Beyond the Bulwarks Read online

  Would any of it matter if she didn’t wake up?

  Shouts echoed from the far side of Caerigoth. Frowning, Anzo turned from the palisade to look across the town. Wisps of smoke drifted from vents in rooftops. A billow of white thickened amongst them, lit from beneath by a shuddering yellow-red. More cries rose to the night sky and with them, jets of flame.

  Anzo stiffened.

  A horn blast ripped the stillness.

  Anzo was moving before the note finished, was scaling a ladder and charging through the streets of Caerigoth. Voices babbled in alarm from windows and doors. A few men were scampering from watchposts to the sign of the disturbance, their pace quickening as calls of alarm increased and the horn blatted again.

  Oh, damn...damn-damn-damn...

  Anzo broke into a sprint. The flames swelled over the rooftops, yellow going brighter, going nearly white as the roar of the blaze grew. Horns from the gatehouse joined the first. Men were spilling from houses and huts. Warriors milled in the streets and alleyways, readying weapons and gear. But this was no mortal enemy come to Caerigoth this night; this foe was elemental and far deadlier.

  Coming around a corner, Anzo found a column of fire belching from the roof of one of the huge grain houses on the far side of the settlement. Groups of men tossed and shouted in the cleared ground before it. Coming on at a run, Anzo saw Endus and some of his loyalists bawling and gesturing and brandishing weapons while another group shivered on the brink of attacking them.

  “What the hell is this?” Anzo roared, coming to a halt in the midst of them.

  “Weasel!” called one of the men—a guard for the store houses, Anzo recognized.

  “Stay out of this, foreigner,” Endus snarled.

  “They were plundering the stores!” the first man shrieked, lurching towards the scrawny nobleman with a spear.

  “Liar!”

  Anzo interposed himself between the guards and Endus’ party, shoving the spear-armed warrior back. A handful of commoners were taking up buckets and heaving pitiful spews of water onto the growing blaze. “You idiots! Save the accusations for later! The supplies are going up!”

  Not waiting for a response, Anzo raced to join the men and women forming to fight the fire. Heat buffeted him as he took a sloshing bucket from a balding, wild-faced older man. He flung the water on and flinched away as the inferno cast it back in steam. Another bucket was pressed into his hands and he hurled that on, too.

  “Get more!” Anzo glanced at the would-be brawlers, still standing idle in distrust and shock. “Fools, help me!”

  So began a fight every bit as hard as the battle against the Faces. Anzo labored without thought, took one bucket, cast its comments into the mocking blaze, cast it aside, and accepted another. Twists of flame rose up the beams of the store house. Thatch and pitch smoked and burst, collapsed inward with a snarl like demons scenting blood. Anzo’s eyes seared with smoke and tears. The hair on his knuckles, along his arms crisped and fell away.

  It was hopeless from the beginning. Anzo knew, though he buried himself in the fight. The southwest wind, welcoming before with the faint taste of a half-forgotten home whipped up, feeding the conflagration. One of the men got the doors of the granary open, fell back shrieking. Within all was yellow-white inferno, blasting heat forth with a calamitous groan. The eyes withered in the sockets. Breath scoured the lungs. Carefully packed seedlings, allowed to dry through the long winter, flashed like bombs. A tinge of boiled fat joined the hot stink. Salted meat had caught. Twists of sack drifted up on the thermals in plumes of spark. The rooftop of the adjacent store house glimmered and caught.

  “I’ll get it,” a familiar voice jarred Anzo’s ear.

  Heathen led a pack of warriors and commoners to the next building, scaled the sides and went to work. Other parties were breaking off as cinders caught on houses. Crowds surged about. Anzo faintly heard Durrim’s voice and Theregond’s. The bellow of the blaze swallowed all.

  The work, the struggle went on.

  By dawn, a quarter of Caerigoth’s stores lay in ashes. A mighty plume of smoke scrawled the gray of early morning, loomed over the exhausted folk like a thunderhead. But the settlement was saved.

  Anzo was probably the last to give up. A woman handed him a bucket limply. When he turned to the fire, he realized they’d beaten it. But it had beaten them, too. Dejectedly, he let the buket drop, savored the cool prickle of its splash across the scorched thighs of his pants.

  In the shocked quiet of morn, anger was building.

  “They did it!” the storehouse guard was shouting. “I caught them breaking in!”

  “Lies!” Endus stood with his men of the night before, cringing together in a circle. Some of the elders were with him. They had weapons—had apparently not given them up through the long struggle against the inferno—but the mob congealing around had their number by ten-to-one.

  Durrim stepped from the crowd, smeared in soot, much of his blonde-red beard singed away. “Then tell us what you were doing.”

  Endus scowled at the chieftain. “You’ll make traitors of us.”

  “Your presence here already suggests that,” Durrim shot back. Growls darkened the mob around him. Swords were appearing, as were farm implements that could easily become weapons and stones large enough to stave in a skull. Flickers of movement along the palisades betrayed Arriaks sidling into position with bows.

  Endus glanced about, mouth working wildly, straw-blonde hair matted against a white mask of fear. “We didn’t start the fire.”

  “What were you doing?” Durrim repeated.

  “Checking on our rations.” Groans from the mob defied Endus’ attempt at explanation. He shook his head, whites of his eyes enormous. “You don’t understand! Any of you!” He stabbed a finger at Theregond, who was shouldering to the fore of the mob, to Durrim’s side. “He’s manipulating you all! He’s been holding back the food!”

  Theregond snorted. “A coward’s lies are always worst when he is caught in the act.”

  “Look for yourselves, then!” Endus flung out pleading arms to the crowd. “See for yourselves how much they hoarde to keep themselves fat, to provision their war machine for the spring!”

  Anzo wiped soot from his face, grimaced at the sting of minor burns on his brow and cheeks. He was so tired, so damned played out. Looking at Endus, a great, sickened fury began in his gut. “We would confirm your tale, but it appears your proof has gone up in flames.”

  “Orkall curse to you the Endless Hells, you little shit!” Endus screamed as his hand flew to his sword. “If there’s anyone we should suspect, it’s you!”

  Anzo realized he wasn’t wearing the blade of Enu Mbawa. It didn’t matter. Heathen drifted to his side. And Theregond was stalking forward.

  “You jeapordize us all,” Theregond rumbled as he approached the scrawny Hamrak noble. Endus brandished his sword before him and the King guffawed. “Point that poker somewhere else, little man. It will do you no good. I’ll gouge your eyes out with my thumbs!”

  “Wait.” Durrim put his hand on Theregond’s shoulder, eased the King back. “Not this way.”

  Theregond met the chieftain’s gaze. “Give them over to the mob?”

  “No.” Gravely, Durrim stared at Endus. “You were my father’s man, through many trials. That still has some worth—however small. You will not die here as dogs, as you deserve. No.” Durrim drew himself up to his full height. “You will get worse. You will no longer be Hamrak. You are nothing.”

  Endus quivered. “What are you saying?”

  “Leave.” Durrim’s face could have been the chiseled features of Orkall in the fire hall. “You and your kin are banished.”

  Appreciative grumbles rippled through the crowd. Endus cast about desperately. His men sagged behind him, energy leaving their faces, limbs and weapons dipping to the ground.

  “This is madness!” Endus bleated.

  “Yes, it is.” Durrim smiled without warmth. “It is madness to tolerate tra
itors in our midst one moment longer.”

  ***

  Noon came with overcast and drizzle, found Vhurrs crowding the gatehouse, the palisades, watching from rooftops and the camps of the surrounding fields. Endus and those nobles who’d openly supported him cantered through the gate, allowed their mounts, their weapons, and the clothes on their backs, as was the Hamrak way. A pitiful procession followed them out, a short string of wagons, full of the traitors’ dependants; crones, old men too weak to ride or walk, younger girls clutching babes to their arms to mute the whimpers of hunger and fear.

  Anzo and Heathen waited at Theregond’s side atop the walls, apart from Durrim and his entourage, who watched from the gatehouse. Sickness clenched in Anzo’s gut—pity, he supposed. The banished would find little solace in the wilderness, half-starved already. More, the small party of warriors, many of them well past their prime, would assuredly discover other treacheries. Anzo’s skin crawled as he noted Zulen and his Arriaks smirking from their vantage point on the far side of the walls.

  Endus wheeled from the head of his little column and trotted back to the grounds below the gatehouse, chin held high, courage born of despair.

  “What?” Durrim bit out at him.

  The banished nobleman pointed a finger to the wall, to Theregond. “His coming was the doom of us.” He scanned the Hamrak lining the palisade. “So, it will be for you all.”

  A rustle from the far side of the wall drew Anzo’s attention to Zulen. One of his Arriaks was handing him a bow, an arrow already knocked. Anzo hissed but Thergond had already noticed and glared at the wasteland chief until the lithe killer’s smile faded and he handed the weapon back.

  “You are nothing,” Durrim called down to Endus. “You will be denied fire, water, and food throughout our lands.” He turned to look across his people, raising his voice to a trembling pitch. “None will give them comfort on pain of death!” Shaking with fury, he turned back to look upon Endus. “You are no longer Hamrak. You are nothing.” Gathering his cloak about him, Durrim turned his back to the banished. His nobles followed the example. Across the walls, throughout the camps, as one Hamrak, Erevulan, and Arriak turned to face away from the condemned.

  Anzo didn’t bother. Heathen elbowed him. “What is it?”

  Endus was bowing his head, sagging in the saddle. A flicker of sun through the overcast caught the glint of tears on his narrow face. Slowly, he wheeled his mout around and followed his allies and kin into the distance.

  Anzo sighed. “They’re doomed. This wasn’t banishment.” He noticed Theregond’s sideways glance, the upwards arching of his eyebrow.

  “This was an execution.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Invitation of Darkness

  “Weasel.”

  Anzo jolted awake from the chair beside Varya’s bed, the side of his face numb from resting by her hand. Durrim stood in the doorway. Heathen was in the hall, rubbing bleary eyes. He’d gone back to his nightly vigils outside her chamber.

  Anzo pinched the bridge of his nose. “What?”

  The young chieftain waved him out into the hall. Anzo followed stiffly. “Theregond would see you.”

  Anzo glanced at Heathen. “Just me?”

  Durrim nodded.

  Gesturing for Heathen to take his place at Varya’s bedside, Anzo followed Durrim. He led him down into the main hall. Unexpectedly, the chieftain waved him onward and departed.

  The hall was surprisingly deserted. Shadow clenched about the rafters, bunched between support columns. The great fire had been allowed to settle in upon itself, a sullen, red glow limning empty feasting benches, jarring the quiet with an occasional pop or crackle of collapsing cinders.

  A stony tapping drew Anzo into the chamber. A form hunched at the base of the great statue of Orkall, still entwined in scaffolding and sheaths of canvas. As Anzo sidled between rows of tables and approached, the form grunted and rose from where it had knelt over the floor. Theregond turned and smiled at Anzo. The orb of Vaethin glimmered at his chest.

  “Weasel, join me.”

  As he approached Theregond, Anzo sensed movement. A shadow shifted between columns. Another slid across the upper levels with a flicker of steel and wisp of white hair. Anzo pretended not to notice, forced his fingers to avoid the handle of his weapon.

  Theregond regarded the floor, where he’d piled patterns of stones, one of his dioramas. “How does that look to you?”

  “More art to amuse the nobles, lord?”

  Theregond chuckled. “No. You don’t recognize it?” He took Anzo by the arm, led him around the display. “Maybe it’s a matter of orientation. Look at it this way, from south to north.”

  Anzo let his gaze settle on the improvised map. A river became obvious by an uneven gap between arranged stones. A curve near its middle butted into a long, piled mass that was clearly mountains. More stones sat at semi-regular intervals along the river. Almost like...

  Ice knifed through Anzo’s gut. “The Salient.”

  “Yes,” Theregond purred. “At least, that’s how the Aurids know it.”

  Sweat prickled at Anzo’s hair line. With effort, he forced himself not to wipe it free, forced calm. “Yes, they do.”

  “Where did you cross, when you fled them?”

  Biting back the howl of fear from the yawning chasm that’d opened in his guts, Anzo nudged the edge of the diorama. “Here...umm...well to the south. The Salient, itself, is heavily patrolled. There are many forts.”

  “I’ve seen them.” Theregond picked up another stone, set it along the Lydirian River. “Before the Aurid Emperor signed his pact with the Marovians, back when He sought peace with all Vhurrs, I went there with my father. They had thousands of warriors, all arrayed in their finest to impress us.”

  “And they still do,” Anzo said. He sensed the movement behind him again, felt it like cool fingers brushing his spine.

  “Perhaps.” Theregond stood and picked at his beard. “But they would not have bribed the Marovians if they thought they could keep so much of their own strength in place there.” He looked at Anzo. “Would they?”

  Anzo shifted on his feet. Out of the corner of his eye a patch of darkness coalesced into a black leather-clad figure. “I don’t know, lord. When I crossed it was my intent not to see any Imperial troops.”

  Theregond chortled. “I’m certain.” He pointed at the map. “My grandfather was there, once. Eighty years ago, during the Great Incursion. His tales were the stuff of sagas...and nightmares. Many of my ancestors left their bones on the other side of the Lydirian. My grandfather escaped with barely his personal retinue.” Thergond paced around the map. “The river was low with drought that year, so he told. In many places, they were able to cross on foot. The Aurid forces could not cover every ford.”

  “And yet they were beaten.” Anzo put a hand to his sword grip, could not bear the feeling of exposure with Arriaks at his back any longer.

  “Yes,” Theregond mused as he finished his circumnavigation of the diorama and came to stand at Anzo’s side again. “Yes, they were. My grandfather spoke of that, too, between curses. He said that the discipline was thing. That was what allowed the Aurids, even outmaneuvered and outnumbered, to bleed our Vhurrs so terribly and win in the end.”

  “It is.” Anzo nodded, the motion allowing him a quick glance about. A half dozen Arriaks were in the hall, Zulen amongst them, the chieftain with a naked blade. “You have a great many warriors, my King, but not many soldiers.”

  Theregond’s eyebrows arched. “A Vhurr can’t be a soldier?”

  Sweat glued Anzo’s palm to the bound leather handle of his sword. “With discipline, they can.”

  “And you’ve taught such to the Hamrak, haven’t you?” Theregond put his hand on Anzo’s shoulder, gripped it with barely-suppressed strength. “They were the hard block against which the Faces faltered, with your training. With your leadership.” His fingers squeezed. Anzo held back a wince. “I asked you once if you could teach the A
urid way of war to others. Can you do that? Can you lead?”

  Anzo licked his lips. His palate tasted of ash. “I can.”

  “Will you?”

  Metal sang faintly in the hall behind Anzo. He sensed Zulen and his Arriaks approaching.

  “I will.” Anzo looked Theregond in the eye. “But you knew that.”

  Theregond released his arm with a hard clap. “I did.”

  “Then call off the eastern trash.”

  Growls issued from the dark. A soft foot fall was Anzo’s only warning of a sword point touching the back of his neck.

  Theregond cackled. “Enough.” He waved and the steely kiss on Anzo’s flesh vanished. Zulen came from behind Anzo, sheathed his blade, and sauntered over to the base of the statue. He sat, was joined by his white-haired kin, glowering at Anzo. A flurry of liquid syllables filled the air. Theregond laughed again and nodded, replied in the same tongue.

  “I don’t think they like me,” Anzo growled.

  “Not at all.” Theregond clapped the scowling Zulen on the shoulder. “But I do. It’s why you’re still here.”

  Anzo took a breath and blew out terror that still clotted his nerves, clenched his heart, threatened to steal his thoughts. Plans within plans. Eyeloth was right. So was Varya. Aeydon, help me, we’ve got get out of— he glanced at Theregond, saw he was being watched —not now... He nudged the stones of the diorama. “Why this? Why now?”

  “Vaethin has told me.” Theregond’s hand went to the moon orb idol dangling at his chest. “And the signs are right. It will be as it was eighty years ago. Drought will lower the Lydirian. Our crossing will be assured.”