The Trials of Empire, page 26
We passed through a tangle of buildings until we reached the Aleksandra the Valiant High-Way. This was the road that led directly to the Victory Gate. On the right stood the Imperial Guard barracks, and I could see traitors pouring out of it, ready to make their stand. Even though we clearly outnumbered them – as Jansen had said, the bulk of the enemy forces seemed to be at the Temple of Savare – it was not going to be an easy conquest. The barracks, a long, flat building which stood atop a pyramid of steps, was a subtle fortress. Assaulting it was not going to be easy.
The Guard commanders shouted orders from the head of our column. I watched as the ranks ahead of me lifted their sohle shields above their heads, so that we formed a phalanx. I did the same, as did those behind me, and it was not before time; a moment later, the first of the arrows began landing amongst us, thunking into shields or skittering across the cobbles. Even with our shields up, some of these missiles made it through. Several men and women were felled – and some of those killed – in these hasty salvos.
It felt as though we were advancing on the barracks for hours. The stress of waiting for an arrow to slip through the cracks in the roof of shields and plunge through a gap in my armour was intolerable. I comprehensively regretted insisting I be allowed to fight. Heinrich did not much care for the arrows either. He stuck to me closely, so closely that a number of times he nearly tripped me over.
Together we pressed on, quickly, inexorably.
The day grew hotter, and I began to sweat. My arms began to shake under the weight of the heavy shield, but I dared not let it fall. Once we reached the bottom of the steps, more missiles began to rain down; heavy roof tiles four or five pounds apiece; lumps of rock; cobbles that had been excavated from the road; large bales of hay which were set alight and rolled down the steep marble steps. Next to me Heinrich growled and slavered, now eager to be in and amongst our enemies.
I let out an involuntary shriek as the man directly in front of me pitched forward, killed immediately as a javelin, finding a lucky gap, pierced his sallet helm straight through the eye slit. Suddenly there was an opening directly in front of me, and an arrow, fired at a steep angle, shot through and shattered explosively against my breastplate. It all happened so quickly I barely had time to react – though I still have nightmares about this near-miss.
“Close up!” the man behind me roared with fury, physically shoving me. It was all I could do not to fall over. I hurried forward, my shield knocking into those of the people around me, taking up the space where the dead man had marched.
I was on the steps now. The Imperial Guard were grunting in unison with each step, in a manner designed to intimidate. We ascended at the same speed as we had advanced down the road – and the next thing I knew, a huge conflagration was in front of me. Several Guardsmen had been drenched in burning oil and were writhing around screaming as their flesh blackened and crisped. They turned and smashed through the ranks like banshees, all that legendary discipline evaporating in an instant. I remember watching as the fire travelled up one woman’s hair like the wick of a candle, until it began to burn her scalp. Our eyes met briefly, then she was gone, tearing back down the stairs, waiting for water or death.
“Savare! Savare victor!” the traitors screamed like lunatics from above us. Then I felt, rather than saw, our enemies charge into the vanguard. Men and women tumbled backwards down the steps as they lost balance, bringing more people down with them. One man, a traitor by the star on his chest, fell face first down the steps to my left, and I instinctively hacked and stabbed at him. My sword batted ineffectually against his plate armour, and it wasn’t until Heinrich’s monstrous jaws clamped around the man’s exposed face and tore his cheeks and nose off that I was able to complete the kill. I stabbed him through the centre of his face, and that was that.
A chaotic melee ensued. I saw behind the foremost rank of traitor Guardsmen a collection of men and women who looked as though they had been pressed into service. It was these people who continued to throw things at our company over the heads of their own vanguard. I saw one idiot make a mess of throwing a pot of boiling pitch; it splattered directly into the back of one of his own compatriots, who promptly vomited from the pain before being swiftly decapitated by a loyalist. There were plenty more of these gruesome vignettes to behold.
Eventually, I found myself at the top of the steps. With the difficult ascent complete, and with loyalists all around me and charging forward, there was little to do now except begin the bloody work of moving through the barracks, room by room, chamber by chamber, rooting out the traitors and destroying them. Many tried to surrender – especially the scratch companymen – but these people were all guilty of treason, and were killed out of hand. Heinrich was desperate to kill more, but I was frightened he would tear the throat out of a loyalist. We had taught him to attack those wearing the white star, but he had no way of telling the difference between one of our volunteers and one of theirs, and now that we were fully advanced, there were plenty of our own irregulars in the fray.
I do not know how long it took to completely clear out the barracks. I loitered in the rear in accordance with my instructions from Vonvalt, kicking down barricades and tending to the wounded. I did nearly execute one wounded traitor, but even in these frantic and fraught circumstances, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I need not have worried; a man next to me stepped on the woman’s forehead with his right foot and thrust his short sword into the meat of her throat, and she died instantly.
“Helena!” a familiar voice called out to me. I whirled around to see Sir Radomir approaching. He had not passed up the opportunity to outfit himself in fine plate armour, though he had been instructed to lead the volunteer companies. I lifted the visor of my sallet helm, my face splitting into a grin. A curious sense of elation suffused me. It left me shaky and frenetic, like I had had too much kafé. It was a sensation that only battle seemed capable of arousing within me.
I let out a trill of a slightly maniacal laughter as he slapped me on the shoulder plate and scratched Heinrich’s ears roughly. In the chaos, he did not seem to notice that the hound had been absent for several months. “A fine day for a scrap, no? Feels good to finally be doing something!”
He was very much drunk – I could smell the wine on his breath – but that did not dent my enthusiasm for seeing him again. He was absolutely right, too; even though we had not factored this mess into our plans, even though we should never have had to deal with these traitors in the first place, it nonetheless felt good to be doing something. For so long we had been on the back foot, reacting to Claver’s and his allies’ plans and schemes. Now we were finally attacking them, killing them off, and it felt, truly, unashamedly great. My blood was up and I was ready to march on the Temple of Savare.
I would soon come to regret this impetuosity.
There is not much more to say about the ‘Battle of the Barracks’, as it would come to be known. A fire broke out in the kitchens, which had to be extinguished but which eventually claimed about a sixth of the building. Some prisoners were taken, but they would be kept alive only long enough to be triaged for seniority, with the commoners hanged and the officers to be tortured first. Most of those who surrendered were from the volunteer companies; the traitor Guardsmen sold their lives dearly, as one might expect from fanatics who had nothing to gain from seeking quarter. Jansen’s defectors did not, as I had expected, sabotage our efforts.
Vonvalt, whom I had not seen for the entirety of the battle, mercifully reappeared at about noon, directing the survivors of our band to form up on the northernmost parts of the Nastjan Fields, a large grassy staging area that sat between the barracks and Victory Gate. There, aid stations were set up for the considerable number of wounded – for those outnumbered the dead three to one – water was distributed to the exhausted and parched soldiers, awnings were erected for shade, and food was parcelled out. Still, I could tell that Vonvalt and Serjeant Rainer were keen to maintain the momentum of the attack, for to give the soldiers too long to recover was to allow their blood to cool and the fight to leave them.
Sir Radomir, Heinrich and I made for the Fields. I immediately walked up to where there was a barrel full of water, picked up the wooden ladle, and drank my fill, as well as splashing some over my face and head. The sun was directly above, the only time of day when all of Sova’s enormous buildings provided no shade, and it was a hot, dusty and dry afternoon. Sir Radomir likewise drank, and then we moved to where soldiers were distributing hunks of bread. I did not feel like eating at all, but I was well enough versed in the mechanics of battle to know that I needed to keep my strength up. I made sure Heinrich had something to eat too, though I had a nasty feeling he already had a stomach full of human flesh.
It felt like we had had barely five minutes to recuperate before we were being ordered to form up for the march. Now I did feel the first stirrings of trepidation as we prepared to move back north up the Aleksandra the Valiant High-Way. Even though I had not been fully embroiled in this melee, I had still come extremely close to being killed by that arrow. My hand idly went to my breastplate, where the mark of the Trickster flared and pulsed with unnatural energies. So much of our time and attention was fixated on the mortal plane, we still had to grapple with whatever dark forces were amassing in the afterlife, too.
We moved off, following some brief but rousing piece of oratory from Vonvalt. We must have left a hundred men on the Nastjan Fields, many to die. Behind us, a thick pall of black smoke rose from the barracks. Any element of surprise was now gone. For the rest of the day, our enemies would be expecting us.
We once again moved quickly up the road and then cut west down the Petran High-Way. The checkpoints that Vonvalt and I had come across when we had snuck into Sova had been abandoned. Now, only the remnants of those brutalities remained; immolated corpses bound to stakes, more bodies hanging in gibbets, the ground littered with scorch marks and errant pamphlets containing religious screed. We moved past these injustices with a tangible sense of anger.
These crimes would be answered for.
Out here in the southern closures were plenty of residences and apartment blocks, and for the first time that day people crowded in the doorways and at the windows and cheered us on. It was much needed; even a brief battle was exhausting, and in spite of the rest, food and water, my store of energy – and courage – had been heavily taxed by the fighting. I was greatly buoyed by the encouragement.
We crossed the Petran Bridge, which spanned the westernmost branch of the Sauber and cut north down the broad Veleurian Road. The Arena was on our left, for once silent; whilst to the north-west, I could see the Temple of Savare, a couple of miles away. My heart lurched as I laid eyes on it. A ripple of foreboding moved through the company as well. Once a vast bastion of faith, it had become a fortress of evil and sedition.
Whereas the citizens lining the Petran High-Way had welcomed us as liberators, those who lived in the shadows of the arena jeered. We were pelted with all manner of missiles as we passed the blackened ruins of the Grand Lodge, which felt especially inauspicious. Most of them were harmless – mouldy fruit, vegetables, offal – but there were plenty that were not. I saw at least one man collapse to the floor as a heavy roof tile clattered into his helmet, killing him instantly. I felt a furious rage at this, but heads ruled hearts in the Imperial Guard. We had few archers and fewer arrows, and no one was about to waste a javelin on some roof-bound commoner. Instead, the order was passed down for us to once again raise our shields overhead. The volunteer companies in the rear would just have to endure.
We were brought to a halt about a mile from the Temple of Savare. I had to crane my head around the ranks in front of me to see, for we were packed into a tight formation. Ahead of us, however, was not the vanguard of the remaining traitor Imperial Guard; it was a mob of commonfolk, most of them unarmed. In and amongst them I could see a decent number of Neman priests, their purple habits marking them out as such. Several of them, as priests had done in the battle for the Agilmar Gate, held displayed copies of the Neman Creed aloft on tall wooden poles. As the sound of our marching died away, a discordant medley of hymnals filled the sultry afternoon air.
Next to me, Heinrich growled.
I looked around at the men and women either side of me to see if I could yield up some explanation, taking the opportunity to lift my helmet visor to get some air to my face. At the time it seemed like desperation on the part of our enemies, for quite what hope these commoners had against half a thousand Guardsmen was anyone’s guess. But it did not take me long to realise that the Mlyanars’ purpose here was twofold.
The first part was simple delay. We would have to spend time and energy moving through these people, and even an unarmed mob could make a great deal of mischief if they were so inclined.
The second, and much more insidious part of the plan, was to force Vonvalt into committing a massacre. Even now, our enemies were thinking of the political angle. It was the kind of thing Jansen would have come up with. After all, it looked much less like a festering pocket of treason if the commonfolk supported the action. Then it looked more like a popular revolution. How would it play out if Vonvalt ordered hundreds of Sovan citizens to be slain in the streets?
Vonvalt was still at the very head of the column, and facing away from me, so I struggled to pick out the words he was shouting. But I recognised the cadence, the rhythm of what he was saying well enough to know that he was indicting them. Even though he was no longer a Justice, even though the Grand Lodge was a blackened ruin behind us, he still took the time to say the words.
The mob, driven by blind faith – and it could only have been blind faith, for Claver and his Templar warrior priests were still in Saxanfelde – stood firm, unmoved by Vonvalt’s entreaties. I watched through brief gaps in the soldiers ahead of me as he conversed with Rainer; then the signal to advance was given.
We advanced. I fell into step uncertainly, short sword gripped in my hand. I hated these people, do not mistake me; I hated them, but I also pitied them. They had been taken in by their betters, sold on a great lie. They had been convinced by well-spoken hypocrites from the Church and Senate that the source of their ills was not a complex tangle of social and economic factors, but rather a simple lack of faith. The secularisation of their government. That they had turned away from the light of heaven. It was complete nonsense, but it was nonsense that was easy to sell. “Tangled matters have tangled outcomes”, Vonvalt would have quoted to me, tangled outcomes that required careful and patient management. Only charlatans presented simple solutions, and these people had devoured them, hook, line and sinker. And certainly, they were adults – adults with brains. They could have interrogated what they were being told, could have thought about it, could have rejected it.
But they hadn’t. And now, they were about to die for it.
I found myself drifting out of the formation, until I was standing at the side of the Veleurian Road. No one paid me any heed. I watched as the Guard closed with the unmoving mob and simply began… killing them. Slaughtering them. With no shields and pikes and swords to contend with, they were able to fight with near perfect doctrine, as though they were on the training yards in the Nastjan Fields; advance, shield smash, stab to the left, advance.
I genuinely thought the mob was going to stand there and take it. Over the course of several long moments their resolve held, even as they died in droves. I watched, aghast, as men and women were just cut to pieces, shouting and screaming and singing their stupid hymns, exhorted to inaction by the Neman priests. I had never seen so many people be so utterly reckless with their lives.
The madness only ended when one of the priests was killed. His death was brutal. Short swords stabbed and hacked into him. He screamed and flailed as he died, wretchedly, pathetically. And it was that particular slaying that broke the spell. It was as though he were the last supporting beam in a dilapidated structure; after his death, the mob’s resolve collapsed.
Panic spread quickly. They routed, suddenly and en masse. And from there, matters descended into chaos.
It was the volunteer companies who gave chase. Buoyed by the early success of the battle of the barracks, and with their blood up, they broke ranks and ran around the flanks of the Guard like river water around a boulder. Despite the furious screams of the Guard officers, the volunteer companies could not be brought to heel. The moment they had caught up with the rearmost of the fleeing commoners, they were smashed into by several dozen traitor cavalryman who had been waiting in the wings for just such a moment.
“By Nema,” I breathed, watching this brutal spectacle unfold with dismay. Next to me, Heinrich whined and cocked his head. “Come on, boy,” I said; but then I turned as I heard my name being called.
“Sir Radomir,” I said as he approached. He had a face like thunder.
“These fucking idiots,” he growled, gesturing to the volunteer companies over whom he had command. His voice was hoarse from where he had been angrily screaming. “I tried to stop them, but I’m not going to piss away my life on that lunacy. Come on, let’s you and I stick together. Sir Konrad will want to close with the cavalry before they have a chance to regroup and attack us at speed.”
Sir Radomir’s words were unerringly prescient. In fact the advance had already begun; not wanting to give the cavalry a second chance to charge, Vonvalt had ordered the loyalist Guard forces forward to engage them. But even as they approached, the scratch companies were by themselves already getting the better of the traitors. They had not broken, as I had predicted they would, much less routed. Drawing on some hitherto untapped martial spirit, they set about dragging the traitor cavalrymen to the ground and killing them mercilessly, so that by the time the loyalist Guardsmen arrived, the job was half done. From there it was a matter of briskly slaughtering any lingering traitors, before we regrouped and pressed directly on to the Temple of Savare. Beneath our sabatons, the bodies of the Sovan commonfolk crunched and gurgled.
