had compelled him to lift this tiny vessel into the waters. And now that the voices had stopped, he found himself gazing down at the same vessel, and at an archon in glass armour whom he recognized.
“Hasp?”
His voice sounded like a collapsing mountain. It seemed to echo back from the ends of time. Dill was suddenly afraid. He lifted his hands and gazed down at hard dry bones. When he flexed his fingers, the bones moved.
“Hasp!”
The tiny archon was shouting, “-me up…your hand.”
Dill reached out towards the ship, and let the archon leap into his outstretched hand. The Lord of the First Citadel looked no larger than a glass bead. Dill lifted his hand close to his face.
“Don’t think about anything except my voice,” Hasp said. “Just listen to what I have to say.”
Dill nodded.
“You’ve been dreaming,” Hasp said. “But your soul is now free. You’re no longer in Hell. You don’t have to fear the Icarates anymore.”
“Hell?” Dill began. Memories of his time in the Processor assaulted him like a violent squall: the Icarates chanting, the screaming walls and sobbing machines, the knives, and the blood. He stared in horror at his skeletal hand.
“A physical form is transient,” Hasp said. “Only your soul is eternal. That’s all that matters now.”
“Where am I? Where is Deepgate?”
“You’re on the other side of the world, lad, and I don’t even know if Deepgate still exists.” The Lord of the First Citadel gave a long sigh, and then pointed southwest. “Do you see that stain on the horizon? That is Menoa’s army. They have taken the
Dill spied a series of dark shapes-rough squares and oblongs-a short distance beyond the perimeter of the pool, following a crimson track. Smoke trailed from the rearmost of these.
Machines?
“Now look to the northern shore.”
The earth here was stained red in a thick line extending out to the east and west beyond the shore of the pool. Masses of tiny black creatures crawled over this crimson landscape, and at first Dill took them to be insects. But then he realized the truth of it. An encampment had been erected there. It housed a second army-much smaller than the one approaching from the southeast, but a considerable force nevertheless. Beyond these legions the ground sloped gently up towards a pale city of slender minarets hedged by thick walls, all rising before a curious bank of mist which enveloped a large part of the northern skies. Earthen and timber barricades had been constructed on the open ground before the twin GateTowers, and flanking these were iron-banded ballistae.
“Coreollis,” Hasp explained. “The fortress of the god of flowers and knives. King Menoa expects my brother Rys to bend the knee before Hell’s ambassadors today-to sign away his soul to the Ninth Citadel. He must comply or face complete annihilation.”
“From that army?” The dark horde beyond the shore seemed so tiny and insignificant to Dill, but he began to understand the threat from Hasp’s perspective.
“No,” Hasp said. “From
“Then they’ll fight?”
“Now that Menoa has lost you, he knows Rys will not sign the treaty. He has no choice now but to throw his whole horde against Coreollis and try to break her.” The god looked back up at Dill. “The forces of Hell and Earth will clash here today. If the Mesmerists win, King Menoa’s form of living death will replace all life here. This country will become the stuff of chaos.”
Dill watched tiny figures assembling along the shore. They were boarding low sleek boats and pushing them into the lake. Wherever these dark hulls met the water, they bled, leaving crimson trails behind them.
“They have realized that something is wrong,” Hasp said. “Or King Menoa has already issued orders. They will attack us soon.”
Dill lowered Hasp to the deck of the ship. Then he reached a hand under the hull and lifted, hoisting the whole vessel clear of the waters.
With the
24
Rachel left John Anchor laughing and drinking with one of Rys’s commanders and walked through the streets of Coreollis along with Trench and Ramnir. They had arrived two days ago-and just in time, for the Mesmerist reinforcements had been spotted approaching via the Red Road on the western shores of Lake Larnaig. But something else had unnerved the populace of Rys’s city-something vast and terrible-and it was this that she had set off to see.
Coreollis was now preparing for battle and Rys’s Northmen were everywhere. Trained veterans well used to repelling attacks from the Mesmerist hordes, they filled the streets of the city. As Rachel and her companions walked down a narrow lane, they passed a unit of mounted soldiers. Like the god they followed, these men wore silver plate forged here in Coreollis. They were tall and golden-haired and broad of shoulder-a race descended from the Skarraf Northerners who had claimed this handsome city a thousand years ago. And yet Rachel had noticed an edge of cruelty to their ways. They were quick to show disapproval, and quicker to inflict punishment on the hapless locals.
Coreollis lay in the shadow of the Mesmerists and yet it had never come under siege. Menoa’s hordes, it seemed, required blooded ground to sustain them as they crept from one battlefield to the next, and Rys’s soldiers had exploited this weakness to their advantage, keeping the threat away from supply lines open north of the city. They had effectively corralled the enemy to an area that had seen intense conflict over the last decade, refusing to let the Mesmerists encircle the city.
Now a sense of urgency filled the streets. Rachel, Trench, and Ramnir passed a quadrangle full of shouting warriors engaged in combat practice, almost colliding with a runner who had been distracted by this melee. Wide steps led them down to an esplanade before the city GateTowers, where soldiers formed ranks before marching out to positions outside the city walls. Commoners hurried about them, carrying supplies to the archers and pike-men on the battlements. As they reached the base of the steps, the trio passed two soldiers of the Flower Guard who were untying their horses’ reins from a post.
“Hey, donkey man,” the first guard said to Ramnir. “Fetch me some hay for my beast.”
His companion laughed.
The Heshette leader made no reply, but his hand went to the knife at his waist. Trench stopped him.
“That’s a threat,” the guard said. He was a foot taller than the Heshette and was twice his width. Sunlight blazed on his breastplate. “You don’t reach for a weapon in the presence of the Flower Guard. Someone needs to teach you fucking heathens a lesson.”
The other guard was older. He grunted. “I think Anchor brought those bastards in to work in the stables. Have you seen their women? I’d rather sleep with my horse.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Ramnir said.
The older guard paused, then straightened, frowning.
Rachel had already pulled Ramnir out of one fight since they’d arrived, and she didn’t like the look of these two.
“Please, gentlemen,” she said. “We’re guests here. We mean no offense.” She pulled the Heshette leader past the men and out between the GateTowers. “They’re just nervous,” she said as the city walls fell behind and the landscape opened before them. “Because they know they have to face
