There were a couple of villages in Chathe whose inhabitants believed the world was one vast rotting corpse, people the maggots crawling in its flesh. You could kind of see that, looking at Marith. Suddenly really made sense.
The men stood and let him kill them. Smiled at him as they died. So godsdamned beautiful. Radiant. The most perfect perfect thing in the world. The thing that had entered them all and never quite left them, worn its traces like scabs. A little bit of him in all of us, Tobias thought. Like a man who’s drunk tainted water and got the fluke.
He hurled himself on the man next to him.
The man next to him hurled himself back.
And we’re all fighting and fighting and fighting together, he thought. Fighting and fighting and fighting till the world ends.
What men are made for. Killing. Dying. Being killed.
A song came into his head suddenly. Old, old song. Knows the words right as breathing. Better than he knows himself. His own name.
Shouts it out, stabbing at the bloke next to him. Bloke next to him dies shouting it back. They all take it up, dead men and dying. And we’re all dying, aren’t we? he thinks. Just some quick, some slow. What we’re born for. Killing. Dying. Shouts it loud and clear, while he’s killing. Kill and kill and kill! Keep killing until we’re all dead.
Why we march and why we die,
And what life means … it’s all a lie.
Death! Death! Death!
Chapter Fifty-Eight
A rock slams over the walls and smashes into the courtyard. A shower of dust and shattered stone. Green liquid fire drips off it, liquid and burning, a cry from the courtyard where it strikes. Men fall with fire coursing up their bodies. Like insects swarming over them, climbing legs and arms, making for the face. Where it meets skin it hisses and steams, eating away flesh and bone, melting leather and metal, worming its way into the bloodstream and making the blood boil. White fat runs in streams across liquefying flagstones, bubbling and smoking as it runs. The towers of Malth Salene shake and tremble. The towers are burning and falling. The walls break apart. Destroyed.
I could live here with him, I thought.
Deneth Relast is putting on his armour. Jora Relast sings with pleasure as she straps it on. Savane blows kisses at the soldiers arming. Landra stands in the doorway and weeps.
‘Here we are then.’ Marith looks around at me. ‘It’s done.’
He takes my hand. Kisses me, gently and softly, a kind protective kiss.
‘Ride out of the back gate by the middens. Take the lich road onto the moors. Wait there until it is done. You will be safe. No one will come near you. No one will be there. I swear it.’ He smiles. ‘My Queen.’
I kiss him back.
I see the thought in his eyes: She loves me! She loves me!
I don’t know. I think perhaps I do.
Shame in my heart like the light on the water.
But he’s so beautiful, I think.
The towers rock and tremble. Mage fire and banefire eating at the walls. Another missile strikes the courtyard. Men standing rapt with worship as they burn.
‘King Marith! King Marith!’ Their voices are prayers. Like the Great Hymn to the rising sun.
A burst of mage fire shoots over the walls into the courtyard. Catches Landra. Catches Savane. Savane’s dress shimmers silver. Her skin sparkles. She burns. Jora their mother shrieks with horror. Deneth her father shouts ‘Kill them!’, pulls his helmet onto his head, grips his sword.
I think of what Landra Relast did to me, dragging me here, wanting to kill me, wanting to kill him.
His father wanted to kill him. Was glad to say he was dead. Deneth Relast and his son and daughter tried to destroy him.
Landra survives.
Savane is dead.
A wave of banefire crashes across the courtyard. Drowning men even as they burn. A voice is screaming somewhere ‘Destroy it! Destroy it!’. From inside the walls or outside, I don’t know. Destroy it, I think. Yes. Jora Relast turns towards the fire. Holds out her arms. The fire embraces her. Surges over her body. Runs like insects over towards her husband. I do not want to watch them die.
Landra screams something. Runs towards her mother. Her hair is burned off. Her skin is burned off. Soldiers turn towards her. They are turning on each other. Beginning again to kill each other. Deneth Relast stares at his wife and his daughters. His home burning. He does not seem to understand what to do.
‘Destroy it!’ the voice shouts. Marith’s voice. ‘Destroy it! Kill them all!’
Landra’s eyes meet Marith’s for a moment and they are worse than his own. She screams a curse at him. Then she is gone inside the burning building, and a handful of soldiers are chasing after her, and the rest are killing each other at Marith’s feet.
‘Ride out of the back gate!’ he shouts at me. ‘Wait on the lich road! You will be safe! I swear it!’
The walls explode in white and silver. Marith forms up a group of horsemen behind him. ‘Destroy it!’ he shouts again. ‘Kill them!’ Then he shouts, ‘Open the gates!’
The fire is burning in him. In his eyes. His face. His cloak is still stained with the blood of his last battle. Blood runs off it as he goes.
He is death. He is ruin. He is Amrath.
But he is so beautiful.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The gates opened. He rode out through them, killing men as he went. The fire burned in his head so bright it sang. He could see everything. Hear everything. Feel it all as it moved around him. Every life. Every death. The men surged after him, shouting his name. ‘Ansikanderakesis! Ansikanderakesis Amrakane! King Marith! King Marith!’ Beauty and joy to break the heart.
His father’s soldiers stood and died for him. Worshipped him as they died. Loved him. He cut them down. Rode through them to the ranks of men gathered around the siege engines. Waiting for him. All of it waiting for him.
He pointed at the walls of Malth Salene behind him. ‘Destroy it! Kill them! Kill them all!’
The trebuchets loosed. Banefire flying. Men turning to fight each other. Overwhelming themselves. The earth trembled. His sword danced in his hand.
Fire and stone and blood and bone as the gatehouse gave way, shattering like the glass had shattered in Sorlost, fragments shining glowing falling through the air like jewels. Like eyes. Falling through the air like coloured stars. Look! There’s the Worm, and the Maiden, and the Crown of Laughing, and that big green one is the Tear.
‘Death!’ he screamed to them. ‘Death! Death!’
He crashed through the ruins of his father’s army, standing staring at each other, staring in adoration at him, turning in confusion to fight the men following him and each other and themselves and everything. Had to find his brother. His father. Decide how best to kill them.
Ti was probably on his way back to Malth Elelane, he thought then. Weak and hiding. Resentful and scared. But his father was here somewhere.