range he realised it didn’t need to be. There were at least two legions of heavy infantry standing in neat ranks, their long pikes waving in the air, with another two legions of lighter troops behind. The mass of cavalry on the left were led by the legendary Bloodsworn, all sporting the Fanged Skull of the lord they worshipped. But it was the right flank that frightened him most of all: a dark crowd of figures too large to be human lowed and roared, their noise louder than the hooves of the rest of the army combined, and beside them a regiment of heavy infantry screamed with manic delight, all the while waving enormous polished steel shields above their heads. Teral didn’t have to be close enough to see the blades fixed on the edge of the shields, and he barely noticed the cadre of mages behind them.

‘Oh Gods,’ he breathed, ‘the Reavers, and minotaurs too.’

‘Good thing they ain’t attacked yet, then!’ Jackler said cheerfully. He pointed at the infantry with the massive Menin standard. ‘Look, flags of parley. Probably come to surrender to us, sir !’

Three horsemen broke away and headed towards the Fist: two Bloodsworn, with the blood-red Fanged Skull painted onto their black breastplates and shields, and a nobleman between them, brandishing the white banner. He was taller than the knights escorting him.

Thank the Gods; someone I might actually be able to negotiate with, rather than that blasphemy of a creature that’s Styrax’s favourite general
, he thought, thankful for small mercies.

‘A white-eye?’ Jackler asked, noticing the man in the middle was towering over his companions.

‘That’s ornate for a white-eye,’ Teral remarked. The red, white and blue livery made a very obvious target, no matter who escorted him. He looked blurred, but Teral was Farlan and knew it wasn’t his vision that was at fault. ‘The man’s wearing ribbons,’ he exclaimed. ‘If he is a white-eye he’s enough of a peacock to rival Suzerain Saroc.’

‘That’d be Duke Vrill then,’ Jackler advised. ‘They say he’s Chief Steward to Lord Styrax.’ He paused and with a laugh added, ‘Imagine that: Chief Steward Lesarl with a white-eye’s temper.’

‘Lesarl’s viciousness surpasses that of any white-eye,’ Teral said sourly, ‘but you’re right, that must be Vrill. What does he expect us to say? He must realise there’s no man here ranked above colonel; all the commanders are meeting his lord!’ He pushed away from the wall and headed for the stair, Jackler on his heels. ‘There’s no one here authorised to negotiate surrender, and why else bring an army here?’

‘Talking would be better than attacking the Fist,’ Jackler pointed out.

He was right, Teral realised. Even with the terrifying troops the Menin had, the Fist was a hard place to take at the best of times - and reinforcements had just arrived for the Akellan defenders: four legions of Knights of the Temples from Canar Fell and Aroth, most of the Order living under Narkang’s rule. The Order had considerable resources and much land at its disposal, and it ensured its troops were all well supplied and trained. Its armies were spread over a dozen or more city-states, in the charge of select generals, and they all maintained a reputation for martial excellence.

They had planned to re-supply at the Fist and continue on to Raland, a key city-state controlled by the Order, but Sourl could not have been more delighted to receive them. The politics of the Order were complicated, but it never boded well whenever a general welcomed troops under his superior’s colours.

‘What’s he going to say to persuade us to give in?’ Teral yelled over his shoulder as they reached the bottom of the stairs and made for the fortified gate-house, the only entrance on that side of the Fist.

An attack alarm was clanging above his head, and there was movement all around as men made for their battle stations. The Fist was a massive square building, the straight line of the walls broken only by a jutting gatehouse on the northern face. The outer wall was ten feet thick with defensive walkways built within that, and served as a massive outer shell to the inner building, itself five storeys high and a maze of kitchens, storerooms, barracks, foundries, halls, offices and stables.

The Fist would be hard to take. The outskirts of the city had crept ever closer, until now only five hundred paces separated the nearest dwellings from the massive walls - but the ground had been carefully planned to hinder any attacker, with piled earthworks and deep ditches close to the fort and enough open ground to leave anyone trying to slip past the Fist exposed and vulnerable for far too long for comfort.

Teral looked up; the sky above him was grey, making even the scarlet of their uniforms look faded and dull.

‘Is Colonal Dake not here?’ he snapped, watching the ordered chaos around him.

‘Back in the city,’ Jackler replied. ‘I’ll send a rider.’

‘Where in the name of the Dark Place is Major Sants, then?’

‘I’m here, Teral,’ called a laconic voice from the shadows of the gatehouse, ‘just waiting for you to show your face.’

Teral bit down the curse that was on the tip of his tongue. Now was not the time to let Sants wind him up. ‘It looks as if their general, the white-eye Vrill, wants to parley. I don’t think we can afford to wait for Colonel Dake to arrive, so we should go and hear what he has to say immediately.’

As he took a step forward, Captain Shael and the rabid Chaplain Fell joined him. The chaplain was still wearing the bronze braiding on his half-black, half-red robe.

Gods, the Knight-Cardinal must have reversed his decision, all so a few chaplains can pretend they’re Mystics of Karkarn
, Teral thought, noting the chaplain’s clothing.

Clerics had always been a driving force within the Knights of the Temples, but the recent fanaticism sweeping through the cults had taken that to an extreme. It might have been comical to watch formerly mild-mannered clerics assuming all the swagger and aggression of a Farlan regimental chaplain, if it hadn’t been accompanied by savage fervour and increasingly brutal punishments for any man betraying the slightest disrespect towards a man of the cloth.

No doubt that priest of Belarannar whispered in the Knight-Cardinal’s ear again; man’s been closer than a flea and just as friendly. How long can I last without being assigned a ‘spiritual advisor’ of my own?
he wondered.

Major Sants pointed past Teral at four horses being brought around from the stables. ‘We were just waiting for you to catch up,’ he said with an infuriating smile.

Teral whipped the reins of his own horse from the groom, not caring how ungracious he appeared. The man didn’t bother to look aggrieved, nor did he react when Sants accepted the reins of his own warhorse with exaggerated courtesy. As soon as they were mounted, Sants gave a cough. ‘Ahem, Major ?’

The gates were shut; Teral was duty-commander, and only on his order would they be opened. The gates were twelve feet square, made of bog-oak from the marshes to the west, and reinforced with steel rods. Four men stared down at him from the gantry above the gate, waiting for his order.

He opened his mouth, about to speak, when a man stepped out in front of his horse and the creature shied. It took Teral a moment to regain control of the beast before he could look at the person blocking his path: a priest in black robes. The red stripe running down each voluminous sleeve and around his waist was unfamiliar to Teral, as was the small, curved dagger attached to his robe - clearly a ritual implement, though he couldn’t place the cult that required such a thing.

‘Major,’ the man called out in a strange accent, ‘Major, I must beg favour of you.’ He spoke the Farlan dialect, although with a strong accent.

‘Your Reverence, now is not the time,’ Teral said, trying to keep his temper. ‘Please, whatever it is, make your request later.’

‘No, Major, it is time,’ the man replied loudly, his high foreign voice making it sound like a rebuke. As though to support his point, a small group shuffled closer: four more dressed in black and five in novice grey, though the colour of the stripes was different. It was hard to make out in the weak light.

What sort of priests are these? Is that stripe yellow or white?
Some instinct made him wheel his horse away from the men. Jackler, seeing the movement, stepped directly between Teral and the priest, his hand on his hilt.

‘What God do you serve?’ Teral asked as the gatehouse troops stepped out of their guardrooms and surrounded the priests. ‘What could possibly be so important you need to speak to me now? You do realise there’s a Menin army out there?’

‘I hear alarm. Now is time,’ the priest insisted. He pushed back the hood of his robe to reveal a face of indeterminate age, entirely hairless and frighteningly white.

Teral wondered if the man came from the Waste; he’d heard many of the tribes there had strange-coloured skin, ranging from as grey as a corpse to red like a birthmark.

‘We are priests of Death. When there is battle, we must pray.’

‘Pray then, dammit,’ roared Chaplain Fell, a priest of Karkarn, ‘but just get out of the damn way!’

Teral couldn’t help but wince, fearing to find himself caught between feuding priests, but the strange man appeared to take no umbrage at Fell’s belligerent tone.

‘Well, Father?’ he said. ‘You don’t need my permission to pray.’

‘Apologies, we are . . .’ The priest floundered for a moment, then turned to his colleagues for help.

‘Aligned,’ one of the novices said quietly. He wasn’t as young as most novices; though he was also hairless, he had the weatherbeaten face of a penitent.

‘Ah, yes.’ The priest gave a small bow to the novice and turned back to Teral. ‘We are aligned priests; we serve the Reapers.’

Teral blinked in surprise. Aligned to the Reapers? He’d never heard of such a thing before - though it did explain the colours on each man’s robe.

‘You serve the Reapers?’ he said, stunned. ‘What do you want with me?’ Fear made his question harsh, but the priest didn’t appear to notice.

The priest gave a bow. ‘All priests of Death must pray before battle; we must pray on site of battle.’

‘Out there?’ Sants retorted, pointing towards the still-closed gate. ‘You want to walk out there to pray?’

The priest nodded.

Teral hesitated, trying to work out what to do. The Order bowed to religious authority; that was inbred, and of late that had been even more evident, yet something here felt wrong. He looked at each of the priests: all in black, each with a similar ageless face.

Gods, are they
mages
?
he wondered. ‘Sergeant,’ he shouted in the general direction of the guardroom, ‘where’s your witchfinder ?’

‘I’m here,’ came a shout from above before the sergeant of the gate could answer, and a pale-haired man with long limbs waved from his seat on one of the wall’s walkways. He dangled a leg over the edge. Teral couldn’t tell whether it was just a trick of the light, or if it was a combination of age and grubbiness that made the man’s white hair and tunic both look grey. The witchfinders were the only people within the Order to wear white and black.

The man didn’t bother saluting, but that didn’t surprise Teral; witchfinders were a law unto themselves, and even the best were half-mad.

‘Name?’

‘Islir,’ came the reply, followed eventually by, ‘sir.’

‘You tested these priests?’

‘’Course I did,’ floated down the mocking reply. ‘My job, ain’t it?’

‘They’re mages?’

‘Bugger me, yes, and strong’uns too!’ Islir said with a laugh.

Jackler half-drew his sword as Islir spoke, prompting the other soldiers to follow suit. Islir watched them with increasing amusement. ‘Hah, bloody knitting circle, the lot of you! They’re safe; dosed ’em meself. Not going to be casting anything for another few days at least - I gave ’em enough to stop bloody Aryn Bwr himself in ’is tracks.’

Teral winced at the mention of the great heretic’s name, never spoken aloud within the Order.

‘Get down here and check again,’ he ordered. With a theatrical sigh, the witchfinder climbed to his feet and headed for the stair.

‘What are you doing, Teral?’ Sants said, the irritation plain in his voice.

‘They’re foreign priests, and mages,’ he explained, ‘and before I open the gate I want that lazy shit to double-check they’re no threat, just as the Codex of Ordinance requires me to.’ He gave what he hoped was a suitably respectful nod to the priest, who smiled and bowed again, making it clear he took no offence.

The Knights of the Temples did not use mages in battle, and despite their various factions, none disputed it was the province of the Gods alone. Mages were only accepted into their ranks if they foreswore use of their powers, except for witchfinders, whose meagre ability allowed them to do nothing more than sense power in others. Any mage not of the Order but in their midst was required to drink a concoction that suppressed all magical abilities. Teral wanted to ensure they had not found a way to negate the effects of the potion.

‘This ain’t necessary,’ grumbled Islir as he appeared from the stairway.

‘Indulge me,’ Teral growled.

The witchfinder grabbed the first of the priests by the hand. He paused for a moment then moved closer to look the pale-skinned man in the eye. Teral could see his lips moving, probably chanting some sort of charm to Larat.

It would certainly explain the man’s sense of humour
, he thought darkly.
Let us hope the priest’s own weathers it, otherwise I’m in deep, deep shit.

‘This one’s fine,’ Islir announced. ‘I’m strong enough to sense power without needing to touch the rest of ’em - which is just as well, ’cause I’m not touching no bastard aligned to the Wither Queen. All their power’s deep down and locked tight; they couldn’t light a fire if their lives depended on it. The only magic they got is in those daggers, and that’s latent.’