Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (17 page)

The wait was interminable. Food was passed along the lines, tiny leaf-bowls of spiced rice and chicken, which some managed to keep down, but others with nervous stomachs couldn’t, adding the stench of vomit to the foetid air. It was a huge relief when the signal came and they trooped silently into corridors lined first with storage chambers and then habitable quarters. A dead Dhassan servant lay in a pool of blood just inside a side-corridor, and Kazim heard others locked behind closed doors they passed.

The attackers mustered in a large underground chamber that had huge doors in each wall. It was completely empty, except for the tapestries and banners of the Ordo Costruo. Gatoz ordered groups before each door, organising multiple launching points for the assault. ‘The magi are above us in the great hall,’ he told Jamil. ‘The fools elected Rene Cardien over Rashid.’ Kazim heard the satisfaction in his voice. ‘Tonight we sup on magi’s blood.’ Kazim didn’t think he was speaking metaphorically. ‘We move in two minutes.’

All eyes went to the door ahead as Gatoz went through it, only to return seconds later; he put a finger to his lips and waved them forwards. Kazim wished he’d taken the time to pee. A thousand fears surfaced – that this was a trap, that the magi were completely aware of their incursion and waiting to strike. He prayed as he had that night in Meiros’ house, for the courage to strike when he must.
These are magi, they can incinerate armies. If Rashid has miscalculated we are dead.

They found themselves at the base of a wide spiral staircase and Gatoz waved them up. He briefly caught Kazim’s eye, but there was little hint of recognition.
The bastard would rather I died in this
, Kazim thought. He gripped his scimitar tighter.
Well, I won’t die
. They padded
onwards, upwards, then someone shouted aloud in Rondian and there came a faint roaring sound.

Jamil caught his arm. ‘Stay with me brother!’ Their eyes met, and Kazim could read all the decades of hatred there. Jamil was normally a coldly dispassionate fighter, but today was different: today he was being given the chance to strike directly at the enemy he hated and feared most: the magi. ‘Ahm is great!’ he cried. ‘Tonight we dine with magi or with God!’

‘Forward! Ma’sha Ahm!’ Gatoz roared from below. ‘Ma’sha Ahm!’

God’s will be done
.

The tramp of feet became a roll of thunder, battle-cries boiled through the air and a vivid blast of light flashed within the rooms above.

‘Onwards,’ called Jamil, his arms raised as they topped the stairs and found a courtyard. A thin line of Rondian soldiers formed before them, their faces white with fear. The invaders surged forwards, but before they reached the enemy line all of the windows above blew out with a tremendous crack, showering the defenders with glass. Kazim saw one go down shrieking, speared by a foot-long shard of window; another was taking aim at him with a crossbow when he jerked and fell as something like lightning flew from Jamil’s hand. Almost subconsciously he opened his gnosis-sight. If he willed, it he could probably do just as Jamil had done – but he shied from using his stolen power, despite the energies crackling inside.

It’s what Sabele and Rashid want me to do: surrender to the power. I refuse.

He reached the thin enemy line almost before he was ready, carried forward by the momentum of the charge. He battered aside a spear with his shield-rim and thrust his scimitar into a soldier’s neck, sent him writhing to the ground with blood spurting skywards in a scarlet spray. Another loomed behind and launched a clumsy overhand blow. He blocked it easily, counter-slashing across the man’s face, and watched him drop before leaping through a gap after Jamil, then spinning to smash his shield into the back of a Rondian crossbowman’s neck. He heard bones crack as the man arched his back and he went down. Kazim’s blood was up now. Weapons flashed
on all sides, grazing his arms, his side. A helm flew free, revealing a boy not even twenty who looked at Kazim numbly as his blade punctured his chest, then his eyes emptied as he sagged to the stone.

Just a kid …

There was no time to dwell on it. Jamil blasted open a door and Kazim leapt through, his curved blade crashing against the straight sword of an officer, a portly man with a shaggy moustache. He was out of shape, foolish-looking, and Kazim flicked through the man’s defences in a moment, slashing open his throat then spinning away even as his enemy fell choking, only to almost die transfixed on two spears determinedly wielded by two men working in concert.

But Jamil fired a bolt of light into the nearest of them, his shriek echoing in the marble hall, and a Keshi man leapt ahead of them both, a howling dervish singing a hymn to Ahm. He almost beheaded the first spearman, the one Jamil had burned, then the second buried his spear in the Keshi’s chest. The Rondian released the spear and drew his sword. He looked at Jamil, his eyes terrified.

‘Magus?’ he croaked, backing up. On the ground the dervish choked his life away like a spitted fowl.

‘Mine,’ Kazim shouted. He leapt and swung, forcing the man to block high, then low. To his credit, the Rondian swiftly countered, a blow Kazim barely parried, and went for him again with a bloodcurdling yell. Kazim feinted a slash, then resolved into a straight thrust, his weight half-forward, and the Rondian took the scimitar in his thigh. He stumbled, and the rest was butchery. Jamil surged past and Kazim was borne along in a crowd of Keshi fighting men.

The far door revealed stairs, and a roar like thunder carrying from above, together with the screams of men and women, magi fighting magi.

The thought of wading into that maelstrom made Kazim waver, but Jamil pulled him aside. ‘We follow the first wave, brother. Don’t get caught in the front!’ Then he raised his voice and bellowed, ‘Up the stairs! Kill them all! God is great!’

The Keshi flooded upwards, whipped on by Jamil’s shouts. For maybe half a minute they ran unimpeded, then they recoiled and
stopped. ‘On! On!’ Jamil shouted, searing the air over his men’s heads. ‘On!’

The mass of men lurched slowly forwards again as the clash of steel reverberated above.

Kazim found himself pushed upwards in a sweating, heaving press as they stumbled into a cloudy miasma of heat and burned meat. Something rumbled, and the whole building shook. He shoved the man in front of him, frightened to be so enclosed, while he in turn was pushed by a fat Keshi warrior with a spear and no helm.

Suddenly a flying shape swooped down the stairwell, a white-skinned woman in an apricot ballgown, her pale hair unbound. Gems glistened on her fingers and throat, and the air about her crackled with light. A wash of fire jetted from her hands and charred a group of Keshi on the stairs. A male magus joined her, holding a crossbow that spat bolts every few seconds. The Keshi hurled spears that clattered harmlessly against unseen shields, then the man in front of Kazim took a crossbow bolt in his chest that punched straight through him and pinned him to Kazim’s shield. He lost the shield as the man fell. The magus was looking right at him as he fired again, but he dropped, and the fat man behind him took the bolt through his right eye. A recoil of fear ran through the press of men, who started tumbling down the stairs, tripping those who came behind.

Kazim looked up as the magus alighted on the balustrade and backhanded a man across the throat; his bare hand severed the Keshi man’s spine. Behind him, the woman poured flames down the stairwell, and then gaped in surprise as Jamil threw a bolt back at her. It rebounded against her shields and she cried, ‘Another traitor magus!’ Her voice was outraged.

Kazim saw the man had heard her, but his attention was on him and a steely grip fastened onto his mind.

he heard the man command him, an attack that should have frozen him in place, helpless. But he’d had just enough training; it sufficed to repel the blow, then he countered, leaping forward and slamming into the unseen shielding. The force of his blow knocked the man from his perch and he floated away and hovered a few feet from the balustrade,
eyeing Kazim warily. ‘Here’s another!’ he shouted to the woman as he kindled blue fire at his fingertips and readied another strike.

Suddenly someone below shouted ‘Charge!’ and men pelted up the stairs, renewing the assault and sweeping Kazim along with them. While he was trying to keep his feet, the mage flowed alongside, pouring bolts of energy towards him that struck the oncoming soldiers instead, dropping them to be pounded by the feet of those behind. For a nightmarish few seconds Kazim dodged and ducked and watched others die in his stead – then the female mage below screamed, and the man was gone, bellowing in rage.

Kazim shoved through the crowd of men and looked down the stairwell to see the pale-haired girl twisting in desperation on the shaft of a spear that entered her belly and emerged from her back. Even as he watched she went limp, and plummeted. The other mage wailed and swatted spears and Jamil’s energy bolts aside as he tried to reach her. He wasn’t looking up.

Kazim didn’t think it through; he just leapt.

Luckily, the mage’s shield was too depleted to repulse Kazim’s full weight; he was leading with his blade, and thrust through the man’s back, his blade piercing the ornate evening coat and emerging through the middle of his chest. His full body impacted a split-second later. The mage grunted and dropped like a stone, and Kazim shouted in triumph. They struck, and his blade snapped as he rolled clear – straight into a pillar. His head cracked the stone in a single blaze of white light, then blackness enveloped him.

*

He woke to the sound of rejoicing. The very earth shook as men jumped and shouted, and pummelled the ground with sword-hilts and spear-butts.

‘RASHID! RASHID! RASHID!’

He tried to rise, and then abruptly rolled over and vomited instead. He was lying beside the stairwell, amidst a pile of wounded Keshi.
We must have won
, he thought, though his head felt like nails of bone were jabbing his brain. He tried twice before he could stand, then clambered painfully up the stairs looking for Jamil. Men he didn’t
know thumped him on the back excitedly as they passed him, and cheers rained down from the next floor in torrents. ‘RASHID! RASHID! RASHID!’ he heard as he climbed over still-warm bodies, past dying men. The steps were too slippery to walk on, and he found himself climbing. Every wall was blackened, every window shattered. Torn bodies lay everywhere, and blood smeared every inch of the floor. Most of the dead were Keshi, but some still lived, moaning, crying, screaming for help, though no one heeded.

‘RASHID! RASHID! RASHID!’

Inside the great hall, men danced, and wept and hugged each other.

Kazim staggered inside, and all of a sudden heard, ‘Kazim! Kazim!’ Jamil staggered to his side, grimed in ash and blood, but very much alive. Kazim felt an intense surge of relief. Jamil held a half-full decanter of amber fluid. ‘Brandy!’ he yelled, as if it were some nectar of the gods. Perhaps it was. They embraced like brothers.

Jamil looked him over concernedly, and then tipped brandy straight onto the cut where he’d struck the pillar, making him squeal in sudden pain. Jamil gave a gleeful laugh as Kazim seized the decanter and swigged. He had never tasted anything so potent, so delicious.

‘I’ll take you to a healer, brother.’ Jamil patted his shoulder.

Kazim looked about him, at the dying Keshi warriors with wounds far more severe. ‘It’s nothing,’ he grunted. ‘These men need help more.’

Jamil blinked. ‘They are not magi. You are more important.’

‘Since when do Amteh revere magi?’

Jamil snorted. ‘Relax, brother: we have won! The power of Shaitan is broken and Antonin Meiros’ Ordo Costruo is no more!’

‘How did it happen, in the
real
fight?’

Jamil rolled his eyes. ‘You’re determined to be miserable about this, aren’t you, boy? How? Through the hidden blow! Over the years Rashid won over nearly half of them, and they were ready. Cardien’s pure-bloods still believed that peace would prevail, so they were unprepared. A sudden strike turned the balance our way, though we
still faced many of the mightiest. Alone, Rashid and his faction would have perished, but then we good soldiers of Ahm joined the fray.’ Jamil’s face became sober. ‘We threw men at them by the hundred: martyrs to Ahm, drawing their fire, soaking up their strength. I myself slew the fire-witch in the stairs, and then you, may Ahm bless and keep you, leapt upon that maniac air-mage. Many more such deeds were needed, but we broke them. The remnant were captured.’ He pointed to a cluster of Rondians, mostly women, surrounded by Keshi brandishing naked blades. There were perhaps two dozen of them.

‘How many died?’

Jamil cocked his head. ‘Eh? We killed twenty-seven magi.
Twenty-seven!
And captured twenty-three for our breeding-pens! We slew fifty of their soldiers. Such a victory is unheard of.’

‘And our losses?’

Jamil shrugged. ‘Around three hundred dead, brother, including thirty of my kindred. Nineteen of Rashid’s Ordo Costruo adherents perished – a lot of death.’ Then he grinned fiercely. ‘But it is a victory, brother.’

Kazim stared at the prisoners, sitting terrified amidst the carnage and the savage celebrations. Their periapts had been taken, and most bore wounds.
We killed twenty-seven and they slew more than three hundred of us, yet this is victory?
They were magi, though – and no longer invincible.

He studied the captives, most of whom were female, seeing their hollow-eyed disbelief, the absolute dread and despair. One terrified girl, maybe fifteen years old, clung to the arm of an older woman who met his gaze with cold fearlessness. For some reason he felt a sense of loss wash over him. He was surprised to realise not all were white – several were of olive hue, including one stunning woman with dark skin and pale hair who was the subject of a bidding war between several Hadishah magi. He drew on the remnants of Meiros’ memories … Odessa d’Ark. She glared about her like a dethroned queen.

These were Meiros’ people, the Bridge-Builders. They created the palace, the aqueducts …
He could name them, thanks to Meiros’ own memories that still haunted him. He turned away.