“Then you are dangerously close to disobeying orders. Put the damned thing in your mouth.”
She glared at him but said nothing as she complied.
“I am not trying to abate your pain or save your tongue from being bitten off; the handkerchief is just an excuse to get you to stop talking,” Anborn said as he gently removed her armor and tore her shirt open with his dagger; he winced at the sight of the wound, knowing it was painful. “On second thought, perhaps I would have achieved my objective better if I had let you bite your tongue off after all.” He waited for the retort he knew was coming.
Rhapsody said nothing.
The Lord Marshal continued to wait, applying pressure to the wound, until one of the archers returned with bandages, clean rags, and calendula, a flower-based tincture used to prevent infection and inflammation. The man departed hastily, and Anborn set to removing the arrow, wishing he had taken it himself.
He cleaned and dressed the wound, then bandaged her.
“Start singing your song of healing,” Anborn said, holding her shoulder to stanch the blood. “I need you back in fighting form immediately.”
“I can’t,” Rhapsody said, her face pale but set grimly. “Thank—you for taking the arrow out.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” the Lord Marshal demanded harshly.
She was struggling to breathe in a regular pattern.
“I can’t remember my true name,” she said between measured breaths. “You of all people should understand why I can’t heal myself. I will just have to endure like anyone else would. Stop babying me.”
Anborn fell silent. After a moment he returned to addressing her wound.
“Beloved niece-in-law,” he said quietly as he tied off the bandage, “I know the loss of your son has cut out your heart. But you do know it’s temporary, and that he is safe, do you not?”
“Yes.” Rhapsody struggled to sit up.
Anborn’s hand came to rest on her face. He turned it to allow him to look into her eyes.
“M’lady,” he said softly, “you are cold—not as a result of the arrow, but of a completely different wound. I beg you—don’t let that coldness ruin you. The loss to the world would be heinous, but it would be the end of me, truly it would.”
Rhapsody stared at him. After a moment, she lowered her gaze.
“I will try,” she said finally. “I just don’t know how. I feel nothing, Anborn. Nothing.” She winced in pain. “Well, nothing emotional. My chest hurts like hrekin.”
The Lord Marshal sighed, then nodded. He had spent a thousand years in just such a state.
“I understand better than you know,” he said. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Serviceable. Thank you.”
Anborn nodded again. “Good. Now we’ll get you to a hospice in Bethany; I will arrange an armored carriage and my elite regiment—”
“No, I’m sorry. I have to get to Tyrian.” Rhapsody attempted to tie her shirt up without success. “The same devastation through iacxsis attack that destroyed Avonderre Harbor has been visited upon Port Tallono as well. Rial needs me, and I need to be with my people. Unless you have specific requirements for me in the next few weeks, I want to go to Tyrian.”
Anborn waited until her gaze returned to him, and met it.
“My only requirement of you at the moment is that you stay safe,” he said seriously as he tied her shirt up for her. “There will come a time when, I suspect, I will specifically have need of your skills in battle.” His voice dropped in volume to just above a whisper. “When your husband returns, when the ports are liberated and the blockade lifted, I want to hold a war council to assess the continent’s status. I’ve done some calculations, and it is growing apparent to me that in order to survive we will need to harness resources other than what we have.”
Rhapsody listened intently.
Anborn’s eyes took on a gleam, though what it represented, Rhapsody could not tell. Excitement, perhaps. Or perhaps something more, something deeper. Realization.
Or maybe fear.
“Constantin and I had the opportunity to share and analyze the intelligence we collected or knew regarding Sorbold in the time we traveled together, before we arrived in Ylorc,” he said quietly. “From without, it is essentially unassailable.”
“That’s what we thought about the Bolglands.”
“True. But Talquist has been planning his ascension and conquest for a long time. I suspect he may have killed both the empress and the Crown Prince himself. He has resources, both here on the continent, and around the Known World, especially maritime resources, that dwarf any army we can field. At least from without.”
“You have said that twice now, from without,” Rhapsody said. “What is your plan from within?”
“I’m not certain yet. But I will say this. Talquist may have found allies and servants who share his plans—or he may have deceived some of them into believing that they do. It is very clear that he is a consummate liar. The trick will be to determine who shares his vision out of a similar self-interest—and who has been misled into believing that they are doing the right thing by throwing in their lots with him. That will be true both outside Sorbold, and inside it.
“A large and growing part of the population of Sorbold is not there by choice,” he continued as Rhapsody’s eyes took on a similar gleam. “Now, if the slaves who toil in his fields and factories, who sweat to death in his forges, could be convinced to join us, to throw off their shackles and rise up against Talquist, that would be something that might balance the scales. I have already begun to set it in motion.”
“But how would you do that?
Anborn’s smile brightened, along with his eyes.
“From within. But only once either you or Gwydion can hold the reins on this side of continent. Until that time, I will be your loyal coachman.”
A small smile came over Rhapsody’s face.
“Excellent. Now, can we see about getting me that armored carriage and regiment you mentioned—only point it southwest in the direction of Tyrian?”
Anborn laughed and kissed her hand.
“As my lady commands. Now, would you care to explain to me how you got so proficient in the use of a whip made of a dragon’s tongue? I don’t suspect that’s training they provide in Namer school.”
“No, they don’t,” Rhapsody admitted. “I have been practicing on crows. All the way home from the Deep Kingdom, in fact. I have great incentive—they make such a satisfying sound when they explode. I was a farm child; I hate crows. In fact, I don’t recall much about those days, having given that name away, but one thing I do remember is how much I hate crows. Snapping them from the skies was the most fun I remember having in a long while.”
Anborn laughed. “Well, imagine that Talquist has a caw to him, and think about what fun it will be to snap him from his tower in Jierna Tal and hurl him a thousand feet into the chasm below. Witnessing that might be the most fun I would have had in a long while.”
* * *
Inside the walls of the broken city of Sepulvarta, Fhremus had mustered his field commanders who had survived the rout.
“I will leave within the hour,” he said to the line of men staring stonily back at him. “I must go to Jierna’sid personally to explain the loss—this is not news that the emperor should receive by messenger or bird.” He scanned the line, his brain making note once again of the missing leaders in the rank beneath his, soldiers of superior skill and battlefield tactics, men he had never expected to lose in a raid on a farming village. Then his eye went to the most senior of the remaining commanders, and he tried not to let his hatred show in his voice.
“Titactyk, you are tasked with holding the city. Do not engage in maneuvers outside Sepulvarta’s walls until I return, or until you receive word of my death and replacement from the capitol.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“Gentlemen, you are dismissed. Return to your units and tend to the injured.”
5
8
TRAEG, NORTHWESTERN SEACOAST
Ashe had timed his arrival at the seacoast to coincide with the darkest part of the night, when the moon was hovering at the horizon, preparing to set into the arms of the sea.
He had left his cloak, well-made but plain and without ornamentation or insignia, wrapped around one of the thin men of the northern docks, homeless and hollow-eyed, most often old sailors who had lost their souls and more to the sea. It had served its purpose in shielding his vibrational signature during his travels from Highmeadow. He had no need of it now; perhaps it would bring some warmth to old bones that rattled each night in the harsh north wind.
The clothing he wore had been specially designed, tight-fitting to the heavy muscles of his chest and legs to allow for ease of movement in the water. He knew it mattered little; when Kirsdarke was in his hand beneath the waves, his body took on a vaporous state, becoming one with the element, allowing for easy movement with the tides.
As he stared over the sea at the falling moon, he heard a sweet voice in his memory, as clearly as he had heard it on the other side of Time, so long ago, and his own in reply, so young then, so full of belief in the Future.
Sam?
Yes?
Do you think we might see the ocean? Someday, I mean.
Of course. We can even live there if you want. Haven’t you ever seen it?
I’ve never left the farmlands, Sam, never in my whole life. I’ve always longed to see the ocean, though. My grandfather is a sailor, and all my life he has promised me that he would take me to sea one day. Until recently I believed it. But I’ve seen his ship.
How can that be, if you’ve never seen the sea?
Well, when he’s in port, it’s actually very tiny—about as big as my hand. And he keeps it on his mantel, in a bottle.
“I will remember Emily for you,” he whispered into the sea wind.
Then he drew his sword and walked over the sand, down to the smooth, wet threshold of lapping froth, into the rolling waves.
He did not look back.
59
PALACE OF JIERNA TAL, JIERNA’SID, SORBOLD
Long before Fhremus had even reached the tower staircase, Talquist knew he was coming.
The Merchant Emperor was standing in the early-morning light, a glass of sweet milky tea in his hand, looking east, watching a profusion of twisting smoke trails, tiny in the distance, curling toward the brightening sky. The corpulent clouds hanging high in the air above the destruction were bathed in the rosy colors of sunrise, in contrast with the gray-black haze that rose from the ground, almost like foggy remnants of insistent night refusing to be banished by daybreak.
Faron had consulted the scales, and had warned him of when the change in the battle outcome would occur, before the titan had left for Sepulvarta, so he had been expecting the news, though the sight was still disturbing.
He could be forgiven for the emotional reaction, the stomach clenching, the sweat prickling on the back of his neck.
Even if his rational mind knew better.
Fhremus’s footsteps were sounding now on the marble steps of the tower stairway.
Talquist took a sip of tea.
“Majesty?” Fhremus’s voice held a dread that made the emperor smile.
“Yes?”
“I regret to inform you that the forward line at Sepulvarta has been routed, m’lord, driven back to within the city walls, caught in a blockade by the forces of the Alliance.”
“Yes, I am aware.”
The supreme commander’s mouth snapped shut. For the span of fifty heartbeats he was silent. Then he summoned his voice.
“You had already heard, m’lord? How?”
Talquist’s smile grew broader as he took another draught of tea.
“I knew the date and the hour of the retreat a fortnight ago, before you deployed from Sepulvarta.”
“You—you did?” Fhremus was speaking slowly, because between his ears the world was turning at an odd angle.
“Of course,” Talquist said smugly. “Of course I knew, because it was the plan all along.”
“Our defeat was planned?”
“Yes. Would you like some tea, Fhremus? It’s really quite a lovely blend, from Marincaer. Has a touch of pepper in it, I think.”
The supreme commander put his hand for the first time on the railing of the stairway to steady himself as the emperor drained the rest of his beverage.
“Please—please explain, m’lord,” he stammered as the world continued to spin around him.
Finally the emperor turned away from the window and looked thoughtfully down the stairs at Fhremus.
“Taking Sepulvarta was, in addition to the opportunity to unseat the Patriarch, the establishment of bait,” he said gently, both amused and concerned at the look of shock on the supreme commander’s face. “I thought you knew that, Fhremus. I needed a reason for Anborn to withdraw the army of the Alliance from the northern citadels—Bethany, Bethe Corbair, Canderre, Yarim—leaving them vulnerable. He may have managed to protect the handful of farmers who live across the Krevensfield Plain, but he’s done it at the cost of his northern cities. As the moon disappears this night, the Icemen of the Hintervold, who have quietly been massing on the northern border of Roland, will advance while the Alliance lays siege to Sepulvarta, which is essentially an empty city to their south.” His words ground to a halt as laughter spilled out of his mouth at the evolving expression on Fhremus’s face.
“But m’lord—”
“The former Alliance garrisons in their northern provinces along the border have been emptied to support the cross-continental line of southern outposts, Anborn’s great Threshold of Death. Senile Cymrian fool! We have continued to prod those pathetic armed farming settlements with small iacxsis attacks to maintain his belief that the south was our target all along.”
Fhremus stared at him in silence.
“I’m sorry if I haven’t been clear in the planning stages,” Talquist said, turning back to the window. “The Diviner’s army will have little difficulty taking all of those former Alliance garrisons in the north while the Lord Cymrian’s forces are busy waiting for the all-but-empty holy city to surrender in the south. By the time they discover they are awaiting nothing, they will be trapped between the Icemen and the rest of your army, north and south, while the naval forces begin raining fire to cover the western advance from the sea.”
“Speaking of raining fire, m’lord, you do also know that Daystar Clarion has apparently entered the fray? That the iacxsis were blasted from the skies—”
“Of course. They were deployed specifically in Sepulvarta to bring the Lady Cymrian into battle.”
“Wh—if I might ask, m’lord, why?”
Talquist smiled broadly.
“Where do you suppose her child is now, Fhremus? Did she leave it in the care of the Bolg, or bring it with her? Either way, it will be in my hands soon. There will be an extremely fine bottle of twenty-year rum as a prize for whoever brings it to me first, you or Beliac. I told you that was my first priority, did I not?”
Fhremus said nothing, but his face went even paler than it had been when he had entered the stairwell. Finally he shook his head, as if shaking off a nightmare after waking from deep, disturbing sleep.
“Yes, m’lord. Orders?”
Talquist turned back to him slowly and smiled.
“Here are your orders, Fhremus, at least for today: take a few days’ leave. Go to the gypsy district or the flesh market and get yourself a nice bedwench or two, and then to the charcuteries or the smoke grills and have a fine supper. Sleep in tomorrow. Then come see me here at the beginning of the week, and we will set to planning the slaughter that is taking root nicely as we speak.”
“Yes, m’lord; thank you.” Fhremus bowed over a roiling stomach and waited until the Merchant Emperor had turned back once more to the window, then turned around himself and hurried down the staircase all the way to the first-floor entryway, where he ran to the
front door of the palace and out into the clear air again.
Breathing painfully.
60
HIGHMEADOW, NAVARNE
“Sir?”
Gwydion Navarne looked up from the pile of battlefield communiqués littering Ashe’s desk. Manus Kral, the late Gerald Owen’s replacement stood at the study door, his shadow from the light sconces stretching behind him into the darkness of the hallway.
“Yes, Manus?” He tried to keep his voice steady, but only managed to sound far younger even than his years.
“King Achmed of Ylorc, sir.” Manus stepped aside, allowing Achmed entrance to the room, then bowed politely and closed the door behind him.
Despite the late hour, Gwydion’s young face broke into a grin of immense relief.
“Your Majesty! How good to see you. I’d no idea you had left Ylorc. To what do I owe the honor of your presence?”
Achmed smiled slightly. The young duke of Navarne had aged a good deal since he had last seen him at his investiture, and though his dark hair looked nothing like his father’s, the expression in his eyes was a twin to what his father’s would have held. It gave the Bolg king the rare, pleasant sensation of being in Stephen Navarne’s presence again, if only for a moment.
“I need whatever intelligence you can provide about the Merchant Emperor,” he said bluntly. “Did Ashe leave behind any reports specifically about Talquist?”
Gwydion nodded as he rose from the desk.
“Indeed; he has quite a sheaf of documents, meticulously sorted by category. Wyrmkin apparently have an innate attention to detail that borders on obsessive.” He went to an armoire across the room and opened the doors, then pulled open a hanging file. He rifled through it, producing a fat leather portfolio a moment later, then crossed the room and offered it to the Bolg king.
Achmed accepted the file with a curt nod. He opened it and flipped through a number of the pages, then nodded again.
“If you would be good enough to wait a moment, I will summon Manus and set him to preparing a guest room and some supper for you,” Gwydion Navarne said. He started for the study’s door. “I don’t know if you heard; we lost our old chamberlain recently—he passed away a fortnight ago.”