The City (17 page)

Then she felt firm ground under her boot heels, and she scrabbled for purchase. The person holding her let go and she fell on her behind in shallow water. She stood up, limbs shaking, and looked around. She had been carried to a small rise in the land, topped by two flat grey boulders. It was under water, but the flood was only knee-high and the tops of the boulders stuck out. She was surrounded by scores of half-drowned bedraggled warriors, stripped of their armour, their weapons and their strength.

‘All right?’ someone asked.

She looked round. It was the red-braided northlander who had sneered at her for being a servant.

‘Did you rescue me?’ she asked, frowning.

‘I saw Indaro drag you out of the water, but you both went under again. I saw you couldn’t swim.’

She found she still didn’t like him, though he had saved her life.

‘Thank you,’ she said, trying to sound heartfelt. She looked round. ‘Where’s Indaro?’

‘She’s all right. She’s over there.’ He pointed to the west and Doon saw Indaro kneeling beside an injured warrior. When Doon waved she nodded.

The northlander was turning away. Doon asked him, ‘Where’s your friend?’

‘I don’t know. I’m going to look for him.’

She realized his arm was bleeding. ‘You’re injured,’ she said.

He glanced down and shrugged.

‘I’ll help you find your friend,’ she offered, anxious to help him now.

He shrugged again, then nodded. ‘He answers to Malachi.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Stalker.’

The rain had stopped and the water was receding as she watched. She guessed the river was going back into its bed. As far as the eye could see there were huddled, dead and half-dead warriors, many wounded, most disorientated by the strength and ferocity of the flood. Corpses of men, women and horses floated in the deeper waters, all slowly making their way north, back to the river. Floundering among them were soldiers trying to make their way to safety. The higher ground where Doon stood was rapidly becoming crowded. Some had climbed up on the flat boulders and lay there as if drowned. Everyone
alive was covered with mud, and most of them were injured. It was as bad as the aftermath of any battle she’d seen.

Doon started picking her way among the living and the dead, staring into faces, trying to find the northlander Malachi. It was hard to recognize anyone under the layers of mud. She wondered if she would know Malachi if she saw him. She remembered he had short grey hair and was wearing a northlander’s variation on the red infantry uniform, embellished with a beaded belt and fur-edged waistcoat.

She found a woman she knew well, half conscious and in danger of drowning. She dragged her higher, then saw that the woman’s legs were crushed. She held her hand until she died, then stood and went on. The air was getting lighter and she could see better. She found she was walking on firm ground again. At last she found him. Malachi seemed uninjured, and he was binding another man’s leg in a splint. The injured soldier, a youngster, barely sixteen, was unconscious.

‘Is he alive?’ she asked, squatting down beside them.

Malachi glanced at her. ‘He passed out. It was a nasty break.’ He sat back and sighed. ‘Infection’ll probably kill him.’

‘Stalker’s looking for you.’

‘That old woman.’ Malachi grinned. ‘So you’re
his
servant now, are you?’ He stood up and looked around, as if searching for more wounded.

Doon flushed. She knew he was joking, but she was still irritated. She knew she had a reputation for humourlessness, so she managed a thin smile.

At that moment there was a sudden silence. The dull, mud-muffled sounds around her all stopped. Everything slowed. She saw Malachi stop and turn. He looked straight at her, his mouth moving. For a second more she could hear nothing. Then his words reached her, hollow and unreal.

‘They’re coming!’

She turned to the south and saw a line of warriors bearing down on them. They were charging through muddy water, which was slowing them, but they were still coming on. Doon stared for a moment, unwilling to believe her eyes. How could they be attacking? They’d been hit by the flood too. Then she cast around for a sword. All their weapons lay deep in mud and water. All she had on her was the knife at her waist.

A Blue far in front of the line came charging at her, shouting his battle chant, a spear aimed at her midriff. But he was sluggish, hampered by the slippery mud, and she swayed easily away from the spear point. He cannoned into her and she drove the knife in under his breastplate, then ripped sideways with all her strength. As he fell she grabbed his sword from its sheath.

It was a broadsword, too heavy for her, too long, but she held it steadily with both hands and advanced on the enemy. She sucked in her breath, then screamed her high ululating battle song. Malachi turned to her briefly and grinned, a sword ready in each hand. Then the wave of warriors hit them.

It was a battle such as she had never known before, a battle in slow motion. Both sides were handicapped by the water and thick sticky mud, but the Blues had somehow managed to get themselves armed and organized with astounding speed. The City warriors were groping around in the knee-deep water, trying to find swords, breastplates, spears and helms even as they were being attacked by waves of Blueskin soldiers.

Doon found that the plain they’d been fighting on for a year, apparently flat as a girdle cake, was in fact ridged and pitted. Under the churning water it was pocked with holes ready to trip and trap boots.

She saw two enemy warriors coming her way and lurched towards them, the heavy sword raised. The first Blue had not adapted to this slow battle and he tried to swing his sword at her head. His feet slithered in the treacherous mud and he stumbled to one knee. The other soldier planted his feet first before lancing his sword at Doon. She parried clumsily, then took one hand off her broadsword, grabbed her knife and thrust for his eyes. She missed and pierced his neck instead. Blood fountained and he fell, clasping the gaping wound. The first soldier was on his feet again. Doon lunged at him, but he sidestepped and parried the broadsword, sending a riposte which slammed into Doon’s jerkin, glancing off the heavy leather and missing her hip by a hair’s breadth. But the force of his blow unbalanced him and as he fought to get his feet under him she raised the big sword and brought it down on his unprotected head, shattering his skull.

Doon looked round for some idea of which direction the battle was going. It was impossible. Everyone was plastered with mud, and she
could not tell if someone was enemy or friend until they were close up. She had lost all sense of direction and had no idea whether her friends were in front of her or behind her. On top of that, the sun had come out again and a warm mist was rising all around.

Then relief flooded through her as she heard the familiar bellow, ‘Wildcats to me! Reds to me!’ Her heart soared. Fell Aron Lee was alive and rallying his troops!

Pausing only to pick up the two spare swords, she started making her way towards her commander’s voice.

Fell lay on his back in the darkness, hands clasped behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles, waiting for dawn. It was the height of summer, and he calculated he was facing due east, so when the sun rose it would appear between his boots. Not that he would still be resting by then. As soon as the sky started to lighten the Wildcats would prepare for the next enemy attack.

The sky was moonless, the air around him hot and black as pitch. His uniform was still damp against his skin, although half a day had passed since the deluge. Earlier in the night they had seen the pale blur of enemy campfires, but they had made no fires themselves. They were too exhausted to stand, to think, to do other than lie down where they were and sleep the sleep of the half-dead.

Fell stared ahead of him, hardly blinking, waiting for the first faint bluing of the black. He was trying to rest his body, for he had not slept. His mind was filled with strategies for surviving the day.

He had no idea what had happened to the rest of the Maritime army. All dead, maybe. Or fled. Perhaps other small groups had survived, defending themselves in a tight formation, like the hundred and four men and women lying around him in the night.

They had not stood a chance. The Blues had been on higher ground when the flood hit. And their commander, their general, whoever it was, had ordered an attack so quickly that the Reds had been swamped as thoroughly as the water had overwhelmed them moments before. Thousands died in the first hour. Thousands turned and fled back towards the City, chased by the triumphant enemy. Fell’s Wildcats had stood their ground on the small eminence with the poor defence of two low boulders. They had fought grimly, waiting out the day. By the time the sun fell and the enemy returned to their lines there were one hundred and four Wildcats left: sixteen were not expected
to survive the night, thirty-four were beyond fighting, forty-three walking wounded. Just eleven soldiers unhurt.

For the first hour or so of the short night he had considered retreating into the darkness, trying to put a few leagues between them and the enemy. But they were all too exhausted, too shocked by the total disintegration in one day of an army of twenty thousand warriors. And there were too many wounded. So he decided to hold the ground, relying on the boulders to give them limited cover, and see what another day would bring: perhaps reinforcements from the City, perhaps word that another company lay close by, ready to link up with them. Fell realized bleakly that his decision had probably condemned them all to death. But he could not leave so many wounded.

He thought he detected a slight lifting of the blackness. He blinked the grit out of his eyes and peered. Yes, he thought, another day is dawning.

‘Garvy.’

‘Sir.’ The voice was close, a little pained. Garvy had a dislocated shoulder. It had been wrenched back into place and the arm strapped securely against his chest, but he was unlikely to have had any sleep.

‘How’s that shoulder?’

‘Fine, sir.’

‘Give me the numbers.’

He heard Garvy carefully stand. And as if permission had been given, there were suddenly sounds all around: shifting bodies, coughing, spitting and groans as his soldiers awoke and faced the new day. There were some moans and cries of pain. It was a bad day to be already wounded. Only eleven unhurt, he thought. May the gods of ice and fire help us today.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t recognize the voice.

‘Jonas J is dead, sir.’

‘Tell Garvy. He’s making a count.’

Soon he could make out shapes against the lightening horizon. The sky was velvety blue and he could see lines of pink and red low in the east. He groped around and found the water skin beside him and took a deep swallow. He found his breastplate, then he stood up, brushing down his mud-caked uniform. Garvy moved alongside him. He could see the white bandage.

‘Fourteen died in the night.’

‘Move the bodies into the enemy’s path.’

‘Sir?’

‘The first wave might stumble over them in the dark. Move the remaining wounded close together between the boulders. Any deserters?’

‘No, sir.’

Despite everything, pride rose in Fell’s breast. Not one deserter. Every soldier had elected to stay and fight, fight for his friends, rather than slip away into the night.

He nodded curtly, not trusting himself to speak, and Garvy moved away. Soon there was a sense of purpose in the camp as bodies were carried out into the line the enemy would take, and the surviving wounded were moved closer together behind the wall of remaining fighters.

Fell cleared the dust from his throat. ‘Wildcats. Eat and drink when you can. They’ll be on us soon.’

He had no orders to give them. Survive if you can. Fight to the death if you can’t. No use telling anyone that. He picked up his sword and felt the edge with his thumb. Blunt and chipped.

He heard a woman’s cry behind them, among the wounded, and thought of Indaro. He had last seen her defending two wounded soldiers, faithful Doon at her side. She was unhelmed and her red hair shone like molten copper in the sunlight. Her face was calm, focused; no fear, no doubt. He thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. If I survive this, he thought …

‘They’re coming!’ cried a voice, tight with fear. And the new day began.

There were no cavalry, at least. Fell was grateful for that. Perhaps the Blueskins lost all their horses or riders in the flood. Or, more likely, the cavalry were busy on a more important mission than wiping out a small band of Red stragglers. Did that mean the rest of the army was still fighting somewhere? Fell hoped so. If the Third Maritime were destroyed the City would be vulnerable to the south and east.

The enemy wasted no time on light infantry either. Now the ground was dry again and hardening quickly under the sun, they sent in heavy infantry, headed by the huge dark-skinned men from the forests of Mulan, armoured in thick metal from head to knees.
The City warriors knew them well, and called them beetles. The only way to kill them was to hamstring them first, or to get a blade between the two sheets of armour that met under the arm, or slide it down under the high collar. If you could get in close enough and avoid their axes and broadswords. Though they were heavy, they were still fast.

Fell, at the head of his warriors, ran at the first beetle, dodged the flying axe and, with a yell, leaped in the air and slammed his blunt sword on the top of the man’s helm. The sword broke, but the sound inside the metal helm must have been prodigious, and the beetle paused. In that second Fell rammed his knife into the gap at the armpit. He twisted it, seeking the heart. The beetle fell, stone dead, and the Reds cheered.

Someone threw him a new sword and the battle started.

Fell had killed three more beetles and the sun had risen in the sky before he realized he was injured. It was his left arm, not his sword arm. He dropped back for a few moments to check the wound, to make sure he was not going to bleed to death. Two of his men stepped forward to cover him. He pulled cotton wadding out of the pouch at his side and stuffed it in the wound, pulling his sleeve down over it to hold it in place.