had been sealed tight since the night before, as it always was in times of threat, and no river traffic was getting in or out.
How he wanted that city, craved it as if it were a mistress long denied him. The throne had slipped from Blood Kerestyn before, but now he was here to restore his family to the glory they deserved. He felt an elation, a certainty of the righteousness of his cause. The revolt in Zila had showed just how weak Mos’s hold was on his empire. The fact that he had left the matter to local Baraks and sent none of his own troops only made things look worse for him. How the people of Axekami would welcome Grigi this time, instead of uniting to fight against him as they had before.
And the only thing standing against him was the twenty thousand men camped between him and his prize.
‘History repeats itself,’ he grinned, flushed with the proximity of his dream. ‘Except that five years ago in summer, you were on that side.’
‘Briefly,’ Barak Avun said, the reins of his mount gripped in one bony fist. ‘Let us hope that history is kinder to us this time.’
‘After today, we will write history,’ Grigi said expansively, and pulled his horse into a canter.
The two of them rode together along the rear of the battle lines, one huge and obese, the other gaunt and ascetic. Their Weavers were not far away, keeping pace, hunched ghoulishly in their saddles. They were on hand to co-ordinate instructions between the multitude of Baraks and Barakesses whose forces stood as allies.
The high families had flocked to Kerestyn’s banner as the alternative to the ineptitude of Mos. If there had been any doubt, it had been dashed when the Empress Laranya fell from the Tower of the East Wind. Rumours of Mos’s state of mind had reached them long before, but his wife’s apparent suicide in response to the beating he delivered her was the final evidence that the Blood Emperor was insane. Grigi trusted that they would stand firm simply because there was no other option. None of the other high families, including Blood Koli, had the support or the power to make a play for the throne. Even if one or all of them betrayed him now, the families would simply fracture into an evenly-matched and self-destructive squabble, and they knew that. It was Grigi, or Mos.
The armies stood on the yellow-green grass of the plains to the west of Axekami, where so much blood had been spilt before. The sheer numbers present defeated the eye, thousands upon thousands, an accretion of humanity too vast to take in. Each man a different face, a different past, a different dream; yet here they were anonymous, defined only by the colours dyed on the leather of their armour or the hue of the sashes that some wore tied around their heads. Great swathes of warriors, sworn by blood to the families that ruled them. Each one a weapon for their nobles to wield, and in their hands a weapon of their own. Divisions of riflemen, swordsmen, riders of horses and manxthwa, men to operate fire-cannons and mortars; they stood in formations according to their allegiance or their speciality, their discipline utter, their dedication total. For these were soldiers of Saramyr: their lives were subordinate to the will of their masters and mistresses, and disobedience or cowardice was worse than death in their eyes.
The defenders were predominantly attired in red and silver, the colours of Blood Batik. Those wearing other colours were the few whose dogged loyalty to the Imperial throne had blinded them to Mos’s faults, or whose hatred of Blood Kerestyn had led them to join against him. The Imperial Guards he had kept within the city, but Mos had sent the remainder of his forces out onto the battlefield. Mos knew that if he allowed the usurpers to lay siege to the city, with the onset of famine and his unpopularity among the people he ruled, then it would only be a matter of time before the end.
Mos would not let himself be cornered. Instead, he chose to meet his enemy head on. Even weakened by splitting his forces, he possessed an army not much smaller than the combined might that Kerestyn had brought against him.
But Grigi had a trick up his sleeve. He had the Weave-lord.
Gods, the treachery was spectacular. Grigi could not even begin to imagine how Kakre had arranged the