Lord of the Silent Kingdom

  Their reputation far exceeded that of the Grolsachers. They were exceedingly professional. They favored a short throwing spear, or dart, smaller than a javelin but longer and heavier than an arrow. Those darts would penetrate all but the thickest plate. And Bishop Rinpochè had only a handful of destitute knights backing him.

  “The darters dropped the Arnhanders by the score when they tried to ford the Dog. The Sevanphaxi captain, named something like Ghaitre, let them force the crossing, though. He fell back to the town.

  Crossbowmen on the wall covered them till they got inside. The Arnhanders were tired and wet and cold after forcing the river crossing. They didn’t press the attack against the town.”

  “So …”

  “So while all that was going on townsmen who swam the river the night before attacked Rinpochè’s camp. They destroyed his stores, killed his animals, scattered his camp followers. Rinpochè nearly drowned in the rush to get back over the Dog to salvage what he could. And he might’ve been killed later, when the darters came out to finish his mob off.”

  So now there would be leaderless bands plaguing that part of the Connec. Hopefully, trying to get home to Arnhand. Defenders of the Connec would do their damnedest to keep them from making it, no doubt.

  The news became less grim after Rinpochè’s embarrassment. The flood of refugees began to dry up.

  Brock Rault got a message through to Antieux. Caron ande Lette’s occupants had escaped to Ormienden. Now they were with Count Raymone. Several small encounter engagements against disorganized Arnhander forces had gone well.

  Socia told Brother Candle, “It’s coming together. The villains will be defeated.”

  Pessimistic of late, the Perfect observed, “There’s still a fat Patriarchal army waiting in Ormienden.”

  That was the great puzzle. The Patriarch had launched his might out of Firaldia with apparent gleeful anticipation of the damage it would do. But now all those soldiers were just sitting there.

  Rumor suggested ongoing diplomacy. But with whom? Negotiating what?

  The fighting tailed off. Count Raymone managed to protect almost all agriculture south of Yperi, the town that marked the southernmost advance of the Arnhander invaders. Raymone’s jubilant but exhausted followers began to arrive in Antieux. Most tarried only briefly before heading home.

  Brother Candle remained pessimistic. He predicted, “Next time the Arnhanders will have a strategy. And they’ll have someone in charge who’ll see that things get done. If the Patriarch leaves anything to attack.”

  He looked north-eastward, toward Sublime’s Captain-General and his Collegium accomplices, poised like vultures waiting for the body of the Connec to expire.

  There were a thousand dark rumors about the upsurge in activities of things of the Night. Every outsider brought tales about old wickednesses resurfacing. Especially where there was fighting.

  Brother Candle reminded anyone who would listen, “None of those people have seen anything themselves. You realize that, don’t you? Every single tale-teller is retelling something he heard from somebody who heard it from his cousin, who wouldn’t ever lie about anything.”

  Socia never failed to remind him, “You were there when Rook went by so close you ended up squishing maggots in the morning.”

  He would growl some nonsense back but could not dispute the truth.

  Bernardin Amberchelle slipped into Antieux with a group of pilgrims headed west, to the shrines in Khaurene and thence to the waters at St. Overdret. He had put his ferocious nature aside. He seemed a reasonable middle-aged gentleman, typical of the wealthier quarter of any Connecten city. He was portly, dark of hair and eye, and had bee-stung lips. More immediately, he stank, was dirty, and was clad in rags.

  He insisted on seeing the Perfect Master and his cousin’s fiancee immediately.

  Neither knew Bernardin well. Count Raymone’s local staff assured them that the man was devoted to form and ceremony. Yet he insisted on seeing them without taking a day to recuperate and prepare for the courtly behavior he loved. Socia observed, “He does come from Raymone.”

  Amberchelle met them in Raymone’s room lined with stone from the Holy Lands. He could not suppress his fearful excitement. He told them, “Count Raymone has a plan. You two are critical to it. The first step is to prepare Antieux for an extended, harsh siege.”

  They frowned, puzzled.

  “Raymone has discovered unexpected friends. He knows our enemies’ plans. And what some unanticipated allies are up to, too.”

  Deeper frowns from the old man and girl.

  “The Society has planted agents here. They aren’t supposed to reveal themselves until Antieux is under siege. Then they’ll seize the gate in the night and open it. The enemy will rush in and kill everyone, Maysaleans, Deves, and Dainshaus first.”

  “Dainshaus?” Brother Candle asked. “I’ve never seen a Dainshau here.”

  “They’re here, Master. Several families. The Society plans to exterminate them. Here and everywhere.

  Deves and Maysaleans, too. And here in Antieux they plan to kill everyone else, too. Even their own. As an example to the lesser cities that owe fealty to Count Raymone. So they’ll surrender without a fight.”

  Socia said, “That’s the insane rationality you find only in the gods …”

  Brother Candle squeezed her arm.

  Amberchelle said, “Its sanity is irrelevant. I’ve been told to ready the city for a long siege. Your job is to lead the Deves, Dainshaukin, Seekers After Light, and Immaculate’s adherents out of here while that can still be done. The Unbelievers need to go to Sheavenalle. The Seekers should go to Castreresone or farther west. Or into the White Hills.”

  Socia took one deep breath, then another, getting ready to argue. Amberchelle forestalled her. “There’ll be some surprises. I haven’t been told all about them myself. I do know we all need to do our parts according to Raymone’s design, without question or debate, as fast as we can, if we want to see another summer.”

  Bernardin leaned in close to Brother Candle. “Machinations are afoot. We’ll win the victory yet. But you really do have to make the needful moves. Now.”

  Brother Candle understood. Without grasping specifics. He silenced Socia before she could get her back up. Then he asked for what specifics and directions Amberchelle could provide.

  The minority peoples of Antieux showed no reluctance to leave. Which surprised Brother Candle. He was puzzled, too, by the fact that Count Raymone would send away people with the fiercest reasons to resist Brothen Episcopal invaders.

  The Count’s lady and her spiritual adviser, accompanied by the Perfect of Antieux, led the way. The column stretched for miles. Many of Antieux’s leading families were sending their children to relatives in Sheavenalle or Castreresone, or safety even farther away.

  Moving the children made sense. They were mouths that would need feeding. The bodies attached would not contribute much to the city’s defense.

  Country folk were preparing for war, too. Valuables and edibles were being moved into the city or fortifications nearby. Or into hiding in the hills. This county had been invaded several times in recent years. These survivors would not make it easy for the next wave.

  Brother Candle could not convince himself that resistance made sense. Despite all the disorder, members of the Society continued to filter into the Connec, pressing the cause of the Brothen Church. They grew increasingly extreme as they failed to whip the land into line. Duke Tormond issued regular proclamations favoring Sublime’s cause, now, but no one paid attention. The assumption was that he would change his mind the instant the Brothen Church stopped twisting his arm.

  Even agents of the Society doubted Duke Tormond’s sincerity.

  Beyond his failure to suppress heresy, the Society found fault in his failure to suppress the followers of Immaculate II. His failure to persecute those who attacked or defended themselves against Brothen Episcopal agents. Not that that mattered much, anymore. News out of
Viscesment made it pretty clear that Sublime had brought the long struggle with the legitimate line of Patriarchs to a conclusion favorable to the Brothen house. But there was still his failure to return properties seized from corrupt clerics, his fortification of churches, and his employment of Deves and heretics in the instrumentalities of the state.

  On and on and on. No genius was needed to see that the Duke would never fulfill the demands placed upon him.

  The Socia Rault solution might be Tormond IV’s only salvation.

  The Devedian and Dainshau families left the column not far west of Antieux. They headed south for Sheavenalle. The Chaldarean refugees continued eastward on the ancient road, toward Castreresone.

  That road made plain how heavily age lay on the Connec. Brothen legionaries had built it fifteen hundred years ago. The bridges dated from that era, too, yet needed little maintenance even now. As the name implied, Castreresone was once the site of an Imperial regional military headquarters. Its walls rested on foundations laid down by legionary engineers.

  ‘Time lies heavy in this land,” the Perfect told Socia.

  She was not impressed. She was too young for the deeps of time to mean anything. Whatever happened before she was born was ancient history. But she did admit, “It is kind of creepy out here.” She looked back at Bernardin Amberchelle, whose party followed close behind. Some uncomfortable people were traveling with the Count’s cousin.

  Brother Candle felt uneasy when he considered Amberchelle’s band, too. He did not know those men.

  Had not seen them around Antieux. Bernardin said they were lesser nobles, like the Raults, who had been driven out of their homes up near Viscesment. None were Seekers After Light. And they used a dialect that did not sound Connecten.

  Socia added, “I’ll be glad when we get out of the country.” Which seemed a remarkable thing for a country girl to say.

  Her comment crystallized the unease the Perfect had felt lor days. This southern Connecten countryside was distinctly uncomfortable. For no reason that was obvious. And that was new. He had wandered this land for decades without feeling anything like this.

  His thoughts drifted back to the woods above Caron ande Lette. Rook. There were rumors suggesting the return of other ancient Instrumentalities. Something in the sea. Things of the Night in the darkness. But always hearsay.

  Still, the sheer number of reports suggested that the hideous and horrible were creeping forth from the graves that had held them so long.

  A city seemed a good place to be, then.

  The road west followed the north bank of the Laur, which ran east, back whence they had come, then southeast to Sheavenalle and the Mother Sea. Traffic had passed this way, on riverbank and water, since before men learned to remember by writing things down.

  The Laur, navigable to Castreresone and beyond, boasted dozens of boats and barges of shallow draft, some under sail, some driven by sweeps. Brother Candle told Socia, “I’ve often thought if my life had gone different I might’ve become a barger.”

  “Didn’t you have tummy troubles going over to Shippen und back?”

  “The open sea is something else entirely. Only a lunatic would subject himself to that as a way of life.”

  “I learn something weird about you every day.”

  “You should be learning something new and weird and wonderful about something every day, child.”

  Their path to Khaurene last year had passed thirty miles north of Castreresone. That storied city had been the seat of the governors of the Old Imperial province of Closer Endonensis. Khaurene had been the capital of Nether Endonensis.

  Closer Endonensis had been fruitful and pacific and therefore much favored by the Brothen emperors.

  Castreresone was an impressive sight. Some called it the White City. The limestone sheathing its walls was nearly as pale as marble. And those walls, though set on ancient foundations, were the most modern and best maintained in the Connec. Improvements were under way now, the outer curtain being heightened, machicolations being added at key points, roofing being installed over the wall walks. New curtain walls with D-shape mural towers were under construction around two wealthy suburbs that had come into being during the last century.

  Castreresone held an odd place in the feudal order of the End of Connec. Its overlord could claim suzerainty over most all Connecten coastal territories from Terliaga to the delta of the Dechear River, excepting those fiefs belonging directly to the Dukes of Khaurene. Such as Sheavenalle. But there was no fixed family of lords in Castreresone. Traditionally, the city belonged to the Duke of Khaurene’s heir.

  Tormond IV had no declared successor. So Castreresone was held by an uncle, Roger Shale, who was actually younger than Tormond. A Maysalean who never married, Roger Shale had no legal heirs. His niece Isabeth was his designated successor.

  Roger Shale was nothing like Tormond. He was energetic, efficient, and organized. He had kept order locally during the recent troubles. But he had no power in the broader affairs of the Connec. He spent his energies making Castreresone the best protected city in the End of Connec.

  Brother Candle said, “Weird and wonderful. I don’t know about that. But I can say this: This quiet, beautiful city is much nearer being the soul of the Connecten nation than is Khaurene, Antieux, or the Altai.” The Altai being that part of the Connec, center north, that was most mountainous and most inclined toward heresy. Many Seekers had taken refuge there already. The Altaien population as a whole were convinced that they were the only “true Connectens.”

  The column from the east first spied Castreresone in the early morning light. The white walls shone. The road went down to a bridge over the Laur wide enough for eight men to march abreast. On the south bank the road traversed half a mile and rose a hundred feet to approach the acre of flat, open killing ground in front of the huge, complicated barbican that guarded the main entrance to the White City.

  Black wreaths hung on the wall, sad memorial to events in Viscesment.

  It was there, as they waited to be let into the city, that the news about the god worm caught up.

  “What does it mean?” Socia asked, absent all her usual spiteful spirit. She was subdued because the old man was so obviously deeply shaken.

  “I don’t know. Except as a signal that the Instrumentalities of the Night have begun to move into a whole new level of involvement with the world.”

  “The gods will walk among us again?”

  “It may be. It may be. And that terrifies me.”

  14. Crusaders: Wolves on the Border

  The movement north and east went too smoothly for the Captain-General. “I worry when things go right,”

  he told his staff as the army settled in to rest near the monastery complex at Dominagua. “You people can’t be that good at what you do.”

  The backhanded compliment sparked smiles.

  The high excitement soon faded.

  Principatè Doneto brought news from his cousin as Hecht was about to resume movement. “His Holiness is involved in delicate negotiations, Captain-General. He wants you to hold off a few weeks.”

  “Why? He’s been so keen to get on with it for so long.”

  “I’m baffled, too. I’m not part of the inner circle, cousin or not.”

  “Does this mean stay here? Can I position myself better for when he turns me loose? Are there any other new constraints?”

  Principatè Doneto seemed disconcerted. He glanced round as though displeased by the presence of so many witnesses. “You just shouldn’t take the campaign into the Connec. Yet.”

  Hecht surveyed his staff. He and they never stopped working. During the rest several notions had gotten schemed out. The professionals wanted to get the maximum return from the city militias during the short time they would be available.

  Legally, they could be kept in the field only forty days. The sands were racing through that hourglass.

  There were ways to balance that. Pay to those willing to serve longer and rot
ate replacements in at different times.

  Hecht asked, “He does realize that in a month this army will start shrinking? And that bad weather will be along soon?”

  “I’m reporting, Captain-General. That’s all. I can send a letter voicing your concerns, but I can’t make him read it. I can’t make him pay attention if he does.”

  “I want to move up to the frontier.”

  Doneto shrugged. “You’re the military commander.”

  Hecht turned to Titus Consent. “Are those scouts back yet?”

  “One party. The ferry crossing will be tough with this many men. It could take a week.”

  “It took us all day last time with just a few hundred. But we need to secure it. Even if we can’t go over we can control traffic. Colonel Ghort. Let’s take a walk. I want to pick your brain.”

  Hecht paid Doneto no more heed, which probably irked the Principatè. He did not care. He had his own personal Principatè. Muniero Delari traveled slowly but he traveled. His presence assured Doneto’s best behavior.

  There was no sign of trouble between them.

  How long could that continue?

  Of more immediate concern was the depth of Pinkus Ghort’s commitment to his sponsor.

  Doneto thought he owned Pinkus Ghort. Pinkus might not agree but would still feel indebted. It was no secret that he still lived in the Principatè’s town house.

  “What’s up?” Ghort asked once they were safe from avesdroppers. Hecht’s lifeguards maintained an acceptable cparation but were close enough to intervene if evil showed is face.

  “Recall what we talked about during the ride up? Just tossing things around?”

  “We talked about a lot of stuff. Gad, it’s nice. I like it cool like this.”

  It was windy, almost cloudless, and unseasonably cool. “Might affect the vintage.”

  “Yeah. Probably. What do you think?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t understand wine. The Sonsan nation is what I’m thinking about. Check the map.

  It’s barely seventy miles from here.”