“Do you hear that?” said Glamir, unexpectedly.
Keturah listened. She could not hear anything in particular. The patter of leather-soled slippers hurrying over the cobbles. A pair of wood pigeons sitting in the tree above, cooing into the dusk. The tree’s last leaves scratching in the wind. The soft gurgle of the stream that crossed the street.
But she could feel something, she realised. A faint, rhythmic quiver in her guts. It crossed her flesh, prowled through her lungs and up her throat. She glanced at her companion. “I feel it.”
Before the two women, the figures on the street slowed and came to a halt as they too became aware of the sensation. Heads jerked up to look above the walls, up at the lavender sky, and all fell quiet. The leaves shivered and the stones quaked at the bass tattoo of a distant army, marching in step. Many on the street shared a look; some of them seeming to become aware of Keturah’s gaze for the first time and glancing at where she sat in the shadows. The water of the stream began to pulse in regular waves, ordered by the rhythmic thump of boots. Then the spell was broken and the activity in the street redoubled. Doors began to slam left and right from Keturah and, within a few moments, the cobbles were abandoned.
Keturah glanced at her companion with a wry smile and received a look of sympathy in return. “I hope your father is victorious, ’Turah.”
Keturah looked away. “So do I,” she said. “But it seems unlikely. Belligerence will only carry you so far.”
“Your father is a survivor. He will come through.”
“It’s possible,” said Keturah. “The one person who won’t survive is Roper, though. So much for my marriage.”
“You’re better without him,” said Glamir. “He struck a deal with the Sutherners!”
Keturah tutted, drawing that conversation to a close. “Of course he didn’t.” She sat unnaturally still, head tilted back against the wall, her countenance almost bored. Beside her, Glamir was agitated; looking down the street and then up at the sky.
“How much of this fortress do you think will be left standing by tomorrow?” said Glamir.
“Swords cannot cut stone,” came Keturah’s tart reply. The ensuing silence was tainted by the thump of marching boots. Keturah knew that Glamir was about to speak again, and what she was going to say.
“I am scared,” came the quiet words.
“You’ll be fine, my dear,” said Keturah. She grasped Glamir’s hand to soften her calloused tone.
“Not only of the assault,” said Glamir. “I am scared for you. You are a pawn in this game.”
The ground trembled in the pause that followed. Keturah did not move. Then she shrugged. “Me and everyone else.”
As night began to fall, it felt as though winter had at last draped its cloak over the fortress. The air was sharp and dry. The breath of the legionaries assembling atop the wall rose as mist. The men gathered, exchanged a brief word by way of greeting, and then waited in silence. No one wanted to speak. The rumbling of marching feet had morphed into something they could sense with their ears. It was like distant applause: an audience of ten thousand clapping in time.
Tramp-tramp-tramp-tramp-tramp.
There was no moon that night; the Blackstones and the Greyhazel could see nothing from behind their high battlements. The lime-lanterns were lit: four enormous lamps on the Great Gatehouse which burnt a combination of lime and pressurised gas with a brilliant white flame. A parabolic mirror behind the flame could be used to focus this intense light before the walls of the Hindrunn and illuminate any approaching army. These were as much weapons as anything else: an enemy advancing into such intensity would be utterly dazzled. Bundles of hay soaked in oil were tossed from the walls, ready to be ignited with flaming arrows. The darkness would offer no shelter to Roper’s men.
Uvoren watched atop the Great Gatehouse, leaning against one of the battlements and waiting for the enemy to come into view. He knew the sound of a marching army, and maybe it was something to do with the cold air, or just the contrast with the intense silence that had fallen over the battlements, but this one was louder than he had expected. Deeper. He tried to talk to calm his men, but his voice, like a candle lit in an abyss, merely highlighted the true extent of the dark. He fell silent.
It was no wonder the men were quiet. They had never fought Anakim before, still less their own kin. If it came to hand-to-hand combat, they would meet with friends across steel. It was easier to be brave going into battle against the Sutherners: fellow Anakim were a different proposition entirely. And not just any Anakim. Ramnea’s Own Legion. The Sacred Guard itself. No man wanted to fight such warriors.
It was not until the noise of marching feet was powerful enough to rattle the grit on the battlements that Uvoren thought he could discern Roper’s army in the darkness beyond the walls. It was barely visible: a shimmering river of reflected starlight, heading straight for the Great Gate. It seemed they bore no torches, allowing themselves to be guided home by the charcoal glow of the Hindrunn.
“Not long now, boys,” declared Uvoren. His words did not even seem to have reached the man next to him. Even Tore, standing to Uvoren’s left, was silent and watchful as the head of the column gathered itself from the dark, illuminated by the lime-lanterns. Though it was hard to tell, there was no sign of the pursuing Suthern army. The legions must have out-marched them.
They were in good order, for a broken force. They looked almost ghostly, light drizzling from armour and weapons while their bodies remained dark. It was as though this was nothing more than a column of armour coming to besiege their home, having left their flesh behind. But surely armour could not make the ground tremble with
