The Crown of the Usurper (17 page)

  There was a cough and a scuff of feet from Muuril. Ullsaard looked at the sergeant and then turned his attention back to Lutaan with a smile.

  "My Companion, Sergeant Muuril," said Ullsaard, nodding towards the man. "You had something you wished to say, sergeant?"

  "How many?" Muuril asked quietly, looking at Lutaan.

  "How many what?" replied the first captain.

  "How many of your men do you think you'll save if we surrender now?" The sergeant was fearless, glaring at Lutaan from the shadow of his helm's brim. The commander of the Twenty-first looked up at the villa and then turned to gaze back at his army, still marching into its positions.

  "Three hundred," said Lutaan. His assessment was delivered in a deadpan tone. "Most of the people in the village couldn't count past their fingers, but a conservative estimate from what they said would place your numbers at a hundred. Probably less. I think you could take down three times that number before I have control of that building."

  Muuril nodded and Ullsaard could sense the veteran's respect. The Companion stepped closer and his voice was still quiet and level.

  "What if I make it my personal duty to make sure you're one of those three hundred?"

  "Personal threats are worthless, sergeant," said Lutaan, unflustered as he looked up into the Companion's rugged face. "You know that the battle will have long been decided before I approach the compound."

  "I would serve a captain like you, but for one reason," said Muuril, chuckling to himself.

  "You
can
serve a captain like me; you'd be welcomed back to the Twenty-first, Sergeant Muuril. It was a shame you had to leave."

  "And that's the problem I have, you see. I couldn't fight for a traitorous, arse-licking, honourless cunt."

  This finally garnered a reaction from Lutaan, who stepped back, lips twitching. It took a moment for the first captain to compose himself, and he then directed his gaze to Ullsaard.

  "There's no need to hurry this," said Lutaan. "I'll be attacking tomorrow, probably about the third hour of Dawnwatch, I reckon. I'm sure you'll still be waiting for me."

  "Take all the time you like, we're not going anywhere," replied Ullsaard. "Be sure to look your men in the eyes when you get the chance, and tell them why they'll be dying tomorrow. See if you can guess which three hundred are going to fall."

  "This is not my first dance, Ullsaard. The men in my legion aren't like the Thirteenth. They fight because I pay them to, and I have promised them a healthy reward for their victory tomorrow." Lutaan held open his cloak, showing the fur lining. He held up his other hand, gold rings set with rubies and emeralds on his fingers. "Remember when you offered us Askh? You gave the legions the capital to make their whore and their payday, and we conquered the empire for you. Remember when you promised the empire all of the wealth of Salphoria? Well the Fifth did their share of conquering there too. I've done very well for myself. Certainly well enough for a few thousand askharins for my men. It doesn't matter a fuck to them who wears the Crown."

  Lutaan turned and strode back towards his retinue, cloak and crest flowing in the wind.

  "Stupid bastard don't understand at all," said Muuril. "Loyalty, honour, the pride of a legion. He thinks it's just about the pay and the loot?"

  "No, he's right," said Ullsaard as he untied Blackfang and swung himself into the saddle. "This is my doing, I have to fix it."

  Muuril darted a questioning look at his king, but Ullsaard offered no extra explanation. He was not in the mood, because Lutaan, intentionally or not, had made the king realise what he had done over the past few years. It reminded him of words spoken by his old mentor, Cosuas, not long before Ullsaard had killed him. The king had not paid them much heed at the time, or since, but now they rose up from his memories as a form of moral indigestion.

  He could remember Cosuas, his old, lined faced streaked with rain, standing in a puddle at the gate of a farm. Ullsaard had asked what Cosuas owed to Lutaar and the aging general had replied that he owed the king his allegiance.

  "All you've done is reduce the empire to a bauble that men can scrap and claw at each other over."

  Damning words, ignored for so long, but they came back to haunt Ullsaard. How had Cosuas been so prophetic? Were Urikh's treachery and the negotiable loyalty of Lutaan simply the saplings of the seeds Ullsaard had sown when he had usurped the Crown?

  He rode up the hill, noting how long it would take Lutaan's men to cover the same distance en masse. Ullsaard looked up at the men of the Thirteenth visible on the tower and at the gate. They would give their lives, not altogether gladly but of their free will and for a purpose more than just financial, to see him victorious come the battle. The Thirteenth, and the Fifth and so many others who had stuck with Ullsaard throughout the civil war and the Salphorian campaign, would slowly become something else.

  He had to win, to stop the decline that he had started. Ullsaard had not appreciated the true consequences of his actions when he had cut the head from Lutaar, but the discovery that the old king had simply been a physical vessel for the spirit of Askhos had just been the start of Ullsaard's woes. He had dealt a wound to Greater Askhor; it was festering and would kill the empire if he did not do something to stop the spread of the taint. As king he could ensure the legions remained true to their origins, and that the governors and the people found a new respect for the authority of the Blood. Ullsaard would make the Crown mean something again, and restore the pride that his actions had tarnished.

 

Under the cover of darkness, the men of the Twenty-first had been busy during the night. As Captain Gelthius lit another watch candle and Sergeant Muuril called out the second hour of Duskwatch, flickers of flame sprang into life in the fields lying to coldwards and duskwards of the compound. The prevailing winds came down from the mountains and swept out onto the plains, and this morning was no different, bringing the first smell of smoke to the villa.

  Climbing up to the spear thrower gantry, Gelthius could see in every direction. He stopped counting the fires at thirty. Green branches and leaves make the smoke dark and thick, and it was coming in thicker and thicker clouds as the bonfires grew in ferocity. He turned about and looked hotwards at the lake. It was impossible to see anything in the darkness, but the lamps of the sentries were still lit, shining yellow along the shore. If they saw or heard anything amiss, they would sprinkle firedust into the lanterns, turning the light to a warning red. It was not a perfect system – an arrow from the darkness might fell a guard before he knew there were enemy close at hand – but it was better than having a man trying to yell the alarm from half a mile away.

  In the light of their fires, the Twenty-first were forming up. Hearing feet on the ladder behind him, Gelthius glanced down and saw King Ullsaard heaving his heavy frame up into the scaffold tower. The king gave the captain a nod as he squeezed onto the platform, stepping between the spear thrower and the rope fence that was all that kept a man from falling to his death on the courtyard slabs below.

  "Wind's too strong," said the king.

  "Aye, we can see them, right enough," said Gelthius. "They'll not get the drop on us that easy."

  "That's not what I meant," said Ullsaard. "The smoke isn't to hide them now, it's to get in our eyes and throats, and make it hard to see when they reach the wall. Trust me, I've done it myself, at Khar. It'll be plenty thick enough by the time they're ready to attack. I meant that the wind will blow those fires out of control soon, and being in fields and everything we can expect the blaze to spread. If Lutaan's men don't get through or over the wall, they'll be trapped against it by the flames."

  "Perhaps that's what Captain Lutaan intends, King," said Gelthius. Ullsaard turned an inquiring glare on the captain. "You know, by way of an encouragement."

  "Maybe," said Ullsaard, the smile on his face appreciative of the notion rather than humoured by it. "Potential death is a great motivator."

  "Works for me every time, King," said Gelthius. He fell quiet as Ullsaard surveyed every direction from the tower, spending some time looking Dawnwards to where the bulk of the Twenty-first were camped.

  "Expect the attack at the third hour of Dawnwatch," said the king.

  "Will do, King," replied the captain. He wondered how Ullsaard could predict the time of the attack with such accuracy and put it down to experience – there had to be something about the way the enemy were moving that suggested they would be ready in an hour, or maybe something in the Book of Askhos that recommended it as the ideal moment to launch an assault.

  Without any further explanation, Ullsaard swung out to the wooden ladder and disappeared out of sight, leaving Gelthius alone with the men manning the spear thrower.

  "Mark the position of the gate now," said Gelthius, worried by the thickening smoke.

  "Captain?" The three other men looked at each other. Confused and amused in equal measure. The one who had spoken pointed towards the gate. "It's there, captain."

  Gelthius produced a piece of charcoal from his belt pouch and handed it to one of the crew.

  "Aim the thrower just over the gate and make a mark on the ropes and spindle," explained the Salphor. It was trick he had seen used on the landship, when the fog was so close you could not see all the way up to the top of the mainmast. "When the smoke's thick, you'll be able to tell you're still pointing at the gate."

  "That's real clever, captain," said the man who had the charcoal. When the other two had rotated the spear thrower to the required direction, he drew thick lines on the ropes and the wooden disc that formed the main turntable. "Let's do it for a few other places too."

  Gelthius agreed on three other set elevations and directions – towards the corner of the stable block, the jetty on the lake and between the two outbuildings by the hotwards walls – so that he could shout out a command and they would know where to point the war engine.

  With this small measure taken, Gelthius had nothing else to do except wait. His promotion to second captain notwithstanding, with Ullsaard present and so few men there was no need for intermediaries between the commander and his companies. Gelthius was not a sophisticated man, and his experience of the world was coloured by his lowly ambitions, but it was not without some sense of pride that he thought of his new rank.

  It was, of course, utterly meaningless, he told himself as he looked out at the three thousand soldiers of the Twenty-first getting ready to kill him. Within a few hours – starting at the third hour of Dawnwatch if Ullsaard was correct – being second captain, legionnaire or a general would not make any difference. The last time Gelthius had checked, being a second captain hadn't made his shield and breastplate any thicker or his spear any longer.

  So he waited, feeling no different as a second captain then he did before his first battle with the Thirteenth. His stomach was tight and aching, and yet he was simultaneously hungry, having been unable to force any breakfast into himself earlier. There was sweat on his face and hands, despite the fact that the wind was cold, save for the heat of the smoke, which was thickening as the flames grew stronger and stronger in the predawn light.

  About half way through the second hour of Dawnwatch, the Twenty-first started their attack. Like a serpent uncoiling to strike, the massed companies of the legion emerged from their marching forts, lining up along the road to dawnwards and to coldwards. The three-headed serpent would strike from every direction, splitting the defenders. Gelthius knew nothing of siege warfare and wondered if this was a costly strategy or the most prudent. He supposed that there were only so many ladders in the enemy army, and the walls would allow only so many men to climb over, that it was pointless having everybody advancing together; they would simply get in each other's way.

  Gelthius wondered where he should fight, if he received no specific instruction from the king. Part of him wanted to be in the battle close to Ullsaard. He had seen the king fighting and there would be a certain amount of safety being nearby. Against this was the suspicion that Ullsaard was a lodestone for danger – it followed him around and he was always at the centre of trouble. A small, treacherous but vocal part of Gelthius also wondered if he could get away with positioning himself down by the lake, where he could quickly lose himself in the reed beds or, in a desperate situation, swim out to safety.

  The sound of drums sounded out a marching beat; one that Gelthius knew well. He saw the icon of Askhos being raised by the First Company at the head of the snake slithering up the road, like a single golden eye reflecting the reddish light of the dawning sun.

  It was hard to just wait and do nothing while the enemy advanced. The walls around the compound did not look so much like protection as they did a barrier to keep Gelthius in. They would be trapped once the Twenty-first broke through the gate or had a foothold over the walls. Then that high wall of stone and the rampart of stakes beyond would be a hindrance, not a help.

  As much as Gelthius wanted to tell that selfish part of himself to shut up, the voice grew stronger. All he really wanted was to be with Maredin and his children. That was all that he had ever really wanted since he had been taken away on Anglhan's landship. He had been days – only two days, he dimly remembered – from freedom when he had been caught up by Aroisius the Free's men and Anglhan had pitched them all into his insane plans. If Gelthius could send a message to himself back then, he would tell himself to keep his head down, wait to be assigned as driver to the herald, Noran, and then when they were in the middle of the Free Country, make a bolt for freedom.