The Queen of Thieves: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three (18 page)

Chapter
Sixty-Six

On
the north eastern coast the sand itself had burned and cooled. In places it had
set like glass.

            Roskel
sat atop his horse surveying the carnage, a way back from the worst of the
heat. Flames licked the tents, the ground. The heat from the unnatural fires
from the enemy had burned hard enough to turn sand to glass and melt armour.

            Blood
drenched the beach and the stench of soldier roasting drifted in foul smoke all
about the coast.

            Roskel
could not believe it. Rohir, his staunch companion now for more than two years,
had fallen in the first attack. He hadn't even been fighting. A ball of fire
took him clean from his horse and he was nothing but ashes and ticking steel in
seconds.

            Wexel
sat beside Roskel looking down at the battle.

           
Battle.
It was nothing like a battle. It was a rout.

            'We
need to fall back further still,' said Wexel grimly. 'We cannot fight their
fire.'

            'We
must do something,' Roskel said. His face was covered in ash, and his normally
shining pate was sooty, too. But he knew Wexel was right. Their swords and bows
were no match for the enemy's fire. They could not hold the beachhead.

            The
day was lost and it had barely begun.

            Wexel
shook his head sadly.

            'Roskel,
you know the truth of it. They come - look! Look at the boats, coming in...'

            'They
cannot use their fire when their force lands...'

            'Can
they not?' asked Wexel, in that moment of calm before the clashing of steel would
begin.

            Roskel
swore. 'Call it,' said Roskel, grimacing. He was not a warrior, but he had lost
so many men...

            In
moments, the warriors - true warriors, no doubt - of the invaders would land.
He had moments to make the decision, before he lost the other half of his
fighting force...every man of the northern armies, in less than a day. That, he
could not live with. Hells, he wasn't sure if he could live with the loses his
army had suffered.

            The
loss of Rohir cut him like a knife, too. But there was no time to mourn. No
body to mourn over. Everything that had been his friend was burned to ash and
ore.

            Roskel
looked out on the seas, swarming with soldiers in light armour. Only light
armour, but it was tough. Many men were fleeing already, as the first of the
Protectorate's terrible warriors made the beachhead and began fighting the
stragglers of Roskel's army. Roskel's army...he could have laughed. Almost did.
The strange warriors of the Hierarch's army were slicing through his force like
a scythe through wheat.

            'Call
it, damn it. Call it!' But Wexel was in a stupor, looking on as wave after wave
of warriors landed and rushed instantly into battle.

            As
the warriors had made land, the fire died down, but the Northern armies were in
complete disarray.

           
So
many dead already
, thought Roskel. So many.

            And
within minutes.

            Roskel
recognised full well that he was no longer in charge of anything. He was so far
out of his depth it was frightening. He was not a commander. He did not know
what to do.

            He
was terrified...a terror so deep that his nerves screamed, his teeth ached. He
wanted to piss. He thought he may already have done so.

            'Call
it, Wexel, damn it, call it. Save the men. Gods, no more. No more...'

            Wexel
nodded, finally, knocked out of his stupor, and heeled his horse down from the
dunes to the midst of the battle, horn to his lips. The great peal of the horn
could be heard even over the clamour of sword on sword, the screams of the
dying and the whinnying of horses.

            The
men needed no further encouragement.

            Roskel's
first battle was a rout of unbelievable proportions.

            The
men fled from battle at the sound of the horn, or even before it. It was
utterly hopeless. The men knew it. Roskel knew it. They could not stand before
such might. Not without magic of their own, and magic they did not have.  

            The
battle could not be won with mere steel.

            Roskel
and Wexel fled along with their men.

            By
the time night fell, he didn't know where most of his forces had gone, but the
army of Naeth, the largest, the best disciplined, marched in dejection,
carrying what wounded they could, for the capital.

           
Hopeless
,
he heard time and time again as he rode through the marching soldiers.
Hopeless.

            It
got so he did not know whether it was the soldier's refrain, or within his own
head that he heard the words. It was a terrible thing to know you were a
failure. More so to see it, and to be reminded of it at the passing of every
wounded or maimed soldier. The soldiers, ragtag though they may have been, were
still men.

           
How
many had left families bereaved on this day? How many, Thief King?      

            He
suddenly hated himself, for all his shortcomings. Hated that he had been thrust
into this godsforsaken war. A war he hardly even understood.

           
Would
you give up one child to save the world?

            An
echo of his friend. He knew the answer to the question. He would not. He would
fight.

            But
how? How?

            He
wished he had some way to encourage the men, but what was the point?

           
And
the Queen
, he fumed. She had sent them to their deaths in droves. She must
have known. She knew
everything
. She would have known that they marched
to their deaths. She had left his army standing in the cold, dressed for war,
just to meet their deaths by fire and blade...

            As
he rode, he grew more and more angry.

            There
would be a reckoning. Rohir, may he pass Madal's Gates, had been right all
along. He'd been a fool to trust in her. But no longer.

*

Chapter
Sixty-Seven

As
abruptly as it had begun, the Song of Swords ended. Thaxamalan's Saw echoed
with the song for a few moments after, then, silence fell in the pass. Snow
fell thick and fast and hard, a wet snow that coated armour and weapons and
froze into place. The pass was white and grey, rock and snow and ice. There was
no sun, just a dull grey winter's light.

            A
mere handful of Bladesingers held the pass. To the Hierophant they had the look
of barbarians. Their hair and beards were braided, and they had darker skin
that the Sturmen. They were unwashed, wearing nothing but light leather armour.
They wielded two-handed curved blades, which they held aloft in challenge.

            The
might of the Hierarchy and the Protectorate massed before them, facing them
across the icy pass.

            'Enough,'
said the Hierophant in the centre of the ranks of mages. 'Mages...burn them.
Burn them to nothing.'

            The
contingent of mages, every one of them, advanced to the front of the army.

            The
Hierophant waited, as alone among the might of his army as ever any creature
was. He was set above them all. He watched his most powerful mages aligning for
the attack but felt no pride nor joy, nor his own heart singing at the sight of
the power there. He was cold, emotionless.

           
Burn,
he thought.
Burn and feed me your pain.

            Pain
was the only thing that the Hierophant took any pleasure from. The pain of
others, fuel for his own dark magic.

            He
grinned, slightly. The expression seemed unnatural on his face.

            But
the Bladesingers did not move at all at the sight of the mages. Even the
Hierophant could recognise that it was an impressive sight. Never in all his
years had this much power been brought to bear. It was enough to rival the
mythical Caeus himself.

            The
Bladesinger, all upon their horses, and they watched with stoic disinterest as
the mightiest mages of an age stepped forward.

            With
no incantations or gestures, just a widening of the eyes, flames blew across
the pass. Streams of fire leapt the distance to the Bladesingers.

            Yet
in that instant, the song rose again, a magic unknown to the Hierarchy, and the
mages' fire was deflected. Then a great wall of sound burst forth from the Bladesingers
and the mages were blown backward thirty or forty feet from the power of it.
Some did not rise, but lay on the snow, their ears and eyes bleeding.

            The
Bladesingers fell silent again.

            The
Hierophant was not used to being thwarted. But he did not get angry. He ruled.
He
destroyed.

           
So, there was still magic on
these lands. Magic in the thing the barbarian's called 'music'.

            No
matter. They would die, regardless of their childish power. They would die
before the suns set.

           
'Kill them all,' he said, and the
Protectorate soldiers charged forward into the driving snow to sing the song
with Ruan and his kin in the last pass before Sturma.

*

Chapter
Sixty-Eight

Ruan
was in the front ranks of the Bladesingers when the first wave of the enemy
came. The Protectorate army ran at them faster than a man could have run
wearing full armour. Their  formation remained close, until they hit the
Bladesingers holding the pass as though they were a true wave from the sea, or
a landslide.

            Ruan
blocked high, then switched his guard and blocked a wicked thrust to his
throat. He was shocked at the swiftness and skill of the Protectorate. The
enemy were professional soldiers, where the Bladesingers were not. The alien
warriors fought with precision and an economy of motion unmatched by the
Bladesingers. A third block and a slight opening and he slid his long blade
into the armpit of a Protectorate warrior. The creature slumped, dead
instantly, only to be replaced by another of his dark brethren.

            The
Bladesingers wielded double-handed curved swords more suited to single combat.
The Protectorate brought short blades to the battle, perfectly suited to
fighting in close quarters. Yet Ruan's kin were talented warriors, though not
used to fighting in formation. But in the pass they did not need tactics, but
heroes.

            Ruan's
blocked a wicked thrust at his midriff. His return stroke removed an attacker's
hand, and the Singer beside him delivered the killing blow. Where one Protocrat
fell, one more took his place. Always there were more of them, pushing the
Bladesingers back deeper into the pass with each attack.

            The
enemy's equipment was well-maintained, and though they did not wear full
armour, their breastplates repelled the Singer's thrusts easily. The
Bladesinger next to Ruan shouted something. He could not hear over the din of
battle, nor could he reply as he could not speak. But there was a song in the
battle, a song in the swords, and he listened as none of his kin could.

            He
heard the beat of sword against swords and fist against helm. The screams of
the dying were a tune to his ears, too, and in the music of the fight he sensed
that things were beginning to turn. The shift was infinitesimal, but to a
Singer like Ruan it was enough to sense the turning of the tide...if it was
only for a moment.

            The
time was now.

            He
let his blade speak for him, let his rage fuel each swing. He held his curved
blade two-handed and ran into the melee like a berserker. His powerful blows
pushed the mass of Protectorate soldiers back, so that they were too tightly
packed to fight effectively. He took a head clean from a Protocrat's shoulders
with one powerful blow that continued on and stove in the helm of the man next
to him. Instantly, Ruan was swinging his great blade again, and again. His arms
ached, but he knew it did not matter. The battle was now. Aches were nothing
compared to death.      

            Ruan's
brethren and sistren followed on behind his berserk attack, hacking and
slashing in a frenzy, until the first wave broke.

            The
Protocrats did not run, but retreated slowly before the Blade Singers.

            For
the first time in perhaps five minutes, there was clear space between the
opponents.

            Ruan
sheathed his sword, breathing heavily, and turned to see smiles on his fellow's
faces. He smiled back, wiped blood from his brow and hands. He put his hands on
his knees, puffing, his arms on fire. But he knew he would cramp if he didn't
move. He stood straight and tried to keep his arms loose, swinging them around,
shrugging his shoulders. He twisted, too, for the main power for his attacks
came from his torso and his legs. As he twisted, he saw
her.

           
Selana was at the rear of the
force, far back from the assembled Bladesingers, stroking Ruan's borrowed mare,
Minstrel. Even across the distance, through the falling snow, she was
unmistakeable.

            And
who else could it be, but her, here in this inhospitable waste?

            She
beckoned him with a sad smile and in that smile Ruan saw his death. He knew he
would die here, on this day, not the next.

            But
then, really, he had known that, anyway, hadn't he?

            He
nodded to his fellows and walked through their ranks toward her. The Protocrats
at the base of the pass turned, reassembled, and marched back toward the
battle.

            Ruan's
kin did not despair. They knew there was no way to win this battle. Just to
hold...hold as long as they could.

            The
Bladesingers drew their blades again and waited for the second onslaught.

*