He groaned to sell the pain, letting his sword drop from his hand to clatter into the dirt. The monk still prowled toward him, legs spread wide. Another jab from the staff connected with his ribs through the hauberk, and he howled with unfeigned agony. The monk shuffled forward, raising his weapon for another strike.
Tigai reverted to his anchor, appearing—sword in hand—beside the monk, all injuries vanished, as whole as he had been when he set the strands in place. Even the exhaustion was manageable—it was worse, the farther he traveled, and here, blinking less than a stone’s throw away did little more than wind him. He pulled his blade upward in an arcing cut, and the monk spun to block the strike, a step too slow. Steel bit flesh, splitting the monk’s silk robes like paper.
The monk’s eyes rolled back in his head, and the young man collapsed, going limp while his staff fell into the dirt.
“Fuck,” Tigai said. “I didn’t mean to—”
The monk vanished, and another splitting pain struck him from behind, this time a blow landed to tangle his legs. He went down around the staff, and the monk struck again, landing a thundering hit to his helmet, hard enough to bounce his head off the ground. His senses faded out, blackness pouring into his vision. But first, the strands. By reflex he tied himself to another anchor, set by instinct when he walked onto the yard, and snapped back to health.
Rage flooded through him, and wonder. The monk had his gift. He’d all but killed the man with his cut, and the monk had reappeared behind him, healthy and whole as Tigai himself. He’d never seen anyone else do anything like it.
“Enough,” the elder said, all sign of mirth vanished from his voice.
“With respect, Master Indra, you see I told it true.” Lin Qishan preened like a child proven innocent; her guards came to stand behind her, and once more all of them looked at him as though he were a prized horse. “He has a master’s skill, untrained. Enough to take twenty men from Vimar to Liao. And perhaps more, if you push him.”
“Sixty thousand qian,” the elder—Master Indra—said. “If you can provide leverage that will keep him here, when the training grows hard.”
“What the bloody fuck are you talking about?” he said.
“Done,” Lin Qishan said. “And done. His brother, his brother’s wife, and a childhood mentor, safely away from anywhere they might have had a connection he could trace.”
“No,” Tigai said. “I won’t have any part of this.”
“Be silent, boy,” Master Indra said. “Let Captain Lin have her gold. I’m offering you a chance to learn to use the power you’ve been stumbling over like a drunken fool. Shut up and recognize fortune when it falls at your feet.”
22
ERRIS
Assembly Hall, Hearing Chambers
Southgate District, New Sarresant
A trio of faces looked down on her, a man and two women seated atop elevated plinths that evoked the Exarch, Oracle, and Veil. An oddly religious overtone, for an otherwise secular assembly, but then the power of three was a pattern repeated without thought, even outside the priesthood. A ring of observers watched from a gallery running the length of the circular room, and she stood alone at the center, as though she were a criminal set to face her trial.
“High Commander Erris d’Arrent,” one of the women said, the one seated in the middle chair. “You’ve been summoned before the Assembly to discuss the matters of the treaties brokered at the height of the spring campaign. Thank you, for your swift appearance.”
“Three weeks’ delay,” a man said, seated to the chairwoman’s left. “Hardly appropriate to call it swift.”
“Assemblyman Lerand, please,” the chairwoman said, and the man relented at once. An unfamiliar sort of combat, verbal sparring with even the rebuke and retreat an almost-scripted part of their affair. Erris’s full dress uniform added to the separation she already felt, setting foot within these walls. Gold epaulets on her shoulders, her knee-length coat lying open, five stars pinned at her collar, five stripes slashed across her sleeves. Every other soul in the chamber wore civilian clothes: slim dresses paired with corsets, or knee-length hose with lace-trimmed collars and cuffs.
“Our first matter must be the Gand treaty,” the chairwoman said. “More properly, the Treaty of Covendon, signed Fourteenth Apollinaire, and drafted in the field, without review by this assembly. Assemblywoman Julée, you have a copy of the text?”
The third of them, seated atop the lesser of the three elevated daises, held aloft a sheaf of papers for the benefit of their audience. “I do, Chairwoman Caille.”
“High Commander d’Arrent, would you summarize the key points of the treaty for us, if you please?”
Every eye turned to her. Gods but she’d stared down half again as many muskets, at shorter range, and felt no less apprehension. Easier when she remembered that words and poise were the weapons of this battlefield. She’d show them no more than she gave the enemy.
“I maneuvered against General Chamberlain at Ansfield, enticing her to commit her forces to a defense of the river crossings. This left the way south open, and we executed a forced march to seize the Gand capital, leaving a harrying force to pin their army in the hills of northern Gand country.”
“High Commander, I’d asked for—”
“And I’m giving it,” she snapped back. “Total surrender. Those are the terms of the Treaty of Covendon. I rendered General Chamberlain’s army powerless to stop us razing the capital, if we had so desired. Their materiel had been depleted in the summer and spring campaigns. They were in no position to mount a siege, or an attack, with us in possession of their seat of power. Chamberlain sent riders to sue for peace, and I received them personally.”
“And what of the barrier, High Commander?” The man, Lerand, leaned forward over the edge of his lectern. “You expect us to believe you had no forewarning of the enemy’s capabilities, that the Gandsmen had nothing to do with its collapse?”
Murmurs sounded from the gallery.
“That issue is not under consideration by this hearing,” the chairwoman said.
“She’s ducked two summonses on the matter already,” Lerand shot back. “If we’re to trust her with command of our armies, she must be held to account. She’s here, now; let us hear what she has to say.”
Erris weighed the three of them. The chamber’s design prevented her from seeing the faces of those in attendance ringing the podiums. Voren had urged her to make this appearance, insisting she had nothing to hide. The barrier had been a machination of an unknown power; she believed the Gand generals when they insisted it was no doing of theirs.
Eventually the murmurs fell silent, a hundred eyes resting on her, waiting on her every breath.
She wheeled about, a gesture fit for any parade ground, and marched toward the exit.
“High Commander!” Chairwoman Caille said at her back. “This hearing has not yet concluded. You must return to your place.”
It was a mistake to come here, to cede even the slightest authority to fools. How many had suffered for it already?
Two guardsmen flanked the double doors, dressed in the blue cloaks of the city watch rather than the uniforms and armbands of the military police. They wavered as she approached, and she came to a halt in front of them.
“H-High Commander,” one of the guardsmen said, “the ch-chairwoman says—”
“Do you mean to stop me?”
Neither man reached for his musket. Little wonder why such men had joined the watch, rather than answer the call to arms in wartime. She pushed past them, swinging the doors wide to spill a tide of gossip into the hall.
It followed her as she strode the length of the council chambers, buzzing voices and curious eyes watching as she climbed the stairs. Her ears burned the whole way.
Voren’s doors swung wide as she approached, and his manservant, Omera, fixed them in place. His one-eyed glare unnerved her as much as it ever had, but he bowed, greeting her as she strode into Voren’s receiving room.
“High Commander,” Voren said from behind his desk, blinking and reaching for his spectacles. “Are you finished already?”
“It was a bloody witch hunt. Or due to soon become one. My decisions are not going to be held up for point-scoring for the sake of some cowards who’ve never held a musket.”
“Slow down. Do you mean you walked out? Midway through the hearing? It can’t have been more than ten minutes since it was due to begin.”
Her ears burned hotter. Just as well for the cosmetics or it might have shown on her cheeks.
“Oh Gods,” Voren said, slumping back in his chair. “You did.”
“Sir, I apologize if I’ve let you down.”
“Let me down?” he said. “D’Arrent, this isn’t some bloody parlor game. You weren’t summoned to that meeting to satisfy my expectations.”
“They meant to pick apart my decisions.”
“And what of it? Did you expect anything less, wearing those stars on your collar?”
She resisted the urge to snap to attention as Voren continued.
“This is your sphere now, High Commander. Like it or not, you are playing at politics as well as war. And you’ve blundered here today, not least for coming here directly after.”
“Sir?” This time she didn’t see the harm; what was done was done.
“If we don’t put distance between ourselves, the Assembly will see my influence as little more than an extension of the army. We must at least play at service to the Republic, or we’ll be forcibly conscripting farmers to feed our soldiers before we’re through. They do have power, whether it’s power you choose to recognize or no. And their power means we engage in politics, unless you mean to put any man or woman who disagrees with you to the sword.”
“Sir, I do see the need for politics, but if it hampers our ability to wage war, we can’t—”
“The High Admiral for you, sir,” Omera said, suddenly hovering five paces behind her, though she’d neither heard nor seen him approach.
Tuyard burst through the outer doors a moment later. “Voren, you’ll never believe what—ah. High Commander.”
Silence descended on the room. She offered Tuyard a nod, though she could have done with nigh anyone else’s company over the High Admiral’s.
“Just the three of us, if you please, Omera,” Voren said. “Turn the rest away, for now.”
The Bhakal servant bowed, shutting the door behind them.
“One question,” Tuyard said, seeming as though he struggled to contain a laugh. “You walked out after one question, from a hearing scheduled to take the bulk of the afternoon.”
“I’ll not have my orders questioned by fools,” she said, and this time her ears burned right alongside her cheeks. “What right does some farmer or baker’s boy have questioning my command? I wouldn’t waste time telling that assemblyman how to bake bread, and expect him to listen or benefit from my insight.”
“Guillaume, Erris, please, be seated,” Voren said, gesturing to two open chairs across from his desk. They paused to take the chairs, Tuyard with a relaxed confidence, where she sat as though she were still at attention. No mistaking she was due to be questioned here, if not beneath the three lecterns in the hearing room. At least Voren and Tuyard had some semblance of military training.
“Now, High Commander,” Voren said, “some would say the Assembly’s right to question you derives from the people who elected them, through whom you and all of us rule through representative consent.”
Tuyard snickered.
“A system for fools,” Tuyard said. “They’ve lived their lives eyeing plates at our tables, thinking it’s taught them how to cook. As though governance were a thing for amateurs, instead of men and women trained to it from birth. But it’s what we endorsed, I suppose, signing on to depose Louis-Sallet.”
“Peace, Guillaume,” Voren said. “High Commander d’Arrent knows well enough the cost of what we did.”
She stayed seated upright, and found herself longing for Jiri’s saddle, and the open country. She’d never wanted more than to command soldiers in battle. Politics was meant for men and women like Tuyard. He was right; corrupt and decadent the nobles might be, but at least they’d been born and trained to rule. A new system should have been based on merit, as she’d implemented with the army. The Assembly should have been organized from experts in every role, set to craft policy and review proposals with careful wisdom. Instead the people had elected representatives skilled at getting the people to vote them into office, and not much more.
“What was it they asked to set you off, d’Arrent?” Tuyard asked.
“The barrier,” she said. “I had no way of knowing it would happen. The Gandsmen themselves had no inkling of it—they swore off Need and met us without it in the field. No general could have predicted it. I’d had patrols sweeping its perimeter since the summer campaign. They swear there was no forewarning, even when it went down. No Death, or sign of any disruption.”
“Neither Guillaume nor I are questioning your abilities in the field,” Voren said. “If you couldn’t have planned for it, no one could have. But you need to build a similar rapport with the Assembly. If they don’t trust you, they become an obstacle where they should be a tool on our side.”
She nodded. His words went at least some way to salving her pride. But she’d been beaten three times now by the man Sarine had called Paendurion. Even if the Gandsmen swore they’d cast aside his influence, it didn’t mean the man was dead. He’d engineered the barrier’s collapse, she was certain of it. And it meant she’d been beaten, sure as if he’d flanked her in the field.
“How bad has it been?” she asked quietly. She’d had only cursory briefings on the road, marching the army north to fan out and defend the borders where the Great Barrier had stood before.
“Better than it would have been, without the assistance of Ilek’Hannat. Seven sightings of beasts, four of which we put down or drove away before anyone was killed.”
Four driven off, in three weeks, with three they’d failed to reach. He’d left the number unsaid, but she couldn’t. “How many dead?”
“Two hundred and eight, as of this morning.”
She felt sick.
“And we’ve only seen sign of the beasts?” she said. “Arak’Jur was convinced there would be more, accompanying an army of tribesmen, active in the north.”
Voren shook his head. “Nothing. Only the beasts, so far as we’ve heard here in the city.”
She nodded. Her scouts had confirmed the same; quiet, all along the remnants of the barrier, with no sign of tribesfolk, save the ones that had come with Arak’Jur.
“Arak’Jur and Ilek’Hannat were convinced a tribal army had gathered,” she said, “and if I know our enemy—Paendurion—at all, I can’t see it as a coincidence. They’ll be part of his attack. Now that I’m here, the reports will be better, leveraging Need. I have more regular use of it again, with the Gand colonies’ surrender.”
“Good,” Voren said. “And I trust the rest of the army is soon to deploy here in the north.”
She nodded, though the why of it—why Paendurion wouldn’t have attacked already, with the bulk of her forces tangled at Covendon, cut off by the Gandsmen—was a mystery as sure as any of the surprises he’d sprung before.
“There’s still the matter of the Assembly, then,” Voren continued. “And the promises you offered the Gand leadership.”
“I meant them,” she said. “And it’s imperative we honor every word. Without Need at full strength we’re doomed the next time Paendurion takes the field. We must secure their loyalty, not only their lands. You were right, my lord—Need seems to stem from territory claimed and held. We’ll need the full extent of the Gand colonies, and with the right concessions we can turn them to our side within a season or two.”
“Political union,” Tuyard said. “And we wonder why the Assembly has been foaming over.”
“You promised them full representation in our governm
ent,” Voren said.
“And why not?” she said. “Isn’t this Republic founded on principles of fairness and égalité? Is a man less a man, a woman less a woman, because they’re born a hundred leagues too far south? If we’ve claimed their territory, we must allow them a voice in our government, or they’ll be plotting rebellion within the year.”
“Try that line in tomorrow’s papers, hm?” Tuyard asked, grinning as though he’d made some private joke.
Voren nodded, looking more weary than she’d seen him before, the lines on his face bending around his gray mustaches. “We might,” he said. “But for now, we need you to get back in the field. A show of force, aligned against this native army, if it exists, or at least a victory against one of these beasts. Something we can print to drown the story of your storming out of the hearing.”
“Sir? Do you really think anyone will care that I left a simple hearing?”
“You don’t read the colonial papers, do you, d’Arrent?”
“I read scouting reports, sir.”
“Change that, High Commander. Papers and pamphlets are the scouting reports for this battlefield.”
The truth of it stung her. Voren was right, though she’d never intended to fight in this sphere.
“I will, sir.”
“Very good, d’Arrent. Gods’ speed on you, and I mean that. Better if you’re back with the army, marching north before sundown.”
23
ARAK’JUR
A Thunderstruck Tree
Near the Western Boundary of Sinari Land
Ka’Inari embraced his forearms in farewell. Arak’Jur’s apprentice—former apprentice, now—was a full shaman, blessed with visions of things-to-come. If Ka’Inari saw that their paths wouldn’t cross again, it would be so. He couldn’t bring himself to ask it aloud. It was enough to see the distance in the shaman’s eyes, the lingering grip of his hands before they let go.
“This is the place,” Ka’Inari said. “Your path turns south from here.”
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