Anthony Ryan - Tower Lord

The song flared again and Vaelin looked up to see three Kuritai coming for him, one in the lead and two moving to his flanks. He removed all restraint from the song and suddenly the Kuritai were moving through air made of clay, their coordinated attack clumsy and sluggish, leaving so many openings. The song faded a little as the three Kuritai tumbled to the earth around him, splashing mud in the unending rain, blood gushing from near-identical wounds to the throat.

He straightened, seeing a Kuritai regarding him with his head tilted, face blank like a child seeing a puzzling trick for the first time, an expression also worn by many of the onlooking Nilsaelins. A bowstring snapped and the curious Kuritai fell with an arrow in his chest, his brothers turning to face a new threat as Hera Drakil led his Seordah into the fray. The Nilsaelins were brave but could only prevail through weight of numbers. The Seordah, it transpired, needed no such advantage.

Vaelin watched the Seordah chief slide under a slashing short sword and bring his war club round as he sprang to his feet, the back of the Kuritai’s head exploding from the impact. The other Seordah dealt with the remainder, war clubs and knives whirling, Kuritai falling in a matter of seconds.

“I see why the forest remains untouched,” Vaelin commented as the war chief crouched at his side.

“You need the healing man, Beral Shak Ur,” he said, pulling him to his feet.

Vaelin staggered a little as the song flared again, fighting down a shout of pain as fresh blood rose in his mouth. Reva! He turned to the city, eyes tracking along the causeway to find the gates lying wrecked and open. “I need a horse,” he said.

The Seordah was clearly reluctant but Count Marven pulled up beside them, dismounting and offering Vaelin the reins. “Fight better on foot in any case,” he said, blood flowing freely from a cut on his cheek.

“Form your men up,” Vaelin told him, hauling himself into the saddle. The new vantage point gave him a clearer view of the battle. He could see every section of the Volarian line now engaged, broken here and on the right where Nortah’s company gave full vent to their rage as they tore apart a Free Sword battalion twice their number to join up with Ultin’s miners. The left still seemed to be holding despite a furious assault by Caenis’s Realm Guard. Beyond them the swirling mass of horses just visible through the rain told him the Eorhil were in the process of mastering the Volarian cavalry.

“Push through their rear opposite the Realm Guard,” he told Marven, finding he had to keep hold of the pommel to stop from falling. “Hera Drakil,” he addressed the Seordah, “I should like you to meet a friend of mine in the city.”

He tugged Marven’s horse around and set off at the gallop. He saw something near the causeway that made him pause for a moment. The captive Free Sword, lying dead with his throat cut, a bloody knife in his hand, his face frozen in the same mad rictus born of the song.

He knew from Harlick’s reports that this causeway was almost exactly three hundred yards long, so it was strange to find it seemed to have grown by several miles. His breath was laboured now, he could feel the blood seeping through his shirt under the light mail as it flowed from his nose, mouth and eyes. He spat it out every few yards and forced Marven’s mount to a faster pace.

He was obliged to jump the horse over the remnants of the gate, clattering through the cobbled streets beyond, finding bodies and destruction everywhere. Blood ran in rivers along the rain-soaked gutters, streaming in red streaks from the corpses he found at every turn. Some Volarians were stumbling about but offering no threat, madness plain on their faces. The defenders had constructed walls within the city, forcing him to find the breaches made by the Volarians before proceeding further, the delay making him seethe in frustration as the song rose ever higher.

He was compelled to dismount a short distance from the cathedral, the streets so choked with bodies even Marven’s veteran warhorse shied from going further. He moved on, his vision clouding as he tripped over bodies, stumbling to his knees beside a young man with a short sword buried in his back and an axe resting under his pale hand. Little more than a boy.

He forced himself upright and staggered on, the sounds of battle reaching his ears. He emerged into an avenue of flattened buildings, finding five thousand or more Volarians assailing another wall. They had managed to batter a breach through it, bodies piling up as a furious fight raged just within the wall. Another shout from the song confirmed it, she was there, in the thick of it. Where else would she be?

“We do this,” Hera Drakil said, appearing at his side, his many many warriors running from the surrounding streets.

“I should appreciate it very much,” Vaelin replied.

The Volarian host made a curious sound as the Seordah charge struck home, a great sighing groan of absolute despair. Days of torment suffered within these walls only to earn a swift death at the hands of warriors they had no hope of matching.

He closed his eyes as the sounds of battle faded. Stop now, he told the song, but he was so weary and so very cold.

“You don’t need to kneel for me.”

She stood over him, looking down with a warm smile, a sword of Renfaelin design resting on her shoulder, the blade bloody from end to end.

“Is that it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I never found it.”

His vision dimmed, blackness descending for a moment. When it faded he found he was on his back, her face only inches away, tears falling onto his bloody face. “I always knew you would come.”

He managed to raise a hand and trace his fingers through her hair. Kept it long I see. “What sort of brother would I be if I hadn’t?” He coughed, a plume of blood erupting from his mouth, staining her face.

“DON’T!” she screamed as his vision dimmed again. “DON’T! Please don’t . . .”

Cold. Absolute, inescapable cold. Cutting through skin and bone to clutch at his heart. Yet there was no tremble to his limbs, no mist to his breath. He blinked as his vision cleared, seeing a wall. He turned and his boots raised an echo, very loud and very long. No echo was ever so long.

The room was a simple cube of roughly worked stone, a single window in the wall to his right. In the centre stood a plain table fashioned from some dark wood, the surface gleaming even though he could see no lamp or light from the window. A woman sat on the opposite side of the table, regarding him with an expression that was equal parts fury and scrutiny. An empty chair waited before him.

“I know who you are,” the woman said, her voice birthing another echo of unnatural length.

Vaelin moved towards the chair, pausing as a faint sound came to him, a soft plaintive call. Did someone call my name?

“Was it Tokrev, I wonder?” The woman angled her head, eyes narrowing. “No, I don’t think so.”

She was dark-haired, young and beautiful, her eyes bright with intelligence and a greater depth of malice than he had seen before. It reminded him of the thing that had lived in Barkus, but he saw now that had been a spiteful child compared to her.

“You know who I am,” he said. “Who are you?”

She gave a mirthless smile. “I’m a songbird in a cage. And now so are you.”

He tried to summon the blood-song, searching for some guiding note but finding nothing.

“No songs here, my lord,” the woman told him. “No gifts. Only those he brings and they are rarely welcome.”

“He?”

A spasm of fury passed over her face and her hand slammed onto the table. “Don’t play with me! Do not act the fool! You know very well where you are and who holds you here.”