Yet for all of that, it was also impossible for him to simply reject what they’d told him. It explained too many things about the present war, about the new weapons, the new concepts spilling out of Charis and the Royal College. Too many things about the capabilities of Charisian spies and how smoothly Sharleyan and Cayleb functioned as a coordinated team even when they were tens of thousands of miles apart.
And then there’s the Archbishop, he thought, glancing at Maikel Staynair who sat in his own chair, hands folded before him on the table, looking back at Sarmouth with an expression that mingled understanding with compassion and a steel-hard fidelity. There’s not a more godly man in all the world, not one who could match Archbishop Maikel’s gentleness and love, his fearless defense of his flock, or his tolerance and compassion even for those who hate him. And yet he wants me to believe the Church herself is nothing but a monstrous lie.
“I don’t know if I can believe all you’ve told me and shown me, Your Majesty,” he said finally. “That the … seijins are capable of even more than I ever suspected they were, or that you—and they—truly possess all the miraculous powers you’ve demonstrated to me … that I have no choice but to believe. But that the Archangels, the Church, God Himself are lies goes far beyond that, and the Writ offers explanations in plenty for everything you’ve shown me.”
“Of course it does, My Lord,” the archbishop said simply, and Sarmouth’s eyes returned to him. “It must offer those explanations—those demons and fallen archangels and all the unclean, blasphemous powers with which they tempt the children of God—in order to accomplish its own goals. And just as you fear at this moment that we may have interwoven truth and compassion and love for our fellow men and women into a false explanation in the service of Shan-wei, the Writ weaves truth, compassion, and love into a false explanation in the service of Langhorne and the rest of his command group. As you say, we can demonstrate our capabilities to you by demonstrating Nimue’s marvelous strength, her pieces of equipment, our ability to communicate with Siddar City from this very room. Those are concrete things you can touch, hear, feel. The truth of what we believe and what we ask you to believe is far more difficult to demonstrate. Yet the Writ itself says you will know who and what a person is by what that person does in his or her life. At this moment, in this place, how will you judge Nimue and Merlin, Cayleb and Sharleyan, and Hektor and Irys by what they’ve done in their lives? And how will you judge Zhaspahr Clyntahn, Wyllym Rayno, the Inquisition, and all the hideous things Mother Church has done in their service?”
“If it were that simple, Your Eminence, there’d be no war on Safehold,” Sarmouth replied. “Men can be evil, not matter their station. Mother Church has punished criminals among her episcopacy and even the vicarate before now. And the fact that men—or women—are good doesn’t necessarily make them holy, either. How often has the Church taught that Shan-wei seduces men and women by appealing to their goodness, not to the darkness within them?”
“And how essential would it be to the Church we’ve revealed to you this night to teach precisely that, be it ever so dark and deadly a lie?” Staynair riposted softly.
Sarmouth closed his eyes, poised between two equally agonizing possibilities. His faith told him Staynair was lying, that the archbishop must be lying. Yet reason, his own eyes, his trust in his monarchs, and his own sense of duty all told him Langhorne must have lied. That he, like every other man and woman who’d ever lived on Safehold, had given his faith, his service, and his love to the greatest falsehood in human history.
And whether they’re telling the truth or not, they can’t allow me to leave this room alive unless they’re convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I believe them, he thought coldly.
He opened his eyes again and found Nimue Alban watching him across the table through the calm, sapphire eyes of Nimue Chwaeriau. He looked back at her, and she tipped her head to one side and smiled at him almost compassionately.
“My Lord,” she said, “I think I know at least one thing running through your mind right now, and you’re right. If you choose to reject what we’ve told you, if you choose to place your loyalty and ability, all the things which make you so valuable to the Empire and to the fight against the Group of Four, in the service of the lie, we can’t allow you to leave this room alive. But it would be a betrayal of all we ourselves believe and of the deep affection Hektor and Irys have for you if we were to repay your sense of honor with death. Until a year or two ago, that would have been our only option, yet that’s no longer true. We still lack many of the capabilities the Federation took for granted, but shortly after Prince Nahrmahn’s death, Merlin instructed Owl to produce new batches of the drugs used aboard the starships which brought humanity to Safehold, and one of them—you might think of it as a … sleeping draught—simulates physical death almost perfectly. If you’re unable to continue to serve Charis with the same devotion and courage with which you’ve always served her in the past, I’m afraid you’ll suffer a ‘fatal stroke’ this evening. And in about a five-day or so, you’ll wake up again, none the worse for wear, in the Cave. You’ll be imprisoned there, I’m sorry to say, but in conditions of comfort and respect. I hope that if that happens, in the fullness of time, you’ll be able to accept that we’ve told you nothing but the truth, yet honesty compels me to admit that we could never return your old life. In that sense, you would, indeed, be dead, because you couldn’t come back from the grave in the eyes of the world.”
“Please, Sir,” Hektor said, reaching out his good hand towards him. “I realize how unfair it is of us to ask this of you, but we truly have no choice. We need you, even more than we ever needed you before.”
Sarmouth looked back at the youthful duke, his heart twisted by the conflict between affection—love—and a lifetime’s faith. He wanted to believe Hektor and the others, he realized. He truly wanted to … but that was the snare Shan-wei always laid before men. That was—
“Sir Dunkyn.”
Irys Aplyn-Ahrmahk stood. She walked around the table to stand in front of him and laid her hands on his shoulders, and her gaze met his unflinchingly.
“I owe you my life,” she told him. “I owe you more than that. I owe you the chance to meet the man I love and the child I’m about to bear him, and I owe you my brother’s—my Prince’s—life. Those are debts I can never repay. But I tell you this now, with all the honesty within me.
“I knew none of this until the day Hektor sacrificed his life to save mine. That’s precisely what he did, because neither of us dreamed it might be possible for him to be so terribly wounded and survive. I know that discovering he could be saved after all—and that he was—biases me towards believing the best about the people who restored him to me. But the chance they took—the risk they ran—in telling me the truth was even greater than the risk we’ve taken in telling you. It might have devastated everything they’d fought for years to accomplish here in Corisande. They knew that … and they never hesitated. That’s who they are, who we are, and because we need you and because we love you—because I love you—I beg you to believe the truth. Long before I ever wed Hektor, before Sharleyan and Cayleb allowed Daivyn and me to return to Corisande and trusted us to do what was right, I knew where I stood. I discovered that aboard your ship between Charis and Chisholm, and it terrified me because I realized Archbishop Maikel had been right all along—that I had to choose what I believed. What I could give my life to accomplishing. And when I realized that, I knew I would rather stand beside people like Sharleyan and Cayleb—and beside the people who loved and followed them—in the deepest pit of Hell than stand in the highest Heaven with any God who could agree with Zhaspahr Clyntahn. You want that, too. I know you do, because I’ve come to know you. And if you read all the horrors in the Book of Schueler, if you read all the lies in the Book of Chihiro, then you know that Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s God—the God of Mother Church—does agree with him.”
Her hazel eyes looked deep, deep into his, and they we
re bottomless as the sea, dark with honesty and the depth of her own fearless belief.
“So the question, Sir Dunkyn,” she said softly, “is whether or not you agree with that God.”
.VIII.
Sheryl-Seridahn Canal, West of Evyrtyn, The South March Lands
“Get down, Sir!”
Something hit Lieutenant Bryahnsyn from behind, wrapped itself around his knees, and sent him crashing facedown to the ground. He hit so hard his sinuses stung … just before the abbreviated whistle of one of the heretics’ small angle-gun shells ended in a sudden explosion. It was an explosive round, fortunately, not one of the shrapnel-spewing airbursts, and it exploded only after hitting the ground, but shell fragments hissed nastily overhead.
He pushed himself cautiously up on his hands and looked over his shoulder at the nineteen-year-old private who’d tackled him.
“A simple shout might have done the job with less bruises, Symyn,” he pointed out. “And without exposing both of us, now that I think about it.”
“Sorry about that, Sir.” Private Hyldyrshot didn’t seem particularly crushed by his company commander’s reprimand. “Didn’t think you heard it coming,” he added.
“Well, I appreciate your taking care of me,” Bryahnsyn told him, choosing not to mention that Hyldyrshot was entirely correct. He hadn’t heard the incoming shell, and he should have been paying better attention. Langhorne knew the heretic bastards chucked the things over often enough to keep the Army of the Seridahn from feeling bored! Most of his men had acquired the survival-oriented reflex to hit the ground whenever one of them arrived, and he supposed officers should set the example in that, as well. It would be a far better one than the “See how brave I am when I stand out in the shrapnel!” attitude some of his denser colleagues seemed to prefer to demonstrate.
Briefly, at least.
“Now get back under cover,” he continued. “I promise I’ll watch my own arse in the meantime.” The private seemed to hesitate, and Bryahnsyn lowered his eyebrows and glowered. “If you get yourself shot full of holes for absolutely no good reason, Private, Platoon Sergeant Abykrahmbi will give me Shan-wei’s own hell over it!”
“Yes, Sir.”
Hyldyrshot grinned, touched his chest in salute, and crawled back into what someone in the Imperial Charisian Army would have called his slit trench. Bryahnsyn paused just long enough to nod in gratitude, then resumed his journey—more cautiously, exactly as he’d promised—across 5th Company’s position.
The private’s attitude was a welcome indicator of the state of the army’s morale. Personally, Bryahnsyn wouldn’t have been surprised to see the men cowering in their holes instead of worrying about what might happen to one of their officers who wasn’t paying attention the way he ought to. Instead, they seemed well aware of the reasons they couldn’t stand and challenge the heretics to a fight to the finish. They didn’t like retreating, yet they understood why they were doing it, and instead of the sullenness Bryahnsyn might have expected, they’d decided to take a sense of pride out of conducting that retreat as skillfully—and as stubbornly—as possible.
They’d fallen back from Evyrtyn to get out of the ironclad’s range, and before they’d left, their engineers had blown up the river locks between Evyrtyn and the town of Riverfork, a hundred and eighty miles farther up the Seridahn, as well. Personally, Bryahnsyn was inclined to think the river above Riverfork was probably too shallow for something the ironclad’s size, but there was no way to be sure of that, so General Rychtyr had destroyed the locks anyway, just to be safe. Surely it would take even the heretics months to rebuild or replace them in mid-river, especially with the spring floods not so many five-days away! He hoped so, anyway; the last thing they needed was that monster getting as high as Alyksberg and severing the Dairnyth-Alyksberg Canal, as well.
There was damn all the Army of the Seridahn could do about Alyksberg, however. All it could do was fight its stubborn retreating action as slowly—and with as few casualties among its own men—as possible. That was how the lieutenant found his platoon thirty-five miles west of Evyrtyn, crouching in their muddy trenches while the rest of the army fell back to the much more substantial entrenchments waiting five miles beyond them. At least the labor gangs which had been sent up the canal from Dohlar had finished preparing the army’s next main position in plenty of time. They were supposed to be working on the position beyond that one now, and as long as the heretics didn’t bring up the heavy angle-guns.…
“Over here, Lieutenant!”
He looked up at the shout and saw Brynt Atwatyr, Captain Mahkluskee’s company sergeant, waving to attract his attention. The company commander’s hole, hidden from the heretics directing the angle-guns’ fire by a dense thicket of second-growth timber, was rather larger than the one Bryahnsyn had left behind, and 4th Platoon was dug-in amid the trees to prevent any unwelcome guests from disturbing the captain’s meeting.
Bryahnsyn waved back to Atwatyr and jogged the remaining fifty yards, then slithered down into the hole beside Lieutenant Aimohs Zhynkyns, who’d inherited 4th Platoon after Lieutenant Sandkaran’s death.
“Glad you could make it, Ahrnahld,” Captain Mahkluskee observed with a sardonic smile. It wasn’t a reprimand. In fact, it was almost a compliment, since Bryahnsyn had had farther to come than any of the captain’s other platoon commanders.
“Let’s get to it,” Mahkluskee continued more briskly, beckoning the lieutenants closer to his sketch map. They gathered around him, and he tapped it with a dirty finger. “We’re here,” he said, indicating a point on the Sheryl-Seridahn Canal while heretic angle-gun shells continued to explode in a sort of ragged rhythm in the background. Bryahnsyn didn’t want to think about what would happen if one of them chanced to find its way into the hole with them by blind luck. “Colonel Sheldyn has Second and Third Company out on our flanks—here and here—but they’re farther west than we are, and the rest of the army, except for Colonel Hahpkyns’ regiment, has already fallen back. Basically, we’re the head of the arrow right now, and our job’s to stay where we are at least until dark. After the sun sets, I’ll pass the order to begin pulling out. I’ll be using runners, not whistles or bugles, since we’d just as soon not have the bastards realize we’re moving in the open.”
All of his lieutenants nodded in fervent agreement. A platoon caught in the open by a fusillade of shrapnel-charged infantry angle shells could be wiped out in minutes. They’d found that out the hard way since the heretic Hanth had taken the offensive.
“All right,” Mahkluskee went on. “Ahrnahld,” he looked at Bryahnsyn, “your people are the farthest east on the canal, so we’re going to start by moving you back. When the runner tells you it’s time to go, pull out quietly. We don’t want the heretics to know we’re going anywhere until we’re already gone. Frankly, I’d prefer for it to be sometime next five-day before they figure it out, but I’m not going to bet my pension on it.”
A couple of his platoon commanders chuckled, and he grinned tautly, then turned to Lieutenant Charlsyn Dahnel, 1st Platoon’s CO.
“You’ll be next to go, Charlsyn. Ahrnahld will send a runner to your position when the last of his men are out of their holes and headed west. Stay where you are until you hear from him. Then, I want you to move—”
* * *
“We need more of the heavy angles, My Lord,” Admiral Sympsyn said. “The mortars are good—they’re a hell of a lot better than just good, in fact—but once the bastards get dug-in below ground level, especially with any kind of overhead cover, mortars just don’t have the firepower to blast them back out again.”
Sir Hauwerd Breygart, the Earl of Hanth, grunted in sour agreement. It wasn’t as if his artillery chief was telling him anything he didn’t already know. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it. More rifled six-inch angle-guns were supposed to be on their way to him “as soon as possible,” but the unfortunate truth was that the Army of Thesmar’s priority remained clearly seconda
ry to the other forces Charis and Siddarmark had in the field. The fact that he understood the logic behind that state of affairs didn’t seem to make it any more palatable, however.
“What we’ve got is what we’ll have for at least another month, Lywys,” he said as philosophically as possible. “In fact, I won’t be all that surprised if we don’t get them until some time in late June. And depending on how things go against Kaitswyrth, it could be even longer than that. Master Howsmyn’s doing his best, but the Navy’s had first priority on the heavy guns since the first ironclads were laid down.”
It was Sympsyn’s turn to grunt in acknowledgment of something he already knew.
“In the meantime,” Hanth continued, “we need to keep the pressure on. I’m not planning on pulling a Harless and storming any of these earthworks. Our boys have better things to do than fertilize some farmer’s fields! But we’re actually more mobile than they are now, once we get away from the canal. So as long as we can keep working our way around their flanks, we can keep them moving steadily westward.”
He turned to Major Dyntyn Karmaikel, his aide. Like Sympsyn, who’d been a naval captain when they arrived in Thesmar, Karmaikel had been promoted. He’d also found himself assuming the position of Hanth’s chief of staff, which was a heavy load for a man who’d been a Marine lieutenant only months earlier. He’d risen to the challenge nicely, however, and in the process he might have begun laying the demons of hatred which had ridden him for so long, as well.
“Dyntyn,” the earl said, “we need a dispatch to Brigadier Mathysyn. I want Major Mahklymorh’s scout snipers and Colonel Brystahl’s regiment ready to move out by morning. I’m pretty sure we’re going to run into another damned set of entrenchments a few miles beyond the odds and sods in front of us right now. According to the maps, the terrain’s better on the north side of the canal. That’s why I want Mahklymorh and Brystahl to hook around to the south. If they’ve slipped up and left us an opening, it’s more likely we’ll find it on that side.”