by Kim Wedlock
But the only trace of their activity that touched Rathen's attention was the brief, routine movement at the edge of his vision among the languid flutter of red and ochre flags, washed out by the night. But he ignored them. His eyes didn't once trail outside. He was watching the commander.
The man sat at a table across the cave, a pocket of light in the darkness, with a severe look upon his face, listening intently with only the slightest degree of cynicism as Anthis spoke animatedly. Rathen couldn't hear the words, and with Anthis's back to him, he couldn't make a guess from his lips, either. But he found himself curiously without a care for it.
His eyes drifted absently towards the command table nearby. A number of candles were set upon it. If just one of them toppled, the maps and missives would catch quickly. Plans would become cinders in moments. But it would do little to stop any attacks, so there was no point hoping for it to happen. Orders would have already been read and committed to memory, and this was only one of several enemy camps. If this detachment fell or failed to act, others would fill in. And it was possible that there were more such encampments than officials believed. This one had certainly not been marked on any map, public notice or private correspondence.
But, ultimately, soldiers' movements could be anticipated.
His eyes moved briefly towards the umber mage who lay asleep on a cot nearby, his back turned to the world. He appeared no less broken in rest. And yet, to be so close at hand to his commander, the power he wielded must have exceeded that of the average Turundan mage. Not Rathen's own, of course, but that of the average soldier. And yet he did nothing about his poor treatment. None of them did. They had not rebelled, and it seemed unlikely that they ever would.
As such, their power and obedience made them far more difficult to predict, which in turn made Doana a greater threat.
He became suddenly aware of the rattling of his heart against his ribs, and bitterly realised that it wasn't that he didn't care, but that he was so completely focused upon ignoring that care and turning in on himself that he'd succeeded. In fact, the mage worried him. Their situation worried him. And Anthis acting as their representative particularly worried him.
Movement drew his eyes sharply back towards the pair. Anthis was approaching him. The sorrow in his young eyes appeared both closer to the surface and dulled, which made the streak of solemnity that pierced them even graver. He'd drank probably three or four pints of ale and yet still seemed to be holding himself together.
He stopped just short, at the edge of the nearest flame's light, and steadied that serious look onto him. "Rathen. Come." He hadn't slurred, but his few words seemed tactical.
Rathen said nothing in return. But after a moment of stubborn hesitation, he slipped Aria from his side to sleep alone upon the provided cot, and followed him guardedly back towards the table. His mouth, he realised, was bowed firmly in a grimace. He couldn't recall the last time it hadn't been.
The commander rose at his approach and began pouring ale into a third, slightly dented mug. He offered it towards him with a stare a little too gentle for a military man. "My condolences."
Rathen barely paused for thought. He took the tankard and drank. It was shockingly bitter, with the slightest aroma of burnt orange, but he found the heat quite welcoming. The accompanying handshake was spurned.
Untroubled, the commander seated himself, and Anthis followed. Rathen sat a moment later. "Mister Karth has told me everything."
"Has he really?" Rathen grunted, setting the mug down, a third drained already, and fixed the soldier at last with cold indifference.
"And while I find it unlikely," he continued easily, deliberately meeting the look, "I'm also inclined to believe it. At least insofar as your having nothing to do with your king or the Arana."
"But not towards the Arana's rogue."
"A king could not lose control over one of his assets like this."
"Would that the world were so simple."
"Oh it's far from simple. I also cannot personally wrap my mind around the idea that a single country could invoke war among eight - Skilan and Kalokh, Ivaea and Kasire, Dweron and Antide, and the attempts upon us and Voent, of course. And yet that, we have confirmed, is true."
Rathen continued to watch him carefully from beneath a veil of disdain. The commander stared back at him steadily. Anthis drew back into his mug.
"The Arana is trained in deception and passing unnoticed," Rathen spoke at last. "But you found them in your military. How?"
"Ah - that was a stroke of genius on the part of our Ma'as - lieutenant general - Lord Monatt'. He was shrewd enough to view with suspicion the wars the other nations dove into so zealously. When a few of our own councillors began pushing for war with Voent, he tiptoed aside and began to dig. He discovered the young women who had been whispering into their ears, and the individuals responsible for inflaming our general. None of them were who they seemed to be, but rather than making allegations without solid proof, he acted carefully and dug deeper to find what he needed to convince the council against it, utterly. In time, a few individuals were apprehended and questioned, and they were...persuaded to reveal the others."
"They spoke that easily?"
The man studied with intent the dents in his own tankard. "They were not given a choice. We have our methods, as I'm sure your Arana does; we pressed the right buttons, read them well enough to find the right leverage - the ma'as was a genius when it came down to that. We sent false reports in the spies' place to conceal our own actions while observing your own, which subsequently confirmed our suspicions that Turunda, curiously untouched, was orchestrating it all. Whittling down your enemies without taking off your gloves." His slate-grey eyes hardened as he looked at the pair, accusation clear at the surface despite his previous acquiescence to their innocence. "And so your claims that the king is not involved, we cannot believe. King Thunan is not a slow-witted king. No authority under his command could break away and continue to function as you suggest."
"Except that's exactly what the Arana has done," Rathen replied sedately. "The king may have ordered spies, but I can't believe that he would have invoked all of this war across the entire continent. Salus, on the other hand, I can."
"You know him well, then?"
"Well enough. And we have our own eyes and ears on the inside. We know what he is capable of. Sorely."
"Do you really? There is dissent? Or are you being fooled, yourselves?"
"Dissent."
"You sound certain."
"I am. As you should be."
"Mm." He leaned forwards then, his eyes slighting in open suspicion. Rathen didn't flinch. "But, now, if you're not tied to the Arana, and you're not working for the king...how did you come to be affiliated with these 'eyes and ears'?"
"Because they are working for the good of Turunda, as we are. Forces pulled us together. Don't get distracted."
"The epitome of vagueness."
"You'll live."
"Rathen."
He didn't spare Anthis a look. He raised his mug back to his lips and turned his eyes deliberately off into the darkness.
"He's telling the truth," Anthis assured the soldier a moment later.
"But there is, of course, no proof you can give me."
"Short of the king's word. And would you believe it?"
"Horses can lie."
"...Pardon?"
His dark eyebrows rose in a strangely keen, tentative hope. "'Straight from the horse's mouth'?"
Anthis blinked in bewilderment, but Rathen was still staring away into the cave, apparently no longer listening. "Uh, maybe, I suppose... But do you have any proof that the Arana is really to blame for all of these wars?"
"You doubt, and yet you act against them yourself?"
"I only point out that your proof is just as immaterial as ours. But...no, I suppose I don't doubt. He is just that driven..."
"It would seem so. And, unfortunately, we do have proof. On most counts. Kalokh were eager to ai
d us against you despite their losses when we informed them of your role in their downfall. And so I'm afraid that your word, and that of your king, would never be enough. Only time will prove your king's innocence, and we are not prepared to give time the chance."
"What are you doing here?"
His eyes flicked onto Rathen, who had grown only more acrid in his distance. "Putting an end to the sabotage."
"By skulking in the woods? Attacking retreating forces before running off yourself?"
The commander responded with only a tight-lipped smile. Rathen's grimace dropped suddenly in understanding. He sat forwards, abandoning his previous irritability entirely, and his voice contracted into a tight hiss. "You're going to kill the king."
"What?" Even against the yellow candlelight, the colour had visibly drained from Anthis's face.
"You plan to march on Kulokhar."
"Oh, goodness, no. That would be too obvious."
"But the king is your target."
"Naturally."
"But the king isn't involved."
"Your word."
Rathen beat his tankard against the table in frustration, interrupting the nocturnal peace. "We will find proof."
"I can't imagine what you have in mind. But you haven't the time."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm afraid we will be in position to resolve the situation in a matter of days."
"Then call it off!"
He chuckled with a bemused smile. "Call it off? Do I look like a general to you? I am a captain with only half of a company. I can't issue those orders."
"And when you kill an innocent king--"
"No king is innocent."
"He is innocent in these circumstances. What will happen then? Turunda will crush you."
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss our plans."
"No. Only confirm assumptions." He leaned forwards darkly. The candles sent fiendish shadows across his face. Anthis watched uneasily from the edge of his cup. "Then confirm this: you're a distraction. All of your encampments, your indirect attacks and withdrawals - you're here to occupy our military. You suspected spies, you found them, you caught them, and you 'persuaded' them. You deciphered their line of contact and intercepted it. And successfully convinced the Arana that nothing was amiss. And you have your own version of the Arana, to some degree, and it is they who will kill the king. They're in the palace right now, aren't they? Under orders to strike as soon as the opportunity arises, at whatever personal cost."
"You're a perceptive man."
"No, just a cynic exposed to too much deception and sacrifice."
"And what would you have me do? Inform my superiors that our intel is incorrect according to a ragtag group of enemy vigilantes? That the Arana has gone rogue and is not acting upon their king's orders? While their king somehow doesn't notice the insubordination taking place all around him and so does nothing at all to stop it?"
"Yes."
"Oh, look at that, I'm convinced!"
"Sarcasm is unbecoming of an officer."
"Isn't it just?" The captain put down his tankard and sat back once more in his chair, considering his two Turundan captives carefully. His air of confidence hadn't once shaken, set in place as firmly as stone. Rathen's own severity was equally fixed, and Anthis, too, had settled into a similar state. Finally, his dark lips pursed, and he spoke carefully. "You are trying to stop this 'Salus', yes? And he is the one you say is responsible for the carnage?"
"In a nutshell."
"Nutshell. I like that." He pondered again for another long moment, and neither said a word to intrude upon his deliberations. Unfortunately, others weren't so careful.
A man in unplated leather appeared beside him in the candle light and whispered at length into his ear. The captain's gaze didn't move from the pair until he'd finished, at which point a distasteful curl warped his lip. When he rose to his feet, Rathen and Anthis followed in protest. "It is late. You will rest here as my guests. You were abducted on my order, after all."
"We can't stay here."
"You have to call off the men in the palace!"
His eyebrow cocked disapprovingly. "Full of demands, aren't you? You could just as easily be my prisoners."
"As if we aren't already."
"I suppose that's true. But you still have your shoes."
"Our shoes?"
"Bare feet in unhappy circumstances does strange things to a man." He turned and marched away, gesturing towards another plated soldier to follow him. "Good night, gentlemen."
A deeply frustrated sigh vented from Anthis's lips, his eyes boring after him in irritation, while Rathen's stare was as hard as granite beside him. It was a long moment before the mage finally turned and moved rigidly back to the others at the side of the cave. Garon was the only one awake, sitting upon his cot and carelessly half-wrapped in his blanket, but his eyes were glass and his mind was far away. A state that had become his norm.
"We could try to leave," Anthis began quietly, falling in beside him, but Rathen cut him off with a sharp shake of his head.
"Not until he's called off his men. It shouldn't take long. If they're already in place and it's too late, he and all the rest will know soon enough."
"So for now, we just sit here and wait?"
"We have no choice." He reached the cot and immediately scooped the slumbering Aria up into his arms, the most open affection Anthis had seen him display in a week. For the vaguest moment, he managed to smile himself. And then his own conscience elbowed its way back in.
The night stood still. Though they were safe from the elements and lay upon a surface softer than rock or snow for the first time since Kulokhar, rest was impossible. The internal torment that paralysed them whenever they sought sleep continued to follow them like a spectre. Anthis doubted he'd caught more than a few minutes, and he suspected that Rathen, like Garon, hadn't even tried. But between the fitful and senseless images his own conscience subjected him to, the haze began to lift as summer light brushed over the snow.
When he opened his eyes, sleep having finally found him only half an hour before, the soldiers were already moving around. And Rathen and Garon were each red-eyed and wide awake.
They were offered food, rations little different to the dried and salted meat, stale bread, cheese and fruit they'd been sustaining themselves with along their journey, which seemed to Anthis to have started a lifetime ago, though he suspected that was simply what stress and loss would do. It had been early March when they'd first set out, he recalled, and Midsummer had only recently passed. Somehow, it couldn't have been any more than five and a half months.
While he relished in the distraction of the mundane thought, the captain approached and promptly apologised. "An army marches on his stomach," he explained, gesturing to the modest fare.
Anthis smiled wearily. "It's fine, thank you. But if you'd allowed us to leave, we wouldn't have had to intrude at all."
"Ah, but then I wouldn't be able to tell you that I am inclined to believe you."
"You told us that already," Rathen reminded him tersely. Another sleepless night had done little to reinstate his manners. "What's changed?"
"Oh you're hard to please." The captain dragged over a stool and sat among them while they ate. Each looked at him warily, but only Rathen wore any hostility. "You have suffered a loss. That much, I can see, is not a lie. And at the hands of Salus who, we can also agree, is enemy to us both, whether your king is involved or not. You seek to stop him. And you believe that that will also end the unrest?"
"It will prevent further stirrings. But the results of monarchs' actions are their own to handle."
"Of course, that goes without saying. But if I were to - and I make no promises - but if I were to try to get word to my commanding officer--"
"By the sounds of it, it will be too late by the time you manage to convince him."
The captain's grey eyes slowed. "I'm already considering the idea of overstepping martial boundaries, bu
t do you expect me to leap fully into the realms of insubordination?"
"I expect you to complete what you came here to do, but with a single amendment: don't kill the king. Stay your hand."
"Until...when? You're proven right? Or we are?"
Something flashed through Rathen's eyes then, something that, for the first time either he or Anthis had witnessed, sent a touch of hesitance through the soldier's cocksure demeanour. "I can get word to the king far quicker than your superior can to your assassins. I can even get word to the Arana. In a matter of hours, all of your plans will crumble, and not one of you will live long enough to be choked by the dust."
"A matter of hours?" The speed at which he'd regained his composure betrayed the depth of his uncertainty.
"The Arana will leap on the intel, and it won't be difficult to draw them right to it. Right to you."
"...You leave a man no choice."
"Then you'll do it?" Anthis asked charily, at which the captain sat forwards, a grave obligation lining his brow.
"As I said: I'm inclined to believe you. And if the Arana's leader truly has gone rogue and has started all of this on his own initiative, then removing King Thunan will not stop it. We will have only incensed you all and be left with nothing to show for it."
The commander paused for a long moment. Rathen and Anthis watched him patiently, concealing their hope where they could. Finally, he straightened. "I will send word to the assassins to stay their hand once they reach the king until the order is given. Assuming that it is not already too late. But I will not be able to delay them for long - my superior, and his above him, will wonder what the hold-up is. We only have so many supplies, and the assassins will take the opportunity as soon as it arises. They know they will not get out from it alive, and we know we will be the only suspects, so they have little intention of being too tactful."
