Leon looked down at Janessa. A tear welled in the corner of his eye and for a moment she felt sympathy for him. He had been bewitched. By magick, by the promise of power, perhaps both.
‘He swore to me,’ he said gently, as though he didn’t believe it.
Then he struck his mother across the face, his fist balled tight.
As the old woman fell his expression contorted. Janessa saw all the hate and loathing she imagined Amon Tugha bore for her. In that moment she could hold no sympathy, no mercy.
Leon came at her, his hands outstretched for her throat once more, but she was faster. As he grasped for her she lunged for the knife he had dropped on the garden path. Her fingers closed around it as Leon managed to grab a fistful of curls, hauling her up. His other hand took her by the throat just as she plunged the blade into his eye.
His grip went slack and he made no sound as he fell backward, the knife still protruding from his socket. Leon hit the ground like a discarded doll. Janessa stood and stared at his lifeless form as Baroness Isabelle began to scream, her voice rising in a forlorn wail that murdered the quiet of the garden.
Janessa stared on as her Sentinels came running.
TWENTY-TWO
There were bruises and scratches all over him but thankfully nothing needed stitching. He couldn’t remember where half his wounds had come from, but then you never could when you were in the thick of it. Nobul knew it wasn’t the cuts and scrapes would be the worst of it, though. He was tired, almost ready to drop, and if this went on for as long as he thought it might, eventually he would fall and not get back up again.
Still, he wasn’t in as bad a state as some of the other lads. It had only been one night, and the fighting had been relatively brief, all told, but some of the boys had been asleep all day. A few of them looked like they might not wake.
For Nobul the sleep never came easy after the fight. He was too alive with it, too needy for the killing. It had started now and he was filled with the anticipation of it. His hammer hand itched to be used. Besides, sleep had never been very kind to him. The shit he dreamed of was never pleasant. Memories he’d rather forget, too many deaths brought back all too vivid.
Yet still he yearned for it, fed on it like fresh cooked meat straight off the spit. Even now he could hear those bastard Khurtas winding themselves up for the night ahead. Singing their songs in the distance as the sun fell.
And they’ll be here soon, Nobul Jacks. They’ll be flooding to meet you, falling over themselves to taste that hammer of yours.
Nobul raised the weapon and looked at that metal head. It was the most finely crafted piece he’d ever made and it had taken him all day to clean the blood and brain and bone from the etched surface. His hammer was a thing of beauty, made for dirty, ugly work. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
‘Bet you sleep with that thing beside your pillow at night, don’t you?’
Hake was stood beside him. Nobul had been so wrapped in his daydream he hadn’t even noticed. The old man was bruised about his right eye and there was blood on his green jacket. There would more than likely be a lot more before this business was done with.
Nobul cracked a smile, a rare one at that. ‘I always like to sleep beside someone I can trust.’ He lowered the hammer, but didn’t put it down.
‘Reckoned you might need a bit of company. With the fact that the rest of these boys are too shit scared to talk to you.’
It was true. His legend from Bakhaus, and what he’d demonstrated the night before, meant most of the lads who stood beside him were as frightened of the Black Helm as they were of the Khurtas.
‘And you’re not scared, old man?’ Nobul asked, half joking, half wondering.
‘I ain’t scared of much these days. Even if the Khurtas don’t get me, the Lord of Crows ain’t that far away. I reckon you’re just about the least of my worries.’
‘I reckon I am,’ said Nobul, turning to look out through the waning light. To the north there was movement, but it was too far to make out.
Hake came to stand beside him at the battlements. ‘Last night was just a taster, I’d have said. All Amon Tugha’s young and inexperienced throwing themselves at the wall to soften us up. The ones he didn’t mind sacrificing the most. Tonight’ll be bloodier.’
‘I know,’ Nobul replied. He’d had the same notion himself. The Khurtas who had attacked the night before had charged in too fast and died too easy. It was obvious a lot of them were unblooded. Tonight Amon Tugha would most likely send his best.
Nobul glanced up and down the wall. They’d taken a lot of casualties. Whether those who were left would be up to the job remained to be seen, but if they were still alive after last night’s fighting, chances were they’d give it their best tonight, despite how tired they looked.
Over to the north a cluster of torches made its way towards them, bobbing through the dark like bright spirits floating in the night. The closer the torches got the more Nobul could make out — a massive group of Khurtas were moving with purpose, but they weren’t alone. They dragged prisoners with them, men captured in the weeks of fighting their way south, and maybe even some dragged off the wall the previous night. The closer they got the more he could hear; brutal, guttural language and pleas for mercy. Nobul could only imagine the horrors these men had seen during their time as Khurtic prisoners. He doubted their plight was about to improve.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ asked Hake, looking anxiously towards the north.
‘Nothing good,’ said Nobul.
He walked east a way along the wall, hoping to get a better look. By now more of the wall’s defenders had heard the commotion and were staring out towards the gathered torches. When the Khurtas and their prisoners had reached Dancer’s Tree they stopped.
They set their torches around the base of the oak. Within moments they’d also lit a fire that illuminated the great tree so everyone could see it clear as day. Every man who stood on the wall was staring north and Nobul could feel their dread. They knew they were about to witness something terrible, but couldn’t turn their eyes away yet.
Dancer’s Tree stood just beyond the range of their archers, it was obvious the Khurtas knew that. As they watched, each of the savages bared his arse and his cock, screaming and taunting and laughing. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Then the slaughter began.
The Khurtas took pleasure in hacking limbs and eviscerating the soldiers of the Free States. Screams crossed the short plain to the wall as every man watched with growing dismay. Prisoners were hung from the great branches of Dancer’s Tree, much like the days of old, only this time the guts of the condemned hung loose below them and their executioners roared with glee at every death. Some were nailed to the vast trunk, their screams rising over the sound of hammer blows.
Nobul could hear the despair in the rest of the men who stood to either side of him. Hake just stood there with open-mouthed horror, unable to speak. The Khurtas were doing their job well — before long the men on the battlements would be ready to turn tail and flee, allowing the enemy to surge up and over the wall with no one to stop them.
For Nobul, it only made his anger burn. Not because he felt sorrow for those men being slaughtered, but because under that tree he’d buried his boy only a few weeks earlier. Markus, who’d never done anything to anyone. Who’d been shot dead by accident because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Under that tree lay Nobul’s son and those Khurtic bastards were treading all over the grave like he didn’t mean a shit. It burned in Nobul, it cut him deep, and for every man on the wall who covered his eyes so as not to see it made his fury grow.
When they were done with the torture and hanging, the Khurtas took their burning brands and gathered their kindling and they set fire to that oak. Dancer’s Tree had stood there more than a hundred years and it took them no time at all to set it aflame.