“We gotta go,” Braddon said, shaking him now as Preacher’s rifle boomed again. “You and the lieutenant get on the oars. Me and Preacher’ll hold them . . .”
Clay wasn’t listening, kicking off his boots and shrugging free of his duster before drinking down full vials of Green, Red and Black. “Don’t!” his uncle shouted, reaching for Clay as he launched himself clear of the raft, plunging into the lake and diving deep.
CHAPTER 21
Sirus
Like many older Corvantine cities the port of Sairvek had once been enclosed within a defensive wall, long since fallen into disuse as the conurbation grew in size and the Empire became more unified. It was still discernible amidst the maze of streets and houses as an irregular semicircle snaking from the coast through the outlying suburbs, but the days when troops had patrolled its battlements were long gone. Its principal aid to the defence of the city now lay in the fortified gatehouses which served as both police stations and barracks for Imperial soldiery. Two nights before Sirus had flown over the port on Katarias’s back and discovered there were twelve of these strong points in all. Eliminating them simultaneously would be the key to seizing the city.
He chose mostly tribal Spoiled and former Islanders for the initial assault, they being the most attuned to the stealth required for such a task. Each squad was small, only ten fighters apiece, but in an operation of this nature surprise would offset any disadvantage in numbers. They had been dropped by Reds at various locations in the surrounding country-side, Sirus choosing a moonless night to maximise the concealing power of the dark. He decided to lead one of the squads himself, something that had provoked concern from an unlikely source.
“Who will I eat dinner with if you get yourself killed?” Catheline asked, her apparent flippancy diluted somewhat by the tic of genuine worry he saw in her red-black eyes.
“The operation will be dynamic,” he said. “Requiring swift modification. First hand experience of the conditions . . .”
“Oh, don’t be boring,” she chided, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Her demeanour had remained largely unchanged since suffering the White’s punishment outside Melkorin, though any impulse she might have felt towards confiding in him had vanished in the aftermath. “No unwise heroics,” she said, stepping closer to press a kiss to his cheek. Her lips felt soft and warm on his scaled flesh. “We need our general.”
They steered clear of roads or marked paths during the approach to the city, moving in a loose formation at a steady run. Sirus called a halt when the lights of the outlying western quarter came into view. Veilmist had advised that this was one of the wealthiest districts, which meant a lack of people on the streets at night and, hopefully, fewer patrolling members of the Corvantine Constabulary.
Report, he commanded the other squads as his keen inhuman eyes surveyed broad, neatly kept streets lined with cherry-blossom and acacia. There was no sign of a living soul beyond the lights in the windows. The other squads all reported an untroubled approach, apart from Forest Spear pausing to dispatch a farmer who chose an inopportune moment to visit his outhouse.
A trap? the tribal warrior wondered, sharing his own view of the narrow but empty streets of the much poorer northern quarter. They must know what happened to Melkorin.
More likely a curfew, Sirus replied. It’s probably been in place since Corvus fell to the rebels.
So the garrison is on guard.
Against their own people, not us. We’re likely to encounter patrols the deeper we go. Keep to the roof-tops, kill any sentries you find. Otherwise, proceed as planned.
He led his squad forward, increasing the pace as they entered the first streets, then scrambling up the wall of one of the larger houses to reach the roof. Spoiled hands were perfect for climbing, the claws hard enough to dig into the brickwork as the muscles of their remade limbs carried them upwards. The squad covered the distance to their objective in little under ten minutes, leaping from roof-top to roof-top. A few attic windows blazed into life as their boots sent some slates clattering to the streets below, but they had moved on by the time any curious eyes came to investigate.
The squad encountered the first sentry only when the gatehouse came into view, a youthful and bored-looking conscript fiddling with the rearsight of his rifle. He was perched on the roof of a shop opposite the gatehouse, Sirus taking note of his unkempt uniform and unsoldierly disregard for his surroundings. A Spoiled Islander used his short-bow to sink an arrow into the base of the boy’s skull as Sirus quickly scanned the vicinity for more look-outs. There were two atop the gatehouse itself but none in the street or enclosing roof-tops.
Whoever has charge of this place deserves a court martial, he decided, sending the squad into their prearranged assault plan.
His two marksmen took up position close by, rifles aimed at the sentries on the gatehouse roof, whilst Sirus and the rest of the squad descended to a shadowed alley. He paused for a moment as they prepared their munitions, confirming that the other squads were all in position, then struck a match and touched it to the fuse of the grenade in his hand.
The two marksmen fired as they charged across the street, Sirus glancing up to see the two sentries falling back from the parapet. When they were close enough he threw his grenade, the smoke from the fuse describing an elegant arc as it flew through the narrow gun-port in the gatehouse’s upper floor. The rest of the squad followed suit, save for one who sprinted forward to lay his grenade against the building’s heavy door. The multiple explosions cast an instant pall of dust and smoke over the entire street, Sirus leading his squad through it to hurdle the remnants of the door and charge inside.
A Corvantine sergeant came stumbling down a spiral staircase to Sirus’s left, hands clutching at a bloodied face, then falling dead as one of the tribals slammed the spike of her war-club into his back. The other soldiers on the ground floor were dispatched with similar swiftness, each of them too stunned to offer resistance. Sirus led the squad up the stairs, lighting another grenade then casting it ahead of him. They crouched in the stairwell, waiting for the explosion and when it came charged into the resultant carnage to cut down any survivors. They repeated the process until they reached the roof, finding both sentries dead, each with a bullet-hole through the forehead. The entire assault had taken less than ten minutes.
Sirus checked on the other squads, finding all had met with similar success apart from one who had the misfortune to encounter a Blood Cadre agent in the dock-side gatehouse. The woman clearly had a good deal of experience from the way she set about killing his Spoiled, crushing the skulls of three in quick succession before lighting the rest on fire. Despite this Sirus considered the assault a success, since the agent had done them the service of setting light to the gatehouse before making good her escape.
It’s done, he told Catheline as she watched the distant port from the deck of the Malign Influence. Send them.
You see, Marshal, she said, casting her thoughts wide so as to encompass Morradin’s mind. This is how it should be done.
She shoved Morradin’s dark, envious thoughts aside to share her vision with Sirus, his mind filling with the sight of the army’s entire contingent of Reds alighting from the decks of the fleet, each one carrying Greens in their talons. They’ll spare the docks and the harbour, she said. Just as you asked. We do need more ships, after all.
* * *
• • •
Veilmist had calculated a carefully co-ordinated sequence in which the fires would be set. Sirus expressed doubts that the drakes would be capable of keeping to such a complex plan but Catheline assured him it wouldn’t be an issue. Even so, he noticed she had spent several hours in silent communion with the White before giving the final assent to his stratagem. It needed something from me . . . the words for which she had been punished replaying in his head as he watched her entwine herself about the beast’s forelegs, both she and the White barely
seeming to breathe as their minds touched.
In the event, the drakes kept rigidly to their allotted schedule, first setting fire to the market square near the docks, then the houses to the east and west. There was no repeat of the mass, uncontrolled conflagration that had consumed Melkorin, instead the fires advanced across the city from south to north in a steady progression that had the population fleeing before it. Streets became choked with people, some clutching bundles of hastily gathered belongings, others herding screaming children. Those who attempted to flee to the east or west found themselves menaced by packs of Greens and forced into an unco-ordinated horde which by morning had begun to straggle in loose order along the region’s principal road. This highway led into a shallow river valley to the north where Marshal Morradin waited with seventy thousand Spoiled. The first conversions began by the end of the day.
Sporadic resistance had flared up in the city as remnants of the Sairvek garrison mounted a few desperate and easily contained counter-attacks. The Blood Cadre agent made a reappearance as the fire reached the grand square at the centre of the city. She proceeded to put on a spectacular display of Blood-blessed abilities that left a dozen Spoiled dead along with several Greens. Her valiant stand came to an end when Katarias descended from the sky to bathe the woman in a torrent of fire, leaving her a pile of smoking ash on the square’s cobbled surface. Sirus made a well-concealed mental note to learn her name if he ever got the chance.
“Four thousand two hundred and seventy conversions already,” Veilmist reported to the conference of captains two days later after they gathered aboard the Malign Influence. “The overall yield is projected to exceed fifty thousand by the end of the week. There are numerous villages in the region which are adding to the total.”
“Over twice the yield at Melkorin,” Catheline observed, arching an eyebrow at Morradin. “Quite impressive, wouldn’t you agree, Marshal?”
Morradin’s eyes flicked to Sirus before he replied in a colourless mutter, “Yes, an impressive victory won against minimal opposition.”
Catheline’s expression darkened a fraction and might have led to more punishment if Sirus hadn’t added, “The Marshal is correct. Opposition was weak here, and poorly organised. From the intelligence we have gleaned it seems the city authorities had been rendered into a state of disarray by the revolution. Some wanted to send envoys to the rebels, but the majority held loyalist sympathies. In the face of mounting discord the garrison commander declared martial law some weeks ago, apparently at the behest of the local Cadre representative.”
“That heroic bitch you were so impressed by, you mean?” Catheline said, Sirus detecting a faint trickle of jealousy leaking from her thoughts.
“Yes,” he said, seeing little point in subterfuge. She always saw more than he suspected and considered himself fortunate she hadn’t yet uncovered his hidden machinations. “The point is we can’t expect opposition to be so ineffective in future. Word of what happened here will already be spreading. Fear will breed unity.”
Catheline lowered her gaze to the map of the region, finger tapping at the port of Subarisk some sixty miles westward. “Our next source of recruits. It’s the largest port on the coast, is it not?”
“Over two million inhabitants,” Veilmist said. “Defended by a full division of Imperial troops and a seven-strong flotilla of warships.”
“The harbour wall is formidable,” Sirus added. “Gun batteries on the wall itself and a series of island forts defending the approaches.”
“But we have lots of lovely new ships,” Catheline said. “Do we not?”
“We captured thirty-three merchant vessels in Melkorin harbour,” Sirus confirmed. “But only one warship, an aged customs cutter with only three guns.”
“You’re saying we can’t take this port?” she asked, voice pitched into a soft, intent murmur as she surveyed each Spoiled at the table. “But, you see, that can’t be right. For I want it, and He wants it.” She fixed Sirus with as cold a stare as she had ever shown him. “Find a way, General,” she said before sweeping from the room, Sirus quelling the surge of self-annoyance for enjoying the perfume she left in her wake.
* * *
• • •
“An overland march will take too long.” Morradin sucked deeply on a short, sweet-smelling cigarillo, the tip glowing in the dusky gloom. “By the time we advance within striking distance they’ll have had plenty of time to fortify their inland defences. Plus we don’t have anywhere near enough artillery for a siege.”
After a week of fruitless pondering Sirus had called him to the roof of the dock-side gatehouse for a discussion. Any enjoyment of the marshal’s resentment at being summoned by someone he still considered an inferior was diminished somewhat by their shared dilemma. This meeting could have been conducted mentally but the marshal had developed an ability to shield his thoughts almost as well-honed as Sirus’s own. Whereas he used fear, Morradin’s mental walls were forged from anger. Sirus could feel it now, though outwardly the marshal seemed oddly affable as he puffed away on his cigarillo, stubby claws scratching at his spines in gloomy contemplation, betraying no indication of the constantly stoked rage within.
“So it has to be a sea-borne assault,” Sirus said. They shared a memorised image of the map detailing the port of Subarisk and the six island forts that guarded the coastal approaches.
“The fortifications were designed a century ago by the great military architect Zevaris Lek Akiv Torlak,” Morradin said. “Clearly a man who knew his business. We’d need at least a thousand troops to take each one, and they’ll be attacking under fire and in daylight, since the landing sites are only accessible with the morning tide.”
“We augment the attack with Reds,” Sirus said. “Assault them from the air and the sea at the same time.”
Morradin summoned another image, a pen-and-ink diagram of something that resembled a brick sculpture of a legless tortoise. “These aren’t ordinary fortifications, boy,” he said. “Domed roofs to deflect plunging shot, walls ten feet thick and a battery of twenty-pounders, which means they have enough range to provide fire support to the neighbouring forts. And even if we do manage to subdue the outer defences, we still have the harbour wall to contend with. As I said, Torlak knew his business.”
“Are you saying the place is impregnable?”
Morradin’s eyes narrowed behind the smoke as he took another deep drag. “Nowhere’s impregnable, boy,” he said, “if you’re prepared to spill enough blood. Your stealthy tricks won’t help us at Sairvek. This is my kind of battle. Something I think you already know, else why would you bring me here?”
Sirus stiffened a little as the barb struck home, finding himself irked by how the truth jabbed at his pride. Pride in slaughter, he thought, letting the fear rise to mask the self-disgust. On impulse he reached out to Morradin mentally, colouring the thought with mingled images of the White and Catheline’s red-black eyes. Any eavesdropping mind would hopefully mistake what followed for a shared terror of the consequences of failure.
Do you like this life, Marshal? he asked Morradin, watching his eyes narrow further as the emotionless question slipped through the torrent of fear.
You are full of tricks, aren’t you? Morradin returned, taking the cue to stoke his own fears along with a fresh bout of anger. You sure she can’t hear us?
No, but we’ll find out very soon if she can. Do you have an answer for me?
This life? Morradin let smoke seep from his nostrils before raising his hand and stubbing the cigarillo’s burning tip out on the palm. Can barely feel this, he commented. And by tomorrow it’ll have healed. Can’t deny the gifts we’ve been given.
Or the lives we’ve taken, the children now being hunted in the hills by the monsters we serve. We leave nothing but ash and grief in our wake.
As armies have always done. And I never before had command of an army like this.
> Except you don’t. I do.
Morradin’s anger rose again, this time coloured by some authentic heat, and he revealed elongated teeth in a grin. For now. She’ll tire of you soon enough. I know the type. Beauty and privilege were ever a toxic combination. And let’s not forget the fact that she’s completely fucking insane.
I know. Something which doesn’t bode well for any of us.
Morradin’s grin subsided into a glower. You ask if I like this life. Of course I don’t. I hate it. I was not born to be a slave.
Nor was anyone. But what if there was a way to free us. All of us?
Sirus felt a sour, despairing note creep into Morradin’s mind. To date I have tried to shoot myself six times, the marshal told him, playing out a series of memories. A room in Morsvale, Morradin staring at his Spoiled visage in the mirror, a pistol pressed to his temple. He pulled the trigger and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Another memory, this time in the Barrier Isles, the cold metal of the pistol’s barrel sliding over his tongue, pressing against the roof of his mouth. Another pull of the trigger, another dry click from the hammer. Then again during the voyage to Feros, then again during the hill-country campaign . . .
I did load the pistol, Morradin went on as the final fruitless suicide attempt played out, this one only yesterday. Or rather I remember loading the pistol, but each time when I looked again it was empty. Somehow the White knew and changed my thoughts accordingly. If you ever try it, you’ll probably discover the same thing. So, how exactly do you intend to free us from a nightmare crafted by a being that knows our thoughts?
I don’t know yet, Sirus confessed. But I do know it can only happen if we act as one. Not just you and me, all of us.
There are Spoiled in this army who love their new lives. What for us is torment is paradise to them.
Unity of purpose is the only thing that will free us. We’ll have to ensure there are less of them to pollute our thoughts, and we have a very costly engagement to plan, do we not?