‘The city is under attack,’ Elya said. She looked around. There was nothing worth taking. ‘We must go.’
‘Go? Go where?’
‘The Grand Tempestus,’ Elya said. ‘We will be safe there.’
Halha looked doubtful. ‘I do not think anywhere in this city is safe.’ The woman looked away, her eyes wet. ‘We should not have come here. But Takha insisted. Said we’d be safer in a city than on the road.’
Elya took a bowl of water from the floor and poured it over her father. Duvak sat upright, spluttering. He stank of ale and cheaper intoxicants, and the water she’d dumped on him was as close to a bath as he’d had in a week. He blinked blearily at her. Then at Halha. ‘Who’s she?’ he slurred.
‘Up, father. The bells are ringing.’
‘I don’t care. Let me sleep, girl. I’m tired.’ He made to flop back down, and Elya caught at him.
‘You’re always tired. Get up. They say the dead are at the walls.’
Duvak grunted. ‘I don’t care.’ He pushed her back.
Elya shoved him. ‘Get up, get up!’ She glanced at Halha. ‘Help me.’
Halha hesitated, and then drew her knife. She leaned over Duvak and pricked his throat with her blade. ‘Up, fool. Or die here.’
Duvak blinked up at her, befuddled. ‘Who are you?’ But he responded to Elya’s prodding and rolled out of his sodden bedding. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, looked towards the window. He was still dressed in his lamplighter’s gear – badly dyed black-and-mauve clothes, with a leather harness for his wicks and oils. The harness was empty. He hadn’t bothered to resupply after his last shift.
‘We have to go, father. The dead are coming.’
He looked towards the door. ‘But your mother… She’s not back yet, is she?’
Elya paused. She ignored the look Halha gave her and instead, with an ease born of long practice, said, ‘She’s waiting for us at the Grand Tempestus. We need to go, or she’ll worry.’
Duvak hesitated. Then, he nodded. ‘Yes. She’ll worry. Don’t want her to worry.’ She knew from his tone that he didn’t believe what he was saying. He’d remembered, if only a bit. He always remembered, eventually.
She took his hand and looked at Halha. ‘Come. We have to hurry.’
Balthas stood on the steps of the Grand Tempestus, watching impatiently as the Glymmsmen readied the plaza for war. The echoes of the battle-horns still shuddered through the air. Beside him stood the mortal commander.
Captain Fosko, commander of the Glymmsmen’s Third Company, was old, as mortals judged such things. His uniform was shiny with wear in places, and his armour was dull. But it was well taken care of, as was the sword on his hip. His fingers tapped against the skull-pommel of the blade, and the palm of his free hand scraped over his shaven pate, back and forth. The sound of it grew irritating after a few moments, and Balthas said, ‘Must you?’
Fosko started, as if surprised that Balthas could speak. ‘What?’
‘That noise irks me.’
Fosko stared at him, and then looked at his hand. ‘My apologies, my lord. I was lost in thought. It won’t happen again.’
‘You may continue to think. Simply cease rubbing your head.’
Fosko gave a snort of laughter. ‘Was that a joke?’ He peered up at Balthas. ‘I wasn’t aware your sort could make jokes, my lord.’
Balthas looked down at him. ‘Humour is a skill like any other. One may learn it, if one is of a mind to do so.’ He looked back out over the plaza. ‘That said, it wasn’t a joke.’
Fosko nodded. ‘You are unhappy, my lord.’
‘And you are observant.’
Fosko shrugged. ‘Not hard to see. You radiate your displeasure like a storm cloud. Is this not as glorious a battle as you were promised?’
Balthas pondered the question for a moment. He was not particularly displeased. Annoyed, perhaps, by the situation – it was not ideal, having to defend such a place, with so many mortals underfoot. The Glymmsmen could be put to better use elsewhere. ‘There are no glorious battles. Glory is accrued in the aftermath and doled out by poets and historians.’
Fosko shook his head. ‘Then why are you here?’
‘For the same reason you are, I imagine.’
‘I am defending my home. The city I was born in.’ Fosko reached up as if to rub his head, but stopped. ‘I remember my grandfather telling me stories of when the first walls went up. When every night was a war against things that would drain a strong man’s blood, or stop your heart with a gesture.’ He leaned over and hawked a wad of phlegm onto the stones at his feet. ‘It’s better now than it was. But here we are again, with the dead at our throats.’
‘If it bothers you, why stay?’ Knossus had tried to explain, in his heavy-handed way, but Balthas still didn’t understand. It made no sense to him. What was a place like this, next to Sigmaron, or even Azyrheim? No real history, no wisdom, sat in this place. The only things of any value here were the catacombs below, and that was debatable.
Fosko looked out over the plaza, as his warriors worked to fortify it. ‘This place is more than markings on a map. This city is birthplaces and burial grounds. It is where I fell in love with my wife, and where my son was born. It is where my friends lived and died, where my grandfather fought a duel for my grandmother’s hand, in the streets of the Lyrian Souk. It is the sum of us, and all that we are. I would no more abandon it than I would betray it.’
Balthas looked at the old man. ‘Is it worth dying for? New memories can be made elsewhere. New stories told.’
‘Only someone with no memories would ask that.’ The old soldier gestured apologetically. ‘Forgive me. I meant no disrespect.’
‘And yet you gave it.’
Fosko laughed. ‘Yes.’
After a moment, Balthas laughed as well. ‘How much do you know of us, captain?’
‘I’ve been around your kind since I was a child. I watched from under a table as my father and the other guild captains conferred with the Gravewalker on military matters. And when my father lost his skull to a Bloodbound axe, it was one of your host who brought it back to us, so that it might be enshrined in the family mausoleum.’ He gestured to Balthas’ war-plate. ‘That black armour you wear is as much a holy symbol to us as the High Star.’
Balthas nodded. ‘You were right when you said I had no memories. I am a city, built on secrets. Much like this one. Instead of catacombs, I have a life I cannot recall. Once, I might have lived in a place like this, and I might even have felt as you do. Even so, I do not understand it. Maybe it is beyond me.’ He leaned against his staff. ‘That is not easy for me to admit. I have seen things no mortal can conceive of. I have walked in the fiery heart of a star and endured the chill of the firmament. But I would not die for those reminiscences.’
Fosko squinted up at the sky. ‘Maybe those are the wrong sort of memories.’
Balthas looked at him for a moment. ‘Perhaps.’
They stood in newly companionable silence, watching the preparations. The Freeguild soldiers moved with impressive speed. Bucket brigades doused the barricades in water taken from the Glass Mere and blessed by the priests who moved through the ranks. Handgunners took up position at the entrances to the plaza, their weapons loaded with silver, salt and iron. Swordsmen rubbed holy oils into their blades, and softly sang hymns that had been old when the city was young.
Nearby, Grom Juddsson and his clan warriors had broken open casks of some dark duardin spirit, and were upending them. The warriors of the Riven Clans were the other unnecessary mortal defenders assigned to the plaza – they would hold the western edge, while the Freeguild held the east. Other kin-bands of duardin from the Clans were scattered throughout the city, defending the holdings of their particular clan.