A Bronte Doneto involved in a scheme with the Special Office would not find a raid on Sonsa to his taste. If Ghort was in tight …
“You thinking just a raid? Or a general chastisement of the city for being unfriendly?”
“I’m thinking, make Sublime love us by forcing the Three Families to bend the knee.”
“And maybe get a closer look at Bit and her crew, too?”
“Absolutely. I do still want the real story on Vali.”
They stopped walking, looked across slopes and hills covered with vines. It was beautiful country.
Ghort said so. “The Connec is, too. What we saw of it.”
“We’ll get to see that part again. Sublime is close to obsessed with taming Raymone Garete.”
“Lot of that infecting the Society, too. I’d as soon not. It won’t be close to easy. Even with a pair of heavyweight sorcerers tagging along.”
“One sorcerer. Principatè Delari isn’t here to participate. He’s here to keep an eye on your boss.”
“On my boss? On you? I thought he’d, like, adopted you.”
“On Doneto.”
“Doneto? What do you mean, Doneto? I don’t work for him. I work for the City. What do you mean, Delari wants to keep an eye on him?”
“You still live in his house, Pinkus. And he thinks you’re his man. He still tries to lay claim on me, sometimes. I don’t know what the problem is between him and Delari. Maybe it’s all just Delari. But there is bad blood.”
“He hides it pretty well.”
“He does. I wouldn’t know about it at all if it weren’t for the boy.”
“Armand? There’s something weird about that one, Pipe.”
“Wow! Can’t get anything past you.”
“What I mean is … Can it. The demon himself.” Bronte Doneto had come out for a stroll. Not unusual.
But his constitutional kept bringing him closer.
Hecht said, “Go snatch Sonsa. If you need more than the Brothen contingent …”
“They should be plenty. How soon?”
“I’m done telling. It’s your mission, now. Do what you need to do and go when you’re ready. Your Grace.”
“Gentlemen.”
Ghort said, “I was just telling Pipe that this looks like the place I want to retire, I get lucky and round up enough booty. Go into the winemaking business.”
Hecht said, “You’d probably suck down all the profits.”
Ghort’s man Bo Biogna left camp with a picked team that same night. Next morning the entire Brothen contingent departed. Hecht told the morning staff meeting, “I’ve given Pinkus a special mission. If our master unleashes us, he’ll catch up.”
There were questions. Hecht did not answer them. These men did not need to know.
Principatè Bronte Doneto was among those asking. Maybe Pinkus had moved beyond a sense of obligation to him.
Maybe.
“Forget Ghort,” he said. “We need to move up to the Dechear. Colonel Smolens, I suggested a feasibility study to you and Lieutenant Consent. Mainly to keep you out of trouble. Did you follow up?”
Smolens admitted, “We did. It should be easy. Sir.” The honorific added only because members of the Collegium were present.
Titus Consent said, “There is no plan for stopping you. Assassination is their only worry.”
Hecht considered Muniero Delari from the corner of his eye. The old man showed no special interest. He hoped that meant this would not get to Osa Stile. “Good. Get out warning orders to prepare to move up.
Smolens, you get the other job.”
“Is that an execute, sir?” Smolens asked. He was eager.
“Put it together and do it.”
Delari was paying attention, now. And suddenly suspicious.
Whatever anyone thought, Piper Hecht was still his own man.
The Patriarchal army drifted westward, covering barely a hundred miles in ten days. Forward elements reached the Dechear and staked out camps at likely crossing points. The nearest surviving bridge was way upstream, at Viscesment. The Captain-General divided his forces, the better to reduce the strain on Ormienden and to remain tactically prepared. Principatè Doneto chose to accompany the southernmost division. The same favored by the Captain-General himself. This was the largest division that would strike toward Antieux. Doneto had begun to smell blood. He had a score to settle.
There was work aplenty even for Principatès, including turns watching over the bridgehead the Captain-General established on the west bank. Doneto and Delari alike spent hours interviewing locals and itinerant members of the Society, trying to gather solid facts about the strange events plaguing the Connec.
Smugly, Piper Hecht noted that neither Principatè had missed Colonel Smolens. They assumed him to be with one of the other divisions.
Smolens would do to Viscesment what Pinkus Ghort meant to do to Sonsa.
Only Hecht’s immediate staff knew. Enough of a bond had formed that even Clej Sedlakova enjoyed belonging to an inner circle putting something over.
Hecht was with Sedlakova, reviewing recollections of the country round Antieux. “They won’t make the same mistakes. They’ll have built more cisterns and those will be full. Titus says they’ve reengineered the main gate, adding machicolations and a second portcullis operated from a second guardroom in order to make treachery more difficult.”
“I wasn’t putting much faith in the Society’s secret friends, anyway.”
“That may still work.”
“What’s the ground like? Is mining an option?”
“I think it’s on bedrock. That and a height advantage are why it’s sited a little back from the river. We’ll see something similar, on a larger scale, when we get to Castreresone.”
“How high are the walls? There’ll be a lot of deep topsoil around if winemaking is serious business.”
“You lost me there.”
“Something we don’t do much anymore, that they did a lot in ancient times. Build a ramp to the top of the wall. Raise it higher than the wall if you can, so you can attack downhill.”
Clever members of the Brotherhood of War had done that in the Holy Lands in the early crusades.
Praman castles were no longer sited where that would be possible.
Titus Consent entered the room, which was on the second level in an old windmill. The mill had not worked in years. There was no obvious reason for it having been abandoned.
Hecht said, “Something?”
“Several. All hitting at once.”
“And?”
“Smolens has done his job. Had a little problem with Immaculate’s guards, though.”
“They didn’t back down?”
“Not soon enough. Smolens got the bad end of the casualty equation.”
“I was afraid of that. But why were they still there if the Empress went over to Sublime?”
“I don’t know. But Braunsknechts do take themselves seriously. Which could be a problem.”
“Meaning?”
“We’ve got one downstairs. He wants to see you.”
“Smolens took prisoners?”
“This one came from Plemenza. He doesn’t know what happened in Viscesment. Yet.”
It would not be long before the news reached the ends of the Chaldarean world.
That world now knew that Patriarchal troops had occupied Sonsa. Already there were rumors that Sublime had attacked the city because of a deal he had made with Dateon or Aparion. Or possibly Peter of Navaya, whose Plataduran allies wanted the Sonsan holdings on Artecipea.
This Braunsknecht came from Plemenza? That meant from the Princess Helspeth.
This had to be handled carefully.
“This Braunsknecht say why he’s here?”
“Because he wants to talk to you. He thinks you’ll want to talk to him.”
“I don’t get it.”
“He did say it has to do with the monster in the Jago Mountains.”
“Ah.” That was much le
ss dangerous. “There was something else?”
“Colonel Ghort is ready to leave Sonsa. The Three Families have sworn allegiance to Sublime. They’ve promised the use of their fleets come time for a new crusade into the Holy Lands, hoping that comes soon. They have sailors starving and ships rotting at the quayside while Platadura is taking control all over the western Mother Sea.”
Hecht nodded. The real message was that Pinkus had taken prisoners and had dug out all the information he could. “That’s good news. Anything else?”
“One more thing. Colonel Smolens says there were some weird people in Viscesment when he got there.
They took off before he could catch them. Into the Connec. Just a creepy feeling, he says, but he wants you to stick close to your lifeguards.”
Hecht shivered. His bodyguards were all down below. He did not like having them so he tended to keep them at a distance. “All right. Tell Madouc I need to see him, soon as you’re done here.”
“Yes, sir. One more thing.”
“You said that already.”
“I almost forgot this.”
“Well?”
“Count Raymone may be more clever than we’ve credited.”
“What’s he done now?”
“It’s what it looks like he’s ready to do. He’s telling all the Connecten Devedians and Dainshaus that they should emigrate somewhere where Sublime and the Society are powerless.”
“Does that make sense? He’d deprive himself of his educated class.”
“It does if he thinks they’re spying. Which they’ve been reluctant to do. The Society has won us no friends. It makes even more sense if he expects to lose his war. We won’t have anyone to keep records.
Or any records, either, probably.”
“Strategic thinking, not tactical. Interesting. So. Unless you have another one more thing, bring the Braunsknecht, then fill Madouc in on the warning from Smolens.”
Hecht met the Braunsknecht outside the mill. He frowned. “I should know you, shouldn’t I?”
“Algres Drear, sir. I commanded the company that took you prisoner when you were withdrawing from your previous Connecten adventure.”
“Ah. Yes. The Plemenzan captivity. I hope you didn’t offend Bronte Doneto too much, back then. He’s a member of the Collegium, now. And he’s here with us. Again.”
Hecht studied Drear while he talked. The man was in his middle thirties, looking older. Gray speckled his beard and temples. His brown eyes were almost soullessly without motion. This was a hard man used to the hardships of the field. Who found himself in too comfortable circumstances in his current assignment.
And who was not troubled in the least by the possibility of enduring the displeasure of a member of the Collegium.
Stupidity? Or ignorance?
Hecht said, “You asked to see me. I’m giving you time. In deference to the family you serve. But I do have a war to get ready for. So what do you want?” He stifled any hope that Drear had brought some special message from Princess Helspeth.
“The Princess Apparent has a request. I don’t know why she thinks you’d grant it. But it isn’t my place to think.”
“Anything within reason. And politically feasible.”
“She wants to know how to kill a god.”
Not much could have been a bigger surprise. “Kill a god?”
“An Instrumentality. A demon, if you will.”
“I don’t understand.” How much had Ferris Renfrow told Princess Helspeth?
“You do. You killed the Gray Walker. At al-Khazen. Deliberately and methodically. The Princess needs the know how.”
“I’ll bite. Why?”
Drear talked about the monster preying on travelers in the Jago Mountains.
“It’s a giant bug?”
“Not many people have survived to describe it. The Grand Duke Omro va Still-Patter is the best known and most reliable. He managed to cut a claw off it. He kept the claw. He describes the monster as a huge praying mantis with a lot of extra legs.”
“I know the thing. It was at al-Khazen. If I understand right, it used to be a man. Now it’s an insane Instrumentality. I didn’t make the connection then but I think it was active just north of Alicea last year.”
“How do we kill it?”
He did not want to admit that he had an answer. He was not sure why. The secret was spreading, if slowly. But no one understood why it worked.
Captain Drear read him well. “How do I reassure you?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure why I’m worried.”
“Is it because you don’t know how?”
“It’s easy. You didn’t need to come to me. The Princess saw the Gray Walker destroyed.”
“Not strictly true, sir. Not strictly true.” Drear removed a doeskin wallet from inside his shirt. “The Princess’s personal appeal, sir.”
Hecht accepted the letter. He read. The contents underscored just how much the girl trusted this man.
Otherwise, she would never have dared commit such thoughts to paper. “She trusts you more than I could ever trust anyone. I suspect with reason, because your mission is to protect her. Why should I trust you, though?”
Drear understood him. “True. I serve the Grail Empire. I can’t make you trust me. Maybe you can explain why it’s important to you not to let anyone know how to dispatch the Instrumentalities of the Night.”
“But …” Yes. Everyone did know. Iron and silver. The metals that had afforded some protection for thousands of years. But …
He had not worked it out himself until just a short time ago, despite countless hours spent on the puzzle.
His response in Esther’s Wood had been sheer panicky inspiration, silver sprayed out in a blast too wide for the bogon to avoid. He had been lucky. That particular bogon had been especially sensitive to silver.
Any iron in the blast would have been there by happenstance.
Now his artillerists nurtured secret charges for their falcons. Three charges of godshot for each of the twelve weapons he now possessed.
Reason eventually led him to the conclusion that it wasn’t the fact of the charge that had slain the bogon in the Holy Lands. Nor the Gray Walker at al-Khazen. Instrumentalities of the Night had coped with iron and silver from earliest times.
So what was different now?
Firepowder.
Firepowder weapons, falcons or the light tubes employed by the Devedian fusiliers at al-Khazen, flung their missiles in a velocity too extreme to track and evade.
He read portions of the letter again, amazed that the girl could write such things, then trust anyone to bring them to him unread.
He went to the mill doorway. “Titus. You still in there? Yes? Find Bechter. I need to borrow Drago Prosek.” He told Drear, “It’ll take a while to organize.”
Drear just nodded.
Hecht led the way inside the mill and upstairs. “Find yourself a seat.” He collected quill and paper and began to write. Drear waited quietly. Hecht sanded the finished product. He was folding it when Sergeant Bechter arrived, huffing and puffing.
Bechter said, “Prosek’s on his way. What’s up?” He spent one glance on Algres Drear. And took the man’s measure.
“Our new good friends in the Empire have a problem. Only we can solve it. I want Prosek to go with Captain Drear and handle it.”
Bechter nodded. He gave Drear another glance. “Braunsknecht?”
“I am. Brotherhood of War?”
“Retired.”
“Of course.”
Drago Prosek arrived. “Permission to enter, sir?”
“Get in here,” Hecht said. “Prosek. This gentleman is Captain Drear of the Braunsknecht lifeguard of the Princess Apparent of the Empire. He’s brought an appeal for assistance. I’ve decided to accede to the Princess’s request. Her friendship could serve us well.”
“Yes sir.” Without any suggestion of a reservation about his superior’s thinking.
“I’m going to give you a
chance to show us what you can do.”
“Yes sir. What would that be, sir?”
“Take two falcons to Plemenza. With their crews. I’d recommend Varley and Stern, but the choice is yours. Take two special loads for each falcon.”
Prosek’s eyebrows jumped. His eyes widened. “Sir …”
“There’s something ugly in the Jago Mountains. Something of the Night. You were at al-Khazen.
Captain Drear tells me this is the monster that got away from us there.”
Prosek’s eyes got bigger. Even Bechter showed some reaction.
Hecht continued. “Go figure out how to ambush it, or trap it, then kill it. Do whatever you have to do.
Then get yourself back here because by that time we’ll probably be besieging Antieux and we’ll want you there to starve with us.”
“Yes sir.” Ignoring his Captain-General’s tone. Prosek turned to Drear. “Drago Prosek, sir.” He extended a hand. Drear seemed surprised.
Hecht met Drear’s eye. “That’s what I can do.”
“Good enough. I think. Thank you, sir.”
“Take this letter to the Princess.” He passed the doeskin wallet back. “Prosek.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t let these people tell you what to do. Not even the Princess herself. Make them support you.
You’re smart enough to know what needs doing. And bright enough to figure out how to do it.”
“Yes sir.”
“All right. Everyone go. I have thinking to do.”
Once the last man left, Hecht read Helspeth’s letter for the fourth time. And still could not believe the girl trusted Drear that much. Although, mainly, it revolved around her plea for help ridding the Jagos of the monster.
Titus Consent told Hecht, “There’s a problem getting intelligence out of the Connec.”
Hecht was tired. The less the army did the more work there was for him. He did not want to hear more bad news. He wanted to go to bed. Maybe to dream about Anna. Or Helspeth Ege. Who was an infatuation he did not yet underhand. He sighed. “Tell me.”
“The Society is killing us. Their attitude toward Devedians is black and white. Not Chaldarean? Bad.
Kill. So the Connecten Deves won’t deal. And they’re all going away anyway.”
“Explain that.”
“The Devedian and Dainshau minorities are emigrating. The Society is so obnoxious that even Maysaleans and some Chaldareans are going with them, some places.”