“She has Sublime’s letters of blessing. She’s put Regard on the Arnhander throne.”
Hecht chuckled. “She paid enough. To our profit.”
“Now she wants something more. She’s called out the entire feudal levy to help King Peter stop the Almanohides.”
“The what?”
“The who. The Almanohides. Praman tribal fighters from the other side of the Escarp Gebr al Thar.”
“Oh.” Hecht had not heard that name for those people before.
“The new Kaif of al-Halambra summoned them.”
That Hecht did know. The process had begun before their departure from the Connec.
“He’s determined to crush Peter before he can be any more successful. He means to keep on moving north if he breaks King Peter. He sees nothing to stop him now that we’ve moved over here to Artecipea.”
Hecht understood the hidden message.
A new storm was coming. It was time to keep an eye on their backs, in case the uneasy alliance here fell apart.
Hecht said, “Let’s put the fear of God in our friends. We’ll let them see the firepowder weapons at work.
Speaking of which. You need to find Drago Prosek right away.”
“The situation in Direcia had another interesting effect. The Patriarch himself postponed the marriage between Empress Katrin and Jaime of Castauriga.”
Hecht had not thought much about events inside the Grail Empire. “Interesting.”
“Want some more interesting? You were invited.”
“Say what?”
“Anna showed me the letter. With the Imperial seal. Signed by the Empress herself. Requesting the presence of the Captain-General at the celebration mass. And so forth.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t ask me to explain.”
Was it Helspeth? “One more puzzle to keep me awake at night, then.”
“Plenty of puzzles to keep me up.”
Hecht frowned. Consent sounded unhappy. “How so?”
“There have been a couple more suicides amongst my Devedian relatives and acquaintances.”
“And? I’m not understanding. Were they that upset about you converting?”
“No. None of them believed I meant it. I was the Chosen One. How could I run out? They’re only now starting to believe it. But they’re still cooperating. They still think they can profit from the connection.”
“And I’m still confused, Titus.”
“My problem is, these men who killed themselves, I’ve known them all my life. I can’t believe any of them would become that hard a slave of despair. Devedians and despair are intimates. Life partners. Soul mates. They wouldn’t kill themselves.”
“So what’s going on?”
“I don’t know! That’s the horrible part! Men who wouldn’t kill themselves at the worst times did it in front of witnesses.”
Hecht sighed. He sensed Consent’s pain. But what could he do? “I can pray for them, Titus. That’s all. I didn’t know them. I don’t know what drove them.”
“Never mind me, Captain-General. The new falcons are here, including the ones Prosek designed. Along with tons of firepowder and ammunition. If you want to provoke the Night, now is the time.”
“Which is why you need to get together with Drago Prosek.”
The pagan stronghold had not suffered much from traditional artillery. The besiegers had not been able to build many engines. Lumber was scarce. What little there was had to be hauled a long, hard way before it could be used.
Ammunition was plentiful, though. There were rocks everywhere.
The falcons could do little damage, either. They did not have the power. But those that Prosek had redesigned could be fired faster than the others.
The powder and shot for the new generation were preloaded into a cast-iron pot that seated into a breech in the reinforced base of the falcon. A protruding thumb rotated into a notch, holding the pot in place. That rotation brought a drilled hole into view. Firepowder dribbled into the hole would be fired with a slow match. The pot could be replaced quickly. The spent pot could be reloaded at leisure while the weapon itself went through subsequent firing cycles.
Hecht now felt better about his chances for surviving the interest of the Night. But the new weapons and ammunition and firepowder had cost enough to leave the Patriarchal army strapped. Despite successes in the Connec and intercepted specie shipments from Salpeno, there would not be enough money to carry on past midsummer.
Hard work in the mines helped keep the soldiers out of trouble. And they needed distraction.
Disaffection had begun to appear amongst the rank and file. Some thought their Captain-General was not forceful enough with Brothe. They thought their commander should have told the Patriarchal legate to use his new assignment for a suppository.
Titus Consent suggested, “A few bordellos down the mountain would be more useful than making these guys work fifteen hours a day on mines and approach curtains. Especially when those people around the other side aren’t doing anything.”
They were not working because Count Hercule and his Praman associates were as nervous about each other as they were about Arn Bedu. Both told the Captain-General, individually, that there was no reason to work. That time was the best weapon in their arsenal.
Hecht told them, individually, “I want to go home. And my men aren’t in a patient mood.”
The Mountain and Az, or Bone, were always close by when Hecht talked to Iskandar and Count Hercule. He got few chances to visit. Nor did the Ninth Unknown create many opportunities for communication. Yet the man in brown was often there, in the corner of Hecht’s eye.
Redfearn Bechter reported sightings every day. Bechter was troubled. Bechter was no longer convinced by his Captain-General’s protestations of ignorance.
Cloven Februaren did manage when he cared enough. Usually deep in the night, when sleep was more precious than rubies. Employing one of those time-stopping spells. Freezing the lifeguards on duty. Who panicked when the spell wore off. They always knew that something had happened. They never came close to guessing the truth.
“Piper!” The old man spoke softly but insistently. “Wake up, Piper.”
Piper Hecht grunted and rolled away. It seemed he had just gotten to sleep.
“Come on, boy. Wake up and listen. Or you’re going to be dead. Real soon now.”
That moved him. Some. He cracked an eye. And found himself nose to nose with Cloven Februaren.
“What?”
“There’s going to be an attack. By the Night. Soon. You need to get ready.”
Hecht said something rude and tried to turn over.
A bee sting pain hit his right buttock. He almost cried out. Boyhood training stopped him.
Tears did flood his eyes.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“The Night will come. Your great enemy has told it where to find you. That’s always the Night’s great challenge when it reaches into our world. Finding the right man in the right moment. The Night sees our world through nearsighted eyes.”
“So I’ve heard.” Tone suggesting that Februaren make his point.
“You must prepare.”
Hecht believed he was prepared. “I’m listening.”
“It’s time to use the ring.”
“Uh? Ring?” What was the man blathering about, now?
“The ring you appropriated from the Bruglioni. The one you forget about. The one you wear on a chain around your neck, along with your silver dove and iron pomegranate.” Symbols from the earliest days of the Chaldarean faith — in metals the Night most despised.
Hecht rooted beneath his shirt and brought out his symbolic disguise. A gold ring hung between the pomegranate and dove. “Where did that come from?”
The Ninth Unknown was disinclined to waste time reeducating him. The old man touched his left temple.
He remembered.
“Put the ring on.”
&nbs
p; “Uh?”
“Pick a finger. Any finger. The one that it fits tightest. Put it on. Then put this on behind it.” Februaren extended a gaudy silver thing encrusted with small gems.
Hecht fumbled the gold band a couple times getting it off the chain and onto the middle finger of his left hand. It felt like the damned thing was trying to get away. Cloven Februaren helped herd it, then forced the garish bauble on after it.
“That’s your safety lock. It won’t come off till I release it. So the other will stay where you need it until I do.”
Hecht did what he was told, thinking the ring could still get away. If it could get his finger amputated. He asked, “Why are we doing this?”
“We’re denying the Night the focus that Rudenes Schneidel and er-Rashal have tried to give it. The nearer it comes to you the more distracted it will get. Distracted? That’s not quite right. But I’m too tired to find the perfect word.”
“You seem chipper enough to keep me awake all night.”
“You’ve done what I came to get you to do. You have the ring on. You still wear the amulet. I can fade away and you can get back to wasting your life on sleep. All before these dedicated boys of yours can wake up and be terrified because they almost did something that might have put you at risk.”
What in the name of the Adversary did he mean by that?
The old man touched him again.
Sleep came instantly.
Sleep ended, sudden as the man in black’s sword stroke, slain by the bark of falcons.
Waking with mind fuzzy, Piper Hecht tried to recall the name of the goddess of sleep. That seemed terribly important for a dozen seconds. Until he understood. That was not thunder, never heard up here anyway, but the crude speech of weapons designed to thwart the Will of the Night.
Drago Prosek and his henchmen were on the job, as alert and ready as they had been told to be.
The Captain-General shook off the slut sleep and got his feet under him. With the assistance of lifeguards who insisted they had to be right there beside his rude mattress even while he was unconscious. The same lifeguards who had failed to notice the earlier visit of the Ninth Unknown.
Sobering realization. They could be circumvented easily.
The moon was almost full. It splashed Arn Bedu with ghost light. And made it possible to see Drago Prosek’s crews doing their cleanup while most of the Patriarchal force watched and babbled in awe.
The egg the falconeers came up with beggared the one found after the destruction of the bogon in Esther’s Wood, a seeming eternity ago. What had died here, tonight, must have been a minor god.
Eliminated quickly and efficiently by men just doing their jobs, using munitions designed for the task.
This was why the Night dreaded Piper Hecht. Destroying Instrumentalities was about to become no more special than any other death stroke.
Whole new realms of warfare would open up once men understood that they could butcher one another’s gods.
The night lighted up when an immense flash appeared against the base of Arn Bedu’s northwest mural tower. A roar like all the thunder in the world at once followed a moment later. That was so loud it deadened the ear. There was no hearing the crash and grind of stone as the tower and nearby wall surrendered to gravity and came down, but it felt like an earthquake.
Nearly a ton of new, refined, more potent firepowder had been packed into the mine under that tower.
The fuse trail had been lit off by sentries with orders to do so whenever Rudenes Schneidel tried to use the Night against the besiegers.
The Captain-General stared up at the moonlighted pillar of dust leaning westward above the wreckage.
He wished that he had had storm troops ready to go while the rubble was stabilizing.
Troops did push into Arn Bedu soon. Many carried portable firepowder weapons, after the fashion of the capture of the Duke of Clearenza. But this time the men were armed against the Night. Their attack was disorganized but they did know what needed doing.
Titus Consent asked, “Any idea how much this is costing?”
Hecht said, “I can’t imagine. But I see ordinary guys like you and me grinning from ear to ear because we just murdered a midget god of some kind and we’re about to take a fortress that’s been considered invincible forever. And we hardly had to work at either one. Because we knew what we wanted to do and we worked hard to make sure everything was ready to make it happen when an opportunity popped up.”
Exhaustion claimed Hecht before the sun rose. He left Arn Bedu to the mercies of his associates. His preparations had proven out. His veterans had done their work completely indifferent to the Will of the Night.
Hecht began to think that even he now had an inkling why he had gained the enmity of the Night.
He was sound asleep before his messengers reached the camp of his allies. They offered King Peter’s partisans the opportunity to complete the capture of the pagan fortress.
That assault might be costly despite the horrible shocks already suffered by Am Bedu’s defenders.
The most shaken and enfeebled of those proved to be the dreaded sorcerer Rudenes Schneidel himself.
The man offered no resistance whatsoever when discovered.
Hecht’s lifeguards convinced him that it would be politic to appear in full ceremonial dress to recognize his allies for having successfully cleansed Arn Bedu.
The Mountain passed him with a prisoner in tow, a man bound and gagged in a way that made it clear he was important, powerful, and dangerous. The man’s face was locked into an expression of utter, possibly eternal disbelief. This could not be happening!
Iskandar, Shake Malik, and Count Hercule had conquered their disbelief. Publicly. But they kept glancing at Hecht as though certain he must be more than what they could see, or that another shoe had yet to fall. He wanted to yell at them. He had not done anything special. His sappers had packed firepowder in under the wall. Drago Prosek’s falconeers had overcome those Night things that tried to interfere with God’s soldiers.
The same weapons lubricated the assault.
Arn Bedu’s defenders were dead or captured. Including even Rudenes Schneidel, whom Hecht had not expected to see in the flesh, ever. He had assumed the man would escape in the final confusion, as er-Rashal had done when al-Khazen’s defense fell apart.
Titus Consent murmured, “Things have changed again. Reality definitely shifted when that wall came down.”
Hecht understood. This time he saw the future as he had not after destroying the bogon in Esther’s Wood.
It should have taken months more, if not years, to reduce Arn Bedu. He had brought it down in days once his new firepowder and weapons arrived.
No fortress would be invulnerable ever again.
It would take time, though. He knew. People did not like change.
He started up the mountainside.
Madouc demanded, “Where are you going?”
“Up there to look around.”
“You think you’re suddenly safe?”
“I’m hoping.” He glanced toward where an argument simmered between the Mountain, Iskander, and Count Hercule. Each wanted Schneidel. Hecht said, “See that Nassim gets the prize.”
“What?”
“A random thought. The chief of that band from Calzir. He came here because Schneidel was behind his son’s murder. So I’ve heard.”
“Schneidel tried to kill you and your family. Why don’t you take him?” Brother Jokai asked.
“Because I don’t want the Special Office tempted by the evil that surrounds him. And only the Special Office could manage him. So let the Pramans punish him.”
The Praman Nassim would put an edge on Schneidel and use him against er-Rashal. And right now er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen was the most dangerous man in the world. In Piper Hecht’s mind.
“You could be right. Unbelievers they may be. But they tolerate wickedness and truck with the Night less than do our own true believers.”
Hec
ht knew better but did not say so. He was just a bright boy from the far north who got lucky.
He climbed the mountain. His lifeguards tagged along. Madouc complained all the way. Ahead, Prosek and the falcon crews warily recovered shot expended during the assault. Several dark things flapped through the breach in the wall. Falcons dispatched them in seconds.
Prosek came to meet his Captain-General. “The loading pots worked perfectly, sir. As did the falcons.
Not one blew up. You got to hand it to them Deves. They know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to casting brass.”
“That’s why they got my contract.”
“I hear there’s some bad feelings about that.”
“No doubt. Nobody likes an elitist.”
Prosek frowned, puzzled.
Madouc told Prosek, “He’s determined to go poke around. Get some of them damned thunder busters up there with us. He’s got no fucking idea what the hell is still hiding inside that rock pile.”
Hecht paused at Arn Bedu’s open gate. He had not thought of that. And there was definitely a tingle round his left wrist.
All his thoughts had been focused on Cloven Februaren. What part had the old man played in Arn Bedu’s fall?
There was no way it should have gone so smoothly and quickly. The Ninth Unknown was the only explanation for Rudenes Schneidel turning so meek in the end.
What the hell was that old man?
He said, “Arn Bedu was never meant to be anything but a refuge. This gate isn’t big enough to launch a sortie.”
Prosek said, “The guys found a lot more store than we expected. The pagans could’ve held out for ages.
Except that their water went bad. The prisoners thought something in the stone used to line the cisterns was leeching out.”
“What?”
“The captives say it was slow poison. Arsenic, or something. Guys sometimes suffered convulsions. Most of them didn’t have much strength left. And nobody was thinking clearly. The guy in charge dealt with that by drinking nothing but wine.”
Rudenes Schneidel was a drunk? That might have something to do with his passivity.
Bad water and too much wine might mean that the Ninth Unknown had not been the key.
Hecht was not ready to buy it. Not whole. The Ninth Unknown was huge in everything. He was totally sure.