Ratter needed no urging to follow, scrambling into the pipe and dropping from view in a scant few seconds. Frentis crawled after, drinking in the sudden rush of fresh sea air as his head emerged from the pipe. He levered himself free and dropped to the rocks, his feet sliding on the wet stone but managing to remain upright. He saw Draker shambling his way towards the headland, already overtaken by Ratter. Frentis glanced back at the ships in the harbour, seeing plenty of activity but no sign they had been seen.
He moved off, leaping from rock to rock. As a child he often came here at low tide, sometimes there would be something worth finding amongst the flotsam washing up onto the rocks, but mostly he just liked to jump from one to the other. It was good practice for the rooftops he hoped to graduate to one day, when he was old enough to do some proper stealing.
“Don’t leave me, brother,” Draker huffed as he overtook him.
“Then hurry up.” Frentis paused at a harsh clanking sound behind them, turned and leapt, catching Draker by the legs and bearing him to the rocks. Something made a loud ding as it rebounded from the stone, spinning away into the gloom.
“What was that?” Draker gasped.
“Ballista bolt,” Frentis said. “Seems we’ve been seen.”
“Oh Faith!” Draker was on the verge of weeping. “Oh Faith what now?”
“You were a lot more impressive when I was a boy.” Frentis raised his head, finding a lantern glowing on the prow of the nearest ship, dim shapes moving about the spiderlike silhouette of the ballista, working the windlass with leisurely ease. Bored and practising on some strays, Frentis decided. Free Swords, not slaves. “We’re in luck,” he told Draker, standing up and raising his arms.
The large man gaped at him. “What are you doing?”
“Keep going,” Frentis ordered, waving his arms.
“What?”
“Run!” The ballista clattered as one of the crew hit the release. Frentis stood stock still, counted off two heartbeats, then dropped to his knees. The bolt sailed overhead and skittered away amongst the rocks. He heard Draker babbling a constant stream of curses as he fled.
From the ship came the sound of voices raised in consternation, a few laughs of appreciation at the welcome distraction. Frentis turned and walked slowly towards the headland, not glancing back. A ballista was a fearsome weapon, but it wasn’t a bow, and these men could never be as skilled as a well-drilled team of slaves.
He was obliged to duck three more bolts before reaching the headland, by which time Draker had disappeared from view. He paused to wave at the ship before rounding the final outcrop, provoking a chorus of disappointment. Most of the crew now seemed to have gathered on the prow to watch the entertainment. Frentis cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back in Volarian, as loud as his lungs would allow: “LAUGH ON! YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE HERE!”
PART III
Students may be forgiven for believing the figure of the Holy Reader to be ancient and original to the Cumbraelin form of god worship, a sacred trust embodying the will and authority of the World Father in a human vessel at the prophets’ behest. However, mention of such a figure can be found nowhere in the Ten Books and the organisational template for the church as it currently stands is hard to discern amongst their varied and often contradictory contents.
The earliest recorded investiture of a Holy Reader dates back only some three centuries, and even then this role seems to have been conceived as little more than an honorary title bestowed on particularly devout clerics. The ascendancy of a man holding absolute and unquestioned leadership of the church did not become an established institution until two hundred years after its arrival in the land now known as Cumbrael, and not without considerable opposition.
—ASPECT DENDRISH HENDRAHL,
FALLACY AND BELIEF: THE NATURE OF GOD WORSHIP,
THIRD ORDER ARCHIVES
VERNIERS’ ACCOUNT
The general’s wife released me as dawn was starting to break over the smoking city. The sounds of battle had abated a little earlier, but so far no messenger had appeared with word of victory, and the steady stream of Volarian wounded stumbling through the breach told of a battle far from won. The wounded were all Free Swords. The slave soldiers, naturally, were left to expire where they fell.
The general had remained below with his pleasure slave as I related what I knew of Al Sorna to his wife, leaving nothing out and taking hours over the telling, Alltor continuing to smoke before us. Her curiosity was keen, and she asked many questions, though it seemed to me she had contrived to form a fanciful picture of the Hope Killer’s abilities.
“So you never saw him exhibit these great powers your people speak of?” she asked when I had related a few of the myriad tales told about Al Sorna in the empire.
“He is just a man, Mistress,” I replied. “Greatly skilled and cunning, it is true. With the kind of keen insight that many might mistake for some form of magic. But I saw no real evidence he could read minds or commune with beasts, or the souls of the dead for that matter.”
“When he comes to face my beloved husband, will he display this cunning, do you think? Some clever design to save this city from destruction.”
There was a sardonic lilt to her voice confirming my sense of a deep fatalism to this woman, an impression that there was no novelty to what she witnessed here, the outcome preordained, inevitable and not entirely relished. “I expect so, Mistress,” I replied.
“A great strategist then.” She laughed a little. “I’ve met a few of those. One of them was so convinced of his own genius he sent fifty thousand men to burn in an oil-soaked swamp. Tell me, if Al Sorna had commanded the Realm Guard against my husband, would the outcome have been the same?”
The question was dangerous, as she must have known, and any answer I gave potentially fatal. “Such a thing cannot be judged, Mistress.”
“Oh, I think it can, especially by a man so well versed in history and all its battles, as you.”
Her tone was insistent, I had to answer, knowing any flattery of her husband would be recognised, and unappreciated. “The Battle Lord was overconfident,” I said. “And saw no reason to suspect treachery from an ally. Al Sorna would not have been gulled so easily.”
“And what of the weight of numbers against him. You said yourself it was a decisive factor.”
“At the Lehlun Oasis, Al Sorna was able to turn the course of the entire Imperial elite with only a few hundred men. If there is a path to victory here, he will find it.” She raised an eyebrow and I realised my mistake, adding “Mistress,” with my heart thumping and fresh sweat chilling my brow.
“I was starting to wonder if you would ever forget yourself,” she said.
“Forgive me, Mistress . . .” I babbled but she waved me to silence, returning her gaze to the smoking city. “Is there a wife somewhere, my lord Verniers?” she asked after a moment. “A family waiting for you back in Alpira?”
This reply required little thought, I had voiced it many times. “I have always been too preoccupied with my work to allow for such distractions, Mistress.”
“Distractions?” She turned to regard me with a smile. “Love is a distraction?”
“I . . . wouldn’t know, Mistress.”
“You’re lying. You’ve loved someone, and lost them. Who was she, I wonder? Some studious girl awed by the great scholar? Did she write poetry?” She pouted in mock sorrow. But for my all-consuming dread, the hatred I felt in that moment would have caused me to pitch her over the side and laugh as she drowned.
I chose the safest course, I lied. “She died, Mistress. In the war.”
“Oh.” She winced a little, turning away. “That’s very sad. You should get some rest. My beloved husband will have more slaughter for you to record on the morrow, no doubt.”
“Thank you, Mistress.” I bowed and strode to the steps leading to my cabin, trying no
t to run. Her husband’s innate cruelty was frightening, but now I knew by far the greatest danger on this ship came from his wife.
◆ ◆ ◆
I slept for perhaps two hours, dreaming my dreams of chaos and blood as the nightly epic of the Realm Guard’s defeat returned yet again. The Battle Lord’s face when he saw them turn to charge his own flank . . . Brother Caenis trying to rally those who fled . . .
On waking I forced down the gruel that had been left at my door and spent some hours converting my notes from the previous day into a suitably misleading account of the Volarian assault, being sure to note the careful preparations the general had made for a prolonged struggle within the city walls.
I was called to the deck a short while later, finding he had convened a council of war, his senior officers standing around the map table as he listened to a report from the division commander. “We had some success with burning them out, Honoured General,” the man said, fatigue and grime etched into his face. “But they were quick to adapt, creating breaks between the streets, preventing the fires from spreading. Also, much of the city is constructed from stone, it doesn’t burn so easily. And the men . . . fire knows no friend, it claimed almost as many of ours as of theirs. Morale is . . . poor.”
“If your soldiers are so keen on shitting themselves,” the general replied, “we have overseers aplenty skilled in the art of flogging obedience into reluctant men.” His gaze swivelled to the nearest unfortunate, a Free Sword commander with smoke-blackened features and a recently stitched cut on his cheek. “How about you? Hand out any floggings yesterday?”
“Four, Honoured General,” the man replied in a hoarse voice.
“Then make it six today.” His gaze roamed the table in search of more prey. “You!” He jabbed a finger at a man clad in the garb of the engineers who serviced the ballista and mangonels. “My little trick with the prisoners. Did you try it?”
“We did, Honoured General,” the man confirmed. “Fifty heads cast over the walls, as you instructed.”
“And?”
The man faltered and the division commander spoke up. “The enemy have prisoners of their own, Honoured General. They threw fifty heads back at us over the barricades.”
“The witch’s doing,” the commander of a Varitai battalion muttered softly.
The general’s eyes blazed at him, his finger shooting out like a spear. “This man is demoted to the ranks. Get him out of my sight and make sure he’s in the first charge today.”
He fixed his gaze on the map as the miscreant was led away. “Against all sense and history,” he murmured. “When the walls fall the city falls, and the victors reap the reward of plunder and flesh. It has always been thus.” His head came up, eyes finding me. “Is that not so, my scholarly slave?”
It could be a trap or just a sign of his ignorance. In either case I had no time to ponder a careful lie. “Forgive me, master, but no. There is a historical parallel for this current . . . difficulty.”
“Parallel,” he repeated softly, straightening to bark a laugh, heartily echoed by the relieved officers. The general spread his arms, eyebrows raised. “Then educate us ignorant Volarian fools, oh great Verniers. When and where for this parallel?”
“The Forging Age, Master. Near eight hundred years ago, the wars that forged the Volarian Empire.”
“I know what the Forging Age was, you Alpiran wretch.” He glared at me in suppressed rage and I experienced a certainty that my continued existence owed much to his wife’s influence. “Go on,” he rasped when his anger subsided.
“The city of Kethia,” I said. “For which the modern province of Eskethia is named. It was last to fall to the Imperial host, holding out for the better part of a year before the walls fell, but the battle didn’t end. The city’s king, a renowned warrior and, legends say, great user of magics, inspired his people to feats of endurance beyond imagining. Every house became a fortress, every street a battlefield. It’s said despair and terror gripped the Imperial soldiery, for surely this city would never fall.”
“But it did,” the general said. “I’ve walked the ruins of old Kethia myself.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. “The tide of battle turned when the Council appointed a new commander, Vartek, known to history as the Spear-point, for he always led his men into battle, always the first to meet the enemy line. His fearless example dispelled his men’s fears. It took weeks of fighting, but Kethia fell, all the menfolk killed and the women and children taken as slaves.”
Silenced reigned, the general staring at me in frozen fury. I kept as still as I could, my face impassive. Readers should understand that my words were not courageous, I had intended no insult in the obvious implication they held. I had merely obeyed the command of my master by voicing historical fact, at least as far as the sources relate it.
“Honoured Husband.” Fornella had appeared on deck, dressed in a simple gown of white muslin, a red satin shawl over her shoulders. She went to her husband’s side and placed a wine cup next to his hand. “Have another drink, true-heart. Perhaps it’ll distract you from the ancient doggerel my expensive slave offers.”
Slowly the general lifted the wine cup and drank, his gaze remaining fixed on me for long enough to ensure knowledge of impending and severe punishment. “How many slaves have we taken in this province?” he asked, turning to the divisional commander.
“Not so many as from the others, Honoured General. Perhaps three thousand.”
“Five hundred heads tomorrow then,” the general told the engineer. “Have them blinded first. Exact some pain before the beheading, within earshot of the barricades, make them call to their families. Any of ours they behead in answer are no loss. Only a coward becomes a prisoner. If they’re still fighting the day after, make it a thousand more.” He drained the wine cup and tossed it aside, grinning at me. “See, slave? I too know how to provide a fine example.”
CHAPTER ONE
Reva
“I will not wear that.”
The Lady Veliss smiled, holding the pale blue dress up as Reva backed away. “But it complements your hair so,” she said. “At least try it on.”
“Where are my own clothes?” Reva demanded.
“Burned, I hope. Such rags are hardly fit for the niece of the Fief Lord.”
“Then leave me as I am.” She wore a plain cotton shift left by the maid who had brought breakfast. Her uncle’s guards had brought her to this room the night before, the manor in an uproar as Veliss commanded every room and closet searched for more intruders. Reva had little awareness of the commotion, dazed by a welter of despair and grief that left her drained, capable only of stumbling along as she was bade, deaf to any question. Kill her, the priest had said. Kill her . . .
The room held a large bed onto which she had collapsed almost immediately, curling up to hug her knees, hating the tears flowing down her face. Kill her . . . The sleep that claimed her had been dreamless and absolute. When she awoke she was naked beneath the bedclothes and a maid was placing a breakfast tray on the dressing table as a guard stood by the door. She had never imagined she would be so senseless as to allow herself to be undressed without waking.
Veliss’s eyes tracked over her with unabashed admiration. “I should love to. But I think your uncle would appreciate a tad more modesty.” She tossed the dress onto the bed and continued to stare at Reva, a faint smile curling her full lips.
“You are unseemly,” Reva muttered, reaching for the dress.
Veliss laughed a little, turning to the door. “A guard will escort you down when you’re ready.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Her uncle was in his garden, seated at a small table amidst the topiary in company with a bottle of wine, already three-quarters empty although Reva judged the hour as somewhere past the ninth bell. Lying next to the bottle was the sword she had stolen the night before. The Lady Veliss stood nearby,
reading from a scroll.
“My brave niece!” The Fief Lord’s smile was broad and warm as he rose to greet her. She allowed herself to be embraced, grimacing a little at the stain of wine on his breath as he pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“How did you know my name?” she asked as he drew back.
“Ah, so your grandparents named you for her.” He returned to the table, gesturing at the empty chair. “I’m glad.”
“Grandparents?” she asked, staying on her feet, casting her gaze around the gardens. So many guards.
“Yes.” He seemed puzzled. “They raised you, did they not?”
At that moment Reva abandoned all thought of escape. She went to the empty chair and sat down. “My grandparents are dead,” she said. “My mother is dead. My father . . .” She fell to silence for a moment. He needed little education on her father. “Why didn’t you let them kill me?”
He laughed and poured more wine into his glass. “What kind of uncle would that make me?”
“You knew my mother?”
“Indeed I did. Not so well as your father, obviously. But I remember her very well.” His reddened eyes roamed her face. “Such a very pretty thing. So lively too. Little wonder Hentes fell for her so. When I saw you I thought her ghost had come to save me. You are her very image, but for your eyes. They are all Hentes.”
Fell for her? The priest had left her no illusions about her parents’ relationship. Your mother was a whore, he had told her simply. One of many to tempt the Trueblade before the Father graced him with His word. Now you have the chance to redeem her sin, give meaning to your misbegotten life.
“If only she hadn’t been a maid, they might have married,” her uncle continued. “Your grandfather’s rage was a thing to see when it transpired you were on the way. There had been other girls over the years, of course, a smattering of bastards, but none he wanted to keep. Reva was packed off back to her parents’ farm with a suitably large purse, and Hentes sent to the Nilsaelin border to deal with a particularly nasty band of outlaws. When word reached him of your mother’s death in childbirth, I wondered if it wasn’t his sorrow that made him so reckless. The old Hentes would never have charged a bowman standing thirty feet away.”