by Ken Scholes
The first Entrolusian advance camp moved to third alarm and launched their birds long before the Marsh King’s army poured over them.
Farther west, another camp went into alarm, and Rudolfo smiled. That would be Meirov’s rangers.
“It’s time,” Rudolfo said, drawing his knives and tucking them underneath his arms, blades pointing behind him.
Gregoric whistled, and the squad moved out.
They ran south and east, the magicks muffling their boots as they whispered across the snow. Rudolfo felt his heart pumping, and the darkness melted back to a gray light as his eyes adjusted to the powders. He could hear the fighting now in the front lines and he picked up his pace, watching the open ground vanish between him and the far side of the meadow.
They hit the forest and spread out, adjusting their course to avoid the pockets of infantry racing toward the front lines.
As they ran, they clicked their tongues lightly against the roofs of their mouths from time to time-the slightest of sound, but with the amplification of their hearing, it was enough to get a sense of their loose formation. Rudolfo stayed in the center and made no sound at all.
Two leagues slipped past in the span of minutes, and they widened their circle in order to flank Sethbert’s camp. If Vlad Li Tam’s source in that camp spoke true, the mechanicals were stored in the center, near the tents of the Delta Scouts and not far from Sethbert’s massive canvas palace.
Behind them, the sounds of fighting grew. It was a simple bit of misdirection, Rudolfo realized, that he hoped Lysias would fall for. They had counted on the mechanicals being guarded, but expected the Entrolusian general to shift resources to Sethbert when the bird arrived.
They rallied at the pile of moss-covered boulders Gregoric had picked for them during his reconnaissance. Rudolfo watched the small bird materialize seemingly out of air. It fluttered in invisible hands before Gregoric released it.
They’d captured one of Lysias’s small messengers earlier in the week, and Vlad Li Tam had helped forge the coded message. The urgency of the message, delivered in the midst of an attack on the Entrolusian front lines, should be enough to give them the opening they needed.
Unless, Rudolfo thought, Sethbert had so eroded Lysias’s loyalty that the general refused to intervene. But he counted on Lysias’s academy training for this. No general from that austere school needed loyalty to do his job, and Rudolfo’s strategy relied upon that.
They waited while the bird shot up, then found its mark. The camp was already in the third alarm, bustling with activity as fresh squads of magicked scouts raced north to the fighting and took up positions to reinforce the camp’s perimeter. But Rudolfo’s squad was already inside that perimeter, slipping in through the temporary hole Lord Tam’s man had arranged.
Huddled near the boulders, they waited.
Finally, Gregoric’s hand pressed the small of Rudolfo’s back. He’s taken the bait, his fingers tapped.
Rudolfo twisted and touched Gregoric’s shoulder. Excellent, he answered. Give the whistle when you will.
He could hear Lysias shouting now, and knew that the Overseer’s tent would now be their defensive center. More reinforcements rushed past them into the night, some plain and some with the acrid odor of fresh magicks upon them.
Rudolfo held his breath until they passed.
After they’d gone, Gregoric whistled the first three bars of the First Hymn of the Wandering Army. He whistled it at a pitch Rudolfo’s heightened senses could barely perceive. Then, they were off and running again for the center of camp. Spread out, they rushed in, dodging and weaving in and out of people.
“Scouts in the camp,” a voice cried out. Other voices joined in and Rudolfo heard the snicker of steel through cloth and skin, the rasp of metal on metal as blades slid past blades and into flesh.
They did not stop, they did not even slow. They pressed, and when an obstacle presented itself they cut through it or went over it. As they ran, Gregoric’s sappers spread out into the camp to light their fires.
Gregoric and Rudolfo cut through the back of the mechoservitor tent while the others moved around it and dispatched the distracted guards. Already the shouts spread, and it would only be moments before they realized that the threat against Sethbert had been a Gypsy ruse.
“Mechoservitors arise,” Rudolfo said in a low voice. Scattered throughout the tent, amber eyes fluttered open and gears purred as the room rustled.
“We are the property of the Androfrancine Order,” one of the mechoservitors said, steam hissing from its exhaust grate.
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“I am Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest Houses, General of the Wandering Army. I am the duly appointed guardian of Windwir, established in accordance with Article Fifteen of the Precepts of Order,” Rudolfo said slowly, reciting the words Petronus had given him. By all the Gods, he hoped they worked. “Section three, item six grants me the authority to redirect Androfrancine personnel and property as needed for the protection of the light.” Outside the tent, the sounds of fighting erupted. It lent urgency to his voice. “You are ordered to return to what remains of the Great Library at top running speed. You are not to stop. You are to disregard further orders until these orders are carried out completely. Do you understand?”
Thirteen voices echoed in the tent, thirteen forms clicked and clacked to life as they sped into that chaotic night.
In that moment, Rudolfo heard Gregoric cry out.
Vlad Li Tam
Vlad Li Tam did not sleep that night. He rarely did during key moments of strategy. He sat in his tent without the kallaberry pipe and huddled in his blanket, waiting for his aide to bring word.
He’d given his fiftieth son the work he’d trained him for. Of course, when he’d first adopted this particular strategy, his fiftieth son had not been born yet. He’d had no idea which arrow he would fire at this particular target. Ordinarily, a Tam would use others as his arrows, manipulating their environment until they became the right weapon at the right time. But in this regard, he could not afford to let an unknown quantity in the vicinity of Rudolfo after so much work over so many years. So it fell to the only resource a Tam could trust: Family.
He’d sent his son away to earn the knotted cord of a lieutenant in Sethbert’s army, setting him apart for the task. And in the fullness of time, Vlad Li Tam raised that hammer in his fist.
So it was that he drove one more nail into Rudolfo’s soul-the last one that he would drive, he thought. The rest of it would ripple out now as repercussions, and what he built into his forty-second daughter would be enough to carry things forward.
Their unborn child would inherit the center of the world, and would protect it better than the Androfrancines could.
The tent flap rustled and his aide spoke, thrusting his head into its warm confines. “Your fiftieth son’s last words have arrived, Lord Tam.”
Last words. Vlad Li Tam reached out and took the rolled parchment. He unrolled it, read it slowly, and then tucked it into his shirt, nestled against his hairless chest. “It is a poem,” he said, his voice heavy, “about a son’s great love for his father.”
aligis The aide bowed his head. “I am sorry for your loss, Lord Tam.”
Lord Tam nodded. “Thank you, Aetris.”
The tent flap rustled closed and he stretched himself out on his back, staring at the ceiling of his tent as it shifted beneath the snow. It would be at least another hour before he received any confirmation from another source. But his fiftieth son would not have released the bird bearing his last words unless he was certain of the implementation of his own strategy.
He reached up and pressed the note to his chest. His son was certainly dead by now, and he felt the grief licking at him. When others could see, Vlad Li Tam wore a face of stone, unreadable and unyielding. But here, alone in his tent and without the kallaberry smoke to cut the edge of his pain, Vlad Li Tam wept silently for the son he had killed.
He knew the outcome was worthy of the
sacrifice, and he knew his son would have agreed as well, if he’d known what he died to save. But still, Vlad Li Tam felt the ache of that loss, and he hated the powerlessness it visited upon him. It reminded him of another loss that still lay ahead of him on this road.
When the next bird arrived, it bore the news that Vlad Li Tam had expected. He’d gone outside for that one, his breath steaming out into the cold night air as he stamped in the snow. He pressed that message into his aide’s hands. “Reply to Petronus with condolences for Rudolfo’s loss,” he said. “And send the bird to my forty-second daughter.”
His aide nodded. “Yes, Lord Tam.”
“And spread the word. We strike camp at first light and ride for home.”
Vlad Li Tam turned south and east, staring out in the night. The War Sermon had started up at long last, and far away he could see the fires in the Entrolusian camp.
“It is finished,” Vlad Li Tam said to the night.
Petronus
Petronus stood with Meirov’s rangers and the half-squad of Gypsy Scouts near the crater where the Great Library once stood. They heard them before they saw them, like a wave of sound across the night, a sound like nothing Petronus had heard before. Bellows chugged, gears hummed and oiled legs pumped. It was as if a room of farmers all worked their shears in perfect time together, low and steady amid the chaotic sounds of combat.
He squinted in the direction of the sound, and saw what could have been the dancing of ghost-lights or fireflies if he hadn’t known better of this part of the world and time of the year. And if they hadn’t flown in thirteen perfect pairs, moving in formation at the same speed.
Petronus watched as they drew near, moving twice the speed of a horse… possibly faster. The moonlight washed them in tones of blue and green, casting an eerie light around them as they moved sure-footed across the snow.
They spilled into the crater before halting, and Petronus raised his hands as the rangers counted them. “Behold,” he said, “I am called Petronus, King of Windwir and Holy See of the Androfrancine Order.”
“Petronus,” one of the mechoservitors started, “sixty-third in succession, was the eighth Pope to be assassinated in the Enlightened History of the Androfrancine Order.”
“A deception,” he said. He held up the ring. “I bear the ring of P’Andro Whym.”
The mechoservitors bowed their heads. Petronus had never seen anything like them. Tall and slender, they stood just half a head higher than a man. Their long arms ended in equally long fingers, and the metal plating that lay over the top of their metallic skeleton shifted and moved with the working bellows underneath. A small grate in the center of their backs emitted gouts of steam.
Back when young Charles had worked on them, Petronus remembered that the power was the biggest challenge. How long had that enormous fire gotten them? Three minutes? Five? He couldn’t remember now, but it was a massive amount of energy just to power the head and torso.
Somehow, they’d solved it. Something inside of these mechoservitors burned hot enough to boil the steam and power them.
Petronus looked out on the crowd of metal faces. “I am commending you to the care of General Rudolfo of the Wandering Army. All that remains of Windwir’s Great Library is housed in your memory scrolls. Rudolfo will take you to Isaak-Mechoservitor Number Three-and you will work with him for the restoration of the library. Do you understand your instructions?” He held up the ring, and their amber eyes followed it.
“Yes,” they said in a single voice.
“Which of you is familiar with the cartography of the Named Lands? Step forward.”
Four of the mechoservitors stepped forward.
“Should trouble arise along the way, you are to rally at the seventh forest manor of the Ninefold Forest Houses. Do you understand?”
They nodded.
“Very well. Until Lord Rudolfo returns, be seated and close your eyes.”
They sat, and the dim light of their eyes went out as they simultaneously brought down their metal shutters.
Petronus turned back to the south, waiting.
Thirty minutes later, the first of the Gypsy Scouts returned. They breathed heavily, coughing into the cold air. Surgeons from the Queen of Pylos did the best they could to wash and wrap wounds they could not see, their hands slick with invisible blood.
Five minutes after, another wave arrived, followed closely by the rear guard.
“We lost three for certain,” one of the lieutenants said after quickly taking inventory with his men. “Five are unaccounted for, including Gregoric and Rudolfo.”
Petronus cursed under his breath and looked toward the south.
Resolute
Pope Resolute the First had entered the Entrolusian camp just hours before the hostilities broke out. Sethbert had received him coldly, making his displeasure of his cousin’s decision obvious with every word. “You’ve left your people without a leader,” the Overseer said, his jowls shaking with rage.
“I am the Pope,” Resolute said, his own anger flaring. “I will decide what’s best for my people.”
Four days on the road and his nerves had frayed. And the first news he’d heard upon arriving was that someone claiming to be Petronus was this hidden Pope Vlad Li Tam had spoken of.
Initially, he’d laughed it off. He’d attended Petronus’s funeral when he was a younger man. He’d even had a bit of a roll-about with one of the women who had served at the state banquet afterward. Coming back from the dead was not a hallmark of the Androfrancine Papacy.
But when Sethbert assured him that it was true, it had added to his foul mood.
“You may be the Pope,” Sethbert had said, his voice low, “but you have me to thank for that.”
At that point, the alarms had sounded. Not long after, squads of scouts and infantry flooded the Overseer’s tent, and Oriv found himself crowded into the corner with his Gray Guard escort.
“We’ve word from the spies,” Lysias said, out of breath as he ducked into the tent. “Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts are on the hunt.”
“On the hunt for what?” Sethbert asked.
Lysias’s reply was nearly a sneer. “You,” he said, through clenched teeth.
Resolute watched the exchange. Sethbert’s command of this man was tenuous at best. It took no expert in statecraft to see that, just as it took no military training to see that the Entrolusian army was divided and growing more so as the winter came on and the pressure increased.
Sethbert bellowed for his sword, and an aide belted it onto him. They heard the sound of fighting grow outside, and Lysias kept himself between Sethbert and the door. A wall of Delta Scouts, magicks shimmering in the lamplight, crouched with ready blades, and Grymlis and the two Gray Guard drew their swords as well. Then, near the back of the tent Resolute heard another sound, and it caught his attention. He’d heard it before, wandering the library, but that seemed impossible to him. Nonetheless, he heard the gears, heard the pumping bellows and the solid sound of metal feet upon the ground.
“Mechoservitors?” He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until he saw Sethbert staring at him.
“What did you say?” Sethbert’s face went pale, then a deep rose color replaced it.
“It sounds like mechoservitors, but…” Resolute felt the realization of it grip him. Sethbert had told him all had been lost but for the spell-caster.
“They’ve freed the metal men,” a scout said at the door. “They are running north to Windwir.”
“It was never about me,” Sethbert said in a low voice.
Lysias cursed and stormed from the tent, barking orders. Sethbert followed.
As the tent cleared, Resolute looked to Grymlis. The old Gray Guard captain studied him, and still feeling short-tempered, Oriv snapped at him. “If you’ve something to say, Captain, say it.”
Grymlis pulled himself up. “I will say it,” he said. “I know Petronus. If he is truly alive, you will be no match for him.” The captain’s voice dropped. “And
I question the viability of a war of succession.”
“I concur,” he said. But Resolute’s doubts went even further than whether or not this war would be viable.
Deeper than that, he questioned whether or not he should fight at all.
Ride to Petronus now, some part of himself said. Do not let this tragedyaet › ‹ become worse than it already is.
But even as the thought crossed his mind, he shoved it aside. It couldn’t be Petronus. Petronus was dead. And if, somehow, it truly was that long-dead Pope miraculously back from the dead, then it would be a matter for the committee to investigate.
Meanwhile, until such time as a committee could be convened to their work, Resolute would perform his duty for the light.
Chapter 25
Rudolfo
Rudolfo heard Gregoric’s cry and leaped toward him, his blades ready. His enhanced vision picked up the outline of a man, crouching and facing him. Rudolfo slowed and stepped to the right and the crouching figure turned with him. As he drew near, he made out the Entrolusian lieutenant’s ripped uniform and saw that the officer now held Gypsy blades. The blades turned as if following Rudolfo’s movement.
He sees me, Rudolfo thought. Certainly there were sight magicks, but none so powerful as to see a magicked scout. Though there were rumors that the Androfrancines had a magick to undo all magicks. But how would this lieutenant get access to something like that? Those sorts of secrets were gone now with the Great Library, unless Rudolfo managed to bring some of it back. And to do that, he needed Gregoric. And to get Gregoric, he had to kill this man.
Rudolfo charged with his knives out and ready.
The man did not fight like an Entrolusian. He moved too fast, with confidence and skill. Rudolfo heard Gregoric gasping near his feet and pressed the lieutenant back, sparks striking from the knives as they met.
They spun and thrust and slashed at each other, their knives moving in time with one another.
Rudolfo heard commotion outside, and heard the whistle that meant the mechanicals had cleared the edge of camp. It was time to go.
