Fifth moon, dawn, day forty-three of the siege
Guardsman’s entrance, Fifth Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands
Rivil won’t be pleased I’ve fired his palace, Corvus thought. Oh, wait. He grinned and rolled his shoulders, his nerves settling as his confidence grew. They were in, and they were alive, and no one was currently trying to kill them.
The Wolves had fled. Outnumbered and outfought, they’d retreated to the tunnel to First Circle with Fost in pursuit, then barricaded the gate and run back to the East Tower with their tails between their legs. They’d left a fair amount of dead behind them, though, their own and Corvus’s. The Lady’s will.
Corvus’s guide, an East Ranker, was adamant. ‘Guardsman’s entrance into Fourth Circle. Nobility aren’t fighters; they’ll die easy. Gold, jewels, coin. Food, water. It’s all in Fourth. Ain’t nothing here in Fifth but a trap, but get into Fourth and we’ve got options.’
‘I would’ve thought it’d all be in the palace? The gold?’ Valan grunted, stretching his back. He turned from the Ranker to check the approach behind him, check Corvus was still there, still safe. Corvus met his eyes and winked.
‘What’s your name again?’ he asked.
‘Runt, they call me,’ the Ranker said. ‘And the treasury is in the palace, aye, but it’d take a week to break in there even if you hadn’t just set it on fire. Nobles though, well, they just leave their coin lyin’ around in heaps. Take a few of ’em hostage, the rest’ll be clamouring to surrender. Once one Circle falls, the others’ll follow soon enough.’
‘You know a lot for a lowly Ranker,’ Corvus put in, though in truth he didn’t much care. Controlling the coin and food might bring the city to its knees, but Corvus wanted blood and conversion, sacrifice and vengeance. He wanted to make Rilpor bleed for a thousand years of apostasy, a thousand years of contempt. Enough food for his army and enough coin to quiet the East Rank, and he’d be happy. This wasn’t about land or riches, no matter what the enemy or even his allies thought. This was justice and the gods’ glory.
‘I keep my ear to the ground, Yer Majesty,’ Runt said, sniffing. ‘It ain’t difficult.’
‘So we get into Fourth Circle and we’ve free rein?’ Valan checked.
Runt sniffed again. ‘Nah. Circles’re divided into districts, so there’s walls and big fancy gates splitting them into sections, like spokes on a wheel. No one tell you any of this? Rivil just sent you in blind, did he? Cunt. Anyway, district gates’re more for show than security, made to be pretty, not functional, at least in Fourth. They’ll only be guarded by the City Watch and a few swings with a ram would bring ’em down, I reckon. If they’re even locked. Nobles’re arrogant. Some of those gates probably haven’t been closed in years. You won’t have too much trouble getting through, I shouldn’t think.’
‘All right,’ Corvus said and waved them on. ‘Get this gate open. We came for Mace and we haven’t got him, so we go with the backup plan. House to house in the noble quarter. Kill everyone – men, women, children, servants, dogs. Everyone. Blood for the gods, to wash the Dancer’s stain from the stone. Then burn it. Fear and despair will win us this city, and with Fifth and Fourth both alight, their seat of power is lost.’
Valan’s eyes were gleaming in the dawn light and Corvus punched his fist into his palm. ‘Then the temple district. Stupid bastards’ve put all their holy places together, makes it easier for us to rededicate them to the Red Gods. Take the temple district and the one next to it, the one with the gate into the killing field,’ he snapped his fingers.
‘Merchant quarter,’ Runt supplied.
‘Right, take the temple and merchant quarters and fortify. That’s our base. We launch assaults from there until Skerris takes the breach, then we go all out and meet him in the middle of whatever’s left. Our feet are on the Path.’
‘Our feet are on the Path,’ Valan echoed, his teeth gleaming white in the gloom of the gateway. He slapped Runt on the back. ‘Let’s fucking do this.’
The battering ram was made of the posts from the royal bed lashed together. Corvus didn’t hold out much hope for it, but if the gates were as weak as Runt insisted, it might be enough.
They were bloody and bruised, filled with rage and religion, and they could smell riches. If Runt was right, no one was expecting them to come through here. It should give them more than enough time to make an impression on Rilporin’s noblest families.
Corvus grimaced as the ram team ran at the gate and bounced off it, the oak rattling in its frame. But half a dozen solid blows later and the gate was splintering, twisting and squealing on its hinges even as the ram started to come apart. The team backed out of the way and set to work fixing it while others finished smashing the gate with axes.
The advance party went through, weapons ready and shields up. They slid out of sight and Corvus held up a clenched fist for silence. They waited, tense, for screams and the clash of weapons, but there was nothing.
Runt looked back at the king. ‘Whoever was on duty either died of fright or scarpered to raise the alarm. Wonder which it could be?’ His grin was evil and unconcerned.
‘I suspect the latter,’ Corvus said, his tone sour. Runt’s nonchalance was starting to piss him off. ‘Let’s go. Fost and his lot will have to catch us up. That’ – he pointed to the fierce glow of the burning palace and the sparks drifting on the dawn breeze – ‘is going to tell everyone exactly where we are. So let’s not be where they think us.’
Valan got into position in front of Corvus and led him through the gate. Fourth Circle was quiet, seeming deserted, and they paused to take in the spectacle of wide-open streets and enormous stone buildings, each one a home for just a single family. The longhouse in Eagle Height could have fitted inside any one of them three times over.
‘Squads of fifty,’ Corvus hissed and the order was passed. ‘Take a house each, keep it quiet if you can, move fast. Blood and fire.’
‘Blood and fire,’ the Mireces echoed, savage grins splitting their faces as they peeled off down the streets, climbing broad stairs to ornate front doors or wide windows full of expensive, but so very fragile, glass.
The first sounds came – windows shattering, axes in doors – the first shouts, the first screams. ‘Looks like we’ve woken the neighbours.’ Corvus laughed. ‘Come on.’
The sun was a finger’s width over the horizon, not that you could see either through the black smoke of the burning palace. In the end, Fourth Circle had defeated them through its sheer size, and as the time passed Corvus had decided that making for the temple district was more important than killing rich folk. They’d taken the gate into the cloth district of Third Circle and fought a brief and one-sided battle against the shopkeepers and stall-holders who lived there.
Now they jogged along the street with shields on their backs, weapons in one hand and lit torches in the other. Many of the district’s goods were stored in long, low warehouses, and as the Mireces passed each one, they threw torches through doors and windows. The crackle of flame and heat pressed against their backs as they advanced.
They were approaching the gate into Second Circle when the clash of arms erupted and Corvus skidded to a halt behind Valan’s out-flung arm. ‘Wolves and Rankers,’ a Mireces gasped, legging it back around the bend towards them. ‘Good few hundred, looks like.’
‘Shit,’ Corvus said. By not pursuing the Wolves out of Fifth, he’d given them time to regroup and find backup. Now they had to fight them all over again. ‘The Lady’s will. Kill them.’ The man bobbed his head and vanished back around the corner. The noise of battle increased. The thousand he’d brought into the city numbered far fewer now, but he still had more than half, surely enough. He grabbed Runt. ‘You. Another gate into Second?’
Runt shook his head and wiped soot from streaming eyes. ‘Next gate to Second is on the King’s Way. It’ll be fully fortified and heavily guarded. It’s here or nowhere, Sire.’
Corvus chewed his lip and then nodded. ‘Valan, we break through here. All of us, full assault, no reserve.’ Valan blew out his cheeks but didn’t argue, passing the word fast and low.
‘Let’s go. Runt, with me. We need your knowledge of this fucking rabbit warren.’
‘As you say.’ Runt shrugged and pulled his sword. They broke into a jog, and then into a run, and then they swept around the corner and into the fight.