Chapter IX. A Small Price #2
“‘Hold your tongue, de León,’ Maarten hissed. ‘I know how to fight the Dead.’
“And to the Forever King, he roared.
“‘Is that it, Voss? Hollow threats from toothless jaws?’
“‘Threats? ’
“Voss took one step closer, gaze falling on the Duke like an avalanche.
“‘Nay, Chevalier. No threat speak I, but vow. And to each here assembled, I gift it true. Swift this night ye may die, sons and daughters of Elidaen, shouldst thy callow God grant mercy. But to thy loved ones cowering beyond these walls, Fabién Voss shall show none. I shall visit that warm bed ye made mention of, brave Duke, and oh, so sweetly teach thy bride Yvaine the price of her husband’s defiance. To my men, shall thy daughters be thrown. Elodie. Fleur. Little Remi. As lambs to hungry wolves shall thy angels be.’
“Maarten glowered, jaw clenched. But that black gaze swept the walls, the soldiers beneath it quailing. And one by one, Voss called their names into the night.
“‘Thy mother, Claude Arnaud. Thy sisters three, Alfric Charron. Thy dear old papa, Talyn Lambert. Their names know I, their faces also, and of them shall I make exception to simple slaughter. Of tortures divine shall I teach thy loved ones, Augustin. And long after thy corpses have cooled shall their screams ring over the ruin I shall make of these walls.’
“Voss tilted his head then, smile fading.
“‘Or I can simply depart.’
“Maarten frowned, scoffing now. ‘Depart?’
“Fabién extended one hand, frowning at the claws that tipped his fingers.
“‘Weary of war, be I. Eighteen years be an eternity to march to its wretched drum, and the cries of cattle be not the symphony once they were. I long for softer songs.’
“‘Why in God’s name would you depart after coming so far?’
“‘Thou shalt grant me boon in payment, Duke de La Fontaine. Only just, Fabién’s price. To preserve thy families dearest, thou shalt reunite me with mine own.’
“That pale hand rose, pointing now at the girl behind me.
“‘Her.’
“Dior had stood silently through all this, jaw clenched, pale blue eyes watering in that screaming wintersdeep wind. As Fabién’s gaze fell upon her, every one of her Unbound drew their blades, surrounding her in a ring of steel.
But she pushed through, unafraid, leaning on the battlements as she spat her defiance.
“‘You’re a fucking liar!’
“‘No liar I, child. Thy kinsman I be, brother to the Redeemer who seeded thy line entire. Ask thy dear Gabriel if—’
“‘He told me already!’
“Voss blinked, as if he had forgotten what it was to be interrupted. For my part, I was amazed at this revelation—that at root, Dior and Voss might be of the same blood. But Dior charged on, unafeared, fists upon the stone, fire in her eyes.
“‘Maybe it’s even true! Maybe you were his brother! But that’s not why you want me, fucker!
We’re supposed to believe you dragged an army tens of thousands strong all the way from Talhost to here and, what, now you’ll just piss off so we can play happy familles in the snow?
I can smell the shit you’re shoveling all the way up here! ’
“She climbed onto the battlements then, loud enough to be heard all along the wall.
“‘Dead tongues heeded are Dead tongues tasted!’
“Voss stared at Dior, a long and silent age. The wind howled between, not a hair on his head moved by it, the grey flurries falling everywhere save on his skin.
“And finally, his stare shifted to my brother.
“‘What say ye, old friend? Sweet Patience awaits yonder, thy brothers Aaron and Baptiste beside her. All three shall I gift, in exchange for one. The fairest price, no? Thy true daughter for she who simply wishes to be? ’
“My brother’s only reply was a gleaming rope of saliva, spat out into the wind.
I touched his thoughts then, and before he slammed the door and fixed me with his glower, I saw that jewel, that miracle, that little girl in his mind.
Her papa’s eyes and her mama’s skin, her name inked in silver across his knuckles.
“He had her, we realized. Voss had Patience in his claws.
“And still, Gabriel refused to abandon Dior.
“God, how dear he loved her …
“Fabién’s gaze drifted back to Duke de La Fontaine.
“‘Consider my offer, Chevalier. One girl be a small price for an empire.’
“And without a whisper, the light in those skulls about him went out.
“Darkness crashed down where once he’d stood, so heavy and thick we almost heard the clap. Thunder rolled, heavens colliding above, our gaze fixed on Gabriel.
“‘Brother…’
“‘You don’t get to call me that. Not anymore.’
“We clenched our jaw at his slap, knowing we deserved it. ‘So be it. But if you wish me to look in upon Patience, or pass word to her or your brothers…’
“We lifted our hand, a tiny moth of blood upon our fingertip.
“‘Godssakes, she is my niece. If we can help…’
“It took an age, the mistrust within him plain for any to see. But finally, Gabriel nodded, eyes like ice, voice barely a whisper.
“‘If you could look in on them … I’d be obliged.’
“We nodded, and at our command, that mote fluttered into the air, struggling against those howling winds. Duke Maarten’s eyes were on Dior, the Grail still stood upon those walls and glowering into the dark.
Turning to his aide-de-camp—a short, blotch-faced capitaine with a long moustache—Maarten nodded.
“‘Give the call to arms. Make ready the walls.’
“‘Ready the walls!’ the little man bellowed. ‘REAAAADY! ’
“The cry was repeated down the ramparts, thousands of blades unsheathed, thousands of arrows nocked. We could hear movement now, rising from a whisper out in that ink-black night; the thunder of oncoming feet. But still, even with the eyes of the Dead, we could see nothing. The Duke bellowed for light, Godssakes, light! and a thousand hempcloth arrows were fired, lit at flickering braziers and arcing out into the black like dying suns. And as they fell, down, down into the brink before Augustin’s walls, finally, we saw what was coming for us, Marquis. ”
“Puppies?” Jean-Francois asked.
The Last Silversaint scoffed, throwing a fond smile to the historian.
“Vampires,” Celene replied, undeterred. “Tens of thousands. I had fought at the Battle of Maergenn, where Voss and Dyvok crashed against us like waves of bloody red. At Lastbridge, where Dior turned back their tide. But I had never before seen the Endless Legion in its entirety, Jean-Francois. Not arrayed in full strength as it was that night.”
Celene shook her head and sighed.
“Such a number. Clad in finery and rags and armor rent, run through with rot or almost whole, pale and bloodless and endless, sweet Mothermaid, I swear God we did not know the meaning of that word until that moment. Cadres of mortal soldiers came behind them, armor wrought with bone motifs and the ravens of their dread master. But the men marched slower, the Black Crow and his highbloods too, leaving the onslaught to the wretched. They charged heedless at our walls, those Dead things, and in the final flicker before those burning arrows were extinguished, I beheld an empire’s ruin. ”
“Very poetic. One might even say theatrical.”
The historian dipped his quill, glancing now to the silversaint.
“But melodrama aside, was it truly bad as all that?”
“It was bad,” Gabriel replied. “Maybe not Tell My Wife I Love Her bad, but definitely New Pair of Britches bad. I’ve told you before war is mostly numbers—children’s tales and taverne songs aside.
You can only swing your sword so many times before your arm turns to lead.
You can only loose so many arrows before your bowstring breaks.
And though in numbers, we had Fabién’s match, a single wretched is worth a dozen mortal men.
And as that fucking snake coiled across the river just noted, Voss had thousands of them. ”
Celene scoffed softly, but glancing to the torchbearers, made no reply.
“But we had walls,” Gabriel continued. “Wheellocks. Holy water. Cannon. Flame. And the drymoat before the battlements of Rive Nord was twenty feet deep and wide, brimming with sharpened stakes and doused with every pint of lamp oil left in Augustin. Voss had no siege engines—he’d need to send his wretched across to scale the walls.
That’s a big ask with the drymoat on fire and four thousand archers and riflemen peppering your arsehole.
“Maarten was no twat, like I say—he’d fought the Dead in the past, and earned his knighthood with blood. He held our archers ready, waiting for the moment Voss would send his first wave of wretched into the moat. With luck, a few thousand would be ashes before they even reached the walls.”
The silversaint steepled silvered fingers at his lips and scowled.
“Unfortunately, when I say war is mostly numbers, that still leaves a remainder. Tactics. Leadership. Luck. In all that, Voss had our measure. And despite the knighthood he’d earned, Maarten now faced an enemy that could pluck his every thought from his mind.
“The wretched came on—that snarling, seething flood. But a couple of hundred feet out from the moat, they just stopped dead. It was … uncanny, coldblood. There were tens of thousands of the bastards, and every one just froze, as if at the snap of a single finger.
“And out in the dark, I heard a cold voice cry.
“‘Loose! ’
“Flames flared—hundreds all at once. My heart sank as I saw a volley of burning arrows sailing out from the night toward us, sent by Voss’s faithful thralls.
Maarten called all to ‘Ware!’ and Joaquin and the Unbound dragged Dior back from the battlements.
Yet it wasn’t toward our walls those shots were loosed, but the drymoat beneath.
“The arrows struck, our lamp oil caught fire, a shocking flare of heat and light. The conflagration sped across the moat, scorching, roaring—anything in that firestorm living or Dead would’ve been ashes. But not a single wretched had tried to cross.
“Voss had seen our first strike coming from miles away.
“‘Sweet Mothermaid,’ Maarten breathed.
“The flames were so bright, they lit up that dark again. And as the fire raged, the Endless Legion stood motionless, just out of bow and rifle range. Smoke rose, choking and thick, and hopes across the walls sank. I met Maarten’s eyes, rebuke behind my teeth.
I’d warned him to close off his thoughts, and like a boy on his maiden trip to the bush, he’d emptied his first quiver before the doe was even damp.
“‘Get ready,’ I warned. ‘This is going to get every shade of bloody.’
“The fires dimmed, Dead eyes staring hungry at the walls. And when the last of those flames failed, our opening gambit with them, the Endless Legion charged.”
Gabriel paused, silence ringing as his voice fell still. All in the room were on edge now, the tale of coming battle gripping thrall and vampire alike. But heedless, the silversaint had busied himself with his sacrament, lips pursed as he filled his pipe.
Hands shaking.
Pupils dilating.
And to fill the gulf, his sister spoke.
“Those first thirty minutes were awful, Historian. Phoebe and my brother stood side by side as that sea of Dead meat came on, her hand brushing light against his. Dior stood behind me, watching with wide blue eyes. There were firearms among the Unbound. Gabriel had armed himself with three wheellocks loaded with silvershot, and a bandolier of silverbombs about his chest. But it seemed a waste to squander any of that on Voss’s chaff.
So as those foulbloods poured across the smoking drymoat and began climbing through the cover of rising smoke, there was very little for us to actually do.
“The first wave shattered on the walls, repelled by Augustin’s archers and riflemen, the bone-shaking roar of cannon loaded with silvershot.
Battlepriests emptied barrels of holy water over the ramparts, Dead flesh melting off blackened bone.
But as arrows flew and rifles cracked and rotten bodies piled up in the moat below, they served only as stepping stones upon which their fellow wretched continued to climb.
The onslaught was relentless, clawing and seething, climbing higher, ever higher.
“Endless.
“‘We’re going to lose this wall,’ my brother warned. ‘Fight hard as you’re able, but listen for my voice. When I give the signal, we fall back.’
“‘Bring the wounded,’ Phoebe growled. ‘Dior can set them right when we’ve a breather. None left behind, y’hear?’
“Jaw clenched, we sliced our palms, summoning our blade and flail of blood. Beside us, young Joaquin Marenn roared, raising his silvered axe high.
“‘For the Grail, brothers!’
“And down the walls came the cry, ‘FOR THE GRAIL!’
“Dior lifted her chin, buoyed up by their valor, their faith unwavering. She met each man’s eye, brimming with boundless love, for them, this city, this world.
But most, we think, for the girl she’d lost. We recalled the conversation she and Reyne had in her room, about that day that never comes.
About how it was worth fighting for anyway.
And tears in her eyes, raising a silvered dagger already wet with her blood, she cried aloud.
“‘For tomorrow!’
“And like the raindrop that heralds the flood, the first wretched came over the wall.”