by Julia Knight
At the head of the defile stood a small stand of pines, and Vocho sprawled in their shade, panting. Kacha flopped down beside him, and they stared over a small plateau, one of the high pastures that dotted these mountains, this one dark with men and tents and the smoke of campfires.
“And you want to go through that, for him,” Vocho said at last, when he’d got his breath back. The jollop appeared in his hand. He took a long swallow, grimaced and then relaxed a touch. Only a touch because he was wound tight as a bowstring. It took her a while to recognise his mood for what it was, because she didn’t think she’d ever seen Vocho truly angry before. Angry was her, not him.
“You read the letter then.” She scanned the camp below her and began to think Voch had a point, only giving up wasn’t in her nature and she was damned if she was going to start now. Not to mention going back was about as safe as going forwards.
His back stiffened but he said nothing.
“Well?”
He faced her, briefly, his face darker than the storm clouds moving in across the peaks. Then he set his face forward again. “What do you want me to say? Petri’s a self-aggrandising pompous dick, but that’s nothing new.”
“So are you, Voch, and I haven’t killed you either.”
He ignored her. “Nor is the fact he makes you stupid in the head. What is fairly new is he almost got the pair of us killed. He was spying on us for both the prelate and–” he paused to shudder “–Sabates. He’s swapped sides more often than I lie, and that’s a lot. You can’t trust him, Kass, not at all, less than any magician, and you can’t see it because he’s blinded you. If you want to throw yourself away, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to go down with you.”
Anger came off him in waves she could almost feel on her face.
“If that’s what’s behind all this stubbornness–not Reyes or because it’s the good thing or anything else–if the thought uppermost in your mind is him, well, you can go on your own.”
She stared at him, at his serious face when nothing was ever serious to him. All the new hollows under his cheeks, the shadows gathered around his eyes. She’d known he’d take it like this, which is why she’d said nothing about the letter or what was in it. He’d not been the same since Reyes. More serious, like now. Less reckless. Twitchy at times, and yet steadier than she’d ever known him at others. All of these things had only grown more pronounced since the tattoo had gone, since he’d started to rely on Esti’s medicine, even more now he was trying to keep secret how much he was taking. This wasn’t the brother she knew.
“Not just for Petri,” she said now. “For us too. We’re dead if we stay, you know that. We’ve got that life-warrior after us, though why he didn’t kill us I don’t know. Life-warriors and a nest of magicians behind us, a price on our head. In front we’ve got a chance, Voch. For us.”
“For us, bollocks. Swan in, save Petri, thwart a revolution, fame and bloody glory. That’s not you, Kass. It’s me–except the save Petri part–or at a push even Petri on his better days, but it’s not you. And I’ll do it just for the glory, like you knew I would when you suggested it. And for the possibility of a pardon, because I’m a Reyes man, born and bred, and I want to walk down one of its ridiculous shifting streets without worrying for my head and because I love that place in my bones. I belong there where I don’t belong anywhere else. But don’t try to tell me this isn’t about Petri, that you’d be riding this hard, not planning on charging through a bloody army. God’s cogs, an army, Kass, and you just think we’ll ride through. Don’t tell me it’s not for him. Not after that letter. I know, you see. Better than he does, because I know you better than he does. All that fancy talk in there, all the long words and protestations, it’s got you thinking. I know because you aren’t fidgeting, and it’s always one or the other with you, always something in motion, and if it’s not your hands, it’s your head. So you do it for Petri, if you have to, and I’ll do it for the glory, but don’t expect me to cheer when you find him. And don’t lie about why you’re here. I do the lying in this partnership. If there still is one.”
With that he levered himself to his feet and staggered on, not even trying to hide how Esti’s bottle came out or how his hands stopped shaking after he’d taken some. She got up to follow him and called out softly, “I can’t give up on him. Like I couldn’t give up on you, even when I tried.”
He didn’t even turn to answer. “Looks like you’re going to have to give up on one of us, Kass. Because he hates me even worse than I hate him. But you’ve got plenty of time to think about it while we’re trying not to die.”
No, this wasn’t her brother at all. She followed him, looking up at the clouds and reckoning they’d be soaked before the hour was out, but up this high clouds became fog, and that could only help them.
It was probably a mercy Vocho hadn’t had time to read the entire letter.
Chapter Fifteen
Petri no longer had any notion where he was or how long he’d been there. No one came; no lights disturbed his eyes; no sound came to his ears. He was truly alone.
All he had was what he could touch, and pain, and what was left inside his head. Apart from the pain, then, of which there was much to spare, not much. He’d given it all to Eneko in the faint and muddled hope that would make the pain go away. No, not quite all, and he held on to one tiny thing in the mad darkness. Kass would come–she would. He thought of all he’d poured into his letter to her, a part of himself that was now hers utterly.
She’d come. She had to.
One thought strayed into another. Smell–all he could smell was himself. Nothing to taste. He only got water, and a little bread when they came, which they hadn’t for… it must be days. Sometimes he shouted just to know he wasn’t deaf, but he couldn’t be sure even his own voice was real. He raised a shaking left hand to his face, towards what had been his eye, but couldn’t bring himself to touch it. The pain faded at times, but any touch would flare it to life, have him screaming all over again. Yet sometimes he did just that, because at least the pain was real. He felt for his eye with his left hand because the right was useless. Tendons cut, muscles severed, bones cracked, fingers now only limp slugs. A marrow-deep throb where once he’d known only deftness. He’d known, as soon as Eneko had started there with his hot blade, cauterising even as it sliced, that he’d never duel again, that the hand would be nothing but dead flesh.
Like him now, without that hand, his one true skill in life cut away with the muscles. His hand was like he always had been, perhaps, but had just never been able to see: useless, cowardly, insignificant, worthless. As his father had always said, as Eneko had said later.
A scraping sound in the dark. And again. Someone at the door. He sat very still and listened, needles of fear prickling everywhere; at the same time he wanted nothing more than to see something, anything. Another human face even if it was coming to take him to Eneko. He heard words and only belatedly realised he was babbling, pleading with them to come in. Take him, don’t take him, whatever they liked, just come. Just let him know he wasn’t alone, wasn’t mad. Even the prospect of Eneko’s knife couldn’t dull the desperate need for someone, anyone, to come. The noise stopped, and panic gripped him worse than the pain–the thought that they’d go away, leave him.
The door cracked open, let in a sliver of light that blurred his eye with pain, but he didn’t care. He hated the men who came and threw bread at him, whispered threats of what they would do to him, naked in the dark where no one would ever know. He feared them, would do anything they asked for a scrap of hard bread, a word, something that was neither silence or Eneko’s voice scraping across his nerves.
They came, and he cried, begged as he’d known he would, held out his one working, shuddering hand, everything stripped from him, every pretence that he was noble, brave, good. All he had to look forward to was begging.
Unless…
She’d come. She would. He held the thought, determined that Eneko wouldn’t take
that one last grain of hope from him.
Alicia moved smoothly down the rows of tents, picking her way through the mud, fan at the ready in the humidity of hot mountains after rain. The rain had passed swiftly, as it always did here, and now the last of the heat was mercifully dying with the sun as it dipped behind a peak. The camp sat on a shallow sloping plateau. She was impressed despite herself. She’d hitched her star to Sabates because he’d been her best hope of getting what she wanted, but until now she hadn’t truly believed he could persuade Ikaras to go to war purely to fuel his own revenge fantasies.
At the centre of the camp, in a wide clear circle, sat two tents, as different as sun and moon. One tall and white, simple yet impressive due to its size, with a purple and gold dragon banner hanging limp in the heat. Next to it a complicated affair in blood red, squat next to its tall neighbour, mushrooming with small side tents and extra doors, dripping with gold braid and all kinds of ornamentation. Licio and Orgull. The tents that crowded around showed similar differences. More Ikaran tents than Reyen, that was clear at a glance, the plainer white tents an island in the middle of colourful chaos.
She stepped into the cool dimness of Licio’s tent, where the guards glanced at her before moving aside to let her through into a series of flimsy-walled rooms lit with hundreds of tiny brass lamps. Voices ahead–Licio’s brash, youthful tones, Sabates’s smooth words, the staccato imperiousness of Orgull. She took a few moments to prepare. Brush and papers ready, several vials of various types of blood hidden where she could easily reach them in bodice and cloak and secret pockets. She took a few more moments to concentrate on the marks that oiled slowly over her fingers, the darker permanent ones, the redder new ones she’d laid on earlier. Her only true defence against Sabates and his power.
The silken door gave way under her hand and Sabates came to his feet with what looked like genuine pleasure in his smile. An incline of Licio’s head acknowledged her, no more. A seated shallow bow from Orgull and a secret look that faded almost as soon as it was there.
She listened with half an ear as Sabates greeted her, fussed about getting her some wine, found her a seat. Orgull, bar that one bow, barely bothered with her, but she was watching his two guards, two life-warriors with matching, mirroring scars on their faces. They returned her look with an implacability that made a tiny shiver run through her, of delight mixed with some other emotion she couldn’t name as she thought of Gerlar.
“A small change of plan,” Sabates was saying. Such an oily sort of voice, she’d often thought, though she kept that behind shuttered eyes and her swishing fan. Sabates had been carefully cultivated, much like Esti grew her little plants. He went on, “I knew Eneko would prove to be a problem.”
Alicia cocked her head. “I thought as much myself.”
“Then you won’t be surprised to learn he’s preparing his own little coup. To take the city before we return, get all the population behind his guildsmen.”
Is he now? No, not surprised, but it makes my life a little harder.
“No match for an army,” Orgull said.
Sabates smoothed his robes and glanced at Licio before he replied. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. You’ve life-warriors, yes, but not many. The rest of your army is made up of farmers, artisans and the like. No match for guildsmen. And if the guild wins the city, they’ll get an army much like yours. Besides…” He hesitated, caught Alicia’s eye before he carried on. “They have something else. A new contraption, new clockwork. It will be quite devastating if he manages to finish them before we get there.”
You know that I know about the hearts, about your little deal with Eneko, that I can see now that you are betrayed.
“So then?” Outwardly she stayed calm. Inwardly every cog in her head was whirring. Sabates knew, and that was dangerous. In all likelihood he knew that she’d spoken to Eneko. Maybe even knew about Esti. Did he know why?
“If it was just that,” Sabates said “there’d be little problem for magicians of our calibre. But it’s not just that. Eneko has Petri, has done for some days. We have to assume he knows as much about our plans as Petri did. Eneko’s not a kind man when he wants something. Petri will break, as others have done before him in Eneko’s hands. Probably he has broken already, because Eneko has some skill in that area.”
No, Eneko had never been a kind man. “Then what do you suggest?” she asked.
“Exactly what we were discussing.” He handed her a glass of wine and managed a brief secret touch as he did so. She fussed with her fan to cover the grimace that she couldn’t entirely keep from her face. “Any thoughts?”
Yes, you fool. I don’t care except for how this affects my plans.
“Eneko may suffer some disruption to those plans of his,” she said. “Vocho and Kacha are on their way back to Reyes even now, and they bear him no goodwill. I don’t doubt they intend to pay the guild a visit. And Kacha always was a fool over Petri. If I were Eneko, I’d be sleeping with a blade under my pillow and one eye open.”
Sabates raised an eyebrow. “You let them live?”
“For now. They may prove useful. At the least they’ll be one more thing Eneko has to watch out for.”
“I see,” he said in a tone that she knew meant that she’d be asked for a thorough explanation later. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Perhaps fortunate. Perhaps not. Our plans need to adapt, nonetheless. Especially as there’s more than one guildsman in this camp.”
Her turn to raise an eyebrow.
“They were guarding the mines until they were persuaded, by fair means or foul, that it was the ‘good thing’ to join us and stop Bakar in his madness. But when this news about Eneko becomes known–and it will–then it becomes trickier.”
“No match for my life-warriors,” Orgull said with a smugness that just begged for a slap she couldn’t give.
Aloud she said, “It’s only a problem if you want to keep them alive.”
“Ah, but I do, at least some of them. Reyes is well defended, and there’s all that damnable clockwork to consider. Eneko knows we’re coming, so we’ll not have the advantage of surprise. I need them to help us find a route in that won’t kill half our men.” Sabates shifted irritably and took a sip of wine. “At any rate, we need to move sooner than we’d hoped. And without Petri in the palace, no matter how coerced, at least part of our plan will have to be redesigned.”
Ah yes, his plans for the truly hideous bone clock the prelate loved so much. Alicia had thought all his manoeuvring stupid, though she had to admit that the poison they’d been administering through Bakar’s precious clocks had done wonders to help them destabilise both the prelate and, by extension, Reyes. The best way to get any population behind a change in rule was to make the current one abhorrent, and how better to achieve that than to make the ruler insane?
“I could get in, perhaps,” she said. “Bakar might remember me.” Though not for the reasons Sabates thought.
A smooth, knowing smile from him with a hint of jealousy. She’d danced him around her so long, promised much and given little, but he’d grown weary of waiting for her final yes. As if that would ever happen. Many men had thought so, and none had got what they wanted, though she had allowed them to believe they might for her own purposes. And Sabates jealous of Bakar, a man so addled from all the poison he’d been given that all she’d needed was a bit of flattery and a friendly ear rather than the seduction Sabates assumed.
“Oh, who could forget you?” Sabates oiled. “Good. Still, we’ll need to make a few other adjustments, bring things forward.” He turned to one of the guards by the door. “Inform the commanders we leave tomorrow, as soon as is practicable.”
Licio, Orgull and Sabates stayed talking and planning until it was late, but finally Sabates rose and took his leave. He slid a glance her way, a look she’d seen for coming on twenty years. She’d ignored all of them with more or less grace. But she wasn’t sure she could ignore this one, when he thought he had her, had caught her going
against him…
“Let me show you to your tent,” he said, and she nodded, fluttered behind her fan to hide the racing of the pulse in her throat and the way her mouth clamped down on her sudden fear. He’d caught her out, knew what she’d discovered, what he hadn’t meant her to know about his deal with Eneko. He was powerful, more powerful than her, and he’d never taken lightly to his pupils getting too smart for their own good–the university gardens flourished on what was left of those pupils. She’d danced him about, and now she’d made a possibly fatal misstep.
The camp thrummed with life around them as he led her. Even now, as her mind was whirring on how to get out of this one, she took in details. Details helped you live. There were only a few Reyens: Licio’s men with their coloured flashes, guildsmen here and there in gold and green tabards with the sort of stunned smiling faces that occurred after a magician had spent a lot of effort persuading them, the sort of persuasion that may or may not take long. They were far outnumbered by the Ikarans, and she wondered if Licio realised how much danger he was in, or whether Sabates had perfected his control of him. She rather thought he had, but maybe he didn’t know just how much she had worked on Orgull on her own behalf. Maybe there was a way out of this after all.
Smoke from the fires curled around them as they turned off the main path and out into darker areas where men looked up fearfully as Sabates passed. Sabates’ stock in trade. Not outright terror, no direct threat, just a shifting unease that made a person think that he should follow the magician because it was better to be on the winning side, surely? That being on the losing side, even if it was right, wasn’t for a man who wanted to stay alive and feed his family. Someone who could offer them that, when the alternative was a deluded prelate, was surely the right side. They muttered among themselves, but when didn’t they? Was any ruler really better than another? If not, then did it matter whose side they were on?
