There was no debate over staying in the fortress this time. Uvoren no longer had the influence to block Roper and besides, knew that his most likely source of redemption was the battlefield. The legions were almost ready to march when a message arrived.
It was from Bellamus.
A cannon fired on the Outer Wall. It boomed, flat and desolate, around the citadel and disturbed the councillors assembled in the Chamber of State.
“Enemy sighted?” queried Gray.
“It must be,” said Tekoa, glancing towards the window behind the Stone Throne. “From the south. The Great Gate.”
“Thank you for today, peers, I suspect the cannon has terminated our council,” said Roper. “Legates, please make certain your legionaries are ready to depart at two hours’ notice.” Roper turned to Gray and Tekoa. “Shall we?”
They were already out of their seats and an agitated humming had filled the room as the rest of the council packed up. Surely an enemy sighting could only mean they were about to be besieged. Pryce was also in the room, begging Roper with a look for permission to come to the Outer Wall. Roper assented with his eyebrows and issued an invitation in kind to Helmec.
The five of them hurried down the stairs that connected the Chamber of State directly with the stables of the Central Keep. They mounted coursers, usually kept for messengers to speed between the Outer Wall and the Central Keep, and flew up the ramp and onto the packed streets. The girth-straps of their saddles were fitted with great clanking iron rattles that jangled as they rode, warning the subjects to make way. Everyone had heard the cannon-shot and had cleared a path long before Roper and his companions were within earshot, gazing anxiously after the party charging for the Great Gate.
Roper leapt off his saddle, handed the reins to a legionary to tether and then noticed that the Great Gate was already open and a cluster of Suthern horsemen was waiting beneath the arch of the gatehouse. One of them held a huge, long-bladed spear, attached to which was a limp square of white linen. If the gates had opened, that would mean that the sentries above the gate could see no more than these soldiers on the plains that had been cleared around the Hindrunn.
Aware of the rest of his retinue dismounting around him, Roper beckoned the Suthern party come closer. He thought the man in the centre looked as if he might possess unusual height for a Sutherner but did not realise quite how tall he was until the man had swung himself out of his saddle, removed his helmet and looked Roper in the eye. This Sutherner was enormous. He was taller than Tekoa, Pryce and Helmec and was able to match Roper and Gray inch for inch. He and the rest of his party were clad in strange raiment: plates of some rough, ceramic-looking material that overlapped in a flexible suit of armour. It covered their shoulders, their torsos and their thighs, with metal greaves, gauntlets and helmets with horsehair tails completing their defence. They moved easily in it, suggesting that the plates, whatever they were made of, were lightweight.
“Well?” said Roper in Anakim, for the benefit of his companions. “Who are you?”
“We are the men who have come to take your country from you,” said the tall Sutherner in a faltering, heavily accented version of the same tongue. He was dreadfully scarred, this man. Amid other marks on his face, the front half of his nose was missing, with a skull-like cross-section of his nostrils dominating his features. He had a shock of bright-blond hair and his eyes were a fevered, wolf-like yellow.
“Do you have a name?” pressed Roper, ignoring the tedious reply.
“Garrett Eoten-Draefend, of Eskanceaster.” His demeanour suggested that Roper should have heard of him, though he had not. Roper knew the Saxon word “draefend.” “Hunter,” that meant, though he could not translate “eoten.” “I lead Bellamus’s household warriors.”
“And what is this pottery that you armour yourselves in?” Roper posed a dutiful insult.
Out of the corner of his eye, Roper saw Gray look at him abruptly and Garrett gave an unexpected laugh. It was a maniacal, out-of-control kind of laugh that made Roper’s hair stand on end. “You should know,” he said in his heavy Anakim. Roper scrutinised the overlapping plates that were coloured like cream mixed with rust. They were reminiscent of something and his mind was on the verge of grasping it when Garrett spoke again. “I have a message from Bellamus.”
“Go on.”
“He travels to Harstathur, your sacred mountain crossroads. He says you should join him there and fight for the Black Kingdom.”
“Harstathur?” said Roper, disbelieving. “Why would he fight there?”
“He will fight you anywhere,” said Garrett. “Even where you think you are strongest.” Garrett smiled to reveal bleached white teeth before turning away. He and his companions hauled themselves back into the saddle, leaving Roper mystified behind them. Garrett reached out to one of his companions and took the long-bladed spear, which had been held for him. “I think you know this blade,” said Garrett, lowering it carefully towards Roper, trying to make it clear that he was not threatening the Black Lord.
Roper glanced down at it and felt a jolt run up his back.
It was Bright-Shock.
His father’s sword. Roper could tell by the outline and the way its Unthank-silver blade glittered. It had been embedded in a powerful ash-shaft with some sort of steel and lacquer socket. Bastardised into a huge long-bladed spear and here it was, wielded by this immense Sutherner. Roper looked up into Garrett’s face to see that white grin bared at him
