Age of War

Chapter 50

Atlas was built on a gently rising hill, and its oldest streets reflected this – they formed a series of concentric circles, marching down from the Imperial Enclave at the summit, and the outermost was set hard against what had once been the limit of the city; the walls. That great, roughly circular thoroughfare was officially called the Imperial Ring but it was almost universally known, with typical Atlasian humour, as the Emperor or Empress’s Ring, and there were a series of ribald jokes to do with crossing it, going inside it, how busy it was and so forth. “I had to queue just to get to the Empress’s Ring yesterday…” went the best known line. Despite being such a well-known landmark, the great road was in truth divided in many places, with newer streets and neighbourhoods cutting it up, and of course the gradual disintegration of the walls and the steady sprawling of the city making it less important to urban traffic in any case. In some places it was blocked altogether, and so Albrihn’s progress was slow. He wanted to reach the gap in the walls to the north as quickly as possible, but it was a hopeless dream. The deprivation of recent years had brought the squalor in from the slums, and haphazard wooden buildings crowded into the road. There were abandoned carts too, market stalls that had been tipped over to block the way and lumps of masonry where Saffrey’s bombardment had torn the city to pieces. Albrihn could hear the crashing of a second bombardment now too, and as he looked up into the grey sky, he saw missiles flying overhead, soon disappearing from sight as they passed behind the heaped roofs and towers that obstructed his view. The air was filled with dust, smoke and drizzle. Everything looked washed out, the colour of stone and mud, except for the bodies that lay here and there.

The street ahead was blocked with the remains of an old stone market hall that had been completely demolished by a hit from a catapult. Tiles and stone and wooden beams were scattered everywhere. In amongst the wreckage were bodies: bloodied limbs and, once, a staring face, skin coated with dust, peering out from beneath half a carved stone column. They were soldiers. Only soldiers had been left when this began, but it didn’t make it any easier to see them. Others had died fighting on the walls. He could see the liveries of units he knew – units he’d stationed here – and others that were unfamiliar, except as half-remembered snatches from the battle in Ixion. They lay at the base of the walls, or sometimes further into the street, a whole cluster of them, where some desperate conflict had been fought.

“Rayke?”

He looked up at Jonis. “What?”

“I thought we had somewhere to be…”

He realised he’d come to a halt, looking down at the remains of a young woman in the uniform of his own regiment. Did he know her? It was unlikely. Most of her head was missing, her helmet was lying a few feet away, hopelessly battered and rent. Who had killed her? That soldier over there, an enemy combatant with a broken sword blade buried between his shoulder blades? Had someone avenged her in the end? “I did this,” he said.

“No you didn’t. Saffrey did.”

“I’m in command. I put them here, and now they’re dead.”

“Rayke…” She tugged at his arm.

He blinked and let a shiver run through him. Then he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“I know.”

The rest of the Seventh were waiting, their horses toeing the ground impatiently. He spurred his mount on and they continued, detouring deeper into the city to move around the destroyed hall. A whistling overhead drew his attention, and he craned his neck to see a huge chunk of stone slam into a minaret on an adjoining street. The tower swayed, then started to crumble and finally fell with a spectacular crash. The nearby horses were spooked, and the riders struggled to control them as they galloped past. A cloud of dust erupted from the intersection, momentarily blinding them. Jonis was coughing and she went to tug at a hood that wasn’t there. Albrihn was about to give the order to stop so they could gather themselves when another whistle came from overhead, louder than the first. He couldn’t see through the billowing dust, but a shadow passed right over him and he knew the impact would be closer than before, almost as if Saffrey somehow knew where they were and was homing in on them. “Ride!” he roared over the din of screaming horses and still-settling rubble. The missile hit the building on his immediate left, a venerable tavern with a terraced roof. Through the dust he saw the front of it cave in around a huge dark hole. It remained like that for a heartbeat, and then, as if the bricks suddenly remembered how they were supposed to work, it began to fall to pieces. He flicked the reins and urged the horse into a desperate run. Jonis was just behind him. The tavern crashed into the street, filling the air with more choking dust. He heard a scream. Timbers and flagstones were flying in all directions. Something hit the rider in front of him – he couldn’t see who it was – and sent them flying right out of their saddle. He galloped through a fine spray of blood and shuddered. The horse bolted and careened straight into another rider. Both beasts went down in an awkward tangle of limbs. The rider was thrown clear, but he didn’t see where they landed. All around was the thunder of hooves and falling masonry. It was bloody chaos.