The Siege of Greenspire - Anna Stephens Read online

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  The Siege of Greenspire – Anna Stephens

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  An Extract from ‘The Red Feast’

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  THE SIEGE OF GREENSPIRE

  Anna Stephens

  Brida Devholm, captain of the Freeguild company Lady’s Justice, watched with dismay as the most incompetent of her new recruits staggered, fell and landed hard on the stone courtyard that made up the ground floor of the watchtower known as Greenspire. The barrel he was carrying slammed onto the flagstones and split, and a cascade of fine black powder spilt forth over him and the stone while clouds of it plumed into the air.

  Brida leapt back on instinct. ‘Careful, idiot,’ she shouted. ‘You want to blow us all up? That’s gunpowder! Why not just strike a spark while you’re at it?’

  It was no use. Kende had hit his chin on the top of the barrel as he went down and was sitting in the drift of gunpowder, bleary-eyed and spitting blood from a bitten tongue. ‘Sorry, captain,’ he managed. He made it to his knees, upended the broken barrel and began scooping the powder back into the hole cracked into it, scraping handfuls up off the stones.

  Brida ran forwards and snatched the barrel from him, spilling more onto herself and the ground with the violence of the movement. ‘By the Lady, are you stupid?’ she demanded, despite the clear evidence confirming her suspicion. She pointed at the ground as he blinked up at her, confused. ‘That powder’s contaminated now, full of dirt and dust, your blood and sweat, stone chips even. You’ve just mixed it with the pure still left in the barrel.’ He stared at her, still not understanding, and Brida cursed him silently.

  ‘Do you know what happens when you put dirty gunpowder in the firing pan of your musket? Either it doesn’t fire, leaving you unarmed against the hordes trying to claw your guts out of your belly, or it backfires and blows your damn hand off. Which would you prefer, Kende?’

  Kende wiped blood from his chin with a blackened hand and scrambled to his feet. ‘Um, neither?’ he ventured.

  Brida nodded. ‘Neither. Good choice. Now think what would happen if you loaded it into the breech of a cannon.’ She cursed again as she peered through the split wood and gave the barrel a tentative shake, judging its weight. It had been full. She groaned and gave it back to him. ‘Congratulations. Your first month’s wages are forfeit to enable me to purchase more powder, though it’s anybody’s guess when the suppliers will be back this way. And don’t even think about complaining.’ She stared him out and Kende closed the mouth that had been about to utter something very unwise.

  ‘Shovel the rest of it back in there and then mark up the barrel with chalk so we know not to use it in the weapons. Might be we can sprinkle it in some of the traps out front, add a little excitement for when the beasts come again. And then sweep this yard – I don’t want a stray spark setting my company alight because the ground’s dusted with gunpowder. And then report for night duty – no, I don’t care that you’ve just pulled a day shift. And try not to fall over your own feet next time, yes? Alarielle knows what you’ll be like in an actual fight.’

  The torrent of orders and abuse withered the man like a tree before Nurgle’s rot and he nodded, mute, his black-stained face slack with chagrin. Brida bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself saying more, and sighed. She shouldn’t be too hard on him; he’d been a farmer before a tzaangor warflock from the Hexwood took everyone he loved and he swore to end his days fighting them. The problem was, he was doing a damn fine job of trying to take Lady’s Justice and Greenspire with him when he went.

  His was a common enough tale in Verdia and, truth be told, she knew a thing or two about that driving need for vengeance and where it could take a person. She just had to hope Kende could learn weapons easier than he could carry barrels of gunpowder across a flagstoned courtyard. And he wasn’t the only one. The last skirmish had left her company under-strength, and they’d replaced the dead with a dozen raw recruits – some barely more than children, the others merchants or farmers like Kende. A dozen who didn’t know which end of a sword was safe to hold. One, Raella, who’d discovered she didn’t like heights and cried every time she stood watch on the third level, spending most of her time with her eyes screwed shut and clinging to the guard wall until they prised her loose and sent her down to the ground floor again.

  A muscle jumped in Brida’s jaw, but she managed to keep her frustration trapped behind her teeth as Kende resumed funnelling wasted powder into the barrel. He’d learn or he’d die, all of them would; that was the way of it out here on the Emerald Line, which stretched from Fort Gardus to Hammerhal-Ghyra. Brida’s concern was that they didn’t take too many seasoned soldiers with them into death.

  Above, Greenspire’s bell rang the changing of the watch, and Brida left Kende to his task with a final reminder to bathe and change before going near any naked flames. She jogged up the stairs to the top floor of the tower and marched a brisk round of all four sides. This evening the approaches from the Hexwood were clear, although there was a tangle of vine crawling out from the treeline towards them, already closer and thicker than it had been at dawn. Brida rubbed a weary hand across her face. The Lady of Leaves would need to be propitiated and placated before they could hack away the vines; left untouched they would strangle Greenspire, cracking the strong stone foundations and tumbling it into ruin, leaving a gap in the Emerald Line through which the beastkin and tzaangors of the Hexwood could launch attacks.

  ‘A captain’s work is never done,’ Brida muttered under her breath, though in truth she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her hand found the thick gold ring hanging from its cord around her neck and she squeezed it, feeling the reassuring weight and warmth of the metal – more habit than reminder of all she’d lost to bring her to this point. It wasn’t often she thought of her life before, but Kende’s earnest incompetence and the hesitant, awkward actions of the other recruits brought back an old pain, one never fully healed.

  She was relieved when Drigg, her duardin second-in-command, appeared at her side and the memory rolled like a corpse in a river and submerged again. It’d be back, it never left her for long, but hopefully not tonight to steal her sleep. ‘All quiet?’ Drigg asked. He’d been awake for a couple of hours and already knew the answer, but she appreciated him asking. It signalled the formal transference of power from her to him for the night watch.

  ‘Too quiet, and for too many days,’ Brida said. ‘I don’t like it.’

  Drigg laughed, the sound rusty and low in his throat, and shifted the double-headed axe hanging from his belt. ‘You wouldn’t like it if Sigmar and Alarielle themselves came down here and proclaimed the war against Chaos over, the enemy defeated, and all of us able to go home to peace.’

  The corner of Brida’s mouth twitched. ‘I’m a careful sort,’ she acknowledged.

  Drigg shook his head. ‘You say careful, the rest of us say suspicious and untrusting. And this is a duardin speaking. Careful is what we do.’

  Brida glared at him for a long second, but there was no heat in it. ‘It’s strange how often the two sentiments can be confused. Check floor two for me, would you? Orla reported an issue with cannon one, something about the vent hole being blocked, so I’ve ordered crossbow emplacements set up at each corner. I know, I know, I’d have told you earlier if I’d known earlier. I didn’t. You’ll have to tinker with it in the morning, we can’t risk moving it now. Even a visual deterrent’s better than nothing. Oh, and Kende’s pulling a double shift – or maybe a triple if I decide he’s on duty tomorrow as well, so keep an eye on him. He’s gr
eener than springtime and clumsier than a one-legged tzaangor, but he needs to learn, and fast.’

  ‘Because you have a bad feeling?’ Drigg asked.

  ‘Because I have a bad feeling, and because he’s fouled an entire barrel of gunpowder,’ Brida confirmed. ‘You have the watch, lieutenant.’

  Drigg saluted and stepped back. ‘I have the watch,’ he confirmed formally. ‘So you can take your bad feeling off my wall,’ he muttered, and only their long familiarity allowed him the privilege – and then only when no other soldier could overhear. Drigg and Devholm, backbone of Lady’s Justice for twenty years. Other than Brock, Orla and a couple of others, the only surviving members of the company from back when it was formed. Years and battles and deaths and horrors they’d been through, saved each others’ lives more times than she could remember, and she’d never once got Drigg to admit her bad feeling had been right. He always insisted it was coincidence.

  She listened to his footsteps retreating along the walkway, the crisp commands as the watch was handed from the day to the night units. The wind hummed around the watchtower, warm and pleasant and vibrant with life – and, every so often and only from the west, tainted. The tiniest breath of foulness, there and then gone so fast she almost couldn’t detect it. But there.

  Brida’s scarred fists clenched on the waist-high guard wall and though she was now officially off-duty, she didn’t move. There was something wrong.

  There was something coming.

  The watch changed again at dawn and Kende was found asleep at his post. So was Raella, who should have been preparing the meal that would end the night watch’s shift and begin the day watch’s. Instead, all of them went hungry for an extra hour while she frantically stoked the ovens and baked, in some cases burned, the bread and scalded the porridge. It was poor fare, and it put the whole company in a mood.

  Brida was staring through an arrow slit at the tangle of vine, taller than she was now and closer than ever, when Drigg brought them both to her. He was shame-faced and furious in equal measure – the night watch was his duty, so the failure was also his. He offered to endure the recruits’ punishment along with them, in a voice loud and clear that carried across the yard and brought everyone within earshot to a halt. Those recruits who’d managed to stay awake muttered to the more experienced Freeguilders, surprised and a little awed by Drigg’s offer. Their respect for him grew, but Brida knew if she agreed, their opinion of her would fall.

  She turned him down, but she had no choice but to punish the pair, smacking her spear shaft across their backs three times each and driving them to their knees, welts and bruises springing up on their skin. It was worse than they’d anticipated though less than the proper flogging they deserved, and both shouted in pain; Raella begged to be allowed to resign from the company.

  ‘No. You signed up for a year and a year is what you’ll give me. We’re under-strength and I can’t afford to lose you. You’re going to learn to be a soldier, and a damn good one at that.’

  Raella burst into tears again and ran for the kitchens. Brida didn’t like punishing her soldiers, but Lady’s Justice was a tight-knit company, a hard and disciplined company, and over the years they’d all received punishment for similar infractions. Brida herself had the scars that told of her own insubordination back when she’d been a grunt.

  Just because Kende and Raella were new and still grieving whatever horrors had led them here, that didn’t mean they got a longer rein than the rest of the company. And best to find out Raella’s mettle – or lack of it – now than when they were beset by the worshippers of Tzeentch. Lady’s Justice didn’t break and run. Raella had broken already and Brida couldn’t afford sympathy for the woman. Her job now was to take Raella’s broken pieces and fit them together into something hard and sharp – a weapon. She hoped she’d have enough time to do it before the next attack.

  ‘We’re on the frontier, Kende,’ she said. ‘We’re part of the thin line between Hammerhal-Ghyra and the Hexwood, between civilisation and Chaos. Between joy and despair, and life and death. We’re here to prevent what happened to your family from happening to everyone in the realm. I have to be able to trust you and know that you’ll follow my orders, that I can depend on you. At the moment I can’t. You have ten days to prove me wrong. Shadow Lieutenant Drigg, learn from him, and for the Lady’s sake try and stay awake.’

  He didn’t ask what would happen after ten days. He didn’t argue and he didn’t beg for leniency or even promise to do better. He just gave her a sloppy salute and walked away too fast for dignity. She watched him go, frowning, wondering if she’d made a mistake. Perhaps it would be better to cull him and Raella now, cut the rot from her company before it had a chance to spread. He’d been sullen, and there was no place for resentment in Lady’s Justice. No place for anything except dedication to the cause and belief in the Lady of Leaves.

  Twenty years as a soldier had taught Brida much, and she knew with bone-deep certainty that Kende wasn’t going to make her believe in him in ten days. But what else could she do? She needed him. She needed them all.

  The beastkin attacks had been increasing in frequency of late, increasing in cunning too, which worried her more. Greenspire’s neighbouring watchtowers, Highoak and Willowflame, had both reported growing pressure from skirmishes. Couriers were vanishing on the roads strung along the Emerald Line, and the green alchemical flames that burned day and night at the top of each tower were changing to red to signal attacks more and more often. Even on a clear day, the flames were all that could be seen through the miles separating each tower, and usually by the time Lady’s Justice had marched to the aid of a red-crowned neighbour, the attack was over.

  Part of Brida longed for a full-scale battle, a chance for all the Freeguilders to unite to crush the enemy. This probing of the Line worried her. It suggested an unexpected intelligence guiding the horde’s attacks.

  Mostly, those dazed and lucky few who survived an attack fled to bigger towns and cities, abandoning their farms and orchards to scrape a living on the streets or as labourers in the sky-docks. Only a very few found the courage to transform their loss into fire and join the Freeguild. Lady’s Justice had been under-strength for half a year before Kende and the rest were finally allocated to them and Greenspire. Even if they’d each had the resourcefulness and skill of five soldiers, they would not have made up the shortfall. And if Kende’s anger or Raella’s timidity infected the other recruits… Brida’s gut wound another notch tighter.

  ‘I should have meted out their punishment,’ Drigg said from behind, and then yawned wide enough to swallow a cannonball. ‘They slept on my watch.’

  ‘No, better they hate me and respect you. Kende’s going to need a lot of babying – I’ve given him ten days – and you’re better at that than me. Help him but push him wherever you can. I’ll put Brock on Raella – his charm and encouragement might work better on her. We need them all, and none of them are ready for anything except feeding to monsters.’ She slapped him on the arm. ‘Go on, fix that cannon for me and then get some sleep – we’ll speak again before dusk.’

  Brida found Drigg at noon. He was hunched over the cannon in his workshop following a complicated hour spent with rope, tackle and pulleys lowering it from the second level to the courtyard, then trundling it into the sooty, alchemical-smelling gloom. The duardin leapt to his feet when Brida’s shadow fell over him, and she noted the instinctive dart of his hand towards his axe. A cold weight settled into her stomach.

  ‘Look at this,’ he grated. She advanced and took the object he handed her, then looked from it to where he was pointing on the cannon and back again. Brida had always preferred spears and swords to cannons and muskets, but that didn’t mean she didn’t understand artillery.

  Air hissed through her teeth. ‘Someone’s spiked it?’

  ‘Yes, and done a good job, too. It was sitting flush with the vent, barely visible. On casual inspection it looked fine. Whoever’s done this didn’t want u
s to realise we couldn’t fire her until we needed to. Say, when we came under attack.’

  Brida met the duardin’s deep-set eyes. ‘You’re saying we’ve a traitor in Lady’s Justice?’

  ‘I’m saying it’s taken me most of the morning to bore out the spike without damaging the vent. We’ll still need to test-fire a few balls and I won’t allow anyone near it when I do in case she blows. I don’t know who spiked it or why, but after I’m done here I’ll be checking the other cannons and the muskets too. I’ll be checking firing pans and barrel rifling and everything else I can think of.’

  Sweat prickled at Brida’s hairline. There was a joke in there somewhere about how he thought her untrusting, but there was nothing funny about the situation. ‘You check the cannons, I’ll check the rest. Then get some sleep, that’s an order. I need your eyes sharp for the enemy.’ She gestured. ‘Outside Greenspire – and maybe inside it.’

  Drigg nodded and bent to the cannon without another word. She left him to it, striding back out into the bright day with suspicions blackening her heart.

  She spotted Brock and called him over, reassured as ever by his easy competence, his ready smile. If she was the head of Lady’s Justice, Brock was the heart, and his return from Fort Gardus had given them all a boost. A joke and a wink at the right time from him solved most disputes before they escalated, and his easy reminiscences of mistakes made when he first joined up served to reassure the recruits that they, too, could get better with practice.

  ‘What do you think of the new lot, sergeant?’ she asked as she led him to the armoury.

  ‘About as useful as you’d expect, captain,’ the tall man said. ‘Though they’re having much the same issues even at Fort Gardus, if that’s any consolation, as well as along the Line. Too many youngsters and old folks, not enough steady hands. That Kende’s a waste of uniform and I wouldn’t be surprised if Raella poisons us all.’

  Brida gave him a sharp look. ‘Can they be trusted?’