The Siege of Greenspire - Anna Stephens Read online

  Brock’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Trusted? That’s a strange question, captain. They’re young and they’re nervous, but they’re decent enough. Why do you ask?’

  They ducked inside before she answered. ‘Someone sabotaged cannon one. Spiked the vent. I trust the rest of Lady’s Justice with my life – gods, most of them have saved it at least once, you included – but the recruits? That’s a different matter.’

  Brock’s mouth was hanging open, but he snapped it shut and thought. Brida reached for the first musket in the rack and let him. Slow and steady, was Brock. No point in hurrying the man. She checked the firing pan and cocking mechanism, peered down the barrel.

  ‘I haven’t noticed anything so far. I mean, Kende’s useless, but I’d have said he was harmless, too, before this. He was stationed by the cannon yesterday – could he have done it then? Would he even know how to spike a cannon? I can fetch his records, check his background.’

  Brida selected the next musket, repeated her inspection. ‘Vinetown, down west. A small agricultural town that provided wheat, oats and barley to Fort Gardus. Attacked and destroyed by tzaangors eight months ago. Kende was one of only a dozen survivors.’

  Brida made a point of knowing the histories of every one of her soldiers. For the longest-serving members of Lady’s Justice, their histories were hers and as familiar as the feel of her spear in her hand. She’d learnt the stories of the recruits as well, but they didn’t open up to their captain the way they would to a friendly, easy-going sergeant, and Brock had been on a supply run to Fort Gardus for pig iron when Kende and the rest arrived.

  It wasn’t Brock’s responsibility to assess the recruits, of course, but over the years she’d come to rely on his judgement and now she needed it more than ever. ‘Work your charm with Kende and the others,’ she said as she picked up another musket. ‘Let me know if anyone seems off to you, but don’t make it obvious. You know the drill.’

  ‘Yes, captain,’ Brock said. ‘I won’t let you down.’

  Brida found a smile for him. ‘You never have.’

  Drigg and a team of ten had manoeuvred the cannon back into place, and he’d checked the other two as promised and found everything in perfect working order. It was mid-afternoon before he’d tumbled into bed in the small room in the officers’ barracks. Brida could hear his snores from where she sat outside, checking the supply lists in the shade away from Ghyran’s fierce sun. Even after twenty years, the sound amused and infuriated her in equal measure.

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘What is it, Orla?’ she asked the gunner.

  The short woman’s freckled face was pale despite her tan. ‘Three day watch taken sick, captain. It’s coming out both ends, if you get my meaning. They’re in the infirmary.’

  I wouldn’t be surprised if Raella poisons us all. Brock’s words rang in Brida’s head as she shoved the papers onto her desk and weighed them down with a mug. ‘What have they eaten?’ she demanded. ‘Who made it?’

  Orla stepped back from Brida’s vehemence. ‘Nothing, just the same as the rest of us and we’re fine. Do you want–’

  She was cut off by the sight of Raella running from the kitchen. Brida’s hand went to her spear, but then the woman was on her knees in a corner vomiting. ‘Bring her to the infirmary,’ she said, and ran for the building herself.

  Over the next hour fourteen more soldiers arrived, until there were no beds left and the room stank of vomit. ‘Heatstroke?’ Brida asked Tomman as Raella sipped from a cup and promptly threw it back up again. The physician shook his head. ‘Poison?’

  ‘It seems most likely, but the method of ingestion is unknown. Perhaps they’ve touched something smeared with it, or–’

  But Brida wasn’t listening. ‘We all ate the same, yes. But you and I haven’t drunk from the water barrels on the levels. Orla?’

  The gunner shook her head and patted the waterskin slung over her shoulder. ‘From this morning,’ she said.

  Brida slapped a fist into her palm. ‘That must be it. Orla, go and wake up Drigg. Brock, with me. You too, Tomman.’

  The sergeant hurried after her and they met Orla and a bleary-eyed Drigg in the courtyard. ‘We’re low on gunpowder, a cannon gets spiked, and now my soldiers are taking sick,’ she said to the huddled group. ‘Tomman, I need you to test the water barrels on each level for poison, then the well – day shift will have been drinking a lot in this heat. Brock, Orla, see anything suspicious around the barrels or well in the last couple of hours?’ They both shook their heads. ‘Damn. Fine, Drigg and I will begin questioning–’

  The bell on Greenspire’s third level began to ring. ‘Attack, attack from the Hexwood. Warflock, some hundreds!’

  Brida exchanged a horrified look with Drigg. ‘All hands,’ she said. ‘Tomman, get those samples, then Orla, confiscate the barrels. Brock, cap the well. Tomman, do whatever you have to to get the sick on their feet and ready to fight. Powders, potions, I don’t care. Just do it, and then find or create me a clean water supply. Fighting soldiers are thirsty soldiers.’

  Freeguilders began sprinting to the armoury for muskets, powder and shot. Others stumbled from the barracks, cursing and fumbling with the buckles of their armour. Dusk was beginning to pool in the sky. Brida looked at the duardin, her mouth dry. ‘Crimson the flame.’ Drigg blinked away the last of his fatigue and broke into a run for the nearest stairwell.

  Brida snatched up her spear and took the stairs two at a time, cracking her knee into the wall at the second level turning, and cursing as pain spiked through her leg with every step. She was breathless when she reached the third level and sprinted onto the allure, craving water now she knew she couldn’t have it.

  The sight that met her eyes dried her throat even further. Tzaangors, their beaks and horns sheathed in steel and reflecting the dying light, raced across the open ground bearing jagged weapons. Beastkin, twisted giant wolves and maddened bear-things with too many teeth, too many claws, thundered alongside.

  Brock reappeared. ‘Well’s capped, captain. And, I don’t know, but does it seem a bit too convenient that Orla has a separate supply of water to everyone else on the day they’re all getting sick?’

  Brida blinked at him, uncomprehending for a moment. ‘Orla? I’ve known her as long as I have you and Drigg!’

  Brock wouldn’t look at her. ‘Of course, captain.’

  Brida stared over the wall at the oncoming flock, but she wasn’t seeing it. Orla was the gunnery sergeant. She knew how to spike a cannon. Could it be more than a coincidence? Had one of Lady’s Justice walked into the arms of Chaos and agreed to betray Devholm and all the soldiers under her command? But why? Why?

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘Drigg, there you are. We’ve got enough powder for a dozen shots each, so get… What now?’ A throbbing pain began behind Brida’s eyes at the duardin’s gloomier than usual expression.

  ‘Flame won’t crimson, captain. I’ve changed the alchemical compounds three times – she just keeps burning green. No one’s coming.’

  Brida looked up, as though she could see the fire through the stone separating them. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Sputters crimson for a heartbeat and then greens again. It’s trying, the alchemy’s there, but something’s holding it back. I’d say we’ve some sort of mage in Greenspire. They’ve spell-locked the flame, bound it to something living. Or someone.’

  ‘So we kill them and the flame crimsons?’ Brida asked, biting back the urge to scream. No one was coming to Lady’s Justice’s aid.

  ‘Theoretically. Need to know who it is first.’ He stroked his beard. ‘Come to think of it, I took Kende up there last week. He was curious, asked a lot of questions about the flame – how it changes colour, when we’d signal for help and how long it’d take to arrive. Thought we might’ve had a budding engineer on our hands until his recent lapses in discipline.’

  Brida stared between her two officers and then out at the approaching warflock again, closing fast on
their position. She didn’t have time for this, but she couldn’t let a traitor run around loose in Greenspire, either. She sucked air through flared nostrils. ‘Drigg, prime the cannons.’

  The duardin blew out his cheeks. ‘Orla’s gunnery sergeant,’ he began, and Brida rounded on him.

  ‘And right now you’re one of only two people I trust, so you’re gunnery sergeant. Get to it.’

  Drigg stepped back from her fury and saluted, then clattered down the stairs without a backward glance, giving no indication of what he thought of her implication.

  ‘Brock, get me Orla and Kende, now.’

  The warflock had reached the broken ground and pit traps dug into the rich soil around Greenspire. She had to make this fast. Please don’t be Orla, she thought as she waited, the tower humming with activity and shouted orders, the controlled panic of a company about to come under attack.

  Orla, Brock and Kende arrived at her position. ‘Captain? You don’t want me on the cannons?’ the woman asked, a wrinkle of confusion between her brows.

  ‘Where were you both when people started getting sick?’ Brida demanded, turning from the enemy picking their way through the maze. The cannons would open up any minute now, the crossbows when they reached the marker flags that signalled they were in range.

  Orla’s frown deepened; Kende just looked confused. ‘On watch, captain. As always. Forgive me, but didn’t we have this conversation in the infirmary? I haven’t drunk the water.’

  ‘I was counting supplies with Raella in the kitchen before she felt ill,’ Kende said.

  ‘Who replenished the water barrels?’ Brock demanded. ‘It was you and Raella, wasn’t it? And you oversaw it, Orla.’

  ‘I did,’ the woman said with stiff indignation. ‘You saw me. You watched me do it. What are you saying, sergeant?’

  Brock glanced at Brida as though that settled it. Perhaps it did.

  ‘You’re both relieved of duty and will be confined to the cells to stand trial once we have repelled this attack,’ Brida said heavily. It didn’t sit right with her, but they were fast running out of time before the enemy was at the very walls of Greenspire. And the cannons still weren’t firing. ‘Put your weapons on the floor and step back, keep your hands where I can see them.’

  ‘Captain,’ Orla tried, but Brock muscled in between them and wrenched the spear from her. Kende threw his to the stone and put his hands up, his habitual confusion drowned beneath fear. Fear of her, or of discovery? Or of the hordes coming to tear them to pieces?

  ‘Get them out of here, sergeant,’ Brida snarled. She didn’t turn her back until the trio had vanished into the stairwell, but as soon as they were gone, she ran to the middle of the allure and leant down to see the gun emplacement at the corner. ‘Drigg! For the love of the Lady, fire! They’re nearly on us.’

  The duardin looked up at her shout, then around the men and women standing in tense silence on the wall. None were working the cannon. He pointed to the gunpowder barrel and drew his finger across his throat. ‘All of them,’ he shouted back.

  ‘Get up here,’ Brida roared, instead of the curses that crowded her throat. ‘Crossbowmen and archers, start loosing in volleys as soon as the enemy breaches the marker flag. No let up. Independent firing when they’re twenty feet out.’

  ‘What in Sigmar’s name is going on?’ she hissed as soon as her lieutenant arrived. ‘We lost one load when that fool Kende smashed it. Didn’t he mark it up like I said?’

  ‘There’s flour mixed into every barrel, captain. Put that in a cannon and you blow up the cannon. Dropping them on the warflock is about all our artillery’s good for now.’

  Brida gaped at him, her mind a momentary fizzing blank. How? Why? Then she forced herself to think, to plan some way to save her company. ‘Get back up to the flame. I don’t care how you do it, but crimson it. We’re not going to outlast this attack without aid or artillery. Barricade yourself in there, Drigg,’ she added, squeezing his forearm, ‘and Alarielle guide you.’

  ‘The defence?’ Drigg asked, already backing away.

  Brida hefted her spear. ‘I’ve got the defence.’

  Bows and crossbows were taking a toll among the warflock, finding the joins in armour and punching through them, the ground shuddering beneath the thunder of running feet and falling bodies. The demi-wolves and half-bears, though, shook off the missiles as if they were stinging insects, leaping across the pit traps and sharpened stakes, gaining ground. Without Drigg, Brida was everywhere, running between the second and third levels, shouting down to the ground to ensure the gates were fully braced.

  She looked for Brock, couldn’t find him, and hoped Orla and Kende hadn’t resisted. She was torn between wanting it to be them so they were locked away, and hoping it was all some horrible series of accidents. A small, ugly voice in her head told her to execute them both now. If it was one of them, their death would release the spell-lock and the flame would crimson. She pushed it away and focused on repelling the attack.

  The beastkin reached the walls, the still-green glow from above glistening in their eyes and teeth. They roared their pain and hate and madness, and they began to climb.

  ‘Crossbows, down into the beasts. Archers, take the tzaangors!’ Brida screamed. Greenspire seemed to rock under the impact of mutated flesh, and she stepped back, let an archer take her place at the wall and spun to look into the courtyard. Three figures sprawled in their own blood in all the indignity of violent death. ‘What the–’

  She raced for the stairs, threw herself down them two at a time and came out into the courtyard. She whirled around, looking for enemies, but saw no one but Brock at the main gate.

  Brock at the main gate.

  She ran even as she processed his actions, realised he was clearing the barricade and tearing back the bolts that would let in the enemy. The gate shook as it was charged from outside. ‘Brock, no!’ she screamed as the awful realisation dawned. He’d fooled her. He’d fooled them all and damned them all.

  He turned as if in a dream, exultation glazed across his face. ‘For Chaos!’ he yelled, and slipped the last bolt free.

  Icy fury rose like a hurricane and Brida channelled all of it into the cast of her spear. The weapon hummed through the air and punched into her sergeant’s chest, snatching him from his feet and pinning him to the opening gate. He never lost his expression of adoration. She followed the spear and shouldered into the gate with all the momentum of her sprint, digging her boots into the stone and heaving. Seconds later, Tomman the physician joined her. He didn’t push, but darted his arm around the opening gate and threw a handful of pellets. The pressure from the other side lessened and now he did lend his strength to hers. ‘Quick-sleep,’ he panted, ‘slow them down a bit.’

  ‘Gate breach!’ Brida bellowed, so loud her lungs hurt and Tomman winced. Shouts of alarm from above told her that soldiers would be sprinting down the stairs to help, and across the wall above the gate to rain death on the monsters seeking entry.

  It wasn’t enough. The pressure on the gate returned and then increased, and Brida and Tomman were shoved back. Shoulders and thighs burning, Brida gritted her teeth and pushed, but the beastkin had the momentum now.

  She met Tomman’s eyes. ‘Count of three, run.’

  ‘We have crimson!’ a voice from above blared, and Brida felt a sliver of hope. Brock’s death had broken the spell-lock on the flame, and Drigg had added the alchemical compounds to change the colour. It wasn’t over yet.

  ‘Stay alive, physician. Help’s coming. One. Two. Three.’

  They let go of the gate and sprinted away as the first half-bear tumbled into Greenspire, falling over itself as the pressure on the barrier released. Those behind clambered over it slavering and howling, each one big enough to tear Brida in half. She didn’t give them the chance, hurling herself into the nearest stairwell behind Tomman and slamming the door and locking it. The stairwells were narrow and low to prevent the mutated giants of Tzeentch’s hordes from enteri
ng. Though that wouldn’t stop them rampaging through the kitchen, stores, armoury and infirmary. Anyone found alive in there soon wouldn’t be. She had to save them.

  She ran into Drigg on the second level. ‘They’re in.’

  ‘I know. Got half the archers picking them off but there are more still piling through the gate.’ He was cut off by a splintering crash and a chorus of desperate screams: a demi-wolf had taken down the door to the infirmary. Drigg directed arrows at it, but it was already too late. The patients were gone, torn apart in seconds as Brida watched in stunned, helpless silence. Ice swamped the fire that had raged in her blood, black and lethal, and Drigg took a step back when he saw her expression.

  ‘You said drop the cannon,’ Brida said, the rough edge to her voice all the grief she would allow herself. ‘Drop it in front of the gate, crush those coming through so their bodies block the entrance.’

  Drigg nodded once. ‘Inside the gate,’ he corrected, and she trusted him enough not to ask why, just ran for the cannon nearest the gate.

  The gun carriage was wheeled, but it still took ten of them to get it moving while another two rigged a hasty pulley system from the hooks hammered into the roof. The tzaangors had cleared the last of the traps and were crowding in behind the warped backs of the beastkin at the gate. The fog of their stink was overwhelming, stinging eyes and clinging like slime inside mouths and throats.

  The cannon rocked on its carriage and came free with a chorused grunt from those on the ropes. Brida helped guide it up over the guard wall and into position. She chanced a look down into the courtyard and came face-to-snout with a half-bear, talons dug into the stone blocks of Greenspire’s wall.

  ‘Drop it!’ she yelled and the cannon vanished, scraping the bear from the wall and thundering into the mass of twisted flesh spilling from the gate. The end of the rope, smoking from the speed it went through the pulley, ripped across the side of Brida’s head as it flashed past, laying open her scalp and cheek to the bone. She reeled back, blood sheeting, a screech of pain bursting from her.