Word had come in of the successful assault on the army of the King in Bronze, and he had celebrated with a glass of wine with the Empress and Desh Krohan, but that had been all the time there was for celebration. Despite the very best efforts of Darsken Murdro and Pella, he could not gain access to the mind of Jost. She would not talk, she would not break, and all agreed that actual torture would do absolutely no good. The closest they came to actual physical torture was withholding food and water. The problem was, Merros had seen the Sa’ba Taalor move through the Blasted Lands and eat far less than any of his troops. It was possible that they could have ruined the girl by keeping the water away from her, but they all agreed, ultimately, that she would simply die rather than talk. They did not want her dead. She had secrets that they wanted.
Pella and Tataya were discussing the best ways to pull the information from her without risking anyone’s mind.
Desh understood the necessity, but refused to be any part of it. No one, not even Nachia, could sway him.
“Torture,” he reminded them, “is seldom a useful technique. People will tell you what they think you want to hear. They’ll make up all new stories for you if they think you’ll listen to them and just stop administering pain.”
The way he said it, Merros knew he was speaking from experience. He didn’t ask about the exact situations and Desh did not volunteer any particulars.
The girl under Desh’s care came with him almost everywhere, but she seldom spoke. Merros was the one who’d found her back when she was seeking the wizard. Still, though she was civil, she had little to say to him. She held her stomach like she was going to be ill, but she never was. Instead she simply followed Desh Krohan around, occasionally spoke to what had to be an imaginary friend and from time to time cried a silent tear or two. That was understandable. The hells she must have endured getting away from Trecharch and marching the hundreds of miles to reach Canhoon must have left her broken. Merros doubted very seriously that he would have been in any better shape than Cullen by the end of the situation.
Having won a victory against the Sa’ba Taalor, Merros and his soldiers were now busier than before. The riders he’d employed were not from Canhoon, obviously, but they were skilled and they were aggressive when it came to defending what was theirs. The plains they ran along were populated mostly by nomads and the occasional town. Had it not been for working out details with Desh Krohan about having the sorcerers pass along information, the attack would never have worked.
Now that it had, he wanted to employ it to better advantage. The Sooth was useful in finding the Sa’ba Taalor, but it had taken troops and, frankly, a little bit of chicanery to manage their one major victory to date. They’d known where the Sa’ba Taalor were. They’d been informed of boats that had been stolen. They’d set a trap and it had worked.
Captain Leno Nethalte had run the charge brilliantly. He was also, fortunately, one of the people who escaped the great mounts that came after the remaining Sa’ba Taalor.
The mage working with Nethalte – he could not remember the girl’s name to save his life. It had to be ten syllables long at least – had helped identify Lored, the King in Bronze. They had managed to kill one of the kings. That had to be a morale blow to the Sa’ba Taalor, but he had no idea how good a strike it had been.
He made a note to have Darsken Murdro mention the death to Jost. Maybe that would make her chatty.
Such were the thoughts that were going through Merros’s mind as he walked through the market on the way to Dretta’s home. He planned to surprise her with fresh fruit. The stuff was getting harder to come by every day, but one of the vendors, who got his fruit directly from the palace, had promised to set aside grapes, apples and Pabba for the general. Sometimes rank had its privileges.
As he approached the trader’s table the rioting began again. Merros could not have said what started it, but there was a scream and then a second and as he looked in that direction he saw the fight breaking out in earnest. Three or four men were doing their very best to take down a smaller figure, but it wasn’t going the way they wanted it to.
The first of the attackers stumbled back with a deep gash across his throat that bled like a waterfall until he fell backward and hit the cobblestones. That made more people scream, as one would expect, and the chaos began in earnest. The smaller figure brought an elbow around and drove it into the face of her assailant. Her assailant. That piqued Merros’s already high curiosity and he moved toward the fight. The man who’d been elbowed staggered back with shattered teeth falling from his mouth.
The woman used the broken-faced man’s torso as a springboard, planting both of her feet on his ribcage – cracking his sternum in the process – and then used her momentum to knee another man in the back of his head and neck. Something broke and he dropped to the ground.
The movement was enough to let Merros see past the hood that fell down, to let him see Dretta’s face as she killed her third assailant. He stared, dumbstruck, and watched the effortless way she drove her fingertips into the throat of her fourth assailant and left him choking on his blood. A move Merros had only ever seen once before.
When Swech killed one of the men who tried to rape her the first time she entered a city in Fellein.
A man tried to run from her. He held a satchel in his hand, and he was moving at high speed. Dretta pulled a knife from the-gods-alone knew where, and drove it into the back of his neck and he, too, fell to the ground. She pulled the knife from the man’s head even as she grabbed her collected groceries and shoved them back into her satchel.
As with so many of the Sa’ba Taalor, she seemed to look everywhere at once. Still, it took her a second to recognize him. The blade was still in her hand. It was not the sort of thing one found in Canhoon. It was a flat leaf of metal that had been painstakingly sharpened and was designed to be thrown.
It was the sort of blade Swech had used to cut his face, to kill Wollis March. But that was impossible, of course. Swech had gray skin and scars everywhere on her body. He knew that from firsthand experience.
He meant to say “Dretta”. He did. But when he opened his mouth, “Swech?”
Her eyes looked so broken just then. Her face was a mask of sorrow, even as the blade left her hand and sailed for him.
She was far enough away for instinct to have time to take over. His arm came up to ward off the blow even as he dropped down. The blade took him in his hand and drove through his palm, the tip emerging on the other side.
The Sa’ba Taalor seemed capable of ignoring pain. They managed to fight when they should have long since collapsed.
Merros envied them that. He felt his gorge rise and fought not to puke on himself as the wave of pain screamed through his arm.
The street was cold and hard and he fell on it, holding his damaged hand in the air.
He looked up just as Dretta, his Dretta, came at him, a thin blade that was absolutely foreign to him clutched in her grip. The grip of the weapon was held in her closed fingers, but instead of the blade coming from one end or the other of her hand, it ran from the outside of her grip in both directions. A metal blade sharpened and ready pushed along her arm, past her elbow in one direction and a solid six inches in front of her as well.
“Curse you for being so damned smart, Merros.” The words were not spoken in the common tongue of Fellein. They were Sa’ba Taalor.
Merros looked at her and his heart shattered. “Swech. Damn it, no.” He could barely breathe.
Her fist struck his face and drew away in a flash, and the double blade along her other hand pistoned back and came for him.
Dretta March’s body was grabbed and hurled backward with astonishing force. She tried to catch herself, tried to twist her body, but the attack was too fast and too brutal. She hit the wall closest to them and fell, grunting. She came back up just as quickly and drove the blade of her weapon into the face of her attacker.
The blade was sharp and strong and scraped along the stone face
of the Silent Soldier causing exactly no damage. She brought the longer end around to attack him on the backstroke of her swing and had the same effect.
And while she did that, the stone short sword of the stone man facing her cut through her stomach and deep into her chest, cleaving Swech’s heart in half.
Dretta March fell to the ground. She was dead before she landed.
Desh Krohan tended to the wound in Merros’s hand. “Stand still. You’ll only make this worse.”
Nachia paced around the room, doing her best to stay calm. Her best was not very good.
“What were you doing out on the streets alone?”
“I’m the general of all the Empire’s forces. How would I ever get the respect of the troops if I couldn’t walk home alone? Ow! Gods, Desh!”
The first Advisor tsked like a grandmother. “I told you not to move. You’re very lucky the blade didn’t sever a bone. It nicked one, which is probably the only reason it didn’t go through your hand and into your head.”
Desh looked at the wound and winced. He was being kind; the nick he spoke of was a cut though bone. Dretta March or Swech, whoever she’d been, had a deadly aim and threw knives with force enough to kill. His hand was the only reason he was alive. According to Merros the woman had aimed for his eyes.
“Where is her body?”
“Where you don’t need to look at it. She’s currently being examined by the Inquisitors.”
Merros nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“You’re either going to get guards or you stay at your offices here in the palace.” Nachia was not making a suggestion.
Merros nodded. “I’ll stay here. There’s no reason for me to leave.”
Snow was falling in a fury. By the time the City Guard had brought the March woman’s body to the palace she’d been frozen half solid and covered in a blanket of snow.
She’d been taken immediately to Darsken Murdro.
Merros had been brought to the private quarters hidden to the side of the throne room, and that was where he was still sitting, scowling and wincing and occasionally making faces like he would cry if he could get five minutes alone.
“You’ve torn the bloody bandages again. Oh, to dust with this.” Desh moved his hand and muttered a word and Merros let out a squeal of surprise. Nachia saw the small burst of light that moved from sorcerer to soldier. She saw the wound close itself completely.
She stared, and had to force her jaw shut.
“I don’t do that often. Don’t expect it.” Desh actually sounded different. His words were a little slurred. Not many would have noticed, but after a lifetime with the man teaching her, she knew the First Advisor well enough. “Move your fingers, make a fist, do it often for the next few hours or the scar tissue will steal mobility from you.”
“What did you do, Desh?” Merros looked at his hand as if it might be an alien life form and one that was possibly trying to kill him.
“I mended your wound. Don’t expect it a second time. It’s exhausting.”
“I had no idea you could manage such a feat.”
“Like I said. I don’t do it often.”
Merros muttered to himself, “I don’t know if I should thank you or strike you.”
Desh had a smirk on his lean face when he responded. “Go with the thanks. Striking a sorcerer is never wise. We have defenses.”
“Yes, well, then I suppose thank you is in order.” Merros was staring at his hand, moving his fingers, making fists, and frowning.
“As I said, keep working your hand or risk stiff fingers and a wrist that won’t turn easily. Not the best issues for a swordsman.”
Nachia nodded. She’d known that Desh could do that. She’d studied with him for a while; even if she seldom practiced even the simplest spells, she understood the concept.
“What made you suspect, Merros?”
“I’ve been a fighter my entire life, Nachia. I’ve trained and worked and even when I left the army I did some work as a mercenary. The only people I’ve ever seen fight that way were Sa’ba Taalor. They don’t swing their fists. They don’t… move the same way. She moved her feet along a man’s chest and broke him. It barely looked like she was touching him, but his ribs may as well have been crushed by a Pra-Moresh.”
He looked down at his hand again. “And the moves she made? Not every Sa’ba Taalor can do them. Swech told me she followed a god who believes in unarmed combat. I can’t say for sure if she was Swech. But when I said that name, she tried to kill me.”
“If there’s a way to know for certain, we’ll find it.”
“I’m going to have to examine her place. I need to know whether or not she had secrets in there. Gods! How could I be so damned stupid.”
Nachia shook her head. “None of that. She looked nothing like Swech. She had letters from Wollis March. She gave no sign that she was anyone else.”
Merros nodded, but his face didn’t say that he agreed. He was already wondering how best to approach her home and examine it.
“We can send the Inquisitors if you prefer. They are very, very good at finding secrets.”
The look that crossed his face was almost pain. “Yes. That would be for the best, I suppose.”
Nachia moved closer to her general. “I am so very sorry, Merros.” She could hardly be accused of being touchy, but she reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck from behind and rested her chin on the top of his head. Merros closed his eyes and took the comfort offered.
Desh waited a few moments before speaking again. “Should we discuss why it is that the Silent Army is now policing the Mid Wall for us?”
Nachia nodded against Merros’s hair and sighed. It was likely to be a long conversation.
There was nothing.
Pella stood by him throughout the process of him meticulously searching the body of the dead Dretta March. First Darsken examined her clothes and removed each item, carefully setting aside each of her numerous weapons. He scrutinized them, too, and noted that several of the items had poisoned reservoirs. There were also three metal vials that contained powders or fluids. Those were set aside as well, the better to let one of the sorcerers who dealt with potions examine them.
The body was female. There were no indications that she wore anything to hide who she was. If she were, in fact, a member of the Sa’ba Taalor, they had changed her appearance completely. Just to make absolutely certain, he peeled the flesh from one of her arms, examining the layers of skin carefully.
Pella tried examining the body with her sorcerous skills and came to the same conclusion. This was a human body. Nothing more. Nothing less. The cause of death was violent trauma and a sword through her chest.
There was one peculiarity.
While necromancy was forbidden in Fellein, Inquisitors were allowed to make exceptions and Darsken chose to use that loophole. The flesh was marked, the blood was employed and the air in the dead woman’s lungs was taken into his own in an effort to draw in any last remnants of her spirit that might linger.
There was nothing.
Darsken frowned and tried stronger magics, the sort that he used only when seeking to draw the spirit back to the body. It was a sorcery he did not like to use, but he had to know.
There was still nothing. Whatever had been inside the woman had been destroyed beyond his ability to find even a trace of her essence.
“Have you ever run across a situation like that before, Darsken?” Pella, who had been watching everything and writing notes for him could not quite grasp how that was possible. She was not alone.
“Never in my life. Not once.” He frowned and ran his fingers over the designs on his staff. “I have examined bones that were hundreds of years old and there was still something. The flesh you gave me from the dead soldiers who attacked, even that had some essence. It was how I identified the bodies. If I had not been told the name of this woman, there would be no way for me to know it.”
The body remained a mystery. It did not mo
ve; it did not reveal any secrets at all. On a few occasions a body might try to leave after necromancy had been employed and for that reason Darsken always placed a few markings on the corpses to be safe. He did so again, before he and Pella sought out the Empress. He needn’t have bothered. The body did not rise nor did it attempt to.
The body of Dretta March – born in flames when Swech needed a new form – remained unchanged save for the start of atrophy.
The Arkannen Mountain Range was close enough to see, but more than that, it was close enough to feel. The air moved between the mountains and swept across Canhoon. Anything left unanchored in the streets was taken by the breeze and carried over the side of the floating city and discarded down below.
The Sa’ba Taalor watched the objects falling from above with a wary eye. It wasn’t that long ago that a dozen or more screaming people plummeted from above and crashed into the ground with violent force. Even those that hit the river failed to survive the fall. It was simply too high.
The weather was going bad, at least for the people of Canhoon. The clouds were coming hard and hiding away even the hint of the mountains. No one was quite certain how far they were from the risk of collision. No one was happy about that fact, either.
The city continued on, moving at the same pace as ever and freezing as the cold winds howled along the alleyways and between the buildings.
The City Guard moved in squads now, backed by the Imperial Army stuck in Canhoon. There were no days of rest any longer and no times when they did not move in force, alongside the Silent Army, who moved of their own accord and spoke to no one and nothing.
Those who wanted to riot did not. They were either too afraid, or too sick.
The cause of the illness had finally been found, thanks to the poisons found on Dretta March’s body. Not all of the supplies for food in the city had been tainted, but most of them had. The levels were not enough to kill, but they were certainly enough to cripple.
The food provided for the Imperial Court came from Desh Krohan himself, who did not say where it came from but managed to supply enough to keep the palace running.
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