The Starfall Knight (26 page)

He swung out and flailed for another rope but caught nothing apart from air.  The aerock shivered – or had his life-line begun to fray?

Devan shoved against Masteney again but came no closer.  A gale howled between the aerocks and spun Devan around.  He clutched onto his line and closed his eyes.  The rope creaked and stretched.  Devan had never before given much thought to the rasp of rope under strain but he now had a finer appreciation for its intricacies and all the ways a rope could groan but not break.

The wind died and Devan grabbed onto a corner of exposed bedrock.  Above, the maroon of the night sky had narrowed between the two land masses.  Sirinis and Masteney were about to collide.

“Tyn’s balls.”  Devan pushed out again.  His fingers snapped up an opposite rope and he gave it a tug to test its strength.  The rope held.  Devan slid down as cords from both aerocks swept over his shoulders.

Above, the surface edges of the aerocks crashed together and earth cascaded down, showering over Devan.  As he twisted in the gap, Devan spotted a dark patch on Sirinis.  He pulled on the rope and pushed out his legs, gaining speed like a pendulum.  The stain on Sirinis was not a mineral or blight – it was the opening to a mine.

Devan swung in and leaped from the rope.  He crashed into the stone floor and gasped.  Devan rolled onto his side and vomited, his fears and doubts and boyish dreams all forgotten.

Chapter Eleven

The bell above the town hall pealed in a frantic series of rings.  Alessa shuddered at the pointless gesture – there were no reinforcements coming.  The Centarans stormed across the main road to the north, their steel overrunning the thrashers holding at the edge of the cottages and leaving a swathe of blood and broken bodies.  Flames roiled all around the main square, a herald of the soldiers that was reflected in their red tabards.

“Servius!”  Dene and Nasius approached from the direction of the tavern, thrashers in tow.

“You’ve taken your leisure.”

“Apologies, Servius,” Dene said.  She flicked back her long hair.  “We have been commanding our forces.”

“I gave no such orders.”  Nasius opened his mouth to speak but Alessa continued, “Dene – you will take fifty of your thrashers and man the south palisade.  Nasius – you will do the same but shore up the lines to the north.  Yes, the one currently bristling with steel.”

“Are you certain, Servius?” Nasius asked.  “I don’t see the utility in throwing our thrashers in –”

“I command in the name of the Imperator,” Alessa said.  “Obey or I will have your head.”

Timber cracked and another building crumbled under flames.  Alessa glared at Nasius and he bowed his head.

“Yes, Servius.”

“Go, now.”

Dene and Nasius withdrew and gathered their men and women.  The southern walls crawled with arrow-fire from Centaran rangers while a host of soldiers flooded the north of the town.  With any luck, the two faction leaders would find themselves with more dead followers, if they did not also end up amongst the corpses.

“Grunos?”

“Yes, Servius?”

“Bring the prisoners forward.  I want them to be the first thing the Centarans see when they reach the square.”

“Yes, Servius.”

Grunos commandeered a group of thrashers and herded the Masteney prisoners across the square to the northern edge where the soldiers were sure to break through.  Most of the prisoners were women and girls but there were a few young men to accommodate both the female thrashers as well as the males whose preferences ran that way.  All of the Masteney hostages had been fed and watered, more so than those locked up in the barn, but they were stained with dirt and excrement.  Grunos and his thrashers reached the northern edge of the square and forced the captives to their knees.

Nasius and his men reinforced the battle as another group of thrashers retreated along the western path.  Elina led the group, bleeding from wounds across her forehead and arms, and carrying a limp.

“What you got them lined up for?” Elina said.  She threw down a wooden club and splashed herself down with water from a rain barrel.

“Protection,” Alessa replied.

Elina spat.  The cut above her eyes continued bleeding.  She ripped a strip of cloth from her sleeve and tied it around her head.  “Protection from what?  We’re giving these whore-sons a good beating.”

The hiss of arrowflight followed by meaty thuds sounded from the palisade.  Screams followed as they always did.  Alessa drew her sword – there were no more thrashers available to reinforce the walls.  In the distance, forms squeezed through the gaps in the palisade and Alessa now knew exactly how the Masteney townsfolk had felt.

“More of ‘em?” Elina said.  “We’ll tear through them just as well.”

“No,” Alessa said.  “Take half of the prisoners and line them up to the south.”

“I see.”  Elina gathered her thrashers and followed Alessa’s order.  Some of the prisoners moaned and screamed.  Others simply remained silent as they were frog-marched across the town square.

Fire crackled.  Strange, Alessa thought, that she could hear flames destroying wood as if she were seated in front of a hearth.  The din of battle had ceased.  She joined Grunos near the line of prisoners.

The Centarans advanced along the roads, outlined by smoke and fire.  Their red tabards were stained black and weapons dripped with blood.

“They’re all around us,” Grunos said.

“I know.”  Alessa had seen the rangers striding from the south.  “Elina, hold firm.”

“Aye,” Elina replied over her shoulder.  She held a knife to the throat of a plump woman wearing nothing more than a nightgown.

The Centarans halted as one.  A soldier encased in plated armour stepped forward.  “Who is your commander?” he called out in a feminine voice.

“I am Servius,” Alessa said.  “Name yourself.”

“Captain Marzell.”

“We meet again.”

“Alessa, is it?” Marzell said.  “You should not have returned.”

“We warned you what would happen if you did not retreat,” Alessa replied.  “So, that makes two of us who refuse the advice of others.”

“This is no game, lass.  Surrender your forces and release the prisoners.”

Alessa’s skin prickled at the diminuitive address.  “If you value the lives of these townsfolk, you will retreat and allow us safe passage back to Sirinis.”

Marzell’s helm shook from side to side.  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

“You would have your people die?”

“No.  We have destroyed the cables to Sirinis.”

“Liar!” Elina yelled.  “Let’s kill them now!”

“Stay your hand,” Marzell replied.  “If you surrender, you will be treated justly.”

“And rot in your prisons?”  Elina waved her blade in the air.  “You’ve taken away our home.  I’ll never surrender!”  She plunged the knife into the woman’s neck, again and again.  Blood spurted out at first, then slowed to an ooze.

“No!” Alessa leaped at Elina as the woman slumped to the ground.  The other prisoners cried and moaned as the thrashers milled around, weapons limp.  “You idiot!”

Alessa swung the flat of her blade and connected with Elina’s forearm.  Bone splintered and the thrasher squealed.  Alessa reversed her swing and smashed Elina’s other shoulder.  The bitch collapsed into a heap, almost indistinguishable from the Masteney hostages.

“You’ve killed us!”  Alessa raised her sword for the killing blow.  For the briefest moment, she wondered if she could have done the same against Nasius and Dene.  Perhaps they had had the sense to flee, although the Centaran lines had been tight.

“Now, will you surrender?”  Marzell and her soldiers had advanced and held Grunos and the others at the tips of their halberds and swords.  Rangers stood on the palisade, arrows nocked and bows drawn.

Alessa threw down her weapon, turning her gaze away from Elina.  The thrashers in the square followed her lead.  “Third time lucky, right, captain?”

The sun shone through Devan’s eyelids.  Yet, that was impossible as the cavern was overshadowed by Masteney.  Devan shot upright, one hand clutching the rocky floor and the other his own vomit.  At least he hadn’t been discovered.

Devan wiped his hand as best as he could and peered outside.  Masteney floated in the distance, obscured by clouds, perhaps a quarter-league away.  Sirinis had been detached.

Hunger pangs stung Devan and he unhooked a waterskin.  As he drank, he wondered if he would be able to steal or trade for food on the surface.  Only one way to find out.

Devan stood up and stretched, muscles still stiff from his night on the hard cavern floor.  The daylight crept through the subterranean chamber, exposing timber supports and ruts in the ground.  The cave must have been part of a mining operation but now long abandoned.  Devan picked a direction and started walking.

The chamber narrowed to a passageway and he left daylight behind.  The walls of the tunnel took on a blue sheen as the remaining illumination emanated from seams of andonite that flickered like a limp candleflame.  Devan’s stomach lurched again but he forced down his nausea.  He was trapped on Sirinis unless they made another pass at Centara.  And they would need to – if the the andonite in the mines were any indication, the aerock did not have much time left.

The tunnel climbed upwards and Devan stumbled along, hands on the walls to keep himself from tripping.  A headache throbbed in his temple as if to multiply his woes with his unsettled gut.  Devan pushed aside all else and concentrated on reaching the surface.

At the next bend, daylight shone along the rocks again.  The passage opened to a flat landscape covered in huts and makeshift shelters.  A muscled thug sauntered past Devan with a sneer.  A tattoo of bones covered his neck, back and shoulders.  Devan had emerged into the middle of Sirinis.

He hurried past the thrasher.  The ground underfoot squelched with every step, a mixture of mud and who knew what else.  The huts were cobbled together from scraps of lumber, mudbrick, stone, tiles and thatching.  Most were standing only by virtue of leaning against another shack.  Devan passed a larger shanty with no door.  Inside, a man with jowled cheeks fucked a woman with dreadlocks, each movement eliciting grunts from both participants.  A toddler sat in the doorway and stared back at Devan.

Devan muttered a prayer to the moons and averted his eyes, continuing onwards.  Another group of armed Sirinese patrolled the path.  They were dressed in motley armour – ragged leather cuirasses, rusty chain shirts that were more holes than mail.  Like the others Devan had seen, the thrashers’ tattoos were visible on their necks and forearms.

“You!” a thrasher called out.  “What are ya looking at?”

Devan rested a hand on his hilt.  Five of them but he had training and equipment on his side.  “Trouble.”

“Trobble?  What the fuck kind of speech is that?”

“What?”

“Wat?”  The thrashers laughed.  They had spread out, blocking the path.  “You must be one of Tarius’ lads?  They got all funny ways of speaking.”

Another nodded.  “They picked it up from that shitrock.  Centara.”

“That’s some nice armour.  Let’s have at ‘im.”

Devan drew his sword.  The thrashers unhooked their clubs and axes.  They charged.

Alessa shuffled into the hall, one in a line amongst her fellow Sirinese.  She had seen Elina, Leonus and Grunos earlier, yet there had been no sign of Nasius or Dene.  With any luck, they had been killed.  The manacles around Alessa’s legs and wrists tugged with every step.  The master chain clanked against metal, scraped against the wooden floor.  Alessa bristled at her own helplessness.  So, she thought, this was how vulnerable the townsfolk must have felt.

Centaran soldiers lined each wall of the Masteney town hall and a long table had been brought in.  Behind the table sat five men and women, one of whom had been a resident of Masteney, judging from the cuts on his face and arms.  There was a man and woman dressed in fine clothes with blue ceremonial robes over their shoulders.  A woman with close-cropped hair sat at one end of the table; she seemed familiar and wore leather armour.  At the opposite end was Captain Marzell, still encased in steel armour that was dented and stained with the battle just gone.

“Sirinese marauders,” the robed man said.  “Scum.”

“Little more than animals, Councillor,” the Masteney man replied.

Alessa stepped forward, as far as the chain allowed.  “Who are you?  What right do you have over us?”

“I am Councillor Marwin,” the robed man replied.  He was older than the others at the table.  “And our right is through the laws of our land which you have broken, and the regard to natural justice which will now serve for you.”

“Natural justice is a sham,” Alessa said, recalling the works of Zyrdanis the Elder.  “Our perception of morals have nothing to do with the events of the world.  There is no value in anthropomorphising them as such.  That is where Zyrdanis fell short.”

“And pray, what do you know of Zyrdanis?”

“He was Sirinese,” Alessa said.  “
Reflections of Blue
was a good attempt at formalising logic for the philosophical study of morals and ethics but its should not have tied itself into natural science.  The text’s value outside of academic use is limited.”

Councillor Marwin barked a laugh.  “Zyrdanis was certainly not Sirinese.”

“You are wrong.  Just as you are wrong to hold us against our will.”  Alessa held up her manacled wrists.  “I demand a return to our home aerock.  All of us.  By your own laws, you must comply.”

“That will not happen,” Captain Marzell said.  “Sirinis has been detached from Masteney.”

The Masteney townsman said, “You must all face justice for your crimes.”

“Who are you?” Alessa asked.

“Mayor Gervan.”

“Ha!” a Sirinese voice laughed at the rear of the hall.  Elina.  “I remember you.  I remember chaining your wife to the stable.  She was first.”

The Sirinese broke into laughter and racous jeering.  Gervan clenched his fist and his cheeks flushed.

“Silence!”  Councillor Marwin stood up.  “Be silent or by the moons you will be thrown into a dungeon until you are!”