The Court of Broken Knives Read online

  ANNA SMITH SPARK

  The Court of Broken Knives

  Book One of The Empires of Dust

  Copyright

  HarperVoyager

  an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017

  Copyright © Anna Smith-Spark 2017

  Map by Sophie E. Tallis

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

  Anna Smith-Spark asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008204068

  Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008204174

  Version: 2017-05-31

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my father, who introduced me to fantasy and history and mythology, and who taught me how to write.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Part One: Bronze Walls

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Part Two: The Blade

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Part Three: The Light of the Sun

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  PART ONE

  BRONZE WALLS

  Chapter One

  Knives.

  Knives everywhere. Coming down like rain.

  Down to close work like that, men wrestling in the mud, jabbing at each other, too tired to care any more. Just die and get it over with. Half of them fighting with their guts hanging out of their stomachs, stinking of shit, oozing pink and red and white. Half-dead men lying in the filth. Screaming. A whole lot of things screaming.

  Impossible to tell who’s who any more. Mud and blood and shadows and that’s it. Kill them! Kill them all! Keep killing until we’re all dead. The knife jabs and twists and the man he’s fighting falls sideways, all the breath going out of him with a sigh of relief. Another there behind. Gods, his arms ache. His head aches. Blood in his eyes. He twists the knife again and thrusts with a broken-off sword and that man too dies. Fire explodes somewhere over to the left. White as maggots. Silent as maggots. Then shrieks as men burn.

  He swings the stub of the sword and catches a man on the leg, not hard but hard enough so the man stumbles and he’s on him quick with the knife. A good lot of blood and the man’s down and dead, still flapping about like a fish but you can see in his eyes that he’s finished, his legs just haven’t quite caught up yet.

  The sun is setting, casting long shadows. Oh beautiful evening! Stars rising in a sky the colour of rotting wounds. The Dragon’s Mouth. The White Lady. The Dog. A good star, the Dog. Brings plagues and fevers and inflames desire. Its rising marks the coming of summer. So maybe no more campaigning in the sodding rain. Wet leather stinks. Mud stinks. Shit stinks, when the latrine trench overflows.

  Another burst of white fire. He hates the way it’s silent. Unnatural. Unnerving. Screams again. Screams so bad your ears ring for days. The sky weeps and howls and it’s difficult to know what’s screaming. You, or the enemy, or the other things.

  Men are fighting in great clotted knots like milk curds. He sprints a little to where two men are struggling together. Leaps at one from behind, pulls him down, skewers him. Hard crack of bone, soft lovely yield of fat and innards. Suety. The other yells hoarsely and swings a punch at him. Lost his knife, even. Bare knuckles. He ducks and kicks out hard, overbalances and almost falls. The man kicks back, tries to get him in a wrestling grip. Up close together, two pairs of teeth gritted at each other. A hand smashes his face, gets his nose, digs in. He bites at it. Dirty. Calloused. Iron taste of blood bright in his mouth. But the hand won’t let up, crushing his face into his skull. He swallows and almost chokes on the blood pouring from the wound he’s made. Blood and snot and shreds of cracked dry human skin. Manages to get his knife in and stabs hard into the back of the man’s thigh. Not enough to kill, but the hand jerks out from his face. Lashes out and gets his opponent in the soft part of the throat, pulls his knife out and gazes around the battlefield at the figures hacking at each other while the earth rots beneath them. All eternity, they’ve been fighting. All the edges blunted. Sword edges and knife edges and the edges in the mind. Keep killing. Keep killing. Keep killing till we’re all dead.

  And then he’s dead. A blade gets him in the side, in the weak point under the shoulder where his armour has to give to let the joint move. Far in, twisting. Aiming down. Killing wound. He hears his body rip. Oh gods. Oh gods and demons. Oh gods and demons and fuck. He swings round, strikes at the man who’s stabbed him. The figure facing him is a wraith, scarlet with blood, head open oozing out brain stuff. You’re dying, he thinks. You’re dying and you’ve killed me. Not fair.

>   Shadows twist round them. We’re all dying, he thinks, one way or another. Just some of us quicker than others. You fight and you die. And always another twenty men queuing up behind you.

  Why we march and why we die,

  And what life means … it’s all a lie.

  Death! Death! Death!

  Understands that better than he’s ever understood anything, even his own name.

  But suddenly, for a moment, he’s not sure he wants to die.

  The battlefield falls silent. He blinks and sees light.

  A figure in silver armour. White, shining, blazing with light like the sun. A red cloak billowing in the wind. Moves through the ranks of the dead and the dying and the light beats onto them, pure and clean.

  ‘Amrath! Amrath!’ Voices whispering like the wind blowing across salt marsh. Voices calling like birds. Here, walking among us, bright as summer dew.

  ‘Amrath! Amrath!’ The shadows fall away as the figure passes. Everything is light.

  ‘Amrath! Amrath!’ The men cheer with one voice. No longer one side or the other, just men gazing and cheering as the figure passes. He cheers until his throat aches. Feels restored, seeing it. No longer tired and wounded and dying. Healed. Strong.

  ‘Amrath! Amrath!’

  The figure halts. Gazes around. Searching. Finds. A dark-clad man leaps forward, swaying into the light. Poised across from the shining figure, yearning towards it. Draws a sword burning with blue flame.

  ‘Amrath! Amrath!’ Harsh voice like crows, challenging. ‘Amrath!’

  He watches joyfully. So beautiful! Watches and nothing in the world matters, except to behold the radiance of his god.

  The bright figure draws a sword that shines like all the stars and the moon and the sun. A single dark ruby in its hilt. The dark figure rushes onwards, screeching something. Meets the bright figure with a clash. White light and blue fire. Blue fire and white light. His eyes hurt almost as he watches. But he cannot bear to look away. The two struggle together. Like a candle flame flickering. Like the dawn sun on the sea. The silver sword comes up, throws the dark figure back. Blue fire blazes, engulfing everything, the shining silver armour running with flame. Crash of metal, sparks like a blacksmith’s anvil. The shining figure takes a step back defensively, parries, strikes out. The other blocks it. Roars. Howls. Laughs. The mage blade swings again, slicing, trailing blue fire. Blue arcs in the evening gloom. Shapes and words, written on the air. Death words. Pain words. Words of hope and fear and despair. The shining figure parries again, the silver sword rippling beneath the impact of the other’s blade. So brilliant with light that rainbows dance on the ground around it. Like a woman’s hair throwing out drops of water, tossing back her head in summer rain. Like snow falling. Like coloured stars. The two fighters shifting, stepping in each other’s footprints. Stepping in each other’s shadows. Circling like birds.

  The silver sword flashes out and up and downwards and the other falls back, bleeding from the throat. Great spreading gush of red. The blue flame dies.

  He cheers and his heart is almost aching, it’s so full of joy.

  The shining figure turns. Looks at the men watching. Looks at him. Screams. Things shriek back that make the world tremble. The silver sword rises and falls. Five men. Ten. Twenty. A pile of corpses. He stares mesmerized at the dying. The beauty of it. The most beautiful thing in the world. Killing and killing and such perfect joy. His heart overflowing. His heart singing. This, oh indeed, oh, for this, all men are born. He screams in answer, dying, throws himself against his god’s enemies with knife and sword and nails and teeth.

  Why we march and why we die,

  And what life means … it’s all a lie.

  Death! Death! Death!

  Chapter Two

  ‘The Yellow Empire … I can kind of see that. Yeah. Makes sense.’

  Dun and yellow desert, scattered with crumbling yellow-grey rocks and scrubby yellow-brown thorns. Bruise-yellow sky, low yellow clouds. Even the men’s skin and clothes turning yellow, stained with sweat and sand. So bloody hot Tobias’s vision seemed yellow. Dry and dusty and yellow as bile and old bones. The Yellow Empire. The famous golden road. The famous golden light.

  ‘If I spent the rest of my life knee-deep in black mud, I think I’d die happy, right about now,’ said Gulius, and spat into the yellow sand.

  Rate sniggered. ‘And you can really see how they made all that money, too. Valuable thing, dust. Though I’m still kind of clinging to it being a refreshing change from cow manure.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that myself, too. If this is the heart of the richest empire the world has ever known, I’m one of Rate’s dad’s cows.’

  ‘An empire built on sand … Poetic, like.’

  ‘’Cause there’s so much bloody money in poetry.’

  ‘They’re not my dad’s cows. They’re my cousin’s cows. My dad just looks after them.’

  ‘Magic, I reckon,’ said Alxine. ‘Strange arcane powers. They wave their hands and the dust turns into gold.’

  ‘Met a bloke in Alborn once, could do that. Turned iron pennies into gold marks.’

  Rate’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Couldn’t shop at the same place two days running, mind, and had to change his name a lot …’

  They reached a small stream bed, stopped to drink, refill their water-skins. Warm and dirty with a distinct aroma of goat shit. After five hours of dry marching, the feel of it against the skin almost as sweet as the taste of it in the mouth.

  Running water, some small rocks to sit on, two big rocks providing a bit of shade. What more could a man want in life? Tobias went to consult with Skie.

  ‘We’ll stop here a while, lads. Have some lunch. Rest up a bit. Sit out the worst of the heat.’ If it got any hotter, their swords would start to melt. The men cheered. Cook pots were filled and scrub gathered; Gulius set to preparing a soupy porridge. New boy Marith was sent off to dig the hole for the latrine. Tobias himself sat down and stretched out his legs. Closed his eyes. Cool dark shadows and the smell of water. Bliss.

  ‘So how much further do you think we’ve got till we get there?’ Emit asked.

  Punch someone, if they asked him that one more time. Tobias opened his eyes again with a sigh. ‘I have no idea. Ask Skie. Couple of days? A week?’

  Rate grinned at Emit. ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting bored of sand?’

  ‘I’ll die of boredom, if I don’t see something soon that isn’t sand and your face.’

  ‘I saw a goat a couple of hours back. What more do you want? And it was definitely a female goat, before you answer that.’

  They had been marching now for almost a month. Forty men, lightly armed and with little armour. No horses, no archers, no mage or whatnot. No doctor, though Tobias considered himself something of a dab hand at field surgery and dosing the clap. Just forty men in the desert, walking west into the setting sun. Nearly there now. Gods only knew what they would find. The richest empire the world had ever known. Yellow sand.

  ‘Not bad, this,’ Alxine said as he scraped the last of his porridge. ‘The lumps of mud make it taste quite different from the stuff we had at breakfast.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure it’s mud …’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure I care.’

  They bore the highly imaginative title The Free Company of the Sword. An old name, if not a famous one. Well enough known in certain select political circles. Tobias had suggested several times they change it.

  ‘The sand gives it an interesting texture, too. The way it crunches between your teeth.’

  ‘You said that yesterday.’

  ‘And I’ll probably say it again tomorrow. And the day after that. I’ll be an old man and still be picking bloody desert out of my gums.’

  ‘And other places.’

  ‘That, my friend, is not something I ever want to have to think about.’

  Everything reduced to incidentals by the hot yellow earth and the hot y
ellow air. Water. Food. Water. Rest. Water. Shade. Tobias sat back against a rock listening to his men droning on just as they had yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. Almost rhythmic, like. Musical. A nice predictable pattern to it. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. The same thinking. The same words. Warp and weft of a man’s life.

  Rate was on form today. ‘When we get there, the first thing I’m going to do is eat a plate of really good steak. Marbled with fat, the bones all cracked to let the marrow out, maybe some hot bread and a few mushrooms to go with it, mop up the juice.’

  Emit snorted. ‘The richest empire the world has ever known, and you’re dreaming about steak?’

  ‘Death or a good dinner, that’s my motto.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not disputing that. I’m just saying as there should be better things to eat when we get there than steak.’

  ‘Better than steak? Nothing’s better than steak.’

  ‘As the whore said to the holy man.’

  ‘I’d have thought you’d be sick of steak, Rate, lad.’

  ‘You’d have thought wrong, then. You know how it feels, looking after the bloody things day in, day out, never getting to actually sodding eat them?’