Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (75 page)

‘Men of the so-called “Second Army”: I am Commandant Ullyn Siburnius of the Holy Inquisition and I am here to discharge the will of General Kaltus Korion, Commander of the Third Crusade!’

Not a sound greeted his voice as it echoed through the ranks like a slap to the tanned, rough faces that stared back at him.

Undaunted, he went on, ‘General Kaltus Korion wishes the following to be known: firstly, that all men who fled the battlefield of Shaliyah face charges of desertion. I have been given commission of a Court-Martial to ascertain the rectitude of the charges. Those found guilty of cowardice and abandonment of post will face the lottery of decimation: one in ten will die by the garrotte, in front of the rest.’

There were disbelieving gasps from the ranks, but his stentorian voice rose above the dissent. ‘Secondly, any who have taken to wife an Antiopian will be executed with that wife. Such unions are forbidden by Imperial decree!’ He paused, looked down his noses at the men of the Thirteenth and called, ‘The executions will begin this afternoon.’

The massed rankers shouted angrily or gaped. Those of Pallacios Thirteen, decimated for rioting twelve years ago, were the loudest. All along the lines, the Lost Legions’ rankers began hurling abuse and defiance at the stone-faced Inquisitors.

‘Furthermore,’ Siburnius called, ‘I am here to arrest the imposter, your false commander! He claims to be a Korion, but he is the progeny of Laetitia Fetallink’s adultery, legally disavowed wife of Kaltus Korion. He is charged with desertion, collusion with the enemy, falsely claiming kinship of a peer, falsely claiming the right to command, and unnatural relations with the enemy commander. The penalty for each and every charge is
death
!’

A hush fell over the camp, a collective sucking-in of breath.

Ramon saw Seth swallow, saw him trying to speak and failing, caught up in the bombardment of emotions at the charges.

Siburnius went on relentlessly, ‘Furthermore, Ramon Sensini, the imposter’s partner-in-crime, is hereby charged with conspiracy against the Holy Inquisition, conspiracy to defraud the Imperial Treasury, false issuance of Imperial Treasury notes, theft of Imperial funds, speaking calumny against Emperor Constant and his Mother, the Living Saint Lucia Sacrecour, collusion and fornication with the enemy, the purchase and trafficking of opium, and desertion on the field of battle.’

Well, he’s done his research,
Ramon acknowledged.
But who told him all that?

‘All other Second-Army magi are charged with conspiracy against Emperor Constant, collusion with the enemy and desertion. All must surrender their periapts and submit to the Rune of the Chain.’

He paused, then added, ‘Any man who comes forward with evidence against these accused will be given immunity from retribution.’

So: sell out your commanders and you’ll walk free.

The lines fell silent as the rankers looked at each other, and then at Seth. General Jongebeau’s men were deployed on the high ground above, less than half their own numbers, but with legal authority on their side. It was one thing to propose it, but men did not fight against their own easily, especially when it would condemn them for the rest of their lives. Their faces were pale and sickly as they contemplated the choices before them.

Either we capitulate to this travesty and lose every married man and his wife, and a tenth of the remainder . . . or we resist, and condemn every single one of us.

The rankers were staring up at Seth, awaiting some kind of response. But he looked stunned by the sheer effrontery of the commandant and his vicious accusations, clearly calculated by Siburnius to overwhelm the rankers, and break their trust in their commander. His fragile confidence was visibly collapsing.

Our plans are set
, Ramon thought,
but will Seth go through with them?

A mental contact drew his eyes to one of the Inquisitors, standing fearlessly before them: the grey-haired woman Alis Nytrasia, with her young scar-faced shadow, whose name he’d never learned.

Nytrasia met his eyes coolly and her voice crackled into his skull:

She waited until his heart froze, then added,

His insides churned and all his stratagems collapsed into terror for his precious little girl.

Nytrasia smirked.

Severine had known everything: the promissory notes; the death-camps; Ardijah . . . everything. But the loudest sound in his head was a high-pitched wail:
Julietta!

Nytrasia’s face was pitiless.

*

Seth’s world was collapsing in slow motion around him. He looked sideways, saw at a glance that Ramon was no better, his normally assured face ashen and wavering, and that shook him more than his own fears. He
needed
Sensini, and without his visible assurance, the plans they’d laid seemed to fold into nothing. There was no ground beneath his feet any more, and the cliff-edge was out of reach.

An act of war against our own people? Treason and inevitable death, or exile?

Or submission, to save as many as I can?

But a glance to his right showed him Fridryk Kippenegger. The young Schlessen giant wasn’t speaking aloud, but Seth could hear his mind, sending a rant of defiance to his own cohorts arrayed behind him.

His men were boiling up towards violence. Seth felt like he had no control any more, over any of this. His eyes went back to Siburnius. The man’s arrogance made his blood simmer, but his flesh was trembling.
I’m a Korion
, he told himself, but even that felt like a lie now.
Am I really not his? Is that why I’m so scared?

Siburnius read surrender in his face and turned to the rankers with all the unthinking arrogance of his rank and order. ‘You will commence disarming! I want your officers to—’

‘Hey, big man!’ someone with a rough Tockburn accent shouted from amidst the press of the Pallacios Thirteen rankers, ‘shut yer flappin’ arsehole! Y’en’t in charge o’ nuffink out ’ere!’ Seth thought he recognised the foul mouth of one of Ramon’s guard cohort: Bowe, was it? A chorus of abuse rose in support of the ranker. ‘Y’en’t our general! Our general’s
Seth bloody
Korion
, so ye can jus’ fuck off back to where ye came from!’

Siburnius frowned quizzically and then lifted a hand, gnosis-light shimmering. ‘The next man to voice dissent will have his lungs pulled out through his mouth,’ he bellowed.

A deafening crescendo rose as if the cork had popped on a fermenting bottle of abuse: fury and defiance exploded among the men who had marched across half a continent and weren’t about to be told that they’d deserted and consorted and betrayed. They’d seen their commanders’ mettle and believed in them: they weren’t going to submit meekly to decimation, or bare the necks of their Khotri wives to the knife before going quietly themselves. They were fighting men, willing to die rather than submit, even when faced with the most feared warriors in the empire.

And now they were spoiling for that fight.

‘Hey, Fisters! Get the Hel outta here!’

‘You wanna taste o’ this? You wan’ some steel, Quizzy man? Come’n get it!’

‘We’ll fuckin’ dec’mate you, ye cunni!’

The air fizzed and crackled about Seth as wards and shields burgeoned, and he realised he’d lost control of this – and so had Siburnius. The commandant had come to cow mere mortals, like a barking dog snapping at the heels of a herd of kine, only to find that these cattle had sharp horns and hooves.

But to Siburnius they were still just cattle. Inflexibility had been ingrained into him every day of his life as an Inquisitor – and had probably been part of his make-up from birth anyway. Perhaps if he had hesitated, the moment might have been defused, but that wasn’t in his nature: as he went for his sword, all down the row of Inquisitors shields flared and newly drawn steel glinted in the sun.

*

Ramon Sensini stared at Alis Nytrasia.
—
! I’ll come, I swear!>
he begged, while he mentally readjusted his plan, seeking a way out of this that might see his daughter live, and her mother too.

The cold-faced Inquisitor glanced at the scar-faced young man beside her and said, <
Hear that, Perle? He’s folding. Make sure he comes to us.>

Perle told Ramon
.

Ramon nodded stiffly. His mind was swirling at the building violence. There was no stopping it now, and no way he could guarantee anyone’s safety.
They’ve got Julietta and Severine . . . where? Where would they hold her? In the main camp, or away from it?
If he were in Nytrasia’s boots, he’d have had some mechanism to ensure that the prisoners died if she did – but would that even occur to an invincible Inquisitor?

Probably not.
He raised his hands, as if about to yield.

He’d forgoten that was also the signal to get ready to fight.

Nytrasia smirked in triumph.

Ramon was as stunned as anyone by what happened next.

‘Take this ya fuckers!’ screamed a familiar voice, and a javelin flew. As it shattered on the Inquisitor’s shields, all the fury and pent-up violence broke forth. Siburnius’ eyes blazed as gnosis-light coruscated on both sides: first defensive spells only, then mage-bolts flashed, mostly around Seth, whose shields flashed with fire. Ramon redoubled his own wards as he tried to melt through the press, and with a cry of rage, Siburnius raised his hands and launched a gout of blue fire.

The Fist, moving as one, blasted at Seth’s magi, Ramon included; the world ignited, brilliant and deadly, and their shields went scarlet and were torn apart. The rankers shouted in terror, but all round the square they surged forward, the air full of sweat and dread and clamour. Ramon shielded again desperately as he hauled his little mare sideways, Lu somehow keeping her footing as three of his fellow magi went down, the Brevians Sordan and Mylde scythed in half, the Brician Runsald screaming as he fell to some unseen blow. The gaps they left were filled with blazing gnosis-bolts that struck the rankers behind them.

Ramon saw Nytrasia take aim at him, fended her first attack with difficulty, then ducked in behind Seth.
He’s a rukking pure-blood, let him shield!

From the corner of his eye he saw General Jongebeau haul his khurne around on a tight rein, backing away from the line of Inquisitors towards his battle-magi.

Trumpets sounded and someone screamed, ‘
CHARGE!
’ and the legionaries on the slope began to pour down the hill.

Siburnius’s Inquisition Fist were gathered in a group to share their shielding. Javelins and crossbow bolts shattered around them as they used blasts of mage-fire and kinesis with fatal effect, driving back the rankers trying to reach them, or leaving them charred and dead.

The small knot of Lost Legions magi still standing were gathered around Seth and Jelaska. Pinned back by the overwhelming power of the Inquisitors, all they could do was defend. Ramon saw Hulbert, the Hollenian Water-mage whose skills had been vital in getting Jelaska’s sortie into Ardijah, crumple under a mental attack and topple, then Lysart, beside him, who’d been relying on Hulbert to cover his flank, took a blast of fire, shrieked and fell. The shields around Seth were turning scarlet again, on the verge of breaking, and even Jelaska looked desperate.

Ramon couldn’t see Kip anywhere; he prayed he’d stayed with his maniple.

Then someone shouted and as the men of his own cohort dropped to the ground, Ramon realised that he’d forgotten to give the next signal, but reliable Lukaz had ordered the second volley anyway.

As the cohort cleared the line of sight, the two ballistae they’d hidden under canvas were given their chance. The serjants shouted the order and two six-foot-long shafts were hurled at the Inquisitors from mere yards away.

A God of War couldn’t have aimed them better.

One shaft blasted straight through their interlocked shielding, plucked Ullyn Siburnius from his horse and slammed him into the man behind, an Acolyte who found himself with the honour of dying impaled on the same shaft as his commander. The other ripped through the body of one man and then the hip of another, snapping their spines and all but tearing them in half.

Four of the Fist were gone in an eye-blink, and their linked shields were wrecked.

An instant later, before they had a chance to rebuild their defences, the tripod crossbows started firing into the press.

A heavy crossbow could punch through steel – Ramon had seen it at Shaliyah. He saw it again here as the withering hail of bolts flashed into the massed Church knights and tore them apart. Many missed or were deflected by the fraying shields, but enough went through to cause havoc. Two punctured the breastplate of Siburnius’s second-in-command and dropped him beneath the rearing khurnes; if he wasn’t dead already, the scything hooves of the terrified constructs would do the rest. One Inquisitor had his shoulder pierced, while his khurne was shot from beneath him. And two bolts hammered straight into Perle’s belly. He coughed blood and slumped, then fell to the ground as his khurne went mad with terror.

So did Alis Nytrasia. She howled like a bereft orphan and then, her gaze locked on Ramon, erupted in fire – then a javelin glanced off her shoulder, spinning her around. Ramon conjured mage-fire, but someone grabbed him and pulled him back as his cohort plunged into the mass of dead and dying Inquisitors, yelling triumphantly.

It was big, dumb Trefeld. ‘Stay safe, sir!’ the young ranker said. ‘They’re ours!’ Then he was gone too.