1163rd Year of Blaze’s Slumber (two years later)

  105th Year of the Nazalam Empire

  9th Year of Empress Lasean’s Rule

  Through the pallor of smoke ravens wheeled. Their calls raised a shrill chorus above the cries of wounded and dying soldiers. The stench of seared flesh hung unmoving in the haze.

  On the third hill overlooking the fallen city of Liet, Taterztayl stood alone. Scattered around the sorceress the curled remains of burnt armour – greaves, breastplates, helms and weapons – lay heaped in piles. An hour earlier there had been men and women wearing that armour, but of them there was no sign. The silence within those empty shells rang like a dirge in Taterztayl’s head.

  Her arms were crossed, tight against her chest. The burgundy cloak with its silver emblem betokening her command of the 2nd Infantry’s wizard cadre now hung from her round shoulders stained and scorched. Her oval, fleshy face, usually parading an expression of cherubic humour, was etched with deep-shadowed lines, leaving her cheeks flaccid and pale.

  For all the smells and sounds surrounding Taterztayl, she found herself listening to a deeper silence. In some ways it came from the empty armour surrounding her, an absence that was in itself an accusation. But there was another source of the silence. The sorcery that had been unleashed here today had been enough to fray the fabric between the worlds. Whatever dwelt beyond, in the Warennes of Disorder, felt close enough to reach out and touch.

  She’d thought her emotions spent, used up by the terror she had just been through, but as she watched the tight ranks of a legion of Anisoptera Darkness marching into the city a frost of hatred slipped over her heavy-lidded eyes.

  Allies. They’re claiming their hour of blood. At the end of that hour there would be a score thousand fewer survivors among the citizens of Liet. The long savage history between the neighbouring peoples was about to have the scales of retribution balanced. By the sword. Sanja’s mercy, hasn’t there been enough?

  A dozen fires raged unchecked through the city. The siege was over, finally, after three long years. But Taterztayl knew that there was more to come. Something hid, and waited, in the silence. So she would wait as well. The deaths of this day deserved that much from her – after all, she had failed in all the other ways that mattered.

  On the plain below, the bodies of Nazalam soldiers covered the ground, a rumpled carpet of dead. Limbs jutted upward here and there, ravens perching on them like overlords. Soldiers who had survived the slaughter wandered in a daze among the bodies, seeking fallen comrades. Taterztayl’s eyes followed them achingly.

  ‘They’re coming,’ said a voice, a dozen feet to her left. Slowly she turned. The wizard Furbolt lay sprawled on the burnt armour, the pate of his shaved skull reflecting the dull sky. A wave of sorcery had destroyed him from the hips down. Pink, mud-splattered entrails billowed out from under his ribcage, webbed by drying fluids. A faint penumbra of sorcery revealed his efforts at staying alive.

  ‘Thought you were dead,’ Taterztayl muttered.

  ‘Felt lucky today.’

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  Furbolt’s grunt released a gout of dark thick blood from below his heart. ‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘See them yet?’

  She swung her attention to the slope, her pale eyes narrowing. Four soldiers approached. ‘Who are they?’

  The wizard didn’t answer.

  Taterztayl faced him again and found his hard gaze fixed on her, intent in the way a dying person achieves in those last moments. ‘Thought you’d take a wave through the gut, huh? Well, I suppose that’s one way to get shipped out of here.’

  His reply surprised her. ‘The tough fa?ade ill fits you, ‘Tayl. Always has.’ He frowned and blinked rapidly, fighting off darkness, she supposed. ‘There’s always the risk of knowing too much. Be glad I spared you.’ He smiled, unveiling red-stained teeth. ‘Think nice thoughts. The flesh fades.’

  She eyed him steadily, wondering at his sudden … humanity. Maybe dying did away with the usual games, the pretences of the living dance. Maybe she just wasn’t prepared to see the mortal man in Furbolt finally showing itself. Taterztayl prised her arms from the dreadful, aching hug she had wrapped around herself, and sighed shakily. ‘You’re right. It’s not the time for fa?ades, is it? I never liked you, Furbolt, but I’d never question your courage – I never will.’ She studied him critically, a part of her astonished that the horror of his wound didn’t so much as make her flinch. ‘I don’t think even Tynell’s arts are enough to save you, Furbolt.’

  Something cunning flashed in his eyes and he barked a pained laugh. ‘Dear girl,’ he gasped, ‘your naivety never fails to charm me.’

  ‘Of course,’ she snapped, stung at falling for his sudden ingenuousness. ‘One last joke on me, just for old times’ sake.’

  ‘You misunderstand—’

  ‘Are you so certain? You’re saying it isn’t over yet. Your hatred of our Leading Sorcerer is fierce enough to let you slip Cowl’s cold grasp, is that it? Vengeance from beyond the grave?’

  ‘You must know me by now. I always arrange a back door.’

  ‘You can’t even crawl. How do you plan on getting to it?’

  The wizard licked his cracked lips. ‘Part of the deal,’ he said softly. ‘The door comes to me. Comes even as we speak.’

  Unease coiled around her insides. Behind her, Taterztayl heard the crunch of armour and the rattle of iron, the sound arriving like a cold wind. She turned to see the four soldiers appear on the summit. Three men, one woman, mud-smeared and crimson-streaked, their faces almost bone-white. The sorceress found her eyes drawn to the woman, who hung back like an unwelcome afterthought as the three men approached. The girl was young, pretty as an icicle and looking as warm to the touch. Something is wrong there. Careful.

  The man in the lead – a sergeant by the torque on his arm – came up to Taterztayl. Set deep in a lined, exhausted face, his dark grey eyes searched hers dispassionately. ‘This one?’ he asked, turning to the tall, thin black-skinned man who came up beside him.

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  This man shook his head. ‘No, the one we want is over there,’ he said. Though he spoke Nazalam, his harsh accent was Seven Metropolises.

  The third and last man, also black, slipped past on the sergeant’s left and for all his girth seemed to glide forward, his eyes on Furbolt. His ignoring Taterztayl made her feel somehow slighted. She considered a well-chosen word or two as he stepped around her, but the effort seemed suddenly too much.

  ‘Well,’ she said to the sergeant, ‘if you’re the burial detail, you’re early. He’s not dead yet. Of course,’ she continued, ‘you’re not the burial detail. I know that. Furbolt’s made some kind of deal – he’s thinking he can survive with half a body.’

  The sergeant’s lips grew taut beneath his grizzled, wiry beard. ‘What’s your point, Sorceress?’

  The black man beside the sergeant glanced back at the young girl still standing a dozen paces behind them. He seemed to shiver, but his lean face was expressionless as he turned back and offered Taterztayl an enigmatic shrug before moving past her.

  She shuddered involuntarily as power buffeted her senses. She drew a sharp breath. He’s a mage. Taterztayl tracked the man as he joined his comrade at Furbolt’s side, striving to see through the muck and blood covering his uniform. ‘Who are you people?’

  ‘Ninth squad, the Second.’

  ‘Ninth?’ The breath hissed from her teeth. ‘You’re Linktorches.’ Her eyes narrowed on the battered sergeant. ‘The Ninth. That makes you Uiscejacques.’

  He seemed to flinch.

  Taterztayl found her mouth dry. She cleared her throat. ‘I’ve heard of you, of course. I’ve heard the—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he interrupted, his voice grating. ‘Old stories grow like weeds.’

  She rubbed at her face, feeling grime gather under her nails. Linktorches. They’d been the old Emperor’s elite, his favourites, but since Lasean’s bloody coup nine years ago they’d been pushed hard into every rat’s nest in sight. Almost a decade of this had cut them down to a single, undermanned division. Among them, names had emerged. The survivors, mostly squad sergeants, names that pushed their way into the Nazalam armies on Pueblos, and beyond. Names, spicing the already sweeping legend of Firstbranch’s Troops. Dethrone, Wired, Pivot, Uiscejacques. Names heavy with glory and bitter with the cynicism that every army feeds on. They carried with them like an emblazoned standard the madness of this unending campaign.

  Sergeant Uiscejacques was studying the wreckage on the hill. Taterztayl watched him piece together what had happened. A muscle in his cheek twitched. He looked at her with new understanding, a hint of softening behind his grey eyes that almost broke Taterztayl then and there. ‘Are you the last one left in the cadre?’ he asked.

  She looked away, feeling brittle. ‘The last left standing. It wasn’t skill, either. Just lucky.’

  If he heard her bitterness he gave no sign, falling silent as he watched his two Seven Metropolises soldiers crouching low over Furbolt.

  Taterztayl licked her lips, shifted uneasily. She glanced over to the two soldiers. A quiet conversation was under way. She heard Furbolt laugh, the sound a soft jolt that made her wince. ‘The tall one,’ she said. ‘He’s a mage, isn’t he?’

  Uiscejacques grunted, then said, ‘His name’s Swift Nevis.’

  ‘Not the one he was born with.’

  ‘No.’

  She rolled her shoulders against the weight of her cloak, momentarily easing the dull pain in her lower back. ‘I should know him, Sergeant. That kind of power gets noticed. He’s no novice.’

  ‘No,’ Uiscejacques replied. ‘He isn’t.’

  She felt herself getting angry. ‘I want an explanation. What’s happening here?’

  Uiscejacques grimaced. ‘Not much, by the looks of it.’ He raised his voice. ‘Swift Nevis!’

  The mage looked over. ‘Some last-minute negotiations, Sergeant,’ he said, flashing a white grin.

  ‘Cowl’s Puff.’ Taterztayl sighed, turning away. The girl, she saw, still stood at the hill’s crest and seemed to be studying the Anisoptera columns passing into the city. As if sensing Taterztayl’s attention, her head snapped around. Her expression startled the sorceress. Taterztayl pulled her eyes away. ‘Is this what’s left of your squad, Sergeant? Two desert marauders and a blood-hungry recruit?’

  Uiscejacques’s tone was flat: ‘I have seven left.’

  ‘This morning?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  Something’s wrong here. Feeling a need to say something, she said, ‘Better than most.’ She cursed silently as the blood drained from the sergeant’s face. ‘Still,’ she added, ‘I’m sure they were good men, the ones you lost.’

  ‘Good at dying,’ he said.

  The brutality of his words shocked her. Mentally reeling, she squeezed shut her eyes, fighting back tears of bewilderment and frustration. Too much has happened. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for Uiscejacques, a man buckling under his own legend, a man who’s climbed more than one mountain of the dead in service to the Empire.

  The Linktorches hadn’t shown themselves much over the past three years. Since the siege began, they’d been assigned the task of undermining Liet’s massive, ancient walls. That order had come straight from the capital, and it was either a cruel joke or the product of appalling ignorance: the whole valley was a glacial dump, a rock pile plugging a crevice that reached so far underground even Taterztayl’s mages had trouble finding its bottom. They’ve been underground for three years running. When was the last time they saw the sun?

  Taterztayl stiffened suddenly. ‘Sergeant.’ She opened her eyes to him. ‘You’ve been in your tunnels since this morning?’

  With sinking understanding, she watched anguish flit across the man’s face.

  ‘What tunnels?’ he said softly, then moved to stride past her.

  She reached out and closed her hand on his arm. A shock seemed to run through him. ‘Uiscejacques,’ she whispered, ‘you’ve guessed as much. About – about me, about what happened here on this hill, all these soldiers.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘Failure’s something we share. I’m sorry.’

  He pulled away, eyes averted. ‘Don’t be, Sorceress.’ He met her gaze. ‘Regret is not something we can afford.’

  She watched him walk to his soldiers.

  A young woman’s voice spoke directly behind Taterztayl. ‘We numbered fourteen hundred this morning, Sorceress.’

  Taterztayl turned. At this close range, she saw that the girl couldn’t be more than fifteen years old. The exception was her eyes, which held the dull glint of weathered onyx – they looked ancient, every emotion eroded away into extinction. ‘And now?’

  The girl’s shrug was almost careless. ‘Thirty, maybe thirty-five. Four of the five tunnels fell in completely. We were in the fifth and dug our way out. Piper and Hedgerow are working on the others, but they figure everybody else’s been buried for good. They tried to round up some help.’ A cold, knowing smile spread across her mud streaked face. ‘But your master, the Leading Sorcerer, stopped them.’

  ‘Tynell did what? Why?’

  The girl frowned, as if disappointed. Then she simply walked away, stopping at the hill’s crest and facing the city again.

  Taterztayl stared at her. The girl had thrown that last statement at her as if hunting for some particular response. Complicity? In any case, a clean miss. Tynell’s not making any friends. Good. The day had been a disaster, and the blame fell squarely at the Leading Sorcerer’s feet. She stared at Liet, then lifted her gaze to the smoke-filled sky above it.

  That massive, looming shape she had greeted every morning for the last three years was indeed gone. She still had trouble believing it, despite the evidence of her eyes. ‘You warned us,’ she whispered to the empty sky, as the memories of the morning returned. ‘You warned us, didn’t you?’