by S L Farrell
“Excellent,” Starkkapitan ca’Linnett nodded to the page. The relief was obvious on his face. “It was only a matter of persistence. Tell the offiziers to let them run. Have the horns call ‘Halt’ and. .”
“No,” Jan interrupted, striding up to them. “We pursue.”
Jan watched Ca’Linnett struggle not to let relief turn to irritation.
Ca’Cellibrecca simply blustered. “My Hirzg,” ca’Cellibrecca said, “it’s well past Second Call already and this is an excellent location to consolidate our forces. We should plan our final assault. We shouldn’t be reckless. .”
“Reckless?” Jan interrupted, and ca’Cellibrecca’s mouth closed as if a fist had struck his lower jaw. “Allesandra deserves her crown of lights tonight. We will pursue.” He tousled the girl’s hair, and she smiled up at him. “Starkkapitan ca’Linnett? I trust you have confidence in the strength of our forces and your ability to lead them, even if our Archigos does not?”
Cu’Linnett bowed low to Jan, hiding whatever expression might have crossed his face. “The Hirzg has given his orders,” he told the page. “Send word to the offiziers and have the horns call ‘Pursuit.’ ”
Jan watched the page, his face serious and drawn, ride away. He hugged Allesandra as the horns began to blare. She beamed up at him.
“We’ll rest tonight inside the walls of Nessantico,” he told her.
Justi ca’Mazzak
The courtiers, the sycophants, the chevarittai, the ca’-and-cu’: they gathered about Justi. He was surrounded by them while they cooed support and encouragement. He swaddled himself in their comfort, even though he glimpsed the uncertainty on their faces when they thought he wasn’t watching.
The pages had returned from the battlefields at three separate points around the city; the word was not good anywhere: the northern arm had been entirely routed and the Firenzcian forces were nearing the sections of the city outside the walls; the news was little better in the south, though the fens and marshes along the river worked as their ally there.
But there was one ray of hope: in the center, Commandant ca’Rudka had kept his men in order and was still holding back the main enemy force. It seemed that the Firenzcians could not break through him.
“Kraljiki,” the courtiers crooned, “everyone knew that it would not be a swift battle, and the closer to Nessantico the Hirzg comes, the less room he will have to maneuver and the more our resistance will stiffen.
The commandant is already demonstrating this. Hirzg ca’Vorl can’t take the city, not while your arm holds your sword. .”
If Justi noticed that the words were spiced with desperation, as if they were trying to convince themselves as much as him, he pretended not to notice. Instead, he nodded knowingly and gazed fiercely out from the wall at the Avi a’Firenzcia. Behind him, Nessantico seemed oddly quiet and deserted; ahead, the road and the fields beyond the last houses of the city swarmed with soldiers in blue and gold.
In their thousands, a bulwark against the Hirzg, they comforted him.
You have never been defeated, Kraljiki,” Bella ca’Nephri said loudly, and the ca’-and-cu’ murmured their agreement, all the chevarittai who had been his friends and cronies for decades now. “You will never be defeated.”
But when I went to war, it was the Hirzg’s army I had behind me. I never rode against a force that was the equal of ours, and I had Firenzcian-trained offiziers directing the Garde Civile, and Firenzcian troops swelling the infantry, and Firenzcian war-teni. .
He closed his mind to the doubts. He frowned more fiercely and gripped the pommel of his sword more tightly. “We will never be defeated,” he agreed. “Where is the Archigos?” he asked Renard, as always near his side. “I thought she would be here with me.”
“She told me to inform you that she has moved forward with the remaining war-teni and the Numetodo, Kraljiki,” Renard told him.
Justi frowned. “She did that without. .” he began, but there was a disturbance near the gate, the ranks of the Garde Civile parting to let a rider through: a page, the boy covered in dust and his horse lathered with sweat. He half-fell from the horse and staggered over to Justi, dropping to his knees before him. “Kraljiki,” he panted. “The commandant. . Could not stop the Firenzcians. . Falling back to the Fen Fields. . Garde Civile must come. . And the rest of the chevarittai. .”
Justi stared at the boy. The whispers were already spreading through the crowd, racing back into the city. Ca’Nephri and the other ca’-and-cu’
watched Justi, the masks momentarily struck from their faces. He could almost hear their thoughts. They were prepared to tell him whatever he wanted to hear, and they would be equally prepared to say whatever the Hirzg might want to hear, should he take the Sun Throne from Justi.
There was less loyalty in them than in the palais dogs.
As long as they thought Justi would remain Kraljiki, they would do as he asked. But if they believed he were about to fall, they would be on him, snarling and vicious. .
If you go out now, at least they will remember. At least they will say, “He died bravely.”
Justi chuckled at the boy, as if his reports were amusing. “Renard, please give this boy some refreshment. He’s had a hard ride and he’s done his task well. It seems I will have to go rescue our commandant.”
The sycophants laughed with him, their amusement edged with nervousness.
Justi drew his sword, and the crowd cheered. “We ride forward” he cried, “and we will show the Hirzg what happens when he rouses the ire of Nessantico.”
Their cheers rose as he urged his destrier forward, and the chevarittai closed around him and the troops of the Garde Civile surged through the gates of Nessantico to the sound of blaring horns.
They cheered, and Justi showed them a stern face, and he wondered whether he would ever ride through these gates again.
Ana ca’Seranta
Ana had sent the dozen or so most effective war-teni ahead with Commandant ca’Rudka and Karl. The others. . she wasn’t as certain about any of them-in more than one way.
The training with the Numetodo had been at best erratic. Ana found that she couldn’t blame the war-teni, given the way she’d reacted to seeing the Numetodo spell-magic. Many of them had resisted the
training, they’d scoffed and hesitated and argued with Karl, Mika, and the other Numetodo who tried to show them ways to speed their spells or to store them for future use. Several, like Ana, had found their faith tested enough that they’d become less rather than more effective.
Worse, she wondered whether when the time came-and she knew it would come-that ca’Cellibrecca called on them to obey him as Archigos rather than Ana, whether they would stay loyal to her at all.
But. . a handful had taken to the training with enthusiasm. And many of the Numetodo had set aside their suspicions and recent history and pledged their support to Nessantico. “The better of two ills,”
Karl had said to her when he brought the news. “We know well how ca’Cellibrecca would treat us.”
Is this what you want, Cenzi? Do You truly want me to defend a man who killed his own matarh and who would sacrifice me without a thought if he believed it would save him? Someone who used me in the same way Vatarh used me? I know ca’Cellibrecca and the Hirzg are no better and perhaps worse, but I could flee instead. I could run away with Karl, perhaps to his home or beyond into Mahri’s Westlands. Are You truly asking me to die here?
Are You saying that I must be willing to shed your blood and the blood of the teni who follow you for this? Is this is Your will? Is this why You brought me here? Please, I beg you, tell me. .
“Archigos!” Kenne’s voice broke in on her prayer. Ana, her head bowed and hands folded before her, brought her head up. “Look!”
Perhaps a half mile beyond the old gates of the city, the Avi a’Firenzcia made a turn eastward. Several buildings, the outliers of the city, were set there, with fields around them and the River Vaghian murmuring behind. The fiel
ds had, only a century before, been a low mosquito-infested swampland, frequently flooded when the rain-swollen Vaghian left its bed. But during the Kraljica’s reign, the Vaghian had been tamed with mounds of earthern banks, and the fens converted to farmland.
Ana had commandeered the second-story balcony of an inn there, at the curve of the road. From her vantage point, she could see out to where Kenne was pointing. The fields, like all the farmland to the east of the city, had been stripped and harvested early. The meadows were now muddy encampments. At the eastern edge of the camp, soldiers in the colors of Nessantico were pouring from a small woods bordering the fields, and she could hear distance-blurred shouting.
“The commandant’s outer line must have broken,” Kenne said, and Ana felt a stab of fear run through her for Karl. “They’re retreating. Yes, look, there are the chevarittai, and that’s the commandant’s personal banner.”
Ana had already turned. Her hand brushed the hard, heavy bulk of the glass ball Mahri had given her, in its leather pouch tucked in a pocket of her green robes, and she felt the tingling of the power within it through the cloth. “Gather the war-teni,” she said to Kenne. “We’re going to them. .”
The ride through the Nessantican troops seemed to take a turn of the glass, though she knew it was far less. The agitation was spreading through the gathered army: the conscripts and soldiers of the Garde Civile grabbed armor and weapons nervously, the offiziers were shouting and assembling them. Pages were rushing about, and cornets and zinkes were sounding their calls.
When they reached the banner of the commandant, the chaos was more ordered but no less frantic. “Archigos,” ca’Rudka said, his voice almost sounding relieved. “I’m glad you’re here. We need more warteni. If you’ll direct them-the teni banners are over there-you, Page, direct the Archigos.”
“The envoy?” she asked, almost afraid to voice the question.
Ca’Rudka nodded indulgently even in the midst of the rush. “He’s fine,” he told her. “And he’s amply demonstrated his worth. Go to the war-teni and you’ll find him. I’ll send word as to what we need you to do. Hurry, Archigos. There isn’t much time. Check on the war-teni for me, then come back here. I need to meet with the a’offiziers.”
She gave him the sign of Cenzi and followed the page south toward the Avi a’Firenczia, just behind the newly-coalescing lines. Among the trees and along the road, she could hear the sound of cornets and the call of offiziers with strange accents-the Firenzcians. A low rumble seemed to shake the earth.
She saw him. “Karl!” He turned. His face was streaked with soot and dirt, his clothes were filthy, and he looked exhausted. The war-teni with him looked no different. “I’ve brought the rest of the war-teni. You can rest, recover your strength.”
He shook his head. “No time,” he said. “They’re on our heels. Put them in position, but they have so many. .” He shrugged. “War-spells won’t be enough.”
“Then we must do something different,” she told him.
Orlandi ca’Cellibrecca
“You weren’t there with us, Archigos,” U’Teni cu’Kohnle said, the scorn far too obvious in his voice. They were riding quickly along the Avi a’Firenzcia just behind the Hirzg’s retinue, with the army an ocean around them, grim-faced. “I tell you that my warteni did all we could, and more. There should have been no time for response to our first volley of spells, Archigos-no time. But they did respond, and it was strong. This false Archigos and her war-teni are using the Numetodo. It has to be. It’s a shame, Archigos, that the Numetodo blight was not removed entirely in Nessantico, as the Hirzg suggested to you.”
Orlandi grimaced with the unsubtle rebuke, as much from the pounding his rear end was taking despite the cushioned seat of his carriage as from cu’Kohnle’s words. “The false Archigos will be dealt with,” he told cu’Kohnle, “as will the Numetodo: once I am seated back on the Archigos’ Temple throne. I assure you of that, U’Teni.”
He didn’t care for the man’s attitude, or the fact that cu’Kohnle seemed to consider himself a peer, or worse, a superior. I don’t take my orders from you, Archigos. That’s what the man’s expression seemed to say-that, and the impatience with which he twitched at his horse’s reins, ready to ride forward to the Hirzg, as if talking to Orlandi was a waste of his time. More worrisome was that the Hirzg seemed to admire the man; certainly Orlandi’s suggestion that the Archigos rather than cu’Kohnle should direct the war-teni had met a stony refusal from the Hirzg.
“U’Teni cu’Kohnle has served me very well thus far, and he understands both my tactics and my army. You don’t, Archigos.”
Orlandi was beginning to fear that the only reason the Hirzg was dragging him along was because of the title he held.
Well, he would show the Hirzg once he was back on the throne. He would demonstrate to the man that Concenzia was separate from Nessantico and the Holdings, that he ruled Concenzia and not the Kraljiki.
The Numetodo would be hanging from the bridges, as thick as pigeons, with the false Archigos among them. And U’Teni cu’Kohnle, with his arrogance, might just find himself serving in the Hellins. “Phah on the Numetodo,” Orlandi told the man, spitting over the side of his carriage.
“Our war-teni are stronger. We have Cenzi on our side.”
Cu’Kohnle gave the sign of Cenzi at the mention of His name, but his long nose wrinkled at the same time. “My war-teni are half exhausted, Archigos. And we will be entirely so before the day is done, it seems. I get no rest bandying words here. You asked for my report; I’ve given it to you. Now I need to consult with the Hirzg so he can direct the battle. With your leave, Archigos.”
“A moment yet, U’Teni. .” Orlandi began, but cu’Kohnle didn’t wait or listen. He kicked his horse into a gallop, hooves tearing clods from the ruts of the Avi that splattered against the sides of his carriage and tossed muddy droplets on Orlandi’s sleeve and shoulder.
The teni-driver of the carriage chanted, perhaps a bit too loudly.
The e’teni walking along the road beside the carriage looked carefully down at the ground. Orlandi wiped at his soiled robes.
Orlandi sank back into his seat as the carriage jolted over a pothole in the Avi. Through a gap in the trees, he thought he could glimpse the roofs of the taller buildings on the North Bank. He began to imagine his revenge on everything and everyone who had put him in this position.
That revenge, in his imagination, was pleasantly slow, detailed and creative.
Sergei ca’Rudka
The a’offiziers of the Garde Civile were huddled around Sergei. A broken door laid across two boulders served as a table, and a map was spread out on the raw, splintered wood. Sergei gave hurried orders. “Cu’Simone, I need you to take the river fields-keep them from following the A’Sele into the city. Cu’Baria, you will take your men north; the Hirzg may try to send a few battalions around
our main force; if that happens, hold them as well as you can and send a page for reinforcements. Cu’Helfier and cu’Malachi; you will spread out on either side of the Avi. Ahh, Archigos-you’re back already?
Good. Here’s what I want you to do-put your war-teni in position with A’Offizier cu’Helfier’s battalion; that’s where we’re expecting the main thrust to come. Envoy ci’Vliomani and his war-teni will be with A’Offizier cu’Malachi, though I suspect they’re nearly exhausted from the first attack-is that the case, Archigos?”
“It is,” the woman answered. “They won’t be able to hold back many war-spells, Commandant, and those with me. .” She shook her head. “I don’t know how effective they’ll be, either.”
“They’d better be damned effective,” Sergei told her. “We have no choice. If they don’t, their war-teni will destroy our lines before we ever have a chance to draw swords again. They will overrun us.”
“I understand,” she told him. She pointed at the map. “Where are you placing your main defenses, and where would you expect their warteni to be?”
“Here, an
d here,” Sergei said, pointing. “Which is why I want your war-teni with cu’Helfier.”
But the Archigos was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “Hold the battalions back-here.” She pointed farther west along the Avi, much closer to Nessantico. “And the chevarittai, if they could be close to this bend in the Avi. .”
Sergei could not stop the laugh; his a’offiziers chuckled also. If the battalions were placed where the Archigos suggested, the Firenzcian army would own the Fen Fields, and shortly thereafter, the gates of Nessantico. “With all due respect, Archigos,” he said, interrupting her, “you’ve no experience in battle or with tactics, and you show it.”
“With all due respect,” she answered him, “you would not be here at all, Commandant, with all your grand experience, if I had not healed you. I would think you might give me the courtesy of hearing me out without interruption, in gratitude.”
She glared defiantly at him, and he sighed. “Quickly, then,” he said. “We haven’t much time. And whatever we do, it will be my decision.”
“Agreed,” she said. “Commandant, the Hirzg has more war-teni than we do, and they’re better skilled in their arts than those I have been able to muster. Would you agree with that assessment?”
He shrugged. “Envoy ci’Vliomani did surprisingly well,” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. But, yes, I agree.”
“Then, as you’ve already suggested, we lose this battle if we fight them as they expect.”
“What else do you suggest, Archigos?” It was difficult for Sergei to keep the condescension from his voice.
“Their war-teni have already used much of their strength in the first attack, and in that way they’re no better than any other teni-if they use the Ilmodo, they will become exhausted. So I suggest we let them use their spells. . but not on us.”
Sergei’s eyes narrowed, causing the skin to wrinkle around his false nose. A suspicion began to take shape in his mind. “And how do you suggest we can accomplish that?” he asked.
