Darksoul

Durdil bit hard on the inside of his cheek. ‘And?’ he asked, straining for calm. He could feel sweat gathering at his hairline.

Merle stroked his beard, loosing a small drift of dust and stone chips to patter down his shirt. He brushed them away and shifted, uneasy. ‘And like said lady of easy affections, the wall’s well and truly fucked, Commander.’

Durdil went very still, blood tingling in every limb as something screamed at him to run, run anywhere, just away. ‘Wall’s what?’ he croaked, resisting the urge to press a hand to the slowly tightening band around his chest. Now was really not the time for another heart twinge.

‘We done some digging around, Commander, on the wall and in the guildhouse. Those repairs you ordered three years ago?’ He pointed to Second Last, the end that the East Rank had been bombarding ever since they’d arrived. Durdil nodded, dumb.

‘Didn’t happen. Oh, they did some superficial work down past Second Tower just to make it look like everything was going to plan, but it’s a veneer of good stone over rotten stone that should’ve been chipped out and replaced. You weaken that wall enough, it’s coming down, sir. Ain’t nothing there to stop it. And …’ He paused, awkward, and Durdil’s chest tightened a little more, ‘far as we can tell from the paperwork, well, the order to make good rather than mend come from the palace, sir.’

Durdil inhaled through his nostrils with a squeak. His majors were silent statues of denial. It was testament to Durdil’s desperation that he got hold of Merle with one hand and dragged him to the outer edge of the wall, the huge man bobbing along behind him like a cork on a stream. Durdil leant between two merlons and jerked a finger across and downwards.

‘You telling me this wall will crumble? When? How long can it stand?’

Merle didn’t protest being manhandled, probably too surprised someone had managed it to take umbrage. ‘Gatehouse is always the weakest point, Commander, on account of the huge fucking tunnel cut through it. But having walked the length of this wall this morning, and done what tests I can without alerting suspicion, I can tell you the section between Second Tower and Last Bastion is just as weak, where the repairs were supposed to get done and weren’t. She ain’t cracking yet, but when she does …’

‘They knew this,’ Durdil hissed, pointing at the trebuchets and the army behind them. ‘Rivil and that one-eyed shit Galtas knew those repairs hadn’t been made. Have they really been planning this for three years?’

‘Couldn’t say, Commander,’ Merle said as though the question hadn’t been rhetorical. Together they watched as one of the trebuchets unwound and unleashed a rock the size of a carthorse. It tumbled end over end towards the wall between Second Tower and Last Bastion, smashing into the stone with a jarring impact they could feel from the gatehouse. Merle leant dangerously far out over the wall and squinted along its length, as though he could see the damage from here.

Then he stood back and rubbed his palms hissing together. He smelt of smashed rock and sweat. ‘If they’re not stopped, Commander, and emergency repairs aren’t made, I reckon they could get through there in a few more weeks. Same with the gatehouse, if they put their minds to it.’

‘I’m not liking this conversation, Merle,’ Durdil said, amazed at the steadiness of his voice. Bile coated his teeth.

‘Me neither, sir,’ the big man said, ‘but them’s the facts.’

Major Renik was pale as snow and clutching at the healing wound in his side as though Merle’s words had reopened it. Major Vaunt had turned to a pair of runners and sent them for Durdil’s colonels, Yarrow and Edris.

Three weeks to full breach and no reinforcements. Nothing from Mace and the West Rank, nothing from Tariq in the north.

Three weeks until there’re Mireces and heathens killing door to door and raping anything that moves.

Durdil bit down on the surge of nausea, sucked in air and tried to think. Merle was watching him with much the same expression as an ox facing the poleaxe. Durdil wanted to punch the merlons but knew it’d not only hurt his knuckles but, if Merle was to be believed, might actually bring the bloody wall down.

‘How many good masons do you have, Merle?’ he asked, working hard at maintaining a neutral tone.

‘Eight.’

‘Is that enough?’

‘For what I think you’re suggesting? No. But I can muster a dozen skilled apprentices for the carrying and the labour once we’ve chipped out the worst stone. O’course, we’re weakening the wall further by doing that. You need to get those trebuchets off us for a day at the least. Mortar’ll take time to set. Day and night’d be preferable, two days and a night ideal.’

‘Impossible,’ Vaunt murmured, ‘not unless we send a suicide mission out there in the middle of the night to disable the engines.’

‘Right now, there isn’t an idea I’m not prepared to consider, suicide missions included,’ Durdil snapped.

Colonels Edris and Yarrow appeared on the top of the gatehouse and Renik moved towards them, speaking quickly and quietly, giving them the latest. Both men swore and then crowded close to Durdil to listen.

‘Get your masons and get on it. I want the stone ready and waiting to be put in as soon as the old stuff is removed. But I don’t want you doing that until you hear from me.’ Durdil glanced past Merle at his officers. They nodded, grim-faced. ‘I can guarantee each one of the masons a lordship and ten gold kings to the apprentices if the wall holds,’ Durdil added, wondering if he could.

Merle looked affronted. ‘I don’t want so much as a copper knight, let alone a gold king or a lordship, Commander,’ he protested, waving hands like hams in the air between them. ‘You can have my skill and my time and my sweat for nothing more than food and drink to keep me working. And I can say the same for maybe half my men. The rest, well, best keep that coin to hand. I won’t mention the lordships and my advice is you don’t either. We’ve seen enough poor nobles lurking around the palace that a title don’t hold as much enchantment as gold. For me, though, my promise is good. Feed me and keep me in water and weak ale and I’ll see you well reimbursed.’

Durdil did a mental adjustment of the man before him and swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. Greatest city in the world, they say, he thought as he resisted the urge to throw his arms around the massive mason.

‘Forgive me, Stonemason, I didn’t mean to impugn your honour. These are … trying times. For now, send me numbers of how many men you need to cut, dress or transport stone, and what help the Watch and the citizenry can be in this matter. I’m afraid we won’t be able to spare you any soldiers.’

‘Send them to me,’ Yarrow interrupted, ‘Second Last is my command. I’ll see it done, sir.’

Durdil nodded and felt the smallest easing of tension. Someone else to share the burden. Thank the gods he’d invested so much time in training his subordinates, in insisting that the best men be stationed in the city to guard the king.

Not that that had saved him.

Merle clapped his hands. ‘Strong backs and uncomplaining natures would be most welcome. At least three score to get us moving at speed.’

‘I’ll get them to the guildhouse by dusk, Stonemason,’ Yarrow said, saluted and disappeared.

‘And the gatehouse?’ Durdil asked as Merle began to edge towards the stairs after him. ‘What can we do with that?’

‘Bar and prop the gates, pile rubble against the inside face of the wall that can be shovelled into the tunnel to seal it. They look like they’re getting through the portcullis at that end, you do seal it. And then pray.’

‘Thank you, Merle. We’ll all be doing that, I think,’ Durdil said. ‘I’ll be here or at the palace until this siege is defeated. You’ll always be able to find me.’

Merle nodded and squeezed back into the stairwell. There was distant thunder as three trebuchets unwound and, seconds later, the whine of stone moving at great speed and the triple shattering boom of impact. Durdil clutched at the wall, not sure if he could feel it swaying or whether his panicked imagination had taken over his senses. Didn’t appear to be any casualties along Second Last, though, and he breathed a quick prayer of thanks.

‘Sir, should we cut the rope to the portcullis? Don’t want them pushing the gate up and engaging the mechanism. It’ll lift straight up and let them into the tunnel and at the door.’

‘No, or not yet anyway. Despite everything, I haven’t given up hope that the North Rank is coming, despite the lack of communication. Perhaps even my son and the West. If they are, we’ll need to support them on the field. That means exiting through the gatehouse at the double to help crush these bastards. So no cutting ropes or sealing tunnels for now.’

‘I hope you’re right, sir,’ Vaunt said a little unsteadily and Durdil realised how young he was.

He slapped him on the back. ‘This siege is going to be bloody, and it may be protracted, but we’ll get there, Major. We have to.’

Colonel Edris forced a reassuring grin he clearly didn’t feel. ‘Damn right we will,’ he added. There was a commotion on Double First and he saluted and then hurried back into the stairwell and along to his command.

‘Commander Koridam?’ a red-faced palace messenger panted to a stop before them.

An endless parade of bloody messengers, each with news direr than the last, he thought.

‘Yes?’

‘The council of nobles requests your presence, and that of your colonels, to discuss matters of state.’

Durdil blinked. ‘Matters of state? You mean the war?’

‘I was not privy to that information, sir,’ the messenger said. ‘If you could proceed with all urgency to the palace?’

‘No. If this is not a military matter, I trust them to resolve it themselves. The only “matter of state” with which I am concerned is the survival of this city and victory. If they wish to discuss the progress of the siege, I will make time for them.’

‘My orders were very specific, sir,’ the man said, and now the flush was embarrassment and worry. ‘You have been summoned specifically by Lord Silais and Lord Lorca.’