VIII
The sky was darkening to dawnwards as the
army marched into view of Magilnada. Cloud hung low above the peaks
behind the city, the walls a bright white against the grey of the
cliff against which it was built.
Ullsaard had considered long and
hard how he would conquer this place, spending sleepless nights
during the last year working out the best way to counter its
defences. Even when he had been plotting and conducting the
campaign against the Mekhani, his thoughts had moved to this place
and the means to exact his revenge on the man who claimed rulership
there.
"Shall we send a deputation to
accept surrender?" asked Aalmunis, commander of the
Fourth.
Ullsaard resurfaced from his
dreams of vengeance to consider the question. He marched alongside
Aalmunis and Hemmin, his counterpart in the Eighteenth, at the
heart of the column, one legion in front and the other behind.
Second captains followed a short way behind with the staff baggage,
ready to disseminate the orders of their superiors.
"No," the king replied. "No offer
of surrender."
"We are to retake the city by
force?" said Hemmin.
"I don't make empty threats,"
said Ullsaard, remembering words he had spoken to Anglhan on the
day of his investiture as governor. "And besides, this place has
been a pain in the arse of Askh since it was built. Magilnada is to
be destroyed. I want the city razed to the ground."
"And the people?" Hemmin's
question was calmly asked, giving no hint of the commander's
opinion on the matter.
"Kill them," said Ullsaard. "Any
chieftains or persons of note are to be captured if possible. This
place does not exist to me. Your legions are free to take what they
want, goods and slaves, and then burn everything. Everybody else is
to be slain. I want nothing but ash and dust by the time we are
finished."
"As you command," chorused the
two First Captains, showing no signs of hesitation.
The army continued its advance to
within a mile of the city. Company by company the legions peeled
away from the road to set up the siege. Wagons carrying the parts
of catapults and spear-throwers gathered while crews and
legionnaires crowded around to unload the war machines. Sawing and
hammering and the swearing of labouring men cut across the evening
air as the sun set and the barricades defending the legions'
positions were erected.
Ullsaard made his camp directly
opposite the gatehouse. A log palisade was thrown up around a dozen
pavilions of the senior officers, Ullsaard's tent at the centre. He
had sent his family back to Askh under escort. Their grief over the
news of Jutaar's death was too fresh and harsh to bear, and he
needed clarity not distraction. The tears of his farewell with
Allenya haunted his inner thoughts, but his mind was focussed on
the task at hand. There was no reason for his wife to witness the
destruction and carnage that was going to be wrought in her name;
it was enough that she was safe and honour would be satisfied on
her account.
Feeling none of the rage he had
experienced on hearing of Anglhan's betrayal, the king now viewed
the razing of Magilnada as a necessary task to be performed. When
he had Anglhan in custody was when he would let his true feelings
be known.
Just as the last ray of the sun
were dimming, there came news that the gates had opened and a
delegation could been seen moving along the road. Ullsaard heard
the calls from within his pavilion and hurried out, wondering if
Anglhan had shown some uncharacteristic shred of decency and
surrendered himself to save the city. He was not shocked to see
that Anglhan was absent from the group of four men who were carried
up the road on a large covered wagon pulled by two abada. At least
twenty armed men accompanied them on foot.
"Let them enter the camp!"
Ullsaard directed, heading towards the newly-constructed
gate.
It was not long before the wooden
gates opened to permit the delegation to enter. The warriors looked
nervous, spears in hand, shields raised protectively around their
masters. Ullsaard beckoned to a nearby second captain.
"Get me two hundred men with
bellows-bows," he said. The officer nodded and set off at a run.
Turning his attention to his visitors, Ullsaard strode in front of
the wagon and stood with his hands on hips until they had clumsily
disembarked over its high sides.
The four chieftains, for their
fur cloaks, gold jewellery and enamelled helms marked them as such,
took their places in a single line facing the king. Each was armed,
but all four were even older than Ullsaard, one of them so frail he
looked as if he might expire on the spot. The tallest, a
black-haired, wiry man with a patch over one eye, took a step
towards Ullsaard, a hand raised in greeting.
"King Ullsaard, I am
Jā"
"I would fuck a sow before I care
for your name," snarled Ullsaard. "Wait there."
He turned his back on the
delegation and stalked back to his tent, where he snatched up his
spear from its rack and waited at the door. When he saw the
bow-armed legionnaires arriving, he walked into view
again.
"I'll give you each one chance,"
Ullsaard called out as he paced quickly towards the cluster of
chieftains. He hefted his spear meaningfully. "Kill me man-to-man
and save your city, or die like dogs, shot through with
arrows."
The king stopped ten paces from
the men, swapped his spear to his left hand and drew his
sword.
"I'll give you a chance, I won't
even use a shield," he told them. "Come on, one of you must be up
for it!"
There was laughter from the
legionnaires, who had circled around the group and formed a wall of
shields behind which others stood with bellows-bows hefted to their
shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, Ullsaard saw some of the
officers whispering and coin changing hands.
"It's a rich man that takes a bet
against me," he called out.
"We're wagering which of these
dogs has the balls to fight you," a third captain shouted back. "My
money's on the ancient one."
There was more laughter, much to
the fury of the chieftains.
"I have five Askharin that none
of them have the guts for it!" Ullsaard glanced to his right and
saw Aalmunis shouldering through a knot of his officers.
"Ten! That one of them is stupid
enough to try!" Hemmin countered from the left.
It was the one who had spoken
that broke first, snatching his sword from his belt.
"I'll cut your fucking head off,
you son of a whore," he shouted, taking three quick
steps.
Ullsaard judged the man
carefully. He was still quick and supple, despite his age, but
having one eye could only be a disadvantage. The king took a couple
of steps to his right and saw that the man had to turn his head to
keep him in view.
"My mother was indeed a whore,"
Ullsaard called back. He raised his spear high and looked at his
warriors. "But my father was a king!"
There were roars of approval and
clapping. The legionnaires started a beat, thumping the butts of
their spears on the ground and uttering a wordless chant.
The chieftain edged closer by
another two steps. Ullsaard held his ground, slightly crouched,
spear held to the front, sword held back ready to be swung. He
sidestepped again, forcing the other man to turn on his
heel.
He looked at his opponent's face,
seeing the tension in the tightness around his eyes and the clench
of his jaw. Ullsaard stood up straight and looked at his
men.
"I can't be bothered with this,"
he declared sheathing his sword. "These piss-drinking dog-fuckers
are not worth a drop of our sweat. Shoot them!"
He turned his back and walked
away as the slap of bow strings sounded around him. There were
screams from the Salphors mixed with the thud of arrows into wood
and flesh. Ullsaard stopped after a dozen paces and looked at
Hemmin.
"Save the heads of those four,"
he said, pointing his spear at the bodies of the chieftains, each
pierced by a dozen bolts. Around the cart, the other warriors lay
in heaps, some of them still alive, moaning and crawling. "Finish
off the rest. Send everything else back to the city."
Confident that his First Captains
had matters well in hand, Ullsaard retired to his
pavilion.
At first, sleep did not come. He
fretted over his decision to send Allenya away so quickly. He had
been away from her for years at a time before, but it seemed
different now. She was vulnerable, a target for his enemies in a
way that she had never been before.
Ullsaard tossed restlessly and
wondered if he would have been happier if Aalun had not entangled
him in the succession of the Crown; he had never set out to become
king. His mother would argue that the Blood had its own demands,
and after meeting Lakhyri and the abomination that was now Erlaan,
Ullsaard was tempted to think it a curse more than a
blessing.
Despite being unsettled by these
thoughts, Ullsaard relaxed, realising that there was no point
thinking about such things. He was king, he did have the Blood and
he was waging a war to become the ruler of all the lands from sea
to sea. Most importantly, Allenya was safe. Nothing mattered more.
If her security caused him unhappiness, he would willingly pay the
price.
Such thoughts focussed his mind
on the immediate future. It was a simple plan, when he thought
about it. Once Salphoria was conquered, he could return to Askh and
leave the problems of the empire to the Brotherhood. He smiled as
he fell asleep, wondering what he would do with his time when he no
longer had to wield a sword.
When he awoke, Ullsaard was
unsurprised to find that preparations for the attack were well
underway. Engineers had worked through the night assembling the war
engines, constructing revetments to protect them and distributing
ladders amongst the companies chosen for the assault. Two huge
wheeled rams had been fashioned from felled trees and wagons,
pulled by teams of abada. Armourers were fitting the fuel casks to
the lava-throwers and preparing braziers for the war machine
crews.
Up before Dawnwatch, Ullsaard
wandered from his camp to the lines, a mile or so away. By the time
he arrived, some of the legionnaires were already being woken by
their third captains and sergeants. Expectant muttering greeted the
dawn, and the soldiers joked with each other and their king as he
made a round of the temporary fortifications.
His inspection took several
hours, during which the army was roused, fed and set to work
reinforcing the embankments and clearing the road of any debris so
that the rams could move freely. A second line of earth-and-wood
walls was rising from the fields a quarter of a mile ahead, from
which the war engines would be in range. Unfortunately, this also
put them in range of the catapults Anglhan had mounted on the walls
of the city.
As he left the safety of the
siege line to survey the forward work, he saw bodies strewn along
either side of the road. There were several hundred as far as he
could tell, some in scattered groups, most in a swathe of corpses
about half a mile from the city. Men, women and children lay dead
together.
"What's this?" he asked the
second captain of a company digging a ditch alongside the road. The
captain glanced at the piles of bodies.
"A bunch of 'em tried to flee the
city after midnight," said the officer. "Orders was to let nobody
escape."
"They'll be rotten within days,
we can't just leave them here," said the king.
"That's why we're digging," the
captain said with a cruel laugh. "Can't waste fuel on burning 'em,
so the First Captain said to bury 'em."
"Very wise," said Ullsaard. "Hope
you're getting double beer for your troubles."
"From Captain Hemmin?" The
captain laughed again. "Even you'd be parched of thirst before he
offered a drop of wine or beer."
"I'll have a word," said Ullsaard
with a grin. "We'll see if we can loosen his fingers on the barrel
tap."
Whoever was in charge of the
city's defenders ā Ullsaard doubted even Anglhan was so conceited
he would consider himself a keen military man ā knew a little about
sieges. Magilnada's catapults began bombarding the closer
siegeworks as Low Watch began. Rocks rained down from eight
machines on the walls, sending up fountains of earth, turning
braces and wooden walkways into storms of deadly splinters. The
barrage was not quick, but it was steady and accurate.
Teams dashed forwards to drag the
dead and wounded back to the main line while fresh companies were
sent in to continue the labouring. Ullsaard knew this would be a
tough time for the men, dying at the hands of the enemy before they
could strike back. Most of them already knew where their duties in
the assault would put them; those carrying ammunition or manning
the machines knowing they took their chances early on while those
in the attack companies would face even greater danger when they
stormed the walls.
Ullsaard walked slowly back to
his camp. Sieges were drawnout affairs, even if an early assault
was planned. It was one thing to smash into a wooden-walled
Salphorian village or fort; it was an entirely different prospect
to storm a city like Magilnada. Ullsaard contented himself with the
thought that it was all good practice for when they reached
Carantathi, which if rumour and legend were to be believed would
present even more of an obstacle than Magilnada. It was claimed the
capital of Salphoria, though not large, sat atop a mountain and
could only be reached by a single causeway. Rather than dreading
such a task, Ullsaard was looking forward to overcoming the
challenge.
On arriving at his tent, the king
summoned his First Captains, reviewed their orders and the
dispositions of the legions and then dismissed them to concentrate
on other matters. Ullsaard had avoided some of the more onerous
duties of his position whilst chasing the Mekhani, but his
responsibilities had caught up with him in Ersua and there was a
chest full of documents, letters and petitions to read
through.
He applied himself to the task as
he would any other campaign, dividing the work by type. Trade
proposals went in one pile, with reports from the governors in
another. Marriage, death and birth announcements he set aside for
the time being. Invitations to galas, openings, fairs, ship
launches, feasts and celebrations were tossed on to a growing heap
under the map table.
With everything ordered as he
wished, Ullsaard drank a little wine, ate some lunch and took a
nap. At the ring of High Watch, he woke up, realising that he had
slept longer than he had planned. He looked at the piles of
documents and wax tablets and sighed. Filling another goblet of
watered wine, he left the pavilion in search of some
distraction.
Just as he stepped out into the
camp, a great cheer was raised to his left. The gate towers were
crowded with legionnaires, some of them pointing at Magilnada.
Ullsaard hurried across the camp and pulled himself up the ladder
of the right tower. Pushing to the front, there were a few grumbles
from the soldiers until they realised their king had joined them.
One hand on the parapet, the other raising the goblet to his lips,
Ullsaard saw what provided so much entertainment.
The battery of catapults had been
moved into range and commenced their bombardment. This initial
barrage consisted of bronze globes filled with lava. As one, the
engines launched their ammunition, the fire bombs arcing over the
walls to explode onto the buildings within. Smoke was rising from
several fires already; towards the dawnwards wall the flames of a
growing inferno flickered above the curtain wall.
"When do we get to go in, king?"
asked a leather-faced sergeant to Ullsaard's left.
"Three days," he replied, "unless
something comes up sooner."
"Three days of this and there'll
be nobody left to fight," the sergeant said with a hint of
complaint.
"That's the idea," replied
Ullsaard. "But I wouldn't be so sure about that."
He pointed to the city wall,
where distant figures could be seen gathering opposite the engine
battery. On the towers, trebuchets continued their
counter-bombardment, launching rocks into the midst of the Askhan
machines. The shattered bodies of men were hurled through the air
by a direct hit, the catapult flying apart into a shower of timbers
and rope. The soldiers in the gate tower groaned at the
setback.
A horn sounded somewhere to the
left, the warning note taken up by other musicians in the legion.
Ullsaard's eyes immediately went to the gates, which were opening
to release a stream of men. The Magilnadan warriors advanced
towards the closest engines, their intent obvious.
Guard companies from the legion
mobilised quickly, departing their camp to intercept the raiders.
Such was the speed of the Magilnadan attack, they were upon the
closest catapult while the Askhan reinforcements were still several
hundred paces away. Fighting erupted along the revetment and the
Magilnadans broke through in places, hacking at the ropes of the
war machine and smashing canisters of oil. As the legionnaires
closed in on them, the raiders set a fire in the fortification and
scrambled away. They dashed back towards the gate, the more heavily
armoured Askhans unable to catch them.
With the Magilnadans no more than
a hundred paces from safety, a squadron of kolubrids closed
quickly, unleashing a storm of bellows bolts. The running men were
defenceless against the torrent and several dozen fell before a
cloud of shafts lifted up from the walls and descended upon the
Askhan cavalry. Driven back, the kolubrids turned away and the
raiders escaped into the city.
"We should have some companies
watching the gate," said a legionnaire behind Ullsaard. "They've
got too much time for this sort of thing."
"Do you want to stand out there
in range of their engines, just waiting for them to come out?"
another replied. "Not me, for sure."
There were murmurs of agreement
and muted laughs.
"When there're enough fires
burning, we'll sort out the towers and the catapults," Ullsaard
told his men. "It's just a matter of being patient. Unless you want
to have a go now?"
Nervous denials greeted the offer
and Ullsaard grinned.
"What if I said I was going to be
first in?" the king suggested. "Would you follow me?"
This time the legionnaires were
more enthusiastic, though there were several who did not seem to
relish the prospect of the forthcoming assault. Ullsaard smiled,
patted a few shoulders in encouragement and clambered down from the
tower.
A second captain awaited the king
when he reached the ground.
"First Captain Aalmunis requests
that you see him in his pavilion, king," said the officer. "Scouts
have arrived from hotwards."
"Thank you," Ullsaard said with a
nod.
He followed the captain through
the camp to Aalmunis's tent. The guard outside stood to attention
and presented their spears at his approach. With a nod to return
the salute, Ullsaard stepped inside.
Aalmunis had several maps spread
out on the rugs. Three men in leathers stood with him, one of them
pointing at something on a map of the border between Ersua and Free
Country. All looked up as Ullsaard entered.
"News?" said the king.
"The Magilnadan legions have left
their stations on the border," said Aalmunis. He crouched and drew
a finger along a serpentine line of blue paint. "They're moving
along the Neegha River."
Ullsaard studied the map. The
traitors' route took them to duskwards, at least fifty miles behind
the siege lines. If they meant to lift the siege, there were much
easier roads to take.
"They're trying to get away,"
said Ullsaard.
"That was my conclusion," said
Aalmunis. "We can't spare enough men to block their retreat, unless
you want to forego an assault and starve out the
Magilnadans."
Scratching at his beard, Ullsaard
sifted through the maps until he found one on which were marked the
camps of the legions further to duskwards. He made a quick
assessment of the situation and who was best positioned to
act.
"Send messages to the Eleventh,
Fourteenth and Nineteenth," he said. Aalmunis took up a wax slate
and stylus from a table and started making notations. "They'll have
to move quickly. Have them break camp and march to Eaghrus and
Lennina. They should be able to catch the Magilnadans as they try
to cross the bridges."
"What if they turn further
coldwards, through these forests here?" asked one of the scouts,
pointing to a huge swathe of green that spread into the foothills
of the Ersuan Mountains.
"We'll have to let them get
away," Ullsaard replied with a sigh. "If that end of the line is
moved further coldwards, the legions will be too isolated and
vulnerable to a Salphor attack."
"I'll have orders written up by
the next bells," Aalmunis told the scouts. "Get yourselves
something to eat and fresh mounts, you'll be leaving as soon as
possible."
The scouts acknowledged their
orders with quick bows and left. Ullsaard fixed Aalmunis with a
stare.
"I want those Magilnadan scum
slaughtered to a man," said the king. "Those legions killed my son,
a prince of the Blood. Do you understand?"
"Yes, king," said Aalmunis.
"We'll make sure those treacherous bastards wish they'd never
crawled out of the bitches that spawned them."