The Reaping Wall

They marched for three days out from the oasis, two hundred men sweating in their armor under the hot desert blaze. Their legionary banners hung slack in the still air and the dust of their passing rose around them and caked on their armor and faces. At their head Karkaon marched beside his horse, refusing to ride while his soldiers walked. He might be in disgrace, but he would not punish his men more than he must. He looked back down the line of men toiling through the rocky defile between sheer cliffs of red stone, and then he looked ahead through the heat shimmer to the shadow of the Reaping Wall.

It was not so big as he had imagined. The ancient stone was cracked and the sharpness of the stonework blurred by time. It had stood for more than eight hundred years in this place, burned by the sun, seared by the wind. The gate at the center was a hollow arch, the gate long since rotted away to dust. Now it looked out on the endless drifts of sand in the barren waste, stretching away to the south unbroken.

Daros walked beside him, red-faced under his helmet, wiping sweat away with a corner of his cloak. “Well, this is a forsaken place to wait out the war. No shelter from the sun, a three-day walk to water, and no wood to be had.”

“We brought supply enough,” Karkaon said. “And we shall have to look at the cistern that is supposed to lie under the wall. Perhaps it is not dry.”

“Quiet out here though,” Daros said. “If the Imperator wants to keep you away from the glory, he found the very ass of the desert to station you in.” The older man moved to spit and then thought better of it. “You should choose your enemies more carefully.”

“The Imperator should take more care in choosing his favorites,” Karkaon snorted. “That little wretch is lucky I didn’t kill him.”

“You’re lucky,” Daros said. “The Imperator would likely have you flayed for killing his favorite nephew.”

“The way he sneered in my face, it would almost have been worth it. A bloodied nose is the least he bought from me.” Karkaon left his horse to a page and walked forward, passed under the shadow of the ancient arch, and stood under the wall, looking out over the sands. The wall was thick, a good two spear-lengths at the base, narrowing as it went up. The stones were tightly fitted without mortar, the matchless stonework of the Old Empire. He touched the stone and felt it solid and warm. He had a moment to think of the men who had stood here before him. How many?

“Useless place for a wall if you ask me,” Daros snorted.

“You saw the pass north of here. It’s too wide, and south it’s all desert.” He gestured out to the wasteland. “This is the best place for a barrier. Besides, the land was more fertile then, so they say.” He looked up, squinted at the white, bloodless sky. “Let’s look at the outside.”

He flinched as he stepped back out into the sun. Here in the southlands the sunlight struck like a blow. It made the air dance and shiver in the distance, and Karkaon understood why men in these provinces believed in spirits and devils that floated on the wind. He walked a short distance from the wall, not looking back yet. His footfalls crunched on the dry earth. The ground here was flat and stony, merciless as the rest of this land.

Daros looked back, and Karkaon heard him swear. Then he made himself look as well. The front of the wall, the part that faced outward into the desert, was set with hundreds of skulls, each one grinning mockery in the cutting sunlight. He stepped back, disturbed by the sudden impact of all those sightless gazes on him at once. He tried to estimate the numbers, and could not. Thousands perhaps. Bleached skulls set in niche after niche, some of them partly crushed or showing the marks of spear or arrow.

“That’s a sight,” Daros said. “Small wonder no one comes here.”

“Lord Belarius first held this pass,” Karkaon said. “The Dhazi Clans came out of the desert lands and he fought them here. He barely held them, but he drove them back, and he took many prisoners. He knew the Clan Lords would rouse them to come again soon, so he had the first wall raised here by the captured clansmen as slaves to work the stone, and then he had them slaughtered and their heads set on the outside of the wall.” He looked at them, almost able to hear the screams of fury vented in eternal desert night.

“It’s said they rotted and drew a cloud of flies so huge it blotted out the sun, and the vultures lined the wall like priests in a shrine on feast day. The Dhazi came again, but when they saw their kinsmen waiting for them like this, they lost heart and rode away.” Karkaon turned away and looked south into the desert. “And after they named it the Reaping Wall.”

“Won’t be any reaping going on in this place,” Daros said. “Not this time.”

“Don’t tempt the gods like that,” Karkaon said. He looked west as if he could see the mountains and the more fertile lands beyond them. “Al’Kirr would be clever to come this way and breach the borders of the empire. The Imperator sent his best generals to the Sar to wait behind the river, and he sent me here to guard this dusty back way.” He laughed. “And if the Scourge of the Jeweled Kingdoms comes to face me here, I will be glad to show what a true Centenary can do.”

“Would be wiser to just stand aside and let them through, if that comes,” Daros said.

Karkaon laughed then, bitter. “When have I ever been wise, my old friend? What day was that?”

o0o

They camped in the shadow of the wall. The tents went up on either side where they had shelter from the sun in the cliff shade for at least part of the day. They found the cistern water brackish and metallic-tasting, but it was water. Karkaon let the sergeants do their work keeping the men busy. They built a stout barricade across the gateway with the timbers they hauled down from the riverlands, and set watches on the walls. The men didn’t like standing watch, staring out over the desert, but it was quiet. By day the vultures circled overhead in silent wheels, and by night jackals yammered in the crags unseen.

Karkaon found it peaceful, even in the heat. The men looked at him sidelong as he went about his business. They knew he was the hero of the Battle of Zhan, a man known as a fighter. But they also knew he was in disgrace, else he would not be here, when all the other high commanders were far away, awaiting a great battle.

He made a point of taking a watch himself, every day. He took his post on the wall, above the gate, and turned his eyes to the great empty vista of the desert. The wind was cold in the evening, coming from the mountains in the west, hard and dry. He wrapped himself in his red cloak against the chill and passed the time. He saw the heat-shimmer of the days fade as the air cooled, and it was at that hour of dusk that the distance opened up, and he thought he could see all the way to the Black mountains across the waste.

He thought he saw a wisp of dust moving as the sun set. He narrowed his eyes, peered harder, moving his hand to shade his eyes from the sun. There was a dust plume there, and it was not slight, it grew, and grew. The sun set and he saw points of light like lost sparks in the deepening twilight, and then he knew.

He hesitated, wondering if he saw it because he wanted to, or if he imagined it. It could be anything, could be refugees or a trade caravan seeking a safe pass through the hills. So he drew breath to call out, but he did not. Then one of his men gave cry and the moment was gone.

“Riders!” the voice went up. “Riders from the south!”

Karkaon roused himself and went to the man, pretended to look and see it for the first time. “Good eyes,” he said, clapping the man on the shoulder. Then he turned and called down for the men to come alive, and they did. They cursed and groaned and bickered, but they armed themselves, laced on their armor and gathered in their ranks. They crewed the arbalests on the wall, and the archers took position behind the barricade. It was made of heavy logs dragged down from the north and fixed in place with ropes and stakes. The front was a hedge of spearpoints, but Karkaon knew he did not have the men to stop a determined attack.

He kept watch on the desert, and he saw more lights, and more, and then Daros was beside him, looking into the deepening night. “Well, may the gods curse me. How many? And who?”

“Who else?” Karkaon said. “It’s Al’Kirr, making fools of the generals waiting at the river.” He crouched down, and put his hand to the ancient stone of the Reaping Wall, and he felt there the tremble of thousands upon thousands of hooves, transmitted through the earth and the stone of the cliffs. “Too many.”

“Pull out then,” Daros said. “We’ll never hold them.”

“We can’t outrun them,” Karkaon said. “We’re on foot and they are horsemen. They’d cut us all down before a day was out.” He stood up, and he did not look at his old friend. “And I would not have it said that the last act of General Karkaon was to flee.”

Daros sighed. “No, you would not, would you? You’re not like me.”

“You’re a soldier, Daros. Don’t shame yourself on the last day of your life.” Karkaon touched the hilt of his sword lightly.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Daros said. “Surrender, perhaps we can enter the service of the Scourge.”

“To the Gates with that,” Karkaon said. “You think I would go into legend as a traitor?”

“Rather than a fool who died uselessly for a ruler who despised him, yes,” Daros said. “You owe no loyalty to that preening peacock on the throne.”

“And that is where you are wrong,” Karkaon said. “The empire stands on the bones of those once loyal, it is mortared with their blood.”

“It does little good to die for the empire,” Daros said.

“We are soldiers - it is our fate to die.” Karkaon sighed. He turned to his second, and his expression was hard. “Take a horse and ride north. It is on you to inform the Imperator of this invasion. I will not share the space on this wall with any man who will not stay.”

Daros turned pale. “Sir, I -”

“Go, Daros,” Karkaon said, before he could weaken and relent. “Carry word to that preening peacock that we dug our graves behind this wall.”

o0o

Through the night the camp-fires burned out on the desert plain, and it was impossible to count them all. Karkaon slept fitfully, dreamed of his grandfather dying cold on the shores of Lake Esmeron and woke suddenly in the cold before dawn. He rose and dressed hurriedly, put on his armor and helm and walked out into the uncertain light. The camp was quiet, men subdued as they went about their business. They looked at him half as a man might look at an executioner, and half as at a god.

He climbed the steep stair to the top of the wall, and there he stood and watched for the sun to rise. The sky was light, like new-melted lead, and he smelled the savage odor of thousands of men and horses on the dry wind. Vultures swung overhead in the sky, many more than he had yet see in this place. They followed the army, knowing it would lead them to slaughter. The sun called red across the horizon, and Karkaon watched his enemy be born into the light.

They were already in motion, gathering, ordering themselves for battle. His heart beat quick as he counted hundreds, then thousands. He heard and felt the tread of hooves beyond counting, saw banners billow in the dawn wind, red and golden and black. As the light grew he saw more and more, until he beheld the red hawk standard of Al’Kirr, the Conqueror, the Scourge of the Jeweled Kingdoms. He had held the thought, even to this moment, that this might be a feint, or some diversionary attack. Now he knew this was the main force, the invasion of his homeland.

He turned and looked down at his men, gathered on the wall, behind it, spears in hand and shields strapped to their arms, and every one of them was afraid. Karkaon found he was not, not now. He had been to battle before, and he remembered the sweating, shaking feel of waiting, the racing heart and the blood like water in his veins. Now he felt only a hard certainty.

“We are all that stands against them, and we will stand,” he said, raising his voice to be heard. “Remember your fathers, and your grandfathers. Remember the blood they have shed that you might stand here. You are soldiers of the empire, and you will honor that. Run and you will die, fight and you will die. Put your faith in your spears, and in your swords. Now stand.”

He heard a horn, and he looked out over the wall and saw a black-shrouded rider upon a vast horse hung with gold and bones. The apparition winded a ling black horn made from some unknown beast, curled and dark and gilded with silver. The sound of it was low and hummed in his bones. “To the wall!” he called. “They are coming!”

o0o

The army came forward like a wave, horses surging and tossing their heads, hooves stirring up a tower of dust that rose and obscured the sky above them. They came in rank upon rank, masked by their helms and with bows dark and ready, spears uplifted. Karkaon heard the shudder of their approach as all his men hunkered low behind their shields. The horsemen spurred to greater speed, and the sound became like a thunder of collapsing mountains.

Karkaon gave the order, and his six scorpions loosed as one. The heavy cross-bows, mounted on wooden frames, could launch their heavy arrows at far greater range than any bow. They fired into the mass of the enemy, and the six bolts seemed to vanish. He could not even see if they had killed a single man. They wound them back with desperate speed, then fired again, and even as they did the riders came in arrow range, and as one they loosed.

He heard the sound of a thousand bowstrings and more, and tensed behind his shield, awaiting the impact. Down the line his men cried warnings, and then the cloud of arrows fell like a hammer blow. Arrows crashed against the stone and splintered, bounced away and rattled against his armor. Points slammed into his shield, jutted through here and there as he felt the impacts like blows. He heard men cry out in fear as well as pain as a few of the arrows found targets.

The men behind the wall huddled close in the lee where the arrows could not reach, and the fifty archers hunched behind the spiked barricade and waited for their enemy to come in reach. Another volley came, and another, each one beating upon the stone like waves against a shore. Karkaon stayed behind his shield and felt the shafts pound against it, saw them pile up around him like fallen leaves. His own archers would not lack for arrows, that was certain.

When they tired of raining steel down on the wall, the enemy rushed the barricade, and at last Karkaon’s own archers could return fire. He had only fifty of them, but they were concentrated behind the barrier, with loops to shoot through that protected them, and they could put forth a blistering hail against those who charged the wall. He heard their sergeants cry out, and then they loosed and cut a swath through the onrushing horsemen. The foe recoiled from the blow, came again and was driven back again. They left a blanket of dead and dying on the hard earth, riderless horses plunging, studded with dark arrows.

Now the enemy gathered themselves, reordered, and came again. Karkaon saw smoke and called out that they would try to fire the barricade. Indeed he saw arrows tipped with burning pitch loosed in a hail of flame. The timbers were well-treated and would not burn easily. His own archers fired back, forcing the enemy to keep their distance. In wrath they sprayed arrows over the wall, shot at any man who moved. Only a few of his men were hit.

They drew back again, leaving more dead upon the ground, and Karkaon smiled grimly. An army of thousands, armed and supplied and led on this daring march to flank the Empire, and now they were stopped by a few hundred desperate men. He stood up as they pulled away. He took the imperial banner from where it was socketed into the wall and brandished it over his head, arrows hanging from the heavy cloth where they had pierced it. He bellowed without words and then planted the standard again, stood beside it and drew his sword, hacked the arrows from his shield and brandished them both over his head. The men saw him and cheered, stabbing their spears upward to the unforgiving sky.

Now the mass of the foe coiled and churned like a storm, and Karkaon watched it come for them. Clouds of horse archers rushed the wall, firing to force the men to keep their heads down atop the wall, Karkaon risked a look over the parapet and a steel arrowhead rang on his helm. He saw lines of men rushing the wall on foot, bearing long ladders and dragging ropes, and he ducked back down. “Ware ladders!” he bellowed as loud as he could, hoping his men heard.

He hunkered down under his shield, and then the arrows stopped and he leaped to his feet. “Stand to!” he shouted. “Stand to! To the top!”

Karkaon stood just as a wave of attackers crested over the wall, and he hurled himself against them with his arrow-studded shield and his sword alive in his hand. His men came up and the whole wall became a sudden tumult of fury and blood. Men hacked and fought, driving in their spears and drawing them back red. Attackers clawed their way up the ladders and then plummeted back, screaming. Karkaon battered them back with his heavy shield, hacked with his sword. They wore light armor of leather scales, and his good imperial steel cut true.

He cut at arms and heads, rang his blade against helms and clove through leather and flesh and bone. Blood spattered his face and arm, painted the stone under him. He envisaged the blood running down the front of the wall, painting the long-dead skulls, dripping down to the thirsty earth.

The force of the assault drove him and his men back from the edge, and then the reinforcements from behind the wall reached the top and joined the fight, and the enemy was driven back. Karkaon was carried along with the tide, driving men before him, cutting at them fiercely. He chopped off a man’s arm and trod on it as he forced the foe back to the wall and over the edge. Men set their spears on the ladders and shoved them away, sent them crashing the ground while men leaped free and tried to cling to the wall. Karkaon slashed down and cut off a grasping hand, saw the man plunge screaming to the earth. He kicked the twitching hand after him, and spat.

He was breathing hard, his chest like a forge-bellows, burning. He dropped to the parapet and caught his breath, tasting blood. The top of the wall was dyed red and littered with the slain and the wounded. He saw the horse archers ride forward again, and he drew down behind his shield. “Archers!” he called out. “Cover up! They are coming again!”

o0o

They came twice more, as the day stretched long and the sun blazed down on them all. They rushed at the wall, archers firing to keep them down until the last moment, and then came the ladders and the ropes. Each time, Karkaon lost more men, and by the time the sun began to set he had lost more than forty, and twenty-odd more too wounded to fight. The wall was covered in blood, and the enemy dead lay heaped about the base of it. Flies gathered in the heat, buzzing and swarming like a black cloud, and once the fighting stopped the vultures came down to feast.

Karkaon leaned wearily on the parapet of the wall. His arms felt leaden, and his hand ached as he forced it to relinquish his sword. His hand was caked in blood, and his sword was so covered in it he could not see one bright piece of steel or of bronze. His helm and his breastplate were dented and dirty, and his mail was pierced and rent in a dozen places. He bore many small wounds, and even the many blows his armor had turned left him feeling battered and bruised. He looked up at the sky and saw the stars already bright. The moon hung low on the horizon like a silver sickle.

He watched as the enemy drew well away from the wall, and as the night drew down their camp-fires kindled. A great weariness was on him, and even so he ordered watches set through the night. He did not have great faith that his men could stop them if they came again by night. Almost a third of his men were dead or out of action, and every man bore some small hurt. They were all very tired, and he saw the haunted look in their eyes when they glanced his way. Today he had bought their courage with his own. He stood and fought on the wall, and so they stood as well. What would come if he fell? If he stood back from the wall they would break, he could feel it.

He came down from the top of the wall, treading on the bloody steps cut into the ancient stone. He went down into the camp where the men lit fires and huddled as the day’s heat became the chill of night. The smell of death was all around them, and there was no escaping it. The archers sat nursing bloody fingers as they counted out captured arrows and fitted new strings to their bows. The wounded moaned and tossed in their tents, clawing feebly at the air, shuddering and crying out.

Karkaon wondered if they could hold another day. Tomorrow thousands of fresh troops would come against them, and they would be exhausted and numb and stiff from wounds and cold. Another day like this and he would have lost half his men. He could hold for three days then. Three days is more than anyone could ask of these men. He looked through the barricade and out to the enemy fires. They would remember, even if no one else cared to.

Trying hard not to show his pain or his exhaustion, he went to his red tent, apart from all the rest of them, and crawled inside. He shrugged painfully out of his armor and hung it on the wooden post. It looked dark and battered, but he could not muster the strength to clean it, nor would he order another to do so. He lay down on his cot, and he slept.

o0o

He woke in the dark of night when the earth shook. For a moment he could recall nothing, not who he was nor where he was, but by then he was on his feet, feeling a thousand small pains. He groped for his sword and then remembered it was on the wall, left behind. He felt the earth tremble again and burst from the tent in only his sweat-stained and bloodied tunic, and he found the camp in chaos. Men ran back and forth, crying out in terror. It was the deep night before dawn, and the air was cold and biting. The sky above was clear and shone with a hundred thousand stars, so bright he could have read by the light.

Karkaon bellowed for order and some of the men started to obey, to try and stop the others from running back and forth, waving their spears and shouting. The earth shook under his feet and he almost fell, and some of the men did fall. He looked toward the wall, almost expecting to see it tumbling down, but the Reaping Wall remained, dark with slaughter in the starlight, shadowed and implacable. And beyond it, above it, something moved.

He stared, and then some of the men screamed and so he knew they saw it as well. Something huge moved beyond the wall, and it came closer, he saw it was a head, and then shoulders. Illuminated in the perfect night there towered the figure of a man, a man vaster than any other man. A giant that loomed like a tower as it came closer. He felt the colossal footfalls through the stony earth as it drew nearer. It moved with a slow, majestic tread, malevolent and inexorable.

He stared, unable to really understand what he saw. The starlight glinted on its rude, misshapen contours, and as he looked, sand broke loose from it and cascaded down the sloping shoulders. It had no real face, no detail to it; it was a man made of the earth, from the sand and rock of the desert itself. It came closer, blotting out the sky, and like the rest of the men, Karkaon ran.

It struck the Reaping Wall like a moving mountain, and the sound was tremendous as the stonework split apart and shattered. The impact tore sand from the apparition as well, and it slumped and staggered as it tore a hole in the ancient wall and walked through. Sand and dust blew outward in a cloud and stones rained down all around. In a moment Karkaon could see nothing at all. He stumbled, and then a heavy stone glanced off his head and he fell to his knees, holding his head and feeling the earth pitch under him.

He looked up and saw a massive, featureless foot slam down not a spear-length from him, and the impact bounced him off the ground and cast him back down hard enough to take away his breath. He saw the shadow pass over as the giant stepped over him and moved on, and then he saw a glow. He wiped at his face, coughing and spitting out sand as he squinted through the dust.

Something gleamed, and as he looked he saw it moved. A red light like a glowing coal, but much brighter. It did not flicker, but it came closer, and as he stared he saw that it was carried aloft by a human shape. No giant, this was a figure robed and swaddled against the sandstorm, hung with gold chains and a hundred ornaments and talismans, face hidden behind a mask. A sorcerer, a worker of unknown powers. It bore something in its hands that glowed like fire, and Karkaon felt with a sudden knotting in his belly that whatever it was that flamed in the wizard’s hand, it was master of the giant.

He groped in the dust, clawing through drifted sand, and his hands closed on a blade. He drew it out and found a fallen sword left behind by one of his vanished men. He took the hilt in his hand, pushed to his feet, and rushed upon the hooded menace with a speed of desperation. He saw the tall shape turn, saw the glint of yellow eyes behind the mask, and then he swept the sword through a vicious arc and severed the hand that bore the glowing thing.

The sorcerer shrieked – a high, inhuman sound, and then he drove his sword through the thin body and ripped it free in a torrent of red. The thing slumped, clawing at him with its one remaining hand, whispering something foul, and Karkaon hacked off the unseen head and silenced it forever.

Then there came a shuddering in the air, and a great hissing sound, and he hunkered down and covered his head as the sand of the giant dissolved and fell and billowed outward like a wave, cascading over him like a dead sea until he was half-buried. He coughed and fought free of the sliding, choking sand and dust. It buried the sorcerer, it buried the glowing thing, it almost buried him.

He staggered through a wasteland of dust. A world suddenly obscured and filled with sand and clouds that roiled like smoke. The camp was obliterated, and when the dust cleared he saw he was almost to the wall, looking up at the great gap smashed through it. The dust began to settle back to the earth or pull away in the night wind, and he saw rank after rank of shadows emerge as from some primordial nothingness. Horsemen on their snorting beasts with bow and spear and sword, ranked to face him, approaching at a slow tread.

Only he stood in their path, and he looked down at the sword in his hands, blooded and dull with the sand clinging to the gore. He himself must seem as an apparition of the desert, encrusted with sand. He wiped his face clean and then stood in the gap where the gateway had been. Shattered skulls ground beneath his feet.

The riders came closer, and then there came another great bellow of a horn, and they all drew rein and stood silent, watching him. The ranks parted, and a single rider emerged, tall in the saddle, robed in black and gold, hooded and veiled. He saw the golden-etched sword in one gloved hand and the dark eyes that looked down at him, and he knew this was she. Al’Kirr, the Scourge of the Jeweled Kingdoms, the Conqueror.

“You have fought a brave battle,” she said in a voice of steel. “You have held against me, and exacted a price in blood. You have even faced my sorcerer and laid him low.  I give honor to that courage. Stand aside, and I will let you live, and walk free. Lay down your sword.”

Karkaon looked at the stained blade in his hand, weighed it, as though it were much heavier than the steel and bronze, and indeed it was. He looked up at her, regal and phantasmal in the dust-filled air as the sun crept up into the sky. “I am Karkaon Aristeon, third of my name, last of my line. I am the last defender of the Reaping Wall. And I must refuse you passage, so long as I am able.”

Al’Kirr was silent for a long moment, and then she nodded. “I will not sully such faith as yours, servant of the empire. Let us cross swords together.” She swung down from her black steed and faced him. He felt rather than heard the ripple that passed through her men, and he closed his eyes for a moment, all but overwhelmed.

“You do me a great honor, Lady.” He looked up, wishing to see the stars one last time, or even just the sky. But the air was still heavy with dust, and all he saw was an orange blaze as the sun rose over the distant horizon.

They met then, in that ruined, desolate place, sword to sword and will against will. Karkaon was exhausted, and wounded, and without armor or shield, but he fought knowing this was his last moment. Al’Kirr was all motion and grace and subtle power. Her blows rang upon his sword and drove him back, and he knew that even at his finest he could never had bested her.

He refused to give ground, parried and countered, met steel with steel and almost got through her guard. But then she shunted his blade aside and struck him a terrific blow in the ribs, and he felt his flesh cleave and his bones crush under the stroke. He reached out to catch her and she faded back, leaving him grasping at the air. Blood coursed down his chest, and he fell to one knee.

Karkaon tried to rise, but his strength left him. He planted his sword point-down in the dry earth and leaned upon it, gasping. He could not catch his breath; he tasted only blood and spat it on the ground. He looked up and saw her there, cleaning his life’s blood from her sword with a very white cloth. She did not stand to guard; she knew he was done, and so he was.

“Thank you,” he croaked, the words choking him in blood. “It is well-struck.” Then all his strength fled and he fell to the ground, lay back and stared upward, and in his final moment, he at last had one single glimpse of the unending sky.