Kassia and Rian closed the door shut, slid the heavy bolt across and leaned their backs against it.
“Better in here than out there,” Kassia said, setting a hand on Rian’s shoulder. “The slaves were fools.”
“They weren’t slaves any more,” Rian said. “It was their choice, to stay or go as they wished.”
Philemos stood to one side with a short stabbing sword, his soldier’s cuirass too big for him. His eyes were red-rimmed. “We’ll stay here until things settle down. I can go out and look, later, see what’s been going on.”
Polio shook his head. “Young master, do you hear that?”
They went quiet. The agony of the city rose up Kerusiad Hill, people wailing and screaming in their tens of thousands, their feet raising a murmur from the earth.
“That is the sound of a city’s fall,” Polio said, and his face gnarled with grief. “Karnos has failed. Have you looked to the east? They brought towers to the walls. But the fighting there is over now – the enemy is inside the city.”
He drew a deep breath. “I will abide here, and wait for Karnos. If he is alive, he will return. For the next few days, there is no more dangerous place in the world than the streets outside this door -especially for the women. Ladies, you must trust to these walls.”
“My mother wants to leave as soon as it’s dark – we have people we know in Arienus,” Philemos said. He looked at Rian.
“You are the head of your household now,” Polio told him. “It is for you to decide what is to be done. Your mother must realise that, Philemos.”
The boy nodded. “It comes hard. It’s new to me.”
Rian reached out and took his hand.
Kassia stood with tears running silently down her face, but she managed a laugh. “Listen to us, conjuring up the worst picture we can! Polio, if ever any two men were going to live through a disaster, then they are Karnos and my brother. They’ll be back here, you’ll see. Even if Machran falls, those two cannot be kept down.”
Polio nodded gravely. “Lady, I believe you’re right.”
“So what do we do?” Rian asked. “Sit tight and wait for order to be restored?”
“Yes,” said Polio. From the folds of his snow-white himation he produced a long iron knife. “One more thing – all of us should arm ourselves.”
“A kitchen knife will not do much,” Kassia said.
“Better than nothing,” Rian told her. “Kassia, even if the city is lost, my father’s men will be out there. Fornyx and Kesero” – she darted a swift, strange look at Philemos – “and Valerian. The Dogsheads will find us.”
“Friends in both camps,” Kassia said with a small, bitter smile. “I’m sorry, Rian – I forget sometimes. You have ties to the men outside the walls.”
“I have ties within them also, Kassia,” Rian said.
Corvus rode across Avennan Square with an escort of Companions. Ardashir was beside him, and thronged throughout the square were hundreds of spearmen from the commands of Teresian and Demetrius. These were too spent to join in the general pursuit careering through the streets of the city.
Many of the men were sitting on their shields with their helms off, mouths hanging open. At the moment, they were too glad to be merely alive to yet feel the triumph of the city’s capture. But as Corvus entered the square and took off his helm, they scrambled to their feet, and began to smite their spears on their shields and cheer.
Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, standing cheering in that great corpse-choked open space, the Empirion rearing up white behind them and the agony of the city a backdrop to their delight. Corvus raised a hand and the cheers redoubled. They began chanting his name. The sound carried across the city in a wave, unmistakeable, crushing the hope out of the last few defenders still fighting despair.
Fornyx pushed through the mass of cheering spearmen. He had his hand on the shoulder of a tall, broad-shouldered fellow who had the sigil of Machran painted on his armour. The crowd of spearmen made way for them, shaking their spears in the tall man’s face. He ignored them, walked along as though in some kind of reverie, and only when he stood before Corvus did he look up and seem to snap out of it.
“Corvus,” Fornyx said, his face split wide in a grin. “I have a prize for you. This fellow here is named Kassander, and he is the polemarch of Machran. His men laid down their arms at the foot of the Empirion not ten minutes ago. They were the last. I promised them their lives and their freedom, for they fought well. I trust you will respect my promise.”
“Gladly, Fornyx,” Corvus said. He bent in the saddle and grasped the Cursebearer’s hand. “It was well done. I should have done the same thing myself.”
He turned to Kassander, who stood stolid and uncaring, though he did look up at the youth on the black horse with a wistful kind of curiosity.
“I am glad to see you alive, Kassander,” Corvus said to him. “I have heard you are a good man.”
Kassander grunted. He was a picture of carnage, soaked in blood, and he was missing the upper part of one ear. The blood from the sliced flesh had formed a black bar down the side of his neck.
“What of your friend Karnos? Do you know where he might be?”
The question seemed to pierce the fog. Kassander swallowed, looked up at the sky, winter-blue. There was not a cloud to be seen, but Phobos was a pale round wisp high up in it, a ghost with a cold smile.
“Karnos is dead. He is lying here somewhere. Your mercenaries killed him. He wore a black cuirass, but I suppose that will be stripped off him by now.”
Corvus’s face fell. “That is a pity. There was a time I would have wished him dead, but not now. You and he put up a rare fight, Kassander. I salute you for it.”
Kassander turned bloodshot eyes upon Corvus. “The city is yours now, and we are all in your hands. They say that Antimone shows us the hearts of men not only in defeat, but in victory also. Your name will be tied to this victory forever, Corvus, and what you and your men do to Machran now will follow you for as long as there are Macht to remember it.”
Corvus nodded. “I know this – it is something I have always known. You need not fear for Machran, Kassander. It will be my capital now, and its people are my people also.”
Kassander cocked his head to one side, squinting in the sun. “Are they?”
“We are all one people,” Corvus said softly. “We’ve been fighting amongst ourselves too long.”
Kassander rubbed a hand over his face, streaking it with blood. “Then let us put an end to it,” he said.
TWENTY-SIX
The first crashing impact on the door had startled them more than the roar of the city’s fall. It was immediate, personal, and on a human scale. Their fear, which had been an ill-defined dread before, now lurched into something closer to terror.
No sound outside, no shouting, nor clamour of a mob. Just the crash on the stout doors of Karnos’s house, as though a giant ram were charging it with blind malevolence.
Philemos’s mother became hysterical. She and her two young daughters were locked away in a far corner of the house. As Philemos shut the door on them, he heard the sound of furniture being dragged and piled up against it on the inside.
The wide front doors of the house were solid, oak and bronze. Kassia, Rian, Ona, Philemos and Polio began hauling furniture in their turn, dragging the beautiful couches made by Framnos, Karnos’s pride and joy, across the fountain courtyard and wedging them tight against the gate. Now they heard the grunt of men outside, the rattle of wheels on the cobbled street before every crash.