Chapter Book 7 58: Mud

Juniper looked like she wanted to bite someone’s head off, and it was not impossible she would before the day ended.

“They were already retreating,” my marshal admitted. “I called the retreat myself so it would be in order instead of a rout.”

So mostly to save face, I thought with a grimace. All attempts to cross the bridges had ceased, a sight that had my stomach clenching in fear and unease. The longer we let the Dead King dig in on the other side, the worse this would get. I thought it pretty telling that no serious attempt had been made to destroy our bridges yet. Sorcery was still traded back and forth, filling the sky with streaks of colour and eerie shrieks, but so far the enemy had not even tried turning their ballistae on our forces this side of the chasm.

“We need to punch through,” I bluntly said. “If we don’t the battle’s good as lost.”

The attacks through the last two stone bridges were going to get shredded if we didn’t draw enemy forces with our own push and the Praesi had orders not to commit their forces before we had a beachhead inside Keter’s walls.

“I know that, Catherine,” the Hellhound growled. “You think I don’t? But I also know that if I give the order it won’t be obeyed.”

I grit my teeth.

“I know casualties are-”

“We’ve lost almost two thousand already,” Juniper evenly said.

The number gave me pause. Gods. That many?

“It hasn’t even been an hour,” I numbly said.

“Those bridges are pure murder,” the Marshal of Callow replied. “I ordered a push with mages putting up shields and all it did was draw ballista fire. The only saving grace is that the bodies fall instead of block the way.”

It obscured how many we’d lost, too. At least to some extent. Men who’d been three companies back when the battle started were going to notice they were now the frontline because everyone in front was dead.

“We need to commit Named,” Juniper said. “Can Hierophant cover our advance?”

Still feeling numb, I clumsily undid the clasp of my helmet. My face was covered in sweat and dirt, too-warm locks of hair falling over it when I took off the helm.

“Not without fucking over another front,” I said. “If he protects our advance, he’s not countering enemy rituals.”

I spat to the side, fruitlessly trying to get the taste of iron out of my mouth.

“How’s the Blessed Artificer?” I asked.

“Back on her feet, it was just a bump,” Juniper said. “You think she can run interference for us?”

“I think she’s the only heavy hitter left that’s not already committed,” I said, “so it’s her or no one.”

“I’ll send for her,” Juniper replied, then hesitated.

“Speak your mind,” I said.

The tall orc looked uncomfortable.

“It won’t be enough to get them to take the bridges again,” she said. “Not after the slaughter they just went through.”

Brushing sweaty hair off my dead eye – my ponytail was fraying – I turned to the Army of Callow. Juniper’s command tent was well situated, overlooking the offensive while boasting both a solid set of wards and room for me to land Zombie. She was still back there, tied to a post. An army, I had thought more than once, was like a large beast. It had a breath to it, lungs and veins and blood. It could be angered or wounded, made brave or craven. And though I did not have it in me to call any of these men and women who had followed me halfway across the world cowards, I watched those shifting ranks and saw the fight had just been beaten out of them.

Twice now every assault on the walls of Keter had failed and now they were asking themselves an ugly question: could they be breached at all?

They weren’t sure, not anymore, and in a battle like this that was as bad as thinking it couldn’t be done. Once you doubted, the whistle of every arrow was a dirge and the glint on the enemy’s blade as the promise of death. Like a worm in an apple, the doubt was eating my army alive.

“My fault,” I quietly said.

Juniper turned to glare at me.

“I don’t know what you’ve gotten in your head but-”

“My fault,” I repeated, in a tone that brooked no contradiction. “I’ve been fighting this battle mounted, Hellhound. That’s not what it takes to win a slog like this.”

I clenched my armoured fist.

“Blood and mud,” I said. “It always comes down to the blood and mud, doesn’t it?”

I pulled my helmet back down on my head. Juniper glared at me.

“Recklessness won’t bring us victory,” she said.

I secured the clasp, pulled at it to make sure it’d stay in place. The gesture was familiar, almost comforting. How many times had I done this before? Gods, how long had I begun to? I smiled at her, unable to help it.

“Do you remember the first war game we ever had, you and I?” I asked.

She snorted.

“Ratface and I had a war game,” Juniper corrected. “You were just some bum with a sword that took command after I beat him.”

My smile widened into a grin.

“I still remember how godawful furious you were, when I used my Name to leap over that log trap,” I said. “You snarled ‘what the Hells was that?’ and-”

“And you replied: ‘me, winning’,” Juniper finished, almost smiling. “I remember.”

I looked at the broken walls of the Crown of the Dead, the empire of horrors that still awaited beyond it.

“Come a long way, haven’t we?” I softly said.

“All the way to the end of the world,” the Hellhound replied, baring her fangs.

She had that look in her eye that’d made me want her from the start, even when we’d just been kids playing at war in the Tower’s shadow. The one that was all flint and iron, that said the soul behind it would rather snap then bend. I raised my arm, offered it, and after a heartbeat if hesitation she took it. An old legionary’s salute.

“The army’s yours,” I said. “You know the plans.”

Her face tightened, emotions flickering across it too quickly for me to read. Her grip tightened around my arm.

“It’s a fool thing, what you do,” Juniper of the Red Shields said, voice hoarse. “It’s a damned fool thing, and I can’t even shout at you for it.”

She released my arm as if the armour had burned it.

“Warlord,” Juniper said.

My staff I raised, then slammed it down. Though it was only dead yew and beneath it was stone, it parted for the wood like water. It was stuck in the stone and would stay there until I took it up again.

“Hellhound,” I replied.

And without another word, I went down into the crowd. Into the ranks. My eye wandered, looking for something, and found it. A boy, about my height, and as I opened my mouth I recognized with a start that I knew him.

“Edgar, isn’t it?”

“Ma’am, yes,” the boy – no, it’d been years, the young man now – hastily saluted. “And I’m a sergeant now, ma’am.”

“So I see,” I replied, glancing at the stripes.

He swelled at the words.

“I need another favour of you, Sergeant Edgar,” I said. “I must borrow a shield.”

He did not hesitate, I saw with something that was neither quite pride nor grief, for a moment. Without batting an eye he offered it, even helping me slide in my arm.

“Won’t do no good on your monster crow, though,” Sergeant Edgar noted. “It’s a footman’s shield, ma’am.”

“Then it’s exactly what I need,” I replied.

He paused, and others did around us. Neither of us were trying to stay quiet, and the press of soldiers was close. Murmurs rippled out.

“Get another before you go in,” I said, clapping his shoulder with affection. “Fortune be with you, Sergeant Edgar.”

“Hells,” the young man grinned, “that’d be a first.”

Hard, satisfied laughter followed. I let it carry me forward. One limping step after another, I crossed the sea of legionaries. Eyes followed me as if I were a falling star, hands reaching out shyly to touch my shield or the hem of my cloak as I passed. And I felt it move with me. Something like a shiver, a physical tremor going through the great beast that was my army. I was there, among them. Word of it passed from lip to ear, moving so quickly that before long the soldiers ahead me were already looking my way. I did not hurry my limp, because hurrying would do no good. When I reached the edge of the camp, the edge of the cliff, when I rose the steps to the beginning of the bride and turned, I found a sea of faces awaiting me.

Above us a clouded, hellish sky lit up with the eerie lights of war sorcery. The distant eruptions of power were like a broken breeze, just enough to have the banners moving. First Army. Fourth Army. And, standing before me, the Third. The vanguard of my every victory, which I had named Dauntless for that unflinching bravery.

“I won’t lie to you,” I told them, Name strengthening my voice for all to hear. “There’s death ahead.”

None were surprised. They had seen too many of their friends killed to be.

“They’ll come for us with fire and storm,” I said. “With every horrible trick they’ve been waiting to unleash. The moment it looks like we might win, they’ll unleash the Hells until the broken gates are left swinging in the wind.”

I breathed out.

“And still I ask it of you,” I said. “To march. To bleed. To die, until we’ve crossed the deep and rammed death back down the Dead King’s throat.”

There were no cheers at that. It was not a boast I’d offered them, something to laugh about. They all knew what it would cost to get there.

“I won’t blame you if you run,” I told them, “even though there’s nowhere left to run. We’re all a long way from home.”

I looked at them, and I saw in their eyes that they did not want to fight. They loved me, I thought, but still they did not want to fight.

“But if we don’t win here we’ll bring down the world with us,” I said, “so I’ll be crossing that bridge.”

Murmurs bloomed, low and urgent. The shield on my arm was hard to miss.

“And I know it’s more than a queen can ask,” I called out, “but I ask it anyway.”

My fingers clenched, then slowly unclenched.

“You trusted me through Dormer and the Camps, through Maillac’s Boot and Four Armies,” I said, “through Arcadia and the Wasteland and every misbegotten bit a land a soldier’s ever died on.”

Gods, where had I not dragged them? They had even bled beyond Creation, as if Calernia was too small a field for them to die on.

“Trust me once more,” I asked. “Follow me into the breach, through dark and ruin until we come out on the other side.”

Maybe one day they’d call me a soldier queen, but the truth of it was simpler: I was queen of soldiers. I’d spent more time in the saddle than on my throne, pawning off the intricacies of rules to one regent after another as I went off to scatter Callow’s enemies. They might have crowned me in Laure, anointed me and said the words, but my real kingdom stood before me: banners and steel.

The Army of Callow.

“You and I against the rest of the fucking world, one last time.”

In the distance lightning crackles, exploded in a burst of light, and as ash fell from the sky like rain I stood before a sea of soldiers that would not look me in the eye. Silence hung in the air like pestilence, and the longer it lasted the harder my stomach clenched. It would not be broken, I realized. They would not gather their courage, raise the banners and follow me again. All my life I had wondered – feared, hoped for – the moment where I would finally ask too much of my soldiers. When they would at last balk, hold back the loyalty that had kept me on my feet long before I’d begun using a staff. So here it was, I thought, at long last. You lasted until the end, I thought, looking at them. There is no shame in this.

But I had a duty, and I had sworn an oath: whether they be gods or kings or all the armies of Creation.So I unsheathed my sword, slowly, and raised it to them in a salute.

“Be proud,” I told them, meaning every word. “You reached the edge of the world.”

And I turned my back to them. One limping step down the bridge after another, the steel clanging against my boots. Three, five, ten. In the distance a pair of ballistae were aimed, and I saw the flicker of movement. Gritting my teeth, I pulled on Night and let it loose through my veins. I slashed at the air, darkness trailing in my sword’s wake as a streak of Night slapped aside the stones that would have torn right through my body. I squared my shield, straightened my back and began moving again. Simple, I thought, I just had to keep it simple. There was only the enemy ahead, nothing else in all of Creation.

One more step. Always one more step, until I made it all the way to the other side.

“DAUNTLESS!”

My steps stuttered, but I could not let myself be distracted. Far ahead, a nest of mages loosed in my direction a ritual that was as a crawling wave of grey. I pulled on Night again, smashing a pillar of pure black into the spell and twisting my will. The working sucked in the magic before detonating, breaking the spell formula with it.

“DAUNTLESS!”

The shout came again, and this time more voices picked it up. I limped forward, shield up, as the world narrowed in front of me. I walked a span of steel three men wide, without railings or anything that would stop a single misstep from seeing you fall to your death. Lines of it stretched to my right and left, like teeth cutting at the void below us. Sorcery bloomed ahead, cabals of mages that were little more than bones and burning green sorcery shaping mounds of curses or frost. Gods, the numbers were overwhelming and I hadn’t even reached arrow range yet.

“Sve Noc,” I prayed in Crepuscular. “My enemies are many and their wrath is great: grant me ruin, that I may deal it out to them in your name.”

I twitched, Night bubbling up my veins, and let out a hoarse shout as shadows ripped themselves out of my back, fleeing the cover of my cloaks in flocks. Crows that were as shards of darkness took flight by the hundreds, spreading out in a wave that flew heedless into the enemy’s sorcery. My lip tasted of blood and I wiped it with the back of my gauntlet, spitting the rest into the chasm. One more step, I reminded myself. In the distance, the crows plunged into the spells and faded like morning mist – tainting every spell they touched, eating away at them from the inside. How many more of those did I have in me? Enough, I told myself. I would have enough.

My fingers were slick with sweat, my aketon soaked under the plate. Flakes of ash stuck to my face, to the wet cloth covering my dead eye, but still I advanced. My bad leg burned, throbbed with every step, but the pain was an old friend.

The ballistae had been silent, and now I saw why: they had been repositioned, awaiting the moment to fire a full volley. Only it wasn’t on me that the stones and bolts were fired. The machines spat out death at my bridge, but at others too. And I could not resist the glance, even knowing it would shatter my calm. Behind me, the Third Army’s banner flew in the wind and legionaries advanced. Tight ranks, shields up and faces grim. But they had come, marching down the lines of steel that were as a road straight to death, and my heart clenched at the sight of it. Always the Third, dauntless to the end. I would not let that trust go betrayed.

I thrust up my sword, Night already welling up inside me.

“I bring the word of the two-faced goddess,” I said.

Night swirled above me, sweeping up into the sky as a raging wind, and like a blade piercing the Heavens my working pierced the clouds. Arm trembling from the effort, I pulled down my sword and the rest of the sky with it.

“And that word is no,” I hissed.

Wind and clouds raged, a river drawn across the bridges like a stroke of paint, and the projectiles were swallowed whole. I released the working, panting as shivers of exhaustion went down my spine. I’d ripped a hole in the clouds, and through it the light of day shone. The sunlight found the rain of ashes, bathing in pale, and I might almost have thought it was snowing. In the distance I heard hoarse cheers, but there was a closer noise. Boots on steel. Legionaries catching up to me. And with them, on the too-warm wind, came one last sound drifting up to my ears.

“The knights will get the glory

The king will keep his throne.”

I was not sure whether to laugh or weep, so instead I kept my eyes ahead. One more step, I swore, and limped forward.

“We won’t be in the story

Our names will not be known.”

Sorcery swelled ahead, but the sky screamed out and streaks of pale lightning struck down at the enemy mages. No, not lightning – Light. The Blessed Artificer had come out to fight. Cheers sounded again. One more step, I prayed, and through the raining ash advanced.

“So pick up your sword, boy

Here they come again

And down here in the mud-”

“It’s us who holds the line,” I whispered.

One more step and all the Hells opened: arrow range. I was halfway through. They had massed archers and crossbowmen while we waited, crammed every skeleton upright and able to aim in thick lines covering every bit of stone they had to spare. They released all at once, with impossibly perfect timing, and death flew out in a swarm. I pulled deep on Night, blade wreathed in darkness, and slashed away. Behind us a great javelin of Light flew out, and as captains screamed out orders the Army of Callow loosed a wave of massed fireballs.

It wasn’t enough.

I hacked away at the arrows in front of us, even covering the bridges to my sides, but others flew in arcs above and there were simply too many to cover. Steel punctured shields, ripped into flesh, toppled soldiers screaming into the void.

“The Princes take the Vales

The Tyrant is at the Gate

Our crops wither and fail,

The enemy’s host is great.”

The line wavered, I could feel it buckling. But I kept advancing so they did too – voices rising defiantly to add to the song. The storm of arrows was not the danger of a single breath. It was a doom in three beats, as again and again the enemy went through the same movements: nock, pull, loose. The dead did not tire or hesitate, only missing a shot when a string strapped and needed to be replaced. And so death came for us in waves, relentless. A shot skittered off the side of my shield, another grazed my cheek and I could barely move quickly enough to gather Night to me.

“Mages, forward,” went up the cry, and soon shields bloomed in front of us, but like before they attracted attention.

Ballistae concentrated fire on the visible targets that were the translucent panes of magic, shattering them were arrows failed. The line was buckling again, and even for me to take a single step forward was like wading against a river’s current. We were failing again. I was already tired, more than I should be, but what point is there in hoarding power when we were about to lose? I took a step forward, almost swallowing my tongue for the burning pain of my leg, and clumsily ripped at the straps keeping my shield on my arm. Arrows fell, but I had a guardian of my own: a ball of blue flame formed in front of me, spinning and expanding to swallow all the projectiles before it burned out. Masego was protecting me

Then it was on me to protect everyone else.

I threw away the shield, hearing it rattle against the edge of the bridge and vanish into the dark, and I breathed out deeply. In and out, steady. Seizing too much Night when I was exhausted could make me throw up otherwise.

“So pick up your sword, boy

Here they come again

And down here in the mud

It’s us who holds the line.”

I dug deep. Until my breath came out mist for the cold inside my veins, until light began to hurt my eyes and I could hear my heart beating like a drum against my ears. I’d done many a powerful working of Night, in my time, but this one would be different. It was not the First Under the Night walking down that bridge, the highest priestess of Night. I was the Warden, come to bring order to the madness, and so it was not black flame or curses I was calling on. Keter thought to cowing me by unleashing one monster after another, by sowing a field of death.

But I’d brought my own, made of every death I owned.

“Rise,” I snarled, hand pulling up, and for a moment there was nothing at all.

Then the shadows beneath the bridges, the dark nestled beneath the cliffs, began to boil over. Strands of darkness shot out, thick tendrils of Night, and they gathered like a river to the sea. Above my head a shape began to form, and though Keter unleashed storms of sorcery to shatter it the Hierophant allowed not a speck of magic to pass. Watching it was seeing an artist at work: curses turned into flame, which burned acid into smoke, which coiled into tendrils choking out green light. A single will cascaded down a line of spells, breaking them with the same exquisite grace of a duellist’s perfect killing stroke. Again and again, the man who had once been the Apprentice got the best of them. And with every moment he bought me, every ballista the Blessed Artificer shattered in a burst of Light, the shape above me grew. Swelled, until it stood so tall it blocked out the sun.

A river of arrows was fired into the dark, disappearing as if they’d been dropped in a well.

And when the storms of sorcery broke, the smoke scattered and the ash-wind broke, facing the enemy was a behemoth of a monster. Mine, my Beast. It was shaped as a wolf would be, if shadows cast on a wall by a scared child: too sinuous, its impossible large maw bristling with teeth. It was my old companion, the breath of the back of my neck and the laughter in my ear. The monster I’d built out of a hundred thousand corpses, sown across battlefields from the east to the west. I’d built on my throne atop a mountain of dead soldiers but today, just this once, the throne would give back. Monstrous maw opening wide, the great beast of Night breathed in the air of Creation like it was savouring it. Behind me my men had halted, but I turned back and offered them a wild grin.

“FORWARD,” I shouted. “FORWARD AND FOLLOW ME!”

The Beast began to laugh, and Gods though it was a terrible the terror was on our side. I limped forward, breaking into a pained run, and ahead of me the monster charged.

“Man the walls,” my legionaries sang as they followed, “bare the steel.”

Sorcery screamed, ballistae fired and a howling volley of arrows disappeared into the Beast’s body. I quickened my steps, a hoarse shout ripping itself clear of my lungs – as much pain as glee.

“Hoist the banner, raise the shield.”

The Beast tumbled into the enemy, crushing undead with every step and laughing as it swallowed whole a siege engine. We ran, ran as fast as we could, knowing that the opportunity would not knock twice. Two thirds through, and then more. We were so close.

“A free death they cannot steal.”

Rituals bloomed again, and enemy archers began took aim at us again instead of wasting their arrows on my monster – which was tearing them apart with tooth and claw, ravaging their tightly packed lines. Steel broadheads began to fall on us again, taking blood and lives, but the run had taken on momentum. It did not slow even when bodies began to drop.

“When we meet them on the field.”

I felt Masego try to West the enemy’s rituals but there were just too many. Great thorns of sickly green magic were shot in the Beast’s belly, and though it screamed and clawed at all around it I could feel something hollowing out my working from the inside. I was not the only one on the field who knew how to make use of ruin. The Beast began to fall apart piece by piece, howling and clawing at the enemy as it did, and as my boots hit the bridge the heart of it faded into mist. A heartbeat later I took another step, and instead of steel I touched stone.

I had crossed, and my army was mere feet behind me.

“So pick up your sword, boy

Here they come again

And down here in the mud

It’s us who holds the line.”

And as the song died, the Army of Callow followed me into dark and ruin. I laughed and slammed into a skeleton, cutting through bow and string and neck. It collapsed like a stringless puppet. The enemy had been waiting for us, but we’d caught them flatfooted and the Beast had put them in disarray. They’d not had time to redeploy, so as I tore into a line of archers sword in hand I felt the heavies of the Third Army crack those lines like an egg. Heeding unseen orders the skeletons tried to retreat, scampering up slopes and through broken houses, but we swept through them like a tide.

“Mages,” I shouted, parrying a blow and returning a vicious riposte.

The skeleton’s head broke under the pommel, shattering clean and killing it.

“Mages, fire on the ballistae,” I shouted again.

They obeyed and fire burned bright, the enemy’s engines finally silenced. A wave of steel swelled behind me and we smashed our way through archers and crossbowmen until there were none left to smash. Behind there were proper fighters, skeletons in armour with swords and axes and shields, but even charging uphill the momentum was with us. We’d break through, past this breach and into Keter. That was why I could already feel the coming, I thought. The Scourges. But it wouldn’t matter, not a whit, because we weren’t done either. As Keter mustered its horrors and my men drove back the dead, pushing forth the beachhead, long shadows fell on us all. Between us and the sun flew great fortresses, bristling with soldiers and mages.

The last gasps of the Dread Empire of Praes had come to make war.