The Two of Swords: Part 14 Read online

  A hand grabbed Chanso’s shirt. “That’s us,” the voice said. “Well, come on.”

  He stood up and followed the armoured man, who was running along the parapet. A line of archers were standing up out of the shadows. Chanso looked out over the parapet and saw the sea, gleaming with yellow. At least five black shapes broke up the pattern of the waves. Directly below where he was standing was the causeway that carried the path up to the main gate. The gate itself was gone, just a ragged hole in the stonework, ugly as smashed teeth. The walls looked like they were dripping with liquid fire.

  Someone shoved him and told him to move, then pushed past him. He stayed where he was. Up the causeway, maybe two hundred yards away, something weird and shapeless was crawling up the causeway. He stared at it, then realised it was a long, dense column of men, with shields locked together in front and at the sides, marching in perfect step. He could hear a voice calling out, ang, dui – the same words the shepherd had used; of course, the Imperial for one, two.

  “On my mark,” someone yelled, about twenty yards away to his left. “Nock arrows.”

  Chanso remembered he was holding a bow. He considered it quickly. It wasn’t anything like he was used to; it was long, taller than he was, and straight, made of one piece of wood. Primitive. He fumbled an arrow out of the quiver he’d been given. It was heavy, as thick as his little finger, and far too long for him. He clipped it on to the string. Presumably he was supposed to shoot at the men on the causeway, as soon as they came in range. It struck him as a bizarre thing to do. Even with the bright light of the burning stuff on the walls, it was far too dark for any sort of accurate aiming. He’d always been taught, don’t shoot till you can see the whites of their eyes. And who were they, anyway?

  “Draw,” yelled the voice, so he drew. The bow was heavy, but instead of stacking, it drew evenly until his thumbnail brushed the corner of his mouth; at which point, the voice yelled, “Loose!” He hadn’t been told what to aim at, so he held somewhere vague over the heads of the men on the causeway, and let the string pull through his fingers. He watched the arrow climb, ebb and drop; it clattered against the stonework, which told him he was six feet low.

  “Nock,” the voice commanded; by the time it said, “Draw”, the line of shields was much closer, he could make out their burnished steel rims. He drew, holding a man’s height above the line of advancing helmets. On “Loose”, he let go, and watched his arrow into a shield. It stuck without penetrating, and the man carrying it kept on walking. No cast to these stupid bows. Now if he’d had his bow— He remembered that he no longer owned one; no bow, he didn’t own anything any more. Instead, he belonged, to this strange island. He nocked before the order was called, looking for something sensible to shoot at; caught sight of a bare head, seventy yards away among the helmets. The voice told him to draw; he kept his eye fixed on the bare head, drew, lifting the arrowhead high; intuition whispered to him that a little bit of left wouldn’t hurt. Loose, howled the voice, and his arrow soared, swooped, clattered off the point of a helmet a foot or so from the bare head, flicked up like a spark from a wet fire and flashed away out of sight. Close, but no bloody good at all.

  His next four shots went high; then the voice was yelling something different: down, down, off the wall. Men were running past him, he didn’t dare move for fear of being knocked off his feet. When a gap appeared, he darted into it and followed the man in front of him. No point asking where they were going, clearly nobody knew; something must be happening, whether it was good or bad was anybody’s guess. As he ran, it occurred to him that he’d just tried to kill somebody, and felt relieved that he’d failed.

  He was clattering down a spiral staircase, petrified of losing his footing, didn’t dare slow down for fear of the man right behind him. Then a long sprint down a corridor, then more stairs, then a scrum, with the man behind him shoving him against the back of the man in front; he clung to the bow and managed to keep it from being wrenched out of his hand, but he lost his grip on the quiver and felt it being pulled from his fingers. A bow but no arrows. Then he stumbled out into fresh air. He turned to look for the quiver, but the men behind him wouldn’t let him stop. The voice was calling, “Line out”; he didn’t know what that meant, but the men in front of him and behind him did. He found himself standing in a line across one of the quadrangles – he didn’t know which one – facing a gateway about forty yards away. The gate was closed. He turned to the man on his left, about six feet away. “Arrows,” he called out. “I haven’t got any.” The man didn’t seem to hear.

  One of those terrible thumps, not quite so loud, and the ground didn’t move; the sound bounced, like a beat on a drum. The voice yelled, “Nock”; he mimed nocking an arrow. Another thump, but different. It had a tearing undertone, the crackle of splintering wood, and Chanso realised it was the gate in front of him. He was suddenly terrified; on the other side of the gate was a monster so strong it could smash cross-plied oak. An urge to run swept over him, too strong to resist; he wanted to glance behind him, for somewhere to run to, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the gate. A third thump; the voice yelled, “Draw!” but nobody moved; the gate had flown open and was hanging like broken wings. “Loose,” yelled the voice, but Chanso was backing away; he could see it coming through the smashed gate, the horrible thing with shields for scales. He dropped the bow and ran, dimly aware that he wasn’t alone.

  He was running at a wall, and he had no idea if there were doors in it, or where they led to, or how far behind him the monster was, whether it was gaining on him. Then his foot caught in something; he pitched forward, landed painfully on his knees and elbows; as he scrambled to get up, something landed hard in the small of his back and flew over his head, a swirling black shape like an enormous crow that turned into a man running, not looking back. He was winded, couldn’t breathe. The ground he lay on was shaking. He forced himself to his feet, only to be knocked spinning by a hard, flat blow; then he was on his back, and a forest of boots was all around his head. He felt one land on his knee, another in his solar plexus; one pressed down on the side of his head but slipped off; he felt his scalp tear under the hobnails. He balled his hands into fists; the boots had swept over him and passed on. He heard shouting, and breaking wood.

  He heard a voice, which he knew was the Great Smith, whispering; stay perfectly still, don’t move. It was a clear voice, calm, very soft but he could hear it perfectly over all the noise. He did as he was told, awaiting further instructions.

  He waited a long time, and no more instructions came. The other noises were further away now. He opened his eyes and saw the faint red of sunrise. He breathed in and out a few times; it hurt, but not badly. He rolled on to his side and held still while he counted: ang, dui, tin. Then, taking his time, he got to his feet and looked around.

  The quadrangle was deserted, apart from a handful of body shapes on the ground, which didn’t concern him. No sign of the monster, or the other archers. Behind him, much fainter, he could hear the roars and crunches of the monster; he guessed it had found its way through the solid wall and was busy elsewhere. He took a step, but his left knee yelled pain at him. Screw you, he told it, and limped the shortest way across the quadrangle until he came to a wall. Close by was a door, slightly ajar, with yellow light leaking out round it. He grabbed the handle, hung from it while he manufactured some strength, dragged the door open and fell through it, into an empty room; a scholar’s room, with books and papers and a big, fat, wonderful chair. He closed the door, hobbled over to the chair and sat in it.

  The light came from a lamp on a table. He considered it. Would light attract the monster? He gave it some thought and decided no, probably not. He looked down at his knee, which was a red, sticky mess, and his hands, which were in pretty fair shape. That’s me done for today, he told himself. That’s more than enough for one day.

  He couldn’t possibly have fallen asleep, not in the middle of a battle; but he opened his eyes suddenly, just as the do
or began to open. It swung wide towards him; and there in the doorway was the monster.

  It had chosen to take the form of a gigantic steel man; an Imperial, a Blueskin – Chanso had heard of them but never seen one – unhelmeted, with a spreading mane of black hair pouring down over his shoulders like floodwater; in his hand was a sword, and the scales of his armour sparkled golden in the glow of the lamp. Chanso froze, just in case the monster might possibly overlook him if he kept perfectly still. But the monster’s black eyes were on him, gazing at him, and he spoke—

  Read on in The Two of Swords: Part 15.

  K. J. Parker is the pseudonym of Tom Holt, a full-time writer living in the south-west of England. When not writing, Holt is a barely competent stockman, carpenter and metalworker, a two-left-footed fencer, an accomplished textile worker and a crack shot. He is married to a professional cake decorator and has one daughter.

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