sure. The Byoran fell without a further sound and lay spasming on the ground.
Nai bent and wiped the blade clean on the man’s shirt before he sheathed the weapon and eased the courtyard door shut again. Amber hadn’t moved throughout the brief struggle, and when Nai returned to him he didn’t seem to have even noticed it. He stood a little taller now, holding one hand on the wall to steady himself, but Nai could see he was still in no condition to walk down the street yet, let alone run.
‘Another turn about the grounds then?’ He asked as he slipped under Amber’s arm and turned the soldier around. He spared a look at the corpse on the ground, a small trail of blood making its way towards the courtyard wall. ‘Let’s just hope you prove useful enough to make this worthwhile.’
Struck by a thought, Nai stopped and passed a hand across Amber’s face, muttering arcane words under his breath as he did so. After half a minute he stopped. ‘At least the link’s still there,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Not sure who will be glad to see a Menin soldier after today, but King Emin might be able to use you to track down his turncoat, Ilumene. It isn’t much of a choice, but it’s the best one you’re likely to get, and a man in my profession could always use a king owing him a favour.’
Amber still didn’t respond and Nai’s expression turned pitying. ‘Gods, your parents wouldn’t have expected this when they named you for your lordly, albeit distant, relation — who could have? That was one of the odder sensations in my life, I think, having a name plucked from my mind — and it didn’t even involve necromancy! This life’s full of surprises, but let’s just be glad no one’s used your real name since you joined the army, otherwise I think you’d be on the ground, and undoubtedly crippled.’
He paused a moment, wincing, and had to blink away a sudden unpleasant sense of disjointed loss. ‘How curious: it’s uncomfortable to even try and remember — very uncomfortable. Well, no matter; he must be dead by now, and I can think of him as the Menin lord easily enough.’
He patted Amber on the shoulder again and directed him back across the courtyard. ‘And you, my friend; you’re still Major Amber, so not much has changed there really — except you’re a major in an army currently being obliterated, and you’re as fragile as a baby. Just as well I can think of a use for you, and a certain king who might pay rather well for that use.’
They started walking, short, shuffling steps away from the courtyard gate. ‘Don’t worry,’ Nai added with forced brightness, ‘you can thank me for saving your life later. Once I’ve sold you to the enemy.’
CHAPTER 2
Doranei awoke with a whimper from dreams of sapphire eyes. Lost in dark corridors, exhausted and afraid, he’d followed the faint scent of her perfume for an age and more — walking deep in the bowels of some unknown castle, through bloodless corpses and shit while dead Menin soldiers reached at him from the shadows.
Somehow he’d kept himself upright, prising cold grasping fingers from his flesh and beating them away. They’d decayed before his eyes but more rose in their place until his limbs screamed with pain and he could scarcely breathe. When Doranei woke the ache of exertion intensified and he lay there for a long while, barely able to move, every shallow breath feeling like a knife slashing down his ribcage.
‘Don’t complain! At least you’re alive.’
With a groan he rolled himself onto one side to face the speaker. Veil sat slumped in an armchair, a handful of other members of the Brotherhood asleep on the ground nearby.
‘Did you hear me complain?’ Doranei said, wincing as he spoke. He’d survived the battle virtually unscathed, just four or five minor nicks and a whole ton of bruises.
‘You were about to.’ There was no humour in Veil’s voice, no space for anything more than weariness. He wore a fresh shirt and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, but neither hid the bandage encasing the stump where his hand had once been.
Thank the Gods it was his left, Doranei thought again, his eyes lingering on the injured limb until Veil tugged the blanket over it. Veil had tied his dark hair neatly back, but like the rest of them he’d had no chance yet to wash out the blood and mud.
‘How is it?’
‘Hurts like a bastard.’ Veil tried to smile, or maybe he grimaced, Doranei couldn’t tell which. ‘Hopefully not for much longer. Tremal said he smelled opium in the night — went to steal it for me.’
Doranei nodded absently. He struggled to rise, using the wall to steady himself, and stood staring down at his feet until he decided he could trust them. Diffuse sunlight shining through a window on the right told him he’d clearly slept long past dawn, however little actual rest he’d managed. His stinking, sweat- and blood-stiffened tunic was still lying on the floor, where he’d dropped it with his armour. He picked it up and inspected the stains. ‘Heard one o’ the king’s clerks say it’d be quicker to count the living than the dead.’ He looked up. ‘A sour kind of victory, this. I ain’t one for praying much, but I’ll kiss the feet o’ any God can see to it I never witness that again.’
‘Aye, nor lose so many Brothers again,’ Veil added. ‘Ain’t many of us left to make good on the bet.’
‘Bet? Who won?’ Doranei shook his head as sadness filled his heart. The Brotherhood would bet on almost anything — it was one way to cope with the strange, dangerous life they led; one way to remember those they lost along the way. After yesterday’s slaughter, even a veteran of the Brotherhood found it hard to believe anyone cared to collect on the wager.
‘That fucking loud-mouth white-eye,’ Veil said.
‘Isak? He didn’t kill-’ Doranei scowled as the ache behind his eyes increased. ‘He didn’t kill the Menin lord, whatever we’re telling the Land.’
‘Not Isak, the Mad Axe — that bastard was dragged out o’ the north ditch just before sundown, half-dead and brains scrambled but still claiming his win. Turns out he killed the general attacking that flank, Vrill, Duke Anote Vrill.’
Doranei sighed and slipped his complaining arms through the sleeves of his tunic. He left the armour on the floor but buckled on his weapons-belt, now holding only the ancient sword he’d taken from Aracnan’s corpse. Then he stood still for a moment, letting Veil’s words filter into his exhausted mind. ‘Wonderful,’ he said finally, stirring himself to hunt through his pack for the cigars he thought he’d left there. ‘So now I get to live the rest o’ my life with some fucking white-eye’s name tattooed on my arse.’ He lit one from the coals and headed outside.
He squinted at the weak sun as he gingerly wove a path through the makeshift camp in the grounds of Moorview Castle. He stopped outside the walls on the slope that led down to the moor, brought up short by the chaos of the previous day.
There were three great pits, one still being dug. The first was already filled with bodies and wood from the forest and a column of dirty smoke was rising high in the windless sky. Images from the battle flashed before his eyes: friends falling as the Menin threw themselves forward with frenzied abandon. The Brotherhood had lost half their number, a shocking proportion that was matched or exceeded by at least a dozen legions.
‘Brother Doranei.’ Suzerain Derenin sat on the sloping grass to Doranei’s left, his back against the wall of his castle. His right arm was in a sling and he winced as he gestured to the ground beside him with the spherical bottle he held in his left. ‘Join me.’
‘Got any food?’ Doranei asked as he eased himself down beside the Lord of Moorview. Whatever was in the bottle smelled more potent than wine
Suzerain Derenin shook his head. ‘Couldn’t stomach it.’ He was muscular, both bigger and younger than Doranei, his long limbs and broad shoulders well-suited to battle, but he’d still been so exhausted he’d almost crawled out of the fort once the last Menin had fallen.
‘Your first real battle, right? You sure can pick ’em.’
Doranei received only a grunt in reply, and when he took the bottle from Derenin he saw tears glisten in the man’s eyes. ‘Don’t matter who tells you what to expect, nothing prepares a man for what he sees on a battlefield, and that…’ He tailed off. None of the Narkang men had seen anything like it, experienced or not. Scree had been a place of horror and slaughter, sure enough, but it was the Farlan and Devoted troops who’d seen the worst of it. And they’d got off lightly, he now realised.
There were tens of thousands of men lying dead out there on the moor. Someone had guessed at fifty thousand, but others thought the figure higher. And a great many of those who survived the battle would have died in the night of their wounds. Bodies were lying everywhere, despite the efforts of the gangs working to drag the
