The Wheel of Osheim

“I gave standing orders for no archery.” This to Renprow, the gore drying on him now after our hurried ride from the bridge. A good number of the dead closest to the Appan Gate sported two, three, sometimes five arrows, jutting from arms and chests—an elderly woman had one in her eye. “It’s a waste.”

“I’ll send out the order again, Marshal. It’s hard for the men not to shoot when the enemy advances on their positions.”

I waved Renprow away. Soldiers of the wall guard packed the tower-top, men of middling years in the main, many thick-waisted and gone to grey, thinking to pace away their remaining years peacefully on the walls of the capital. The primary duty of a Vermillion wall guard is spotting fires. Apart from that they’re basically a mobile reserve to the city guard and the only excitement they ever see is when they are called upon to descend into the city to back up their thinly stretched brothers in city red.

“Move!” Behind me Martus elbowed his way through the guard, blaring at any who didn’t shift quick enough. “Get out of my way! I’m a bloody prince. I’ll—Dear God . . .” Martus faltered in mid-bluster, squinting out across the dead horde against the setting sun. “Dear God.” He grew pale. “I’ve never seen anything like . . . that.”

“I have.” I leaned out, hands on the battlements to support me. “I’ve seen worse.” And in that moment I realized that while fear ran through me from head to toe, it wasn’t the debilitating terror I’d known on so many other occasions. I thought then that maybe I knew why Grandmother had chosen me. “I’ve seen Hell.” I raised my voice. “I’ve seen Hell and this isn’t it. We’re the Red Queen’s men and we’ve all of Vermillion at our backs. A bunch of shuffling corpses isn’t going to take it from us!”

A cheer went up at that, taking me by surprise. To be fair, Renprow did lead it, but the fact is the men around me had lost their courage and a few bold words from a frightened man had given them back some measure of it.

“How in God’s name did . . .” Martus gazed across the multitude again, “. . . an army of three thousand dead reach our walls without any alarm?”

Darin rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “It’s not as if you can’t smell them a mile off! Didn’t you send any scouts, Jal?”

I looked between my brothers. Some called them the twins, though Martus had a heavier build and Darin sharper features. No one ever called us the triplets, though in truth if I were two inches taller we might pass as such in a poor light. As much as I might profess to dislike them it actually felt good to have some family at my back—to have some people with me on the tower who genuinely didn’t expect me to solve their problems or get it right.

“I have over a hundred men on wide patrol and no army could make its way through Red March without the word going out from towns and villages. That . . .” I pointed back at our enemy, “. . . was made here. Most of them probably killed in their homes within the last few hours while we were chasing ghouls around the river.” I wondered how many necromancers might be out among those alleyways, or working in leafy squares, moving along rows of my people, fresh-killed and laid out on the cobbles side by side, one family at a time.

“What are we going to do?” Darin asked. The Darin I knew of old would have been telling me what we should do, laying it all out with a debonair swagger. I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering what ailed the man, before remembering the seven pounds of new pink flesh so recently arrived. Misha had put the baby in my hands when she and Darin had finally trapped me in the Roma Hall a few nights back. A tiny thing.

“We’ve called her Nia,” Misha had said. I’d looked down at the child, named for my mother, and found my eyes stinging.

“Better take the little beast back before she wets my shirt,” I’d said and thrust my niece back at her mother, but it had been too late. The old magic that babies weave so well had got in under my skin, contaminating me faster than piss or vomit or any of the other bodily fluids that newborns are so keen to share. Even a lifetime of evading all duties put upon me was insufficient practice to let this one slide off me like the others. How much worse to be the father?

Darin had taken Nia and lifted her up. “If my girl wants to soil her uncle’s peacock feathers it’s just testimony to her good taste.” But he took no offence. He’d seen something come over me in the moment I held her, despite my trying to hide it, and had given me a knowing and very irritating smile.