by Stephen Hunt
‘And you would be called traitor and hated for it,’ said Anna.
The melancholy words from Carter’s father echoed in his head as though Jacob Carnehan was in the room with them. Owen’s counting on too many bought people doing the right thing. I’m counting on them staying bought and loyal to all the money and position that’s come their way. That’s the difference between us. Though I surely pray he’s right and I’m wrong.
‘No worse than being called a pretender in the south. And perhaps we wouldn’t have a civil war sundering the realm,’ said Owen. ‘It doesn’t matter. We are where we are. I cannot change the past. Your father dragged Lady Cassandra to Weyland with us and I am unable to alter the fact of her kidnap. But if she were held in Midsburg, the girl’s presence may at least give the Vandian fleet pause from circling above the city and burning it to ashes. She may buy us a fighting chance against their ground forces. We beat them before …’
Carter held his peace and didn’t speak what was on his mind. We beat a hastily scrambled mix of house levies, mine guards and secret police. If just half the rumours we heard about the imperial legions are true, we’re in for a whole different sort of war.
Anna tapped a map. ‘Head north and find Sheplar and Kerge in Rodal. Start with their capital, Hadra-Hareer, that’s where your father asked them to take her. Find Lady Cassandra and fly her back here.’
‘What if the south advances across the river before I return?’
‘We have a volunteer locked up in a cell at the government building,’ said Anna. ‘An orphan girl the same age as the Vandian, with a similar build and face.’
‘Midsburg’s crawling with spies in the pay of Bad Marcus,’ said Owen. ‘My intelligencers believe they’ve already learned we’re holding a young girl in custody who matches Lady Cassandra’s description. We need you to return with the genuine item so we can present her during a parlay. The imperium will ask for proof the emperor’s granddaughter is unharmed and being treated honourably.’
‘And when I bring the girl back,’ said Carter. ‘Are you willing to back your threats against her with action?’
‘If our fate hangs on murdering a foreign child, Carter, then we’ve already lost.’
That’s what I was afraid of. ‘I’ll go to Rodal for you,’ sighed Carter. He glanced across at Anna. ‘You’re wrong about me. I lost all the taste for scrapping I had in the sky mines. I’m only fighting now because I have to.’
‘I understand,’ said Owen. ‘Though I do believe I can hear a “but” rolling about on your tongue.’
‘But I’m never going to be a Vandian slave again,’ said Carter. ‘And we all know that’s what the imperium has really come to Weyland for. Revenge and slaves, in lieu of all those they lost … and it’s never going to be me and mine again. I’ll fight until every mile of Middenharn is cratered and smoking and I’ve one bullet left, and that last round won’t be for any bluecoat or Vandian legionary.’
‘It won’t come to that. A house divided against itself cannot stand,’ said Owen. ‘Our people will see what Vandia’s arrival means soon enough. And when Weyland does, it’ll finally turn on my uncle and cast him off his throne.’
Not if the usurper hangs us for his own crimes first. Carter said his farewells to Anna and the prince and stalked out of the room, biting his tongue and swallowing what he would say if he stayed. Carter was haunted by a terrible premonition … that believing the best of people was going to lead Prince Owen to a southern gallows long before the assembly could execute the usurper.
TWELVE
A SISTER’S SUPPORT
Princess Helrena stared out of the porthole in the Fleetwing while Duncan and Paetro rested on iron seats in front of her map table. Its surface had been covered with maps of the country; local charts secured from the southern army, marked with the war’s initial skirmishes between rebel and royalist forces. Helrena’s bare metal cabin inside the warship was as safe a place to plan unobserved as any.
‘Did your family have anything useful to say?’ Helrena asked.
‘My darling sister told me that Carter and Jacob Carnehan are prisoners of the king,’ said Duncan.
Paetro’s eyes narrowed at the very mention of the pastor, hatred burning deep for the priest who’d gunned his daughter down during the slave revolt. ‘Her account’s been superseded by events. I bribed the news from one of our embassy’s residents. The priest was recently broken out of the palace dungeons by Sariel Skel-bane … an imperial surgeon supervising the interrogation was slain during the escape, but he lived long enough to name his attackers. Carnehan and the Skel-bane are believed to be fleeing north to join the rebellion.’
‘Did Carter escape with them?’ said Duncan.
‘I heard nothing of the whelp,’ said Paetro. ‘Just Jacob Carnehan and the Skel-bane. Perhaps the lad’s being held in a prison camp.’
‘That wild, hot-headed boy concerns me less than the Skel-bane’s involvement,’ said Helrena. ‘I am beginning to understand Apolleon’s obsession with seeing Sariel’s neck stretched.’
‘It was Jacob Carnehan who seized the young highness as a hostage,’ said Paetro, ‘not some hedgerow trickster with a history of tweaking the hoodsmen’s noses.’
‘Did your sister tell you anything new about Cassandra’s circumstances?’ Helrena asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice, but failing.
‘According to Willow, Cassandra was being held prisoner in Northhaven and treated honourably … but she doesn’t know anything about her current whereabouts.’ Duncan snorted. ‘Willow abandoned her old friends in Northhaven just as easy she left me behind … she fled south and married a loyalist ally of King Marcus. Willow obviously saw which way the winds of war were blowing. She’s ashamed of it, though. She could hardly meet my eye.’
‘Your sister has much to answer for when it comes to loyalty towards my house, Duncan of Weyland, but I won’t condemn her for pragmatism. I understand all too well what a woman needs to do to survive in this life. You lived alongside that cursed priest. Where would he take Cassandra?’
‘It’s possible Lady Cassandra’s confined in Midsburg, as the king believes,’ said Duncan. ‘That’s where the rebel forces have massed. She would be too easily recaptured in Northhaven now the fighting’s begun. My town couldn’t even stand up to a single skel slave raid, let alone a siege by the royal army.’
‘Yet, how convenient it is that Vandia’s legions must be deployed to break the back of the king’s enemies at Midsburg,’ said Helrena. ‘I trust coincidence as much as I trust any word that passes through your barbarian lord’s lips. Let us say she is there. Will the priest and his rebel friends harm her if the city is attacked?’
Duncan frowned. ‘The man I grew up with at Northhaven wouldn’t suffer a hound to be kicked in the street. But—’
‘He’s not the prayer chanter you thought you knew,’ said Paetro. ‘I warned you in Vandis when I first laid eyes on him. Jacob Carnehan’s a killer. I fought with the legions long enough to recognize the breed.’
Duncan touched the scar across his chest. ‘The journey from Weyland to Vandia must have broken him.’
‘No,’ said Paetro, ‘it just ripped away his disguise and revealed who he always was. Your king accuses Carnehan of murder along with his brother, a blood-drenched local pirate.’
‘The wretched man’s past is irrelevant,’ said Helrena. ‘Carnehan didn’t carry Cassandra away for a ransom. If the dog dared send a ransom demand to me, I would have paid him off in secret and arranged his execution the moment my daughter was returned to me.’
‘So, we can’t be sure Father Carnehan and his rebel friends will treat Cassandra honourably when the war turns against them,’ said Duncan. ‘What will Prince Gyal and Baron Machus do if the rebels threaten Cassandra? Would they offer guarantees and terms of surrender to Midsburg?’
‘Baron Machus will march blindly wherever the prince orders him to, an obedient hound to the last. As for Prince Gyal, I cannot be
certain. He relies on Circae’s support to win the diamond throne, so the real question is, does Circae feel a shred of love for her granddaughter, or were the battles for Cassandra’s custody only ever a ploy to punish me? Which force is stronger? Circae’s supposed love for her dead son’s only child, or her loathing of me? What instructions did she press on Gyal before we left the imperium? End my house’s line or help save Cassandra?’
‘Whatever Gyal’s strategy for the coming battle,’ said Paetro, ‘it’s obvious that we’ll be the last to find out. I hardly dare visit Arcadia’s taverns with the lads in case I come back and discover the fleet departed without me.’
‘The day will come when Gyal is repaid for his insults,’ swore Helrena. ‘Every slight and snub. And my treacherous cousin Machus twice over.’
‘Damn them all,’ said Duncan. ‘The prince and the baron, Circae’s schemes and Weyland’s rebels. We must make our own luck … rely on none but ourselves.’
‘I agree with those sentiments, lad,’ said Paetro. ‘If we infiltrate the rebel stronghold before the assault begins, we can locate the young highness and free her.’
‘A small band of raiders might meet success,’ said Helrena. ‘But we need current intelligence from inside the rebel city: where Cassandra is being held; how many guard her; what are the jailors’ orders in the event of siege or assault?’
‘My sister can help us save Cassandra,’ said Duncan. ‘She’s well known by the rebels.’
‘Well known? In the name of the ancestors, she helped ferment the slave revolt in Vandia. Willow Landor betrayed our house!’ said the princess. ‘It was for your sake that I offered her freedom and safe passage home, and she tossed it back in my face. Why would I ever trust the foolish woman?’
‘Because she has no choice now,’ said Duncan. He took heart as he remembered his father’s offer of assistance, not to mention how eager Benner Landor’s beautiful young wife had been to support the king’s powerful new allies. Benner had much to gain from this civil war, and as much to lose if he fell from the monarch’s grace, and Leyla Landor knew it. ‘My family serves the king’s cause. They’ll pressure Willow to assist us. My sister is pregnant and vulnerable. If she refuses to help … well the fleet can return to Vandia with two extra prisoners for the price of one. Willow and her child. Between the threat of returning to the sky mines and my family’s insistence, Willow will help us.’
‘Our chances would be better with her to scout for us,’ said Paetro. ‘We can take a patrol ship from the Primacy of the Sky. Fly in high altitude at night, put down unseen close to Midsburg and cover the rest of the distance on foot.’
‘Gidor is trading with the rebels as well as the loyalists,’ said Duncan. ‘They’re a nation to the east and not a member of the Lanca. If we entered the city posing as a Gidorian caravan, we’d find a welcome selling rifles and supplies. There are plenty of Gidorian traders in the local market selling provisions we could buy to make our masquerade authentic. They’re exactly the type of people Willow would take passage with to return home.’
‘It should work,’ said Helrena, thoughtfully. ‘Yes, especially with your sister’s condition showing. Who would suspect a pregnant woman if she turned up in Midsburg professing loyalty to her old allies? They’ll dismiss her with the same arrogance with which Gyal slights me.’
‘I’ll speak with my father,’ said Duncan. Willow had carved out a comfortable existence for herself as a pampered southern noblewoman. Make her work to hold on to her affluent position. It would be a fair repayment for Willow’s betrayal in Vandia. Let her help undo a little of the mischief she had made for him, by leading them straight to Cassandra Skar. There was a justice to his scheme that could not be denied. Your first betrayal nearly finished me, Willow. Your second is going to bring me everything I ever wanted.
‘I have never been comfortable in a flying wing,’ said Kerge, bumping in his saddle, ‘but travelling with the skyguard would be preferable to this.’
Sheplar Lesh understood how the gask felt. But it was not for nothing that the steppes were called the Rlung’kyang by his people – the windless ground. With no trade winds to carry them and an absence of towns willing to sell fuel, he and the gask could fly no further into the steppes than the range of a flying wing’s tank. Thus it was they both found themselves in uncomfortable saddles on unaccustomed steeds, pursuing the bumo and the nomad raiders who had abducted her. Two dirty grey mares ridden out of the walled castle at Dalranga, a great craggy fortress and series of high buttressed walls blocking one of the few accessible canyons from the plains into the mountains. Rodalians did not like horses, preferring sensible sure-footed yaks, and Sheplar’s steed seemed to sense his unease. The feeling is mutual. My mount is as vainglorious and unreliable as the nomads we pursue.
‘Sadly, my flying wing cannot eat grass,’ said Sheplar. ‘Or we would be high in the air and not on these halting nags. Can you feel the girl’s presence yet?’
‘My talents have withered,’ said the gask, sadly. ‘I fear they may never return.’
Sheplar didn’t like pressing the gask to use his tracking sense. Whenever the skyguard raised the matter, Kerge would retreat into a reflective, maudlin mood. Kerge barely bothered to pray in the direction of the universe now, while back in the forest, Sheplar had been able to set a clock by his strange worship of the fates. ‘Time will heal all things.’
‘It will end all things,’ said Kerge, glancing back at the wreckage of the merchant carrier spread across the plains. They had discovered a camp fire inside the ruins, ashes fresh enough not to have blown and scattered, while cold enough not to have been residue from the previous night. At least the dokhyi sniffing ahead of them was proving its value. A monstrous shaggy pale red mastiff known as a door-guard by the mountain people, it was almost as big as a pony and used by Rodalian shepherds to keep wolves and leopards from their herds. As the soldiers at Dalranga had promised Sheplar, Golden-ears was an exceptional tracker, and whenever the young hound grew uncertain of the bumo’s scent, Sheplar just dangled a piece of Lady Cassandra’s clothing in front of it to sniff, and the dog would renew the hunt with fresh vigour. Golden-ears was also cunning and stubborn and demanded to be fed from Sheplar’s saddlebag at ever more regular intervals the closer they drew to their quarry. Given the amount the hound ate, Sheplar wondered what would happen when he ran out of dried meat. Would Golden-ears abandon the hunt and head home for the large frontier fortress in disgust, abandoning his two useless new masters?
‘You have a fine set of eyes, Kerge,’ said Sheplar. ‘Keep them watchful. We are beyond the skyguard’s patrol range, now. Every mile we travel is claimed by the clans. Hunters may become hunted here faster than a biting grass viper should we falter in our vigilance.’
They pressed on for the best part of the morning, low grey hills split by plains covered in bushy grass. It felt warmer than inside the mountains while the sun was up; even in winter, a constant dry breeze kept the grass quivering like a living brush; the sun bright above them. When night fell here, the clear skies stretched wide and you could navigate by starlight as easily as if the spirits had laid out a celestial map in the heavens. In summer, many of the clans did exactly that. Pitching tents, hunting and sleeping by day, keeping warm by travelling the steppes during the freezing nights. By late evening silvery mists covered the plains, and crossing such ground in twilight was like fording an insubstantial white river flowing around their legs. It was queer having the mist close enough to chill you, rather than gliding over it from the safety of a flying wing. Sheplar had flown many night patrols from Dalranga during his years of service … the preferred time for nomads to penetrate Rodal in search of plunder and pillage.
Afternoon arrived and Sheplar and Kerge trotted up a hill to see if there was any sign of the raiding party before them; but they found only another empty horizon. The gask discovered something else by accident, his horse stumbling on a boulder. On closer inspection, the rock proved to be the lower p
ortion of a fluted marble column, the rubble of an arch it had once supported long buried by dirt and grass down the slope.
Kerge stepped his steed carefully around the debris. A broken leg for either of their horses now would mean an inglorious return to Rodal. ‘I thought the Nijumeti founded no cities?’
‘They never have. These are ancient stones from long before the riders’ conquest. It is said the nomads arrived here from the Karabak Ocean some six thousand years ago. Before their arrival, this land was a vast sweep of civilized kingdoms happily trading with us, but they were all lost beneath the thundering hooves of the great horde. Only Rodal’s natural walls stopped the Nijumeti sweeping across the lands of the Lanca and conquering us all.’
‘These are sad stones,’ said the gask.
That much is true. These peoples had dreams and gods and families and legends and many languages. All had been lost, aside from what little of their bloodlines survived among the horde that conquered them. Dozens of civilizations, their songs reduced to a couple of inches of debris inhabited by chirruping cicadas.
‘A lost age of peace,’ said Sheplar. ‘As golden as the fur of our hound, here. My people have only known raids and blood, since then. Every few centuries, the Nijumeti forget their ancestors’ harsh-learnt lessons and mass to try to invade Rodal. Every time their hordes smash against our heights and we drive them off.’
‘Peace,’ said Kerge, wistfully. ‘There is precious little of that outside the happy shade of the forests.’
‘Your council will relent,’ said Sheplar. ‘I know it. Your banishment will be revoked. You will dwell among your forests again.’
‘I do not share your confidence, manling. This is no easy expulsion to bear,’ said Kerge. ‘I was raised with the promise that I carried a golden mean, would make a significant contribution to gask-kind. My father said he had seen it on the great fractal tree, but he scryed it false. Any talents I had died with him. Did he see his own end in Vandia? He did not.’
