The Severed City Read online

The celebrations stretched into the night, and Agang made his way up to his private apartments much later than he had intended. As he passed the soldiers guarding the stairs, he heard voices coming from his study, and he turned along the passageway and entered the small room.

  Inside, Chane was sitting with Gertrude, Rebecca and Giles, three young and pretty Holdings slaves in his possession. Despite everyone believing that they were part of his harem, the two girls served no use to him other than to keep Chane company. When she had selected them from the market, she had told Agang they were skilled and knowledgeable about cavalry tactics and planning. He had guessed at the time that she had been lying to him, but had gone along with the fiction. He knew she had chosen all three to save them from a harsher fate, and didn’t begrudge her that, since she had on the same day picked out Stratton, a sturdy Holdings blacksmith who, after thirds of gentle persuasion and good treatment, had agreed to help Agang build Broadwater’s forge. The slave stayed down there, in a dedicated building close to the hall, inside the walls of the citadel. He had Giles to assist him, and though the boy was almost useless as Stratton’s apprentice, as a male, he was allowed to live with the blacksmith in the forge.

  Chane was sitting on a cushion by a low table. She looked relatively sober, he thought.

  ‘Lord Agang,’ she said, ‘congratulations.’

  He poured himself a drink from a jug on the table and sat down between Chane and Giles, who passed him a stick of dreamweed.

  ‘I’d be far happier,’ he said, ‘if the chiefs had chosen peace.’

  Chane frowned. ‘You knew they’d pick war.’

  ‘Yes. I knew. It was about planting the seed, putting the idea into their heads over and over. Now, when they see the farms and towns on the Plateau, hopefully they’ll realise that we can build the same here.’

  Gertrude snorted out a laugh.

  Giles tutted.

  ‘Don’t mind her, my lord,’ Chane said. ‘She’s drunk.’

  ‘I’m not as drunk as you,’ Gertrude said. ‘You just hide it better.’

  ‘Then what’s bothering you?’ Agang said.

  ‘You need to ask?’ Gertrude replied. ‘In the morning you’ll be setting off to invade my homeland, to burn, kill and destroy my people, and you’re treating it as an educational experience for your stupid chiefs.’

  Chane frowned and opened her mouth, but Agang silenced her with a look.

  ‘Firstly Gertrude,’ he said, ‘I’m not attacking the Holdings. The Realm is safe from our army. We’ll be raiding the Plateau, and the settlements along the shores of the Inner Sea.’

  ‘But the folk living there are from the Holdings,’ Gertrude said.

  ‘Yes, they are,’ Agang replied, ‘and it will be a time of tears for them, when we arrive. But we’ll be moving fast, sweeping north to the frontier wall. We’ll be back by the second third of autumn. One short raid, Gertrude, weighed up against four years of invasion and occupation. I could not have devised a revenge attack that was less harmful to your country.’

  ‘But what if the Holdings decide they want their own revenge, my lord?’ Rebecca said. ‘The wars will start again.’

  ‘Yes,’ Agang sighed. ‘That is a risk.’

  He took a long drink and sat back, gazing at his inebriated slaves.

  ‘Chane,’ he said, ‘try not to get too drunk. I’ve decided you are to accompany the army tomorrow, as part of my personal retinue.’

  She looked up, her face split with a broad smile. She reached her arms round his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You won’t regret it, my lord.’

  He smiled.

  ‘What about us?’ Giles asked.

  ‘You three and Stratton will be staying here,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving Gadang in charge to rule Broadwater while I’m gone.’

  ‘Your nephew, my lord?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘I know he’s young, but he’ll have the garrison here to protect the town. You’ll be safe.’

  ‘Safe to be bored out of our minds,’ Gertrude muttered.

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much,’ he said, ‘or smoke all day.’

  ‘What else is there to do?’ Gertrude cried, slurring her words and close to tears. ‘At least Giles and Stratton get to walk about outside, while Rebecca and me are stuck in here day after day. And now Chane’s getting out.’ Her voice broke.

  ‘We’ve been over this,’ Agang said. ‘If I let you girls wander about on your own, then your safety would be at risk, and your honour would be in grave peril.’

  ‘Fuck our honour!’ Gertrude shouted, her face red. ‘Sometimes I’d rather go outside, and find a quick death, instead of enduring the slow one trapped in here.’

  The room fell silent. Agang felt his rage rise.

  ‘That’s enough Gertrude,’ Chane said. ‘You’ve no idea what Agang has done for you, you ungrateful bitch. I should slap your face.’

  Rebecca stood, and took a hold of Gertrude’s hand. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Bed.’

  ‘That sounds wise,’ Agang said, feeling Chane lay a restraining hand on his thigh.

  Gertrude rose to her feet, and allowed Rebecca to guide her to the door leading to their rooms.

  Agang watched them go.

  ‘She’s getting worse,’ Chane said as the door closed behind them.

  ‘She’s just drunk,’ Giles said. ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Hearing a woman speak to her master so,’ Agang replied, ‘is a disgrace worthy of punishment. She’s lucky I’m leaving in the morning, otherwise I would have her flogged.’

  Chane touched his arm. ‘Come to bed.’

  ‘You go,’ he said. ‘I want to read for a while.’

  Chane opened her mouth, but said nothing. She kissed his cheek and got to her feet, slipping a bottle of something into her robes.

  Agang pretended not to see, picked up a book, and settled down on the cushions, Giles at his side.

  Chapter 3

  The Long Way Round

  Coastal Road, Rahain Republic – Summer’s Day 505

  Daphne vomited over the side of the lurching wagon, her long brown hair flying in the ocean breeze.

  ‘You all right, ma’am?’

  She looked up at the sergeant. She was riding Daphne’s horse just a few paces to the left of their convoy of three wagons, each protected by a guard loaned from the Holdings embassy in Rahain. Daphne nodded, and slumped back into the carriage, holding her stomach. She missed her stallion Jamie, but the smell of him made her even more nauseous. She had given him to the sergeant to ride, while she had to endure the constant motion of the wagon, as it wound its slow way along the coastal road to the Plateau.

  ‘Oh dear, miss,’ said Laodoc from beside her on the bench, ‘still no sign of it passing?’

  Daphne shook her head, unwilling to speak.

  ‘Miss Holdfast’s got a bit longer to go,’ said their guard from the front of the wagon, where she held the reins. ‘When I had mine, I was sick from the middle of the second third, right through to the end of the fourth.’ She looked over her shoulder at Daphne. ‘Yours does seem worse, though, ma’am. Mine used to fade each day by the afternoon. You seem to have it all the time.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Laodoc. ‘This child sickness, it does not exist in Rahain. I wonder if your condition is worse, miss, because the father was not from the Holdings?’

  Daphne frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘of the five races inhabiting this continent, it would seem implausible that any two should be able to interbreed. I certainly cannot imagine a Rahain successfully mating with a Rakanese, or indeed someone from the Holdings. Yet your people, and the natives from the Kellach peninsula do share the most in common. After all, you are both descended from apes. But there are still differences, and these might be the cause of your heightened symptoms.’

  ‘The bigger the baby, the sicker the mother, my ma used to say,’ said Bedig, ‘
but it’s different for us. Almost every pregnancy in Kellach Brigdomin results in twins, singles are very rare.’

  The guard’s eyes widened. ‘Ma’am, do you think…?’

  ‘No,’ Daphne said. ‘Shella’s checked. There’s only one.’

  ‘Just as well,’ Bedig said, laughing, ‘our babies are huge.’

  She glared at him.

  ‘Sorry, miss.’

  Daphne puffed her cheeks, the sickness rolling in waves through her. ‘This isn’t helping.’

  She turned, and pushed her head back through the gap in the side of the wagon. She felt the dry wind against her cheeks, and could smell the sea air. Fifty paces to the left of the convoy, the mountainside terrace fell away, a line of cliffs slicing down a hundred feet to the crashing ocean below. To the right the foothills of the Grey Mountains loomed, the higher peaks shadowed dark blue against the evening sky.

  The terrace had been carved through the hills many centuries before by the Rahain, Laodoc had told them, when they had been hunting for a way into the interior of the continent. The road that lay upon it hugged the coastline from the Tahrana Valley to the Plateau, and then ran all the way to Rainsby on the Inner Sea. This part of the route was barren, and Daphne looked forward to seeing the green lands beyond the mountains.

  She would miss the ocean breeze, though.

  ‘Feeling better, ma’am?’ the sergeant asked her, trotting alongside.

  ‘How long to the Plateau now, do you think?’

  ‘Another eight days or so, ma’am,’ she replied. ‘The Grey Mountains are lower here, and they’ll end soon. Once we round the last foothill, we’ll be there.’

  ‘And then on to Rainsby.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Are you familiar with the town?’ Daphne asked. ‘I’ve only been there once.’

  ‘I’ve done business for the embassy there many times, ma’am. Can’t say I like the place, but if you have the gold, you can get what you need.’

  Daphne nodded. In the bottom of her wagon was a chest, provided by the embassy, filled with gold for bribes and expenses. Daphne also had her own supply, money given to her by her father while she had resided in the Rahain capital. Money she intended to return to him as soon as she arrived home.

  Home.

  The thought that it was true, that she was going home, sent a thrill of energy up her spine. But first, she must drop off her passengers to the king in the city he was building on the northern shore of the Inner Sea. When Daphne had passed through over a year before, it had been a walled town of ten thousand, small compared to the major cities of the realm. Now, she had heard that the king was transforming it into a great capital, with a palace, and a new cathedral for the church.

  And then home. She wondered if her bump would be showing by the time they arrived at the Holdfast estate, and she realised that if so, her family’s eyes would be drawn there in an instant. What would her mother say? Her father? She started to feel sick again.

  She nodded to the sergeant, and slid back into the wagon.

  Inside, she noticed Bedig and the guard stop talking. The Kellach warrior looked away, his face turning as red as his long braided hair.

  ‘What did I miss?’ Daphne said.

  ‘Just Bedig being an idiot,’ the guard said.

  ‘Well?’ Daphne asked the Brig man. ‘Out with it.’

  ‘I was thinking, miss,’ Bedig began, ‘about your father. What will he think when he sees us arrive?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bedig, but what’s that got to do with you? I can deal with my father.’

  Bedig nodded, his eyes lowered.

  The guard turned in her seat. ‘You stupid oaf, Bedig.’ She looked over and met Daphne’s eyes. ‘He’s shitting himself that your family will think he’s the father of your baby.’

  Daphne started to laugh.

  The guard and Laodoc joined in, and Bedig frowned. ‘Once he finds out the father’s Kellach Brigdomin, he’s going to think it’s me, isn’t he? After all, I’m the one accompanying you all the way home. Why wouldn’t he think it was me? Is there something wrong with me?’

  ‘No,’ Daphne said between laughs. ‘Don’t worry Bedig, I’ll set him straight.’

  ‘He does have a point, I suppose,’ Laodoc said. ‘Why else would he have come all that way? It might be hard for your family to believe it was out of curiosity alone.’

  ‘Not just curiosity, Laodoc,’ Bedig said. ‘I was there, remember, in Akhanawarah City when the Rahain destroyed it. I was at Mage Shella’s side the entire time. I’m a witness, and I intend to make sure that the world knows what your people did.’

  The laughter stopped.

  Laodoc’s face went grey, and he lowered his head.

  Daphne caught Bedig’s eye.

  ‘Sorry Laodoc,’ he said. ‘That came out all wrong. I didn’t mean to blame you.’

  ‘Look,’ said Daphne. ‘We’re all on the same side now. Holdings, Kellach Brigdomin, Rakanese,’ she looked at the old man, ‘and some Rahain.’

  The others nodded.

  ‘Will the king listen to us?’ Laodoc said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘From what Father Ghorley told me it sounds like he will. The mage-priests will have informed his Majesty that we’re on our way, so at least they’ll be expecting us. I have no idea what the Holdings will decide to do, though.’

  ‘Could you use your powers, miss,’ he said, ‘to find out what’s happening in the king’s palace?’

  ‘In theory,’ she said, ‘though I’ve never tried to see over such a long distance before, and to be honest, I don’t know what effect being pregnant might have. I always get sick after using my vision, unless I smoke, and Shella’s hidden all the weed. She says it’s bad for the baby.’

  ‘You should listen to her, miss,’ the old man said. ‘Smoking all those Sanang narcotics can’t be good for your health, either.’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ Daphne said. ‘You’re not the one being sick every day.’

  Laodoc nodded, and picked up a notebook, which he used as a journal. He took his pencil, and began jotting something down.

  ‘What you writing in your little book, Laodoc?’ Bedig asked.

  ‘Still working on my speech to King Guilliam, my boy,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking of adding a passage on the danger posed by the tunnel the Rahain mages are digging through the Grey Mountains.’

  ‘Do you think it will open soon?’

  ‘At the rate they’ve been burrowing through the hills, I would estimate they’ll reach the Plateau in the early days of the last third of summer.’

  ‘That’s just two thirds from now,’ Daphne said.

  ‘It’s a pity they couldn’t have opened it earlier,’ Bedig said. ‘We could have gone through, and saved ourselves over a third’s travel.’

  Laodoc shook his head. ‘Firstly, the tunnel is fortified at several locations along its length, and I hardly think the guards there would allow us passage. And secondly, the first ones to go through the tunnel will indubitably be troops, and plenty of them. The Rahain government will be able to move their forces up to the Plateau in days rather than thirds. The King of the Holdings must be warned.’

  ‘I’m sure he already knows about the tunnel,’ Daphne said.

  ‘I’m sure he does, miss, but I have seen the plans, and know the work schedule, and the geography of the area, where the forts and suchlike are situated.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘No, but the City Council had to approve the tunnel’s budget, and I examined the plans thoroughly at the time.’

  Daphne nodded.

  ‘Whoa,’ said the guard from the front bench. ‘The lead wagon’s pulling over.’

  ‘It’s not dark yet,’ Daphne said, ‘can you see…?’

  The canvas to the left of her head rustled, and the sergeant’s face peered through.

  ‘Something’s up ahead, ma’am,’ she said. ‘I’m going to check.’

  Daphne watched he
r trot off on Jamie as their wagon lurched to a halt.

  ‘Help me get down,’ she said to Bedig. ‘May as well stretch our legs.’

  ‘Sure, miss,’ he said. He pushed the canvas flap open at the rear of the wagon and jumped down onto the baked earth. He held out his arms for Daphne.

  She eased her way to the rear of the carriage, nausea rippling through her body. She looked at Bedig, and saw a crossbow bolt strike him in the leg.

  He called out, and fell to the ground.

  ‘Get down,’ the guard shouted, pulling Daphne and Laodoc to the floor of the wagon as bolts ripped through the canvas above their heads.

  There was a cry of pain from behind them that sounded like a Holdings voice and Daphne guessed the rear wagon was also under attack.

  The crossbow bolts ceased.

  Daphne tried to edge her way to the back of the wagon, but the guard tightened her grip.

  ‘You stupid bastard!’ she heard Bedig yell. ‘I’m Kellach Brigdomin, why are you shooting at me?’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck where you come from,’ a voice said. ‘You’ll give us your wagons, or we’ll kill you.’

  ‘We are a delegation from the Realm of the Holdings,’ she heard the sergeant call out. ‘You will not obstruct us.’

  ‘The Holdings?’ another voice said, deep and guttural. ‘Bitch, you’ve just made my day.’

  Daphne heard a chorus of laughter from outside.

  ‘My friend here,’ the first voice said, ‘is from Sanang, and has often told us what he’d enjoy doing to Holdings prisoners if we caught some, especially any females.’

  ‘Fuck,’ the guard whispered, her face inches from Daphne’s ear.

  Daphne closed her eyes. Wasn’t she supposed to be the one protecting the rest of them? Wasn’t that why she had been assigned the mission? She hated being pregnant.

  For the first time in a third, she pulled on her battle-vision, and her nausea cleared in seconds, energy and power soaring through her body.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment, trooper,’ she said, brushing off the guard’s hand.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Could you pass me my sword, please?’

  The guard pulled a sword from under a bench and handed it to Daphne.