Legacy of Ash

by Matthew Ward

  “They’ve been worse.”

  Which also meant they’d been better. “Are we any closer?”

  “The weapon situation’s improving. Between the Thrakkians and our sympathisers back in Tressia, we’ve enough blades for a small army.”

  “And armour?”

  “That’s harder – to get hold of, and to conceal – but we’ve quite the foundry up and running in the Larwater caves. Gavamor got his hands on a simarka amulet. It’s damaged, but he reckons he can make copies, given time.”

  That was good news. The simarka were simple-minded, and took instruction from proctors, or else from the wearer of an amulet. With enough amulets, the resistance could neutralise one of the strongest weapons at Governor Yanda’s command. Maybe even turn it back on their oppressors. “How long?”

  “Weeks. Months. Maybe never. You know how these things go.”

  “We could bring Gavamor here? Anastacia could help him.”

  “Anastacia could not,” said Anastacia. “She’s more sense than to mess with caged sunlight.”

  Revekah shot her an unfriendly glance, but nodded. “And how would you explain his presence? To your sister, if no one else. I take it you’ve still not told her?”

  Josiri shook his head. “Better she’s kept out of it.”

  “It’s her fight as much as it is yours.”

  “Not as far as she’s concerned.”

  “Only because you’ve cosseted her,” Revekah snapped. The lines on her face smoothed. “I shouldn’t have said that. My apologies.”

  Josiri grunted. “For speaking your mind? But Calenne’s chosen her path. I won’t interfere.”

  “It may not matter anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Hadari are massing beyond Trelszon Pass. Crovan thinks they’re preparing to invade.” Shrewd eyes read his expression. “You’ve heard nothing?”

  “Not a whisper.” No wonder Makrov was on edge. Every blade the Council had in the Southshires was pointed in, not out. If the Hadari Empire made passage west over the Greyridge Mountains . . . “Why did no one tell me?”

  “Because they’re worried what you might do,” said Anastacia.

  Revekah nodded. “The Council aren’t fools. They’re keeping temptation from you.”

  Josiri’s stomach lurched. “They think I’d sell our people out to the Hadari?”

  Another shrug. “Crovan thinks you should. When enemies are your only recourse . . .”

  “. . . choose the one with least to gain,” Josiri finished. “I know.”

  She drew a dagger from her belt and set it point-down in the soil, turning the blade this way and that. “Could be that Crovan’s right.”

  “What do you think?”

  Revekah flipped the dagger’s point skyward. “I think I’m Tressian, even if those inbreds in the north have forgotten that. First of the Emperor’s Immortals sets foot over the mountains gets my steel in his heart. But plenty agree with Crovan. They’re tired, Josiri. They want a way out. They think the Hadari will give them one.”

  “A year. Eighteen months. We’ll be ready.”

  “You said that last year,” said Anastacia. “And the year before. And the year before that. Dawntithes come and Dawntithes go. And still you wait.”

  “She’s right,” said Revekah. “There’ll never be a perfect time. You’ve worked wonders these last few years – even Crovan acknowledges that.”

  “I did little more than bring you together. Kept you focused on the goal.”

  “You’ve brought us hope. Leadership. If you step out of the shadows, others will follow.”

  Josiri scowled, lost in memories of clandestine meetings. The fear of discovery. The elation of new alliances, and growing opportunity. The fear returning as the prospect of uprising brought with it the spectre of defeat.

  “Too many still think I’m collaborating with the Council.”

  “All the more reason to end this pretence. I’ll vouch for you. So will Crovan. You’ll prove the rest through actions.”

  Josiri strove to ignore that familiar, gnawing frustration. “The Council will crack down harder than ever. Makrov’s already talking about another exodus.”

  Revekah’s eyes flashed. “Good. It’ll remind our people of what they’ve already lost. They’ll rise up in their thousands before the first transport ship sails north.”

  “My mother thought the same. And look what happened to her. We’re not ready.”

  Josiri paused. Was that true? Or was he speaking out of fear? A Trelan had led hundreds to their deaths less than a generation ago. His failure would seal the Southshires’ fate. It weighed on his conscience. Never more so than in the long, dark hours before the dawn when Anastacia was snoring.

  His mother had spoken of the loneliness of leadership, of holding sway over decisions no other could make. As a boy, he’d thought it nothing. As a young man struggling with Zanya’s aftermath, he’d dismissed her sentiment as arrogance. Only now did he feel the aching truth.

  If only he’d someone to confide in. Dignity forbade he confess his fears to Revekah or Crovan. Anastacia wouldn’t understand. For all that she appeared mortal flesh – for all the warmth of her embrace – she never grasped concepts of uncertainty, and consequence. Maybe that was why she fascinated him so.

  Perhaps he should have confessed the truth to Calenne. At least then the burden would be shared. But no. She’d made her decision. He’d have to make his. Before events made it for him.

  But there was time yet. Or so he prayed.

  “We’re not ready,” he repeated. “The Republic’s done too good a job of keeping the people docile. I’ve done too good a job. We need to shake them from complacency first. I need you to understand that. And I need you to convince Crovan.”

  “Of course.” Disappointment coursed thick through Revekah’s voice. “I stood with your mother. My loyalty’s yours until the day I die. But when that day comes I want to face it free, not hiding in the woods, haunted by what might have been.”

  Anastacia’s lips curled into a sneer, though she had the good sense to say nothing.

  Josiri laid a hand on Revekah’s shoulder. “You won’t. The Phoenix will rise. You’ll be there to see it. I promise.”

  “And the Hadari?”

  He stared up at the moon. Were the Hadari even now pleading with Ashana for swift victory in the Southshires? Everything had its reflection. Night and day. Ashana and Lumestra. Empire and Republic. All save the Southshires. Where did they belong? And what part did Josiri Trelan have to play?

  “The Hadari remain the Council’s problem, until they become ours.”

  Revekah set her hand over his, her bony grip firm. “I suppose that will have to do. But you didn’t venture out here to offer a pledge to an old woman. What did you want of Crovan?”

  Josiri blinked. Lost in the perils and possibilities of the future, he’d quite forgotten. His wants seemed trivial – even childish – when set against the prospect of invasion. But perhaps – just perhaps – they were precisely what was needed.

  “To ask a favour,” he said. “It concerns Makrov.”

  “Our good archimandrite?” A smile gleamed. “I’m listening.”

  Everything chafed. The shirt, the leather hunter’s coat. The britches . . . the britches most of all. Melanna longed for silken battle-robes. Even one of the embroidered dresses she wore when taking her place alongside her royal peers in the Hadari Golden Court. The latter wouldn’t have been practical among the briars and branches, but at least she’d have been comfortable. She couldn’t conjure how Tressians marched in such constricting garb, much less fought battles.

  Melanna was to do neither that night. This was merely another step in familiarising herself with the lay of the land. It was more than her father had sanctioned, but it was far less than she longed for. She enjoyed more freedom than any other princessa before her – let alone one of her tender eighteen winters.

  Branches crackled on the dark
ened slopes. Too much and too often to be creatures of the night. The wind bore voices through the moonlit trees. Urgent. Strident. Pained.

  Melanna crouched, hand on the dagger at her belt. She’d have preferred a sword. Alas, such was denied to her.

  Motionless, she let the sounds weave colour and form into the silvered nightscape, savouring the soft, damp fragrance of disturbed soil. Four Tressians. Maybe five. Walking with their usual graceless tread. Following the streambed at the hill’s foot, two score paces distant. Not arrayed as hunters – at least, not hunting her. Ashana be praised for that small mercy.

  The commotion moved off to the west. Good sense dictated she withdraw. Garbed as a Tressian though she was, there was no hiding the olive skin that was so rare in the Republic but so common beyond its eastern border, nor her loose, black tresses. She refused to plait her hair in the style of Tressian nobility, let alone crop it in the fashion of their pauper-class. Were she taken, her captors would soon deem what she was, even if exactly who remained beyond their wit.

  But then Melanna had never been one for caution, even that born of good sense.

  She threaded her way through the undergrowth, skirting tangled or muddied paths in favour of ground that would bear no sign of her passage. An old game, practised as a child beneath the eaves of the sprawling forest of Fellhallow.

  A thin cry and a crash of branches heralded the hunt’s end. Dark shapes converged on a fallen man. He lay on heels and hands in a tangle of ivy, scarlet robes muddied and torn, and his heavy jowls taut with rage. Misplaced defiance when confronted by four drawn swords.

  “Wolf’s-heads!” The man’s fury did nothing to hide a northwealder’s immaculate nasal diction. “You’ll hang for this!”

  Laughter pealed through the night.

  “Brave words, my lord archimandrite.” The woman shouted to be heard above her fellows. “You weren’t quite so bold in the fight.”

  Keeping low, Melanna crept towards the confrontation and sheltered behind a stump. The speaker was an older woman; thin, with cropped white hair and a patchwork phoenix tabard belted tight across her chest. Her companions were men, heavyset and rough-shaven. They waited on the woman’s lead, expectant and respectful. Melanna envied her that. In Tressia, a daughter was every bit as respected as a son, not a commodity wrapped in damask.

  “I am a servant of Lumestra, not a soldier.” The man spoke with haughty pride.

  The old woman’s sword-tip tapped the underside of his chin. “I know who you are, Arzro Makrov. You’ve blood enough on your hands for a hundred soldiers. Someday, that debt will come due, eminence.”

  “Better it be now,” muttered another wolf’s-head. “Save the bother later.”

  Agreement rumbled about the group.

  The woman shook her head. “Kill him, and they’ll send another. No shortage of worthies.”

  A wolf’s-head stalked closer to the man, a grim smile on his lips. “All of ’em bleed.”

  “No.” The woman’s tone brooked no argument. “There’s more than one way to deliver a message.”

  “I still say we kill him.”

  “And if they send Viktor Akadra in his place?” The woman shook her head. “What then?”

  The wolf’s-head spat. His face paled beneath its thick stubble. “Then we kill him, too.”

  “You’re a fool.”

  “Then why’d you have us do this?”

  The woman grinned. “Why else? For the coin in his saddlebags. And because even so humble a functionary as his excellency can be humbled further.” She turned her gaze on Makrov. “Strip.”

  A muscle danced in Makrov’s cheek. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  The woman flicked her wrist. The sword-point prodded the fleshy folds of the archimandrite’s chin. “You will, or I’ll have my lads assist. And they’ll be a sight rougher.”

  Quivering with anger, Makrov rose to his feet. Fingers fumbled at heavy buttons, and scarlet robes tumbled into the mud. Embroidered waistcoat and cotton shirt followed.

  “And the rest, my lord.” The woman shrugged. “Let’s give Ashana a good view. Not often she’s granted clear sight of one of her sister’s blessed priests.”

  Makrov, sword-point still at his throat, fumbled with boots and britches. Melanna looked on in morbid fascination and wondered if the archimandrite would make further protest. He did not, but the gleam in his eye promised retribution.

  Woollen underclothes joined the growing pile. The woman withdrew her sword. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  The archimandrite shot her a look of pure poison but said nothing. Even stark naked and shivering, he clung to dignity.

  The woman pointed away downhill. “Well, off you go. Steer clear of the villages. Don’t want to scare the children, do we?”

  The slap of sword on buttock sent the archimandrite lurching away.

  Even before he was lost to sight, the laughing wolf’s-heads began bundling up the discarded clothes. Leaving them to it, Melanna slipped away uphill. The night was young, and she was determined not to waste it.

  Three

  The city of Tressia, bastion of the north and heart of the Republic, lay cloaked beneath the gloom of night. Barnacle-crusted kraikons stood waist-deep and motionless in the dockside’s tidal waters. The evening sun, still a-glimmer through the Silverway tavern’s leaded windows at the first pull, had long since slunk beneath the horizon. The vibrant bustle of day had retreated alongside. The great city was subdued, and its river wharves a haunt for dubious endeavours. It was no place for the sons and daughters of quality to seek their pleasures, and it was therefore inevitable that many did so.

  Malachi Reveque stared into the brimming tankard, awash with that peculiar caution born of inebriation. Jeers, arguments and snatches of dockers’ shanties burst from the fug of conversation and echoed beneath the Silverway’s sunken beams. Malachi knew it would continue well into morning.

  As would he, if he wasn’t careful.

  “I should be getting home.” He strained to be heard over the hubbub. “I promised Lilyana I’d not make a night of this.”

  Across the table, Kasamor leaned back in his chair. Eyes widened in mock affront. “What? You’d leave me to celebrate alone?”

  Rosa snorted and fixed him with a cold stare. “Thanks.”

  Kasamor waved an airy hand in dismissal. “I love you as a sister, but there’s a bond between men that you couldn’t begin to understand. Especially when that bond is tempered in battle, as was ours.” Matter settled, he raised his tankard for a generous swallow.

  Rosa’s expression didn’t flicker. “I see. When did you last stand your place in the line, Malachi?”

  Long enough ago to know he’d no place there. Malachi winced. How had he ended up the villain? Not that it was a surprise. United, they four were the closest of friends. Divided by absence – as they were that evening by perennial lateness – and conversation turned inevitably to contest.

  “I fight with words these days.”

  “And I fight with steel.” Rosa leaned low across the table. “In fact, I recall my sword saving Lord Kiradin’s hide at Tarvallion. And at Tregga’s Dike.”

  Kasamor bristled. “And Lord Kiradin remembers someone’s effusive thanks after that bloody business on Fellhallow’s southern edge. Might it have been you, oh storied Reaper of the Ravonn?”

  “Hah! My point precisely. You and I have shared a score of battlefields. Malachi hasn’t so much as held a sword in ten years.” She cracked a sour smile. “Tell me again how our bond is the lesser.”

  Knight of the Republic though Rosa was, she wielded her wits every bit as skilfully as her sword. She’d one day serve the Republic well on the Grand Council – if she could bear to forgo the green surcoat of the Essamere chapterhouse and her chamfered armour for a velvet gown. That she’d abandoned the former for the subtleties of civilian garb was a rare honour. She seemed softer without steel, but Malachi wasn’t fooled. He knew just how many Hadari she’d s
ent into the mists. And besides, even now the sword-belt remained. No amount of reason could have persuaded her to strut about unarmed.

  Kasamor would never reach council rank. He’d a tendency to speak without thinking, strong drink or no. It was part of his charm. But on this one occasion, Kasamor held his tongue and glowered at Rosa. She arched a knowing eyebrow.

  Malachi stifled a grin. The lines of battle were shifting. The kind thing would be to deflect Rosa’s ire. Then again, Kasamor’s escape would only hasten Malachi’s own turn as underdog. So he glugged a mouthful of ale, wiped his lips, and stoked the fires.

  “You mustn’t mind him,” he said. “Kasamor’s worried he’ll not resist your charms if I leave you alone.”

  Joking aside, Rosa and Kasamor would have made a handsome couple. They shared hair the colour of ripened wheat, and eyes as pale and blue as the winter skies. Rosa’s face was that of a divine serathi – if that serathi was given to scowling. Kasamor had a lantern jaw and heavy brow that echoed portraits of kings long dead. But they’d been friends too long. They all had. Any lingering attraction lay buried beneath a lifetime of faults and foibles witnessed at close hand.

  Malachi was content with his own unremarkable looks. Even if his dark hair was already flecked with grey. A honed mind was a far more valuable tool than a handsome face, and lasted longer.

  Rosa snorted. “I’d sooner kiss a goat.”

  Malachi grinned into his tankard.

  “And why not?” mused Kasamor. “We all know you’ve a thing for beards.”

  “Just as we all know that you can’t grow a beard worthy of the name.”

  Kasamor slumped against the chair’s backrest. He clapped his hands across his chest in mock pain. “Your words . . . They’re a blade in my heart.”

  Rosa chuckled. “It’s a large target. You’ll survive.”

  Hands still to his chest, Kasamor closed his eyes. “Not so. Even now, I hear the flutter of sable wings. Lumestra sends her handmaidens. They’ll weep golden tears as they carry me off.”

  “I’m not sure the serathi weep tears for anyone, much less for a man.” Rosa hooked an eyebrow. “Then again, you’re barely a man, are you?”