Unholy War (42 page)

Oh, Solinde. You really did love all the world
. Cera blinked back tears. ‘Solinde was an angel. But killing yourself won’t bring her back, or make it right.’

‘Nothing can.’ Coin looked away, out over the city. ‘My life is worthless.’

‘Never! Coin – Symone – whatever your name is, don’t do this! My father used to say that we all have some great act in us, a moment when we can make a difference to the world. If you jump now, you’ll miss that moment.’

‘I’ve had mine,’ Coin said flatly. ‘I killed a good person, and then another and another, and I’ve never stopped.’

‘Then perhaps your moment is still to come.’ Cera dared to step closer. ‘Please?’

The shapeshifter looked down at her, then at the ground below, and her resolution drained away. ‘My name is Yvette,’ she sobbed, and collapsed into Cera’s arms.

*

Cera led the trembling hermaphrodite back inside to a sofa, wrapped her in a cloak, poured some brandy from a decanter and forced Coin –
no, Yvette
– to drink it, holding her in her arms. When the first glass was gone, she gulped one down herself, then poured another. All the while she was conscious of the loathing and pity she felt.

She can’t help what she is, but she’s used it to kill innocent people … including Portia’s brother …

‘Yvette, you can tell me whatever you want, or nothing at all,’ she said at last. ‘It’s up to you.’

Cera wasn’t sure what tale she expected, it was certainly wasn’t the harrowing litany of parental rejection and emotional torture she heard – or the jaw-dropping revelation that Yvette was Mater-Imperia Lucia Fasterius’ disowned child.

Sol et Lune,
she’s in line for the Imperial throne … if such a one could ever claim it.

‘Officially, I don’t exist,’ Coin mumbled, ‘but to those few who knew that she’d given birth to a monster, she and her husband put it about that I was the child of incest, and that was why I was deformed.’ Yvette started crying again. ‘She would rather have people think that she fucked her brother than that her
imperial cunt
could ever produce a freak like me.’

‘I sure no one believed that.’

‘Oh yes, they did! It’s exactly the sort of thing people love to believe! Even your friend Elena thought it; I could see it on her face when she stripped me in that tower room last year.’

‘Sometimes when a lie is spoken often enough, even good people can believe it.’

‘Your Elena wasn’t a good person. She almost killed me. Gurvon brought me back from death.’ Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘He put me back together again from almost nothing. I fell utterly in love with him for that.’ Her shoulders heaved. ‘But he knows what I am and he can’t stand being near me either.’

Cera gritted her teeth. ‘Yvette, Gurvon Gyle is a
pezzi di merda
who would sell his own children for a copper.’

‘But he
understood
me …’

‘I thought that too, once.’
And he twisted everything so that black was white
. ‘Then I realised what sort of man he is – and now you do too. He’s leading everyone here around by the nose, and something has to be done to stop him.’

Their eyes met. Yvette’s lips were still trembling, but she tried desperately to force the faintest of smile of recognition. ‘He really is a piece of shit, isn’t he?’ she whispered timidly.

The shapeshifter was like a child, like her little brother.
I can make a game of this, make her laugh …

‘Gurvon Gyle is a camel’s turd,’ Cera told her.

‘A donkey’s pizzle.’

‘A puddle of toad’s piss.’

Coin giggled childishly. ‘A pus-drinking dung-beetle.’

‘A cock-sucking gullet-worm.’

Yvette wrinkled her nose. ‘Eewww.’ Then she burst into semi-hysterical laughter, and Cera laughed too, in sheer relief.
She’s not going to kill herself. Thank you, Mater Luna!
She found herself trembling as much as the shapechanger.

There were more tears, and then a slow, awkward peeling apart. There was something desperately needy about Yvette Sacrecour, a yearning for affection that was so palpable it was almost more repellent than anything in her appearance. Her whole being was wrapped up in the need for someone to cling to. Cera moved away a little on the sofa, trying to re-establish some kind of distance, because she could see exactly what was going to happen next: all of the shapeshifter’s obsessive yearning was going to be redirected at her.

‘Yvette, there is something I need to say. Are you listening?’

Yvette’s eyes were already far too bright and intense as she looked at her. ‘Of course.’

‘I want us to be friends.’

‘Yes, yes, so do I.’ Yvette’s whole body was bent towards her.

‘But
only
friends. My heart is already claimed by another.’

She watched her words wound, and could see the next downwards cycle forming. She moved to cut it off. ‘A true friend does not lead the other on with false promises.’

‘You think I’m ugly too.’

‘In all honesty … your body is hard to get used to, but that’s not what is important. What’s important is that despite everything you’ve been through, you want to be a better person. And because of that, I truly believe you will find happiness, if you give life a chance to provide. Maybe even love: why not? That person won’t be me: because my heart is already given. But I wish us to be true friends.’

Yvette’s face vacillated back into uncertainty. ‘Truly? I’ve done awful things—’

‘But you won’t from now on. I’m sure of that.’ Cera held out her hands. ‘Friends?’

For a long time her words hung there, until the shapechanger took a forced breath, and wiped her face. ‘All right. Friends.’

They hugged, the blanket between them, for a long, long time, then Cera took Yvette’s hands in hers and asked the question that had been burning inside her brain for ever. ‘Do you know where they’re holding my brother?’

Yvette nodded.

*

Now that she knew where Timori was, Cera could finally made plans to run. There would be four of them: Cera, Timori, Tarita and Yvette. Her plan required two things: first, simultaneously extricating herself, Tarita, Yvette and Timori; then they had to get to Mustaq al’Madhi and hope the crime-lord could get them to Forensa. Just one slip would see a formidable band of magi come down on them; death after that would be a kindness.

In the two weeks after Cera had saved Yvette’s life, the shapeshifter was fawning in her devotion, to the point that Cera had to keep reminding her to remain hostile in public. More than that, she’d had to persuade Yvette to make peace with Gyle. Though for the shapechanger it was a humiliating back-down, it was necessary so that Yvette could play her part. It appeared to have worked, as she was restored to her duties, most importantly she was again permitted a part in guarding Timori.

They set a date: they would make their run in the last week of Jumada – Maicin – during the Darkmoon. The week before, they met in Cera’s suite, ostensibly for tea. Yvette, disguised as Symone, warded the room against scrying. Cera had told Tarita that Symone was allied to Elena – she could think of no other story that might persuade Tarita to trust the shapeshifter. She was painfully aware that Coin had killed Fernando Tolidi – Portia’s brother, Tarita’s lover – a secret that would destroy their fragile conspiracy.
How I’ll unravel all this in the end I don’t know.

‘What word from Mustaq?’ Cera asked now, at their final preparatory meeting. She didn’t like dealing with the crime-lord, but he was a vital part of the resistance to Dorobon rule.

Tarita was proud to be the centre of attention. ‘Mustaq has scouted the building where the prince is being held and confirmed that there are Rondians there.’ She turned to ‘Symone’. ‘You were right.’

‘Of course,’ ‘Symone’ said impatiently. ‘Madeline Parlow looks after him; I’m only sent there occasionally. There’s no pattern to it. There are three other guards, but none are magi. Maddy is sweet on one of them.’

‘Can you defeat her?’ Cera asked.

‘Of course – Maddy’s nothing. She used to be a nun.’

Cera was genuinely surprised. ‘Really? How did she end up in Gyle’s group?’

‘She’s from Noros – during the Noros Revolt she left her nunnery and joined the Grey Foxes, out of patriotism. After the war she couldn’t settle back into the convent. She’d never enjoyed it; she likes comfort and good things too much.’ Coin’s face twisted disdainfully. ‘She is greedy and weak.’

Cera would have liked to form her own opinions, as she doubted Coin’s maturity was sufficient to read an older person, but she had never met Parlow. ‘Will you be able to kill her quickly?’

‘Easily. Trust me in this.’

The more confident she sounds, the less I like it.
Cera frowned, but they were in Coin’s hands in this matter. ‘Well, while you free Timori, Tarita and I must get out of the palace.’ She turned to Tarita. ‘You know a way?’

‘Yes, Majesty. The secret passages were all closed when you told King Francis about them, but they did not find them all. There is still a tunnel to the outside from the old female servants’ quarters.’

‘How does no one know of this one?’ Cera asked doubtfully.

‘The early Rimoni kings wouldn’t allow Amteh Scriptualists to bless the servants,’ Tarita replied. ‘So the men dug a tunnel and smuggled in someone to bless us on holy days. The cellar where the tunnel begins is now just a storage area.’

‘Who else knows?’

‘Since the servants were murdered last year it’s just me – and I have told no one.’ Tarita now lived in a tiny cell outside Cera’s quarters. ‘The only difficulty is reaching it unseen, because you’ve got to go through the scullery. But that’s empty during the middle part of the night.’

‘Is it easily passable?’

Tarita nodded vigorously. ‘It is. I tested it just last week, when I went to speak to Mustaq al’Madhi. It emerges in a disused part of the stables behind the Sollan Church in the square outside. There are spiders and rats, though.’

Cera shuddered. ‘I hate rats.’

‘No one likes rats,’ Symone said, taking the opportunity to put her hand over Cera’s. ‘But they won’t hurt you.’

Extricating her hand without upsetting the fragile balance of Coin’s mind was a delicate operation, so she let it stay, despite the warning look Tarita gave her. They moved to the timings, and she went to get writing paper from her desk, using the opportunity to free herself. As Coin couldn’t predict when next she’d be asked to relieve Madeline Parlow, they had to set a date and time in advance and work to that. They decided on ten days’ time, when Cera would be bleeding again, so she wouldn’t be expected to appear in public. After midnight they would slip out through the tunnel, while Symone and some of Mustaq’s men snatched Timori, and they would rendezvous at one of Mustaq’s safe houses.

‘Can we trust Mustaq?’ Symone asked nervously.

‘Mustaq is a bad man,’ Tarita said, ‘but he hates the Rondians even more than he loves money.’

‘I hope so,’ Cera said, ‘because we’re going to be entirely in his hands.’

19

The Emirate of Khotri

A
MISAL
B
HANGULI
, O
MALI
P
ANDIT
, D
ILI 862

Leading an army into battle was the stuff boyhood dreams were made of, especially for the sons of magi, caught up in their invincible youth. For most of his life it was what Seth Korion had aspired to, but this moment had arrived too late: he had seen too much and felt his own mortality too keenly to be anything other than petrified.

‘Fearlessness is an illusion,’ Ramon Sensini had told him. ‘Real courage is being afraid and acting anyway.’

Well, I’m going to do it … but I’m so scared I could vomit.

Arranging the joint assault on the city hadn’t been as quick as they’d hoped. It had taken Sensini time to convince the Khotri commander that there was something to be gained by reaching an accommodation with an enemy, and while the aggravating little Silacian was away, Seth had stewed in his own fear, his hands trembling and his mind fixated on the morbid conviction that he was going to die, here in this Hel-hole. He’d doubted any deal could be done – but it was, and ironically the groundwork had been laid by Antonin Meiros and the Ordo Costruo. They’d apparently taken a keen interest in Khotri, and that included building the causeway and bridge here at Ardijah, among several other engineering feats within Khotriawal, the capital city itself. It helped that the Khotri were Ja’arathi Amteh, the less extreme variant of the faith, who didn’t automatically hold all magi to be demons.

It also helped that they had mutual enemies: Yorj Arkanus was intent on seizing the emir’s kingdom, and he was backed by dozens of Dokken and had hundreds of Keshi soldiers already inside Ardijah. Ramon was offering Rondian help in getting rid of Arkanus, then leaving Khotri as soon as they’d resupplied – for which he was offering to pay. Seth had to take the skiff across the river and shake the Khotri general’s hand personally to seal the deal, but by then it was a formality.

After that it was all logistics and planning: the attack had to happen fast, before Salim’s forces arrived. Seth needed to prepare the attack while not appearing to, which was harder than it sounded, while his magi readied the wagons for the floating attack. Little things kept cropping up, tiny delays that set the attack back, until finally he was able to give the go-ahead for the fourth night-bell.

Which should be soon …

Right on cue, the distant time-bells of Ardijah rang out, loud and clear –
Clang!
,
Clang!
,
Clang!
,
Clang!
– and before the echoes of the fourth chime had even faded away the signal lights flashed from upstream and across the river and with a massive roll on the drums and to the blaring of bugles, the foot-soldiers of the Sixth Maniple of Pallacios Thirteen started slowly onto the causeway. They were illuminated by a trail of torches that sprang to light all along the bridge, leading them into the teeth of the enemy archers and ballistae crews. Seth joined Sigurd Vaas at the head of the column, trying hard to believe that this was in some way as heroic as it might sound at a banquet, years from now.

His head was pounding and his senses overloading with the mundane: the clip-clopping hooves and marching boots; the rumbling drums. The clangour of alarms inside the fortress carried clearly over the rush of the waters surrounding and beneath them.

Seth trotted forward, keeping his head up, trying to conceal his absolute terror.

This is only a feint. We just have to keep enemy eyes forward.

It might be nothing but a ruse, but it promised to be deadly for all that.

While they were providing a slow and deliberate assault to draw Arkanus’ attention, the wagons would be floating downstream, bearing the best of the battle-magi and their guard cohorts. But even that wasn’t the real surprise: that would be the attack from the rear by thousands of Khotri hidden on the southern isle – which would also be the signal for the Khotri inside, stationed on both islands, to turn on the Souldrinkers.

Too many moving parts
, his father would have said:
too many unreliable allies, too many things that could go wrong
. And he could see they were indeed placing too much reliance on uncoordinated units turning up at exactly the right time, with too many unknowns.
Too bad, Father. We have no choice.

He kept his eyes forward. To look back was bad luck or bad for morale or something; he couldn’t remember exactly. Behind him were the archers, mostly Estellan, each bearing a spiked shield that could be driven into the ground to provide cover. Then came the laddermen, chosen from the biggest rankers, who would storm forward and climb up to the battlements once the defence had been distracted by the other attacks. If they got that far.

His heartbeat was louder than the drums.

O mighty joy! Breathless we surge, Kore in our hearts and death in our hands!
Seth was beginning to think that the composer of the famous battle hymn had never set foot outside his monastery.
Fucking poets!

Someone shouted – a command – and enemy arrows erupted upwards and then hissed through the night as they rained down. Seth and Vaas had their shields ready. Seth set his as wide as he could manage. A gnostic shield was effectively an extension of his own aura, an unconscious telekinetic blocking of incoming missiles and blows, but it was imperfect and where there were lots of blows, one or more might slip through. And the wider he extended, the more draining it was to hold, and the flimsier the coverage.

Most of the first volley were deflected, falling off sideways into the river, but he could hear cries: some at least had met their mark. But not many.
So far, so good
.

Some blows were too powerful for almost any shield, though: he heard a vicious
crack!
as the first of the ballistae released an instant before the ten-foot shaft of the giant crossbow quarrel ripped through the air. It struck his shield just off-centre, momentarily shredded the warding, and he felt the breeze as it whipped past his left shoulder and into two men behind him, impaling them through chest and belly and hurling them against the parapet.

Then the other three ballistae fired: two shafts sailed over his head and into the marching men behind, ripping holes in the ranks and making the whole column recoil. The third struck Vaas’ horse, just below the neck and went all the way through and out the other end, skewering it as if for roasting. The beast was thrown backwards, shrieking as it died, and Vaas was thrown clear, his shields striking the causeway walls in a burst of blue sparks.

Seth shouted in terror and involuntarily spurred his horse forward, and the Estellan archers bellowed their fiery war-cries and came after him. From then it was a nightmare as arrows shafted out of the darkness all round them. They pushed onwards and reached the wider landing before the gates, where they were finally beneath the line of fire of the four ballistae, only for searing flames to start washing down from a dozen cloaked figures above. The gnostic force was so strong he could barely protect himself, let alone anyone else. The stink of burned meat filled his nostrils and all around him the Estellan were charred to ash and blasted into oblivion.

Then boulders began to rain down.

Shields!
He tried to hold them strong, to keep the men behind him alive, as more and more of his archers rushed forward to assail the fortress, but the Dokken could shield too, and few Estellan shafts found their target.

Seth caught sight of one of the men Ramon had told him about: the Sydian Zsdryk. His hood was cast back and his vulturine face was alive with glee as he blazed flame down from above. He saw Vaas engage him, sending mage-blasts upwards, and all of a sudden dazzling, chilling light was coruscating between the two magi.

Through the press came the Argundian laddermen, giant spade-bearded men with their distinctive conical helms gleaming in the light of the flames, howling their guttural battle-songs as they pushed their way into the maelstrom. Around Vaas stone and fire were being thrown continually, making his shields blaze a myriad colours. Those not warded were smashed by rock, or consumed by fire, and Seth watched aghast as skulls and limbs were crushed like eggshells, as faces were burned off, as horrifically injured lumps of malformed flesh not even identifiable as men were left in tangled, writhing heaps.

And still his men charged onwards, and now their ladders were rising against the walls.

Sigurd Vaas staggered onwards too, blasting more gnosis-fire upwards as he bawled, ‘Attack!’ and again, ‘
Attack!
’, and something in the man’s iron will had Seth urging his terrified mount forward as well. He glimpsed a boar-faced Dokken above, directing incandescent flames down on one of the ladders, and sent a mage-bolt at the beastman. Fuelled by terror and outrage, the mage-bolt – easily the most powerful he’d ever cast – blazed through the man’s shields as if they were paper and he disappeared from view.

Seth found himself yelling triumphantly, and took aim again.

The nearest ballista rolled right to the edge of the platform above and swung in his direction and he panicked and sent the first spell he could think of, but the warping spell aimed at the timbers wasn’t well-cast: Zsdryk batted it away almost effortlessly – and then the ballista bucked and Seth threw himself sideways out of the saddle. The shaft carved the air where he had been, hammered through the planted shield of an Estellan archer and ripped the man’s leg off in a spray of blood. More arrows fell around Seth as he struggled to reset his shields, and one pierced his thigh and pinned him to the dirt. Blinding pain shocked through him and he rolled, trying to unpin himself, and –
Thank Kore!
– it came free and healing-gnosis instinctively flooded the wound. He snapped off most of the shaft and left the rest where it was – he could deal with it later; right now he had work to do. Someone held out a hand and he grabbed it and lurched to his feet. His horse reared and vanished over the parapet: a whinny and a splash and it was gone.

‘Sir, sir!’ the men about him clamoured. ‘Get to the rear!’

‘No!’ he shouted.
I’ll show you, Father!
‘I’m fine!’ He poured more healing-gnosis into his leg, sealing the torn flesh and blood vessels, while all around him boulders and arrows still fell.
Were we supposed to get this close yet?
he wondered. He couldn’t remember what the plan was any more. It didn’t matter: the Argundians continued to press forward, now all mixed up with Pallacians from the Thirteenth, Coulder’s old maniple, tramping over the ruined bodies of those who’d gone in first.

He raised his shields again to protect those around him as another ladder disintegrated in a withering blast. The attack wavered, and a Pallacian, the pilus from his personal cohort –
what is the man’s name?
– seized his shoulder and pulled him back to the edge of the killing ground. Looking back, he could see the rest of the causeway was still filled with torches and men, all awaiting their turn at the impregnable walls: a snake of light, waiting to strike.

Sigurd Vaas hurried towards him through the red smoky haze. ‘I think we’ve got their attention!’ he cried, then looked down and saw the broken arrow sticking out of Seth’s thigh and shouted, ‘Get to the rear, boy!’

An instant later Vaas was ripped in half by two ballista bolts at once, his body jerked away in a blur. The after-image seared Seth’s retinas as two pieces of shredded meat and bone swathed in scarlet – all that remained of the Argundian mage – came rolling to a stop twenty yards away.

Seth gripped the parapet as around him the Argundians wailed in despair and the tide of men began to ebb. For a second he was frightened that he was going to be left alone here, and that dread overpowered all other thought. He staggered toward the nearest standard-bearer and grabbed the flag from his startled grasp. ‘Next wave!’ he bellowed, his father’s face floating before his eyes. ‘Kore is with us!’

Then he turned and lurched forward once more, screaming, ‘
FORWARD!
’

Behind him someone started chanting his father’s name
:
‘
KOR-I-ON! KOR-I-ON!
’

*

Fridryk Kippenegger sang of his fatherland, the deep-forested expanse at the heart of Yuros; he sang songs of heroes and Stormriders, of mystic swords and glory. Nonsense, of course, he’d been fighting all his life and he knew full well that war was butchery and madness, but you couldn’t come through it victorious, let alone sane, unless you pretended it was something else.

So as the fast-moving current pushed the wagons closer and closer to the walls protecting the northern gatehouse, he moved onto the next stanza, the one about the dragon-slayer and a sword of fire and gold.

‘Shut the Hel up,’ Jelaska snapped. ‘This is a secret mission, you idiot!’

He ignored her and sang louder, and the men hidden in the base of the wagon grinned as they held on grimly: their armour was so heavy, they knew they’d drown in seconds if they went in.

The Brevian, Wilbrecht, laughed. ‘They’ll never be able to hear him above that.’ He indicated the cacophony at the gates.