This story is set in the world of Irlast, but can be read without prior knowledge of the Empires of Dust series, of which it is a brief and peripheral part.
SO THIS IS me. Tobias. And here we are. Roaring fire, mugs of beer, complimentary bar snacks. Pork scratchings—love ’em. And you want me to tell you a story about myself.
Why?
I’m a squad commander in, clears throat, The Free Company of the Sword. I tramp around much more rarely than you’d think killing people. Mostly I really don’t kill people. It’s not as dangerous as people think, being a sellsword. Honestly. Walk around. Cook meals. Yell at people. Hold a sword in a vaguely threatening way. Most exciting job of the last week was giving my kit a full clean and polish. Most exciting event of the last month was a woman selling meat pies at a knock-off.
You’re assuming I’m going to say something to the effect that the meat pies turned out to be rank, aren’t you? Second most exciting event of the month was us all needing the urgent shits?
Second most exciting event of the month was the meat pies being fine and healthsome. Which does go to show exactly how dull the last month was, I’ll give you that.
No, you just thought I meant something else by ‘meat pies’? Gods, you’re filthy-minded, you are. Now shut up.
Okay, right. Anyway. Tries to get that thought out of his mind. Nice fat juicy meat pie, hot and dripping… gods, thanks, that’s put me off them for life.
Anyway. Right. Ahem. A story. For some unknown reason. About me, Tobias, being a squad commander in a company of sellswords. Not an exciting life, most of the time. Walking, drilling blokes into some attempt to at least pretend to do what I tell them, bollocking them, bollocking them again. Sleeping out in the open, which is miserable, or in a stinking tent with a bloke who’s not washed for a week and had beans for supper and likes to relieve the pressure we all sometimes feel at night while lying two feet from my head. The free life of the glorious killer! I’m not even thirty and my knees bloody crack like my grandma’s, and my fingers ache all the time and I get a pain something chronic in my right shoulder when the wind blows from the east.
“Lighten up?” Fuck off. Life’s pain etc.
But I can give you a story. Oh yes.
You ready? Got a beer? Pork scratchings? Sick bowl?
Then I’ll begin.
THE SECOND SIEGE of Telae. Heard that tale yet?
No?
And there was me thinking what we did there was something famous.
I’m joking. Like I was about the meat pies. Don’t sweat yourself. It’s not like I’m a hard bastard sellsword with a fuck-off big sword I killed a bloke to get hold of, is it? You don’t need to look so nervous around me.
Bloody nice sword too. Got a real ruby in the hilt and all.
Yes, it’s a real friggin’ ruby. Oh ye of little faith. I’m not stupid. Checked with the bloke before I finished him.
Anyway. The Second Siege of Telea. Here we go:
Telea, rich in men and horses! Telea, whose walls are made of gold! An oasis of civilization on the wild border between Immish and Cen Andae. Sits on a bend of the fast-flowing river Enias, that runs down from the Mountains of the Heart to the Bitter Sea bringing timber and furs and iron and precious gems. Sits on a bridge over the fast-flowing river Enias, that carries the trade road from the old wealth of Ith and Immier down to the new wealth of Immish and the ancient wealth of the Asekemlene Empire of the Eternal Golden City of Sorlost. You might, if you’re feeling particularly acute today, notice a few hints there to the idea of “rich.” “Very rich.” “Stinking rich.” “Unbelievably chuffin’ rich.” Thus much fought over by Immish and Cen Andae and almost anyone.
During the Salavene Wars, the Queen of Telea fought in single combat with the Godking and almost defeated Him: “You are invincible!” He cried to her, and granted her that her city would be left untouched by the demons of war. And to this day, the walls of the city are impregnable, cannot be damaged by iron or bronze or wood or stone.
During the conquests of Amrath, the Teleans decided to fuck it, who needs impregnable walls, marched out at meet the Army of Amrath in battle. Didn’t do too well. Swore never to march out again. Might even be some good in having impregnable walls.
During the Seven Years War between Immish and Chathe, the Teleans allied themselves with Chathe and the White Isles. Didn’t march out. Sat tight. The Immish besieged them and tried to starve them out. Nearly succeeded, the walls not being impregnable to hunger and disease and boredom. Until the White Isles sent a general to aid them, Prince Tiovyn Altrersyr, the second son of Fylinn Dragonlord, who was smuggled into the city disguised as a beggar in rags. Tiovyn ordered the Teleans to demonstrate their resolve by throwing their children headfirst from the city walls. “Look!” he shouted to the Immish. “We have plenty of fresh meat!” Tiovyn changed sides a week later, opened the gates to the Immish army. Charged his fee twice as a part of the city’s sack. Once to the Teleans, once to the Immish.
Telea! City of horses! May the stories told of her never cease! Pig-ugly city, actually. Her walls aren’t made of gold at all, just grey stone covered in yellow paint. They can still show you the house where Tiovyn stayed, though. And the bloodstains on the rocks where the children hit the ground.
Ruled over by a prince of the House of Selba, who could trace his ancestry back at least ten years. Knew the name of both his parents, and even one of his grandparents too. But, gods, his people loved him. Merciful to the poor, firm to the powerful, fair to the innocent. Firm but fair to the very large army he was building up.
That’s the background, that you probably already knew. Who hasn’t heard the name of the city of Telea?
Oh, shut up.
THE COMPANY WAS sitting around on its collective scrawny arse in the shit-hole that’s the town of Reneneth. I won’t waste time describing Reneneth to you, seeing as it’s one of the top five most depressing places I’ve ever been to. Falling down buildings, piles of rubbish in the streets, the houses are made of white stone going green with mold. The air in the place stinks. The people in the place stink. Poor and grumpy, the people of Reneneth. Getting poorer and grumpier as every day goes on. Living in the rubble of your great-great-great-great grandparents’ boundless riches maybe does that to people. Turns you to drink and letting your dogs crap in the middle of the street. Not a place I’d choose to visit, or ever intend to go back to. But our last job had been as caravan guards down in Maun; Reneneth, being a depressing shit-hole, was a cheap convenient place to sit around and wait for the next job to turn up.
“Good news, Tobias,” Skie said to me one morning. “We’ve got the next job.”
“About time. Thank all gods and demons.”
Skie gave me a cold look.
Skie. Our commander-in-chief, leader of the Free Company. And you should be nervous around him, oh yeah. See his left hand, do you? That area of empty space where his left hand used to be?
You should see what the other guy looked like.
Skie said, “Telea, rich in gold and horses. Telea, whose walls are—” what I just said, only in a grey dull monotone voice. He got out the company’s map, pointed. Greasy-looking, the bit of the map showing Telea and Cen Andae and Immish. Generations of commanders-in-chief of, clears throat, The Free Company of the Sword had poked and prodded and stared and traced route marches and sneezed bits of bacon on that bit of the map. Shame, cause it’s a nice map, nicely drawn, with little decorative pictures that are a smart touch. I’m told it once had gold leaf on the edges, before some previous commander-in-chief of the Free Company picked the gold leaf very carefully off. Skie said, “Telea is proud of its independence. Fifty years, its independence goes back. Imagine. Chucked out the Immish while the Immish were preoccupied hammering Cen Andae. Fifty years later, the Immish want control of Telea back.”
As I just said, greasy-looking, that bit of the map. Like the blood’s soaked in to it, I’d say, if I was a superstitious man.
Skie said, “Telea fell to the Immish three weeks ago, following a short, sharp siege and a very large bag of gold.”
Pretty standard.
Skie said, “The Teleans butchered the Immish troops in the city two weeks ago. The siege has resumed. The Teleans are proving rather more resistant this time around.”
Pretty standard again.
Skie moved his finger up to the city of Raen to the north. “Cen Andae is sending troops to relieve Telea. We’ve been hired to go into Telea in advance. Confirm it. Prepare them.”
Sneak into a city during a siege. Joy overflowing filled my heart. Although, actually, this kind of thing is what the Company does best. And pays bloody well, which is the main thing. And a good chance of killing, as well as of getting killed.
“I’ll get the lads ready, then,” I told Skie.
As I said, being a sellsword is mostly not an exciting life.
WE MARCHED OUT at dawn the next morning, noble men with hard faces and harder weapons, slaughter and glory and lust for coin singing in our hard hard hearts. The whole Free Company of the Sword, an old and illustrious company. Bright our swords and bright our legend, we did not fear to march out. Let the earth shake! Let women tremble! Let men cower before us in the dust! All ten of us. Boom boom.
We’re a bigger company now, yeah. Very astute of you to notice that. Been on a recruitment drive.
Not that that makes me think of it or anything, but you want another beer at all? Sure?
Marched north with a brisk wind in our faces. Grey desert harsh with dust. Grey rock that rang with our footsteps. Only the shriek of carrion birds overhead to accompany us. Their shadows fell on the dust before us. Ill-omened, that. The desert opened into grassland, silvery, dry, coarse grass that cut at your legs. Fewer crows. More insects. Wild horses, sometimes, at a distance, running, the ones the Teleans caught and broke to make themselves rich. Clear skies every night. Bright stars. The red star of the Dragon’s Mouth. Skie made us go as fast as possible. Jog along, all ten of us. Get the blood going, stretch the limbs out, wear off the rot of Reneneth, all the rank wine and rank meat and rank pastries a man could eat. Hurry up there, lads. Get going. No sloggers on the job. It’s kind of urgent.
“What happens if the city falls before we get there?” Alxine asked me. Sitting by the fire one evening, we had maybe six days to go still till we got there. There were Immish soldiers now occasionally, moving around on the roads. Five of us, me, Alxine, Piyrce, Mela, Jag the slowcoach, and another five under the command of Skie somewhere else nearby in the darkness. Half a night’s walk off, maybe. Meet up with them again in the city, on the chance both lots of us made it in. I remember really clearly that night turning, looking away into the dark, thinking about them somewhere out there, the rest of the Company, might be alive, might have been captured and killed by the Immish, might have been eaten by a bloody wolf. Might never know what the fuck happened to them. Never stops being a strange thing, thinking about that, not knowing if your comrades are alive or dead. Strange generally, this time before something happens. Like you’re not really alive right then. Run forward a few days and you could be dead. They’re dead, your comrades, far as you know. I’m dead. Skie’s dead. Alxine’s dead.
Morbid fuck, ain’t I? Sorry. Honest, it’s not so bad really, just me being a grouch. Too cynical for me own good. Ignore me.
Sure you don’t want another beer there?
“What happens if the city falls before we get there?” asked Alxine.
“If the city’s already fallen, there’s still an army on the march from Cen Andae.”
You’ve met Alxine, haven’t you? My second-in-command, really, now. Back then he was the new boy, green, wet behind the ears, those kind of things.
“The city hasn’t fallen, anyway.” That was Piyrce. Been with us five years. Knew what’s what.
You haven’t met Piyrce, no.
Alxine said, “How do you know that?”
“Wind’s blowing from the north. Take a sniff.”
Alxine took a sniff. Looked puzzled. Gods, it’s funny, thinking of Alxine all wet and green like that back then.
“What can you smell, then?”
“Dunno. Woodsmoke. Us lot. Dinner cooking. Someone farted.”
Piyrce said, “That’s life you can smell, Alxine. You can’t yet smell death.”
COULD SMELL THE siege, the next evening. Ten thousand men, the Immish had, ringed all round Telea. Came on a burned village that must have done something stupid like ask the Immish for payment when they gutted it. Bodies in the village, stretched out, painful-looking. Two of them had bound hands. One of them was wearing armor. The Immish went in, took prisoners, then something happened and they ended up killing everyone.
“Check for anything left.” Wouldn’t be, place would have been gutted, but a smashed-up abandoned village is always worth a quick look. Might be few sausages or a keg left lying around. Call it the eternal optimism of the sellsword in the face of despair: they died for no reason, slaughterhouse, this place is, these poor blokes, some fucker killed a fucking baby here, and these two could have been me and my mum—but I’ve got a string of sausages out of it.
Stripped. Nothing. Professional soldiers done a damn fine professional job.
“Tobias!” Alxine calling. I strolled over. An old woman, lying on her back hunched up, soaked in blood. Clothes torn to ribbons. Face black and blue. Wrists black and blue.
Rasping breath. Very loud. It sounded like the wind in bare trees. Sounded like a spinning wheel turning. Click click click. Made me itch.
I looked at her and I looked at Alxine.
Alxine got his water bottle out. Tipped a bit of water over her mouth. She licked her lips. Her tongue was black and it left bloody slime round her lips.
He did it. Well and smooth, no flailing around, one stroke of the knife.
“You didn’t need to call me over and show me, lad.”
He looked proud, you know?
WENT ON FOR a few more days. Tramp tramp jog jog. Keep going. Got a deadline here. March, you fuckers. March. Quick! And then one afternoon we reached the top on a ridge, in a thicket of trees, and Telea was there on the other side before us, ringed round with ten thousand Immish soldiers in leather and bronze and boars’ tusk helmets, strong and healthy on looted food.
“Told you it hadn’t fallen,” said Piyrce.
“Just about, it hasn’t,” said Mela. “Clinging on by its fingernails.” The Immish had brought five siege engines up. Trying out the old story, to see if the magic had worn off them painted walls as much as the paint had. Gold walls? Don’t make me laugh. Chipped paint. Plus, whatever magic there might be round those walls, no one ever said the houses inside them couldn’t be ground down to powder if you hit them enough. That old Queen of Telea, she nearly defeated the Godking.
A stirring down there in the Immish camp. General moving and swirling around, flashes of sunlight on armor, distant noise. Like a ripple in deep water, someone throwing a stone into a pond.
One of the siege engines went into action. A yelling followed by crash. Lots of people moving. The whole damn machine shaking after it went off. Don’t often see that, a siege engine losing. Fuck, is all I can say, really. Fucking fuck. A rock big enough we could see it, streaking through the air, watch it, watch it… Hit the city walls, and I swear all five of us closed our eyes and jumped and felt the earth shake.
Big cloud of dust.
Cheers.
Big cloud of dust clearing.
The wall was entirely unharmed.
The rock was… a cloud of dust.
Cheers from inside the city.
Groans from the Immish camp.
“City hasn’t fallen,” said Piyrce.
WE MADE CAMP in the trees back down the other side of the ridge. Felt better not seeing all those Immish campfires that we’d have to get through to get in. The Immish didn’t seem entirely perturbed by the walls being impregnable. Dull regular crashing noises of rocks being thrown against the walls and pulverized, people shouting—swear we could hear the people of Telea jeering and shouting insults back. Late afternoon, now, and they’d built up to all five engines going. Crash smash snigger crash smash snigger crash. Pity the poor blokes who had to haul the pointless useless massive lumps of rock.
“Maybe the Immish plan is to build up so much dust against the walls it forms a ramp?”
“Or choke the Teleans to death?”
“Mercy, mercy, I surrender, I’ve got too much dust in my hair to go on! My coat’s dirty! Such cruelty of war!”
But the noise and the dust and the Teleans all looking at the engines pointing and laughing… chaos and confusion… and if we stay here, behind the Immish lines, a scouting party or a foraging party or two blokes looking for a private spot for a quicky—someone’ll be bound to turn up and fall over us with a sword drawn. So…
“Get some dinner and a few hours rest, lads,” I told the squad. “Once it gets dark… we’ll go in. Get it over with.”
And it’s that weird bit again, when you’re sitting eating a bit of stale bread and a hunk of dried meat, trying to get some sleep, knowing you’ll probably be dead by morning. Look at the meat you’re eating, think about how that’ll probably be you in a few hours’ time.
Your face, there… I’m joking. It’s fine. Exciting. Like that wait while the desire of your heart debates whether to get their kit off, that’s all.
Pass the pork scratchings there. Damn fine beer, this, don’t you think?
Piyrce woke me with the twilight coming. Long summer evening, red fire on the western horizon, in the east the stars were showing and the sky was dark like silk. Warm still. Birds singing for the sunset. Swirling in to roost for the night, black against the sun.
Strong smell of smoke. Greasy, acrid, nasty smoke.
“What’s happening?”
“Come and have a look.” Me and Piyrce scrambled to the top of ridge again, peered down at the Immish camp and the city. Thousand, thousand, thousand fires. The Immish were hurling barrels of burning oil at the walls. Red fire, red as the sunset. Thick black smoke. The walls stained black with soot. A barrel shot up like a shooting star. Everyone there, me, Piyrce, the Immish, the Teleans, all of us watching it and, gods, honestly, it was beautiful. Red like the sunset. Trailing sparks and fire, dripping fire as it went. Flying. And it hit the walls of Telea, those famous legendary walls glowing yellow in the twilight. And it didn’t break them down, no, because they were impervious to stone and bronze and iron and wood. But the oil broke over them. And the oil burned. And the magic wall began to burn.
Another barrel went higher. Over the walls and gone.
I swear, even from that distance, I heard someone scream as the oil hit them.
“Fuck me,” said Alxine. He was crouching beside me, his eyes wide.
“Fuck off back to the others, I didn’t tell you to follow me.” And I said to Piyrce, “Perfect. Chaos, bloodshed, murder, firelight to guide us. We’re going in.”
We went over the ridge all together, crouching low. Organized chaos down there. Ten thousand men and horses, and the siege engines going, and a ram moving towards the gates. The walls of the city on fire. Dark, clouds coming over, and no moon tonight.
You’d almost think we’d judged it exactly, getting there to go in on a moonless night during an assault. Wouldn’t you?
Trumpets. Drum beating. Ten thousand pairs of feet on the march. The Immish were also going in.
I WISH I could describe it. That moment, going down into a war. I’ve only done it once or twice, thank and curse the gods. The air smells of it; you can see the death in the air above the soldiers as they’re waiting, like heat haze. You can see it on their breath. Dark, and the light from their torches, and the light from the walls where they were burning, and the city was lit up too, blazing lights on the walls and in every tower, because they knew the Immish were coming, and they wanted to kill and die in the light. And the siege engines still going, throwing fire. Arcs of fire in the air. The Immish soldiers marched beneath them, with the fire dripping down on them; in the fire their armor looked red and black.
And the tramp of their feet, and the crash of the war engines—I said waiting to go in feels like the wait while the desire of your heart gets their kit off, yeah? Well, going in, going in the midst of a battle—that’s like… gods, it’s like… I can’t put it in words. I wish I could tell you what it’s like. It’s like that moment when they hold out their arms to you, your first time… only… only… more. Like that… only… everything.
One of the siege engines failed. Something snapped or bent wrong. A barrel of burning oil came down on a troop of Immish soldiers marching forward with ladders. Screams. Squeals. The Immish troops behind flowed round them, marched on, tramping on the flames.
A ram up now. Battering at the main gates.
What? No. No, we weren’t in there. Nowhere near it. We were round the back, of course. “Sounds like I was part of it?” Sorry, maybe it does. Too excited, thinking about it. Gods, I can see it still, that night. Biggest battle I’ve ever been in. But we were round the back of the lines, creeping, crawling in place like bloody lizards, angling our way round. Skie’s directions were that there was a postern gate, round to the east of the walls, sheltered by tower buttresses, and we’d try to get in there.
Yes, I can see what you’re about to ask. Hang on. One step at a time, right?
The Immish were nearly at the walls now. A ladder being maneuvered up. The siege engines loosed and trumpets sounded. The ram was pounding. We kept moving round eastwards—thank all the gods the Immish attack was focused on the main gate and the wall just to the west of it. Very, very few people looking anywhere near us. And there’s the tower, massive thing, sticking out of the city wall like a wart. You know those things trees get, when they have those big lumps on their trunks, itchy looking things? Galls? Really? Okay, I’ll take your word for it. So the tower looked kind of like that. You could see why the Immish weren’t trying anything right there. And why someone decided it would be the best place for us to go in.
Right. Now or never. Mad dash across no-man’s land and pray and pray and fucking pray we make it.
A blast of white light. Gold sparks, like someone kicking a bonfire. A scream. A thousand fucking screams. The trumpets and the singing stopped very sudden. White light again, and white heat, and my eyes hurt. Lying on the ground in the mud gasping for breath, the air ringing, that silence after a thunderclap that’s louder than the noise itself.
And this screaming started. Shrieking. Like a man whose bones are being ripped out.
“What the fuck was that?” said Alxine, when any of us could speak.
“That was a mage,” said Mela.
Yes, a mage.
M A G E. Mage.
Gods, you had a sheltered life or what? Shut your mouth, you’ll get flies in your throat; or the wind’ll change and you’ll be stuck like that. Actually, okay, look, cards on the table and all, seeing as I like you—no, I haven’t seen that many of them myself. This might possibly have been the first time I’d seen one fight. Hopefully the last time, too. But I at least managed to keep my mouth from dropping open quite that much.
Alxine had pissed himself, I’ll grant you. And Piyrce looked like he was going to puke.
There was a smell in the air, like hot metal, and the air was thick with oily smoke.
There’s bits of people, there in that smoke.
Everyone and everything was very still. Like the Immish were sitting thinking, “Fuuuuck” and the Teleans were sitting thinking, “It worked. Whoa.” Then a trumpet sounded, and a voice shouted, and the siege engines loosed, and there was another flash of mage light from the walls, and more screams. And the assault was on again, Immish soldiers running and shouting and dying, and I could see a ladder almost at the burning bloody walls when it went up in flames.
“Run!” I screamed at the lads. “Fucking run!”
In the firelight and the magelight, the smoke and the darkness… gods, it was like there were so many of us, so many and so few of the Immish soldiers, of the defenders on the walls. Ghosts and spirits running everywhere, an Immishman came running towards us and past us screaming, all over blood, and then a whole troop of them, blood on their spears, their eyes rolling in their heads, we were up so close to them when they appeared out of the smoke and the dark they almost fell over us, but whatever they thought we were, if they even noticed us in their terror… they just ran past us and ran on. Like ghosts. Us and them.
“Fucking run! We’re nearly there.”
And we were. We were. There’s the tower, and the wall in its shadow, and there’s the postern gate. We were up against it, hands on the wooden gate and the stone wall. Rough. Dry. Real. Small. The tower was between us and the fighting. Peaceful, suddenly. Just strange distant noises, a glow and stink in the darkness. But the stones of the wall felt warm, from where the walls were burning. The walls trembled occasionally, when a stone from the siege engines struck them. Made the walls feel like they were alive.
This small locked door.
“So…”
“So,” Piyrce said, more nervous than I’ve ever heard him: “We just… knock?”
“We…”
You’re not stupid. You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Never make complicated plans. Complicated plans just go to shit.
Not making complicated plans goes to shit too, but in a less disappointing way.
“We…?”
And then there was a squad of Immish soldiers on us with swords, yelling for us to identify ourselves.
We…?
Fuckers ran Piyrce through.
See where this is going. Oh yeah.
A sword in my face. Nicked me, I could feel it. Hit back at them, four against four; they were good, these boys, good tough soldiers, holding us, battering us; wet crash and Mela went down. Fuckers.
Rolling about. His helmet rolled off. Nice hair. Make that boys and girls.
Sword back in my face, jabbing. Lashed back, kicked at the fucker, hammered at him. Her. Whatever. Never found out, with this one. Actually, thinking about it, more likely to have been a bloke, when I kicked him in the nads and he screamed. Got me back, made my left shoulder scream.
Jag went down.
Me and Alxine left. Alxine was bloody bleeding. I was bloody bleeding. Bloody blood all over me. Three of them, looking well and truly pissed at us. Our backs really quite fucking literally up against a fucking wall.
Alxine was a crap swordsman. Only still alive cause his bloke was already hurt.
Two of them ran at me. A sword in my right shoulder. Balanced the wounds. A sword in my face. Alxine up against me. Getting in my bloody way. New boy, and green. Green and red and brown bloody striped, right now, was Alxine.
Pauses for appreciative laugher and none comes. What do you mean, you don’t bloody get it? Green and red and—never mind. Never mind. This was a remarkably crap way to die, is all.
Get it now?
Still no? What do they teach young people nowadays?
Anyway. I’m rambling again, aren’t I? Remind me where we were again?
Oh yeah: dying.
Dying. Fucking fucking useless fucking fuck.
The postern gate smashed open and ten massive blokes in armor charged out. One of the Immish yelled “Kill!” and threw herself at them. One of the Immish yelled “Shit!” and legged it. One of the Immish yelled something unintelligible and died.
Me and Alxine. Standing there. Green and red and brown stripes, the both of us. So, uh… this could go one of two ways.
“There’s an army coming from Cen Andae to relieve you!” I screamed at them. “Can’t be more than a few days march. Honest. Honest!”
Sword in my face again. Voice barked, “March.”
The postern gate smashed shut.
We’d made it in.
THE CITY WAS in a remarkably good state.
Okay, skeptic-face, hands on the table, no, I haven’t seen that many sieges. Who has? Mostly dead blokes. But I’ll bet you another beer I’ve seen more sieges than you have, and, with the caveat that I’m talking from fairly limited experience here, the city wasn’t really that badly knocked about. Considering. I’ve mentioned the magic walls: obviously, they were basically fine; most of the major buildings still seemed to be standing, everyone about still looked like they’d had something to eat in the last month. A crow flew down with a lump of someone in its beak, and no one rushed at it salivating.
Immish weren’t going to break this place, with the caveat, etc. Not before the guys from Cen Andae got there.
Oh, that made me feel good. It’s a nice feeling, when you know your job is really going to be of use, that you’re properly adding value.
“Talk,” the guy who’d just saved us barked at me. I talked. Not much to say: Cen Andae, being super nice and caring, is sending some troops to relieve you, champing at the bit to kick the Immish in the nads, just hang on and hang on and they’ll come, I’m telling the truth I’m telling the truth, I’m about to pass out from blood loss, no, I’m lying, I just decided sneaking through enemy lines during an assault and counter-assault to lie to you would be a right laugh, gods, look, half my company’s been slaughtered, I really am about to pass out from—
One of them gave me bit of dirty cloth to bandage my shoulders with. A drink of water from his waterskin. The filthy state we were in, we were dragged off up to the citadel to tell the high-up high up there everything. Confirm it, rather: the guy I was speaking to seemed to know something about it, nodded, smiled, “Thank the gods, praise the good people of Cen Andae” and that, proper pleased.
Relieved, even.
Looks relieved himself that you’ve got that one.
You have got that one, right?
General bustling around, shouting, people yelling heroic stuff like “redouble the defense of the main gate.” Eventually they remembered about me and Alxine standing there bloody and stinking, gave us a meal and a drink. The sweet, sweet taste of cheap, cheap beer. A loaf of stale bread, even a scrap of salt meat. Then we sat for a while, looking at the floor, thinking of Mela and Jag and Piyrce being dead.
“Wonder where Skie is?” said Alxine. “If they got in?”
“Yeah.”
“They can’t have got in,” said Alxine then. “The Teleans would already know the troops were coming, wouldn’t they, if Skie had got in?”
“Yeah. They would.”
“Assault’s ended. The siege engines aren’t going any more. The Teleans must have beaten them off.”
“Yeah. Must have done.”
Alxine finally shut up.
“I’m going to get some sleep,” I said. “You get some sleep, Alxine. We got things to do tomorrow. You need some rest.”
WE HAD A sleep. I did, anyway. Woken up some time the next morning by the Immish redoubling the assault. All the siege engines, the ram, blokes with ladders, the whole shebang. The Teleans shooting back fire arrows, getting a machine on the walls going, the Telean mage blowing off. It began to pour with rain, too. Dark sky, high wind. Me and Alxine sat and cowered. A massive crash and the building we were in shook like a child, a load of dust came down over Alxine’s head.
The building shook like all siege engines had loosed at once. I got up, went over to the door.
“Come on, then.”
“Come on?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
There was a bloke guarding the door, cause the Teleans weren’t stupid.
I called him over.
I killed him.
Alxine looked at me. “Uh…?”
“We need to go and open the postern gate,” I said Alxine.
“Uh…?”
“The gate. The one we came in through. We need to go and open it.” He gave me this look, really puzzled, like I might have to knife him for being dumb. Then he smiled as it clicked in him.
“That makes more sense,” he said. “Yeah. A lot of sense.” And in that instant he stopped being new and green.
I said, “Come on, then. They’re all waiting on us.”
YOU PROBABLY KNOW the story from here, yeah? Or can guess it: you’re smart, I can tell. The army from Cen Andae was still two days’ march off when Telea fell to the Immish. The army from Cen Andae turned back round, marched home again with sad bowed heads. The Immish flattened Telea to rubble. Half its people died in the sack. The Immish hanged the king and the mage bloke from the gates of the citadel. Tore the famous magic walls down with their soldiers’ bare hands. The walls not being impregnable to flesh and skin. Built some new one in grey stone without the yellow paint-job. It’s part of Immish, now, Telea. Timber and furs and iron and precious gems come down the fast-flowing river Enias, travel straight on to the Immish capital of Alborn.
Makes me proud, thinking I did all that. Damned fine job.
AND THAT’S A story about me. Enjoyed it, I hope? Yeah? I killed someone for this sword I’m wearing, I’ll just casually mention. Apropos of nothing.
