by Phil Tucker
No, she thought, stepping aside as a flood of people rushed into the chamber. He's not dying. He's dead.
She sank down into a chair, an excruciating headache pounding behind her eyes. She focused on her breath and ignored the exclamations of panic, the horror, the growing crowd.
Ignored the stares, the sudden arrival of the Vothaks.
One thought alone remained. If they don't convict me of murder, then I've done it. I've become the empress. The armies of Agerastos are mine to command.
CHAPTER FIFTY
"No, my lord." Winlin's voice was dry, just shy of disdainful. "We don't have the funds necessary to hire on an extra shift to work the Teardrop. You cannot simply wish gold out of thin air."
Tiron was sitting in the corner of the council chamber, one finger resting across his lips, watching as the old falconer taught the young lord the finer points of economic principle.
"The silver is in the rock," said Ramswold, pacing from one side of the small room to the other like a caged hound. "We cannot increase our funds without extracting it. Yet you tell me we cannot hire on more miners for another six months?"
"Or a year, depending," said Winlin. "Your uncle spent as quickly as his money came in. Your coffers are bare. All that comes in from your tenants' monthly rents is barely sufficient to pay your accounts and the militia and miners' salaries, buy food, pay tithes to Aletheia and pay back the debts to the central bank of Sige. We are barely able to maintain ourselves, much less hire thirty more men to work a night shift."
Osterhild leaned forward with a wince. Her arm had healed well these past two weeks, but it would be a month or more before it was free of pain. "What if we pay them from the profits? No wages, but rather a percentage of our sales?"
Ramswold nodded sharply. "Yes, yes, precisely. What then?"
"What if," said Tiron, breaking in with a slow drawl, "your silver mine runs dry? What if there are delays in processing the ore? Beyond that, doing so would advertise to all the local lords that you are short of funds. They'd move quickly to take advantage."
Ramswold grimaced and resumed his pacing. "I can't wait six months or a year. There are reforms I need to enact. The roads are nearly impassable. I want to open up the fields on the western slope once more."
Winlin shrugged. "Either raise your taxes, sell objects of value, or cut expenses elsewhere."
There was a sharp knock on the door. Leuthold, the new captain of the militia, pushed off where he was leaning against the wall and opened it. One of the keep guards bowed. Metche, was it?
"My lord, pardon the interruption. A message has come direct from Aletheia. I thought you should receive it at once."
Ramswold froze. "From Aletheia?" He took the scroll, nodded his appreciation, then examined the ornate seal replete with the gold and silver ribbons that made its origins known to all. He glanced at Tiron, then Winlin. "Could they be disputing my claim to lordship?"
Tiron snorted. "I think if they really tried, if they dug down deep, they just might be able to care a little less than they do right now. No, my lord. That's not it."
Ramswold nodded and cracked the seal, then spread open the heavy vellum on the table. He murmured as he read the script, passing over the ornate introductions and greetings to the body of the message.
"... the gravest threat our empire has seen in over two centuries. The kragh have bestirred themselves and risen up behind a new warlord. They number in the tens of thousands, and are set to assail the walls of Abythos. As an Ennoian lord, we summon you to your divine duty, and command that you gather your forces and move with all haste to the staging area in Ennoia, and from there join us in rebuffing this menace so that we may ensure the sanctity of our people, both high and low..."
Ramswold straightened and handed the scroll to Osterhild, who frowned as if she'd been palmed a dead toad. "But what of the Agerastians? Aren't we at war with them?"
Pex, a burly young man with bristling eyebrows and cheeks already dark with stubble despite shaving that morning, rose to his feet. "We weren't summoned like this to fight the Agerastians. If we had been, maybe Warmund would have actually sent somebody to help."
"Tiron?" asked Ramswold. "What do you think?"
Tiron shifted in his seat. "What is there to think? You're an Ennoian lord. Your duty above all else is to defend the Empire. You've been called by the Ascendant to do just that. You must march."
Isentrud, an athletic young woman with great curly masses of black hair, grinned around at everyone. "Abythos! Can you imagine? To stand on those famed walls and defend the Empire?"
Winlin closed the book of records that lay before him on the table. "At least some of your troubles are solved, my lord."
"Oh?" Ramswold sank into his seat. "How so? I thought them all compounded."
"Henceforth, you are on sacred mission. You need not pay those who fight for you. You need to pay for room and board as you travel to Ennoia, and all debts will be held in abeyance while you fight for the Empire. Should you survive, you will return to a tidy accumulation of funds that should solve your current woes."
Ramswold perked up. "That's true."
Leuthold nodded reluctantly. He was a tall, handsome man, his face tanned by hours spent on patrol. His presence was a quiet and steady one. "The men won't like it, but they won't complain, either. Those who haven't saved any funds to cover the next few months won't have anyone to blame but themselves."
Ramswold rubbed the back of his head. "Sacred mission. To think! When was the last time the Ascendant put forth such a call?"
"When Enderl Kyferin led the invasion of the Agerastian islands, twenty-some years ago," said Tiron quietly.
"Precisely! And two weeks into my own lordship, this mandate from the heavens falls into my lap!" Ramswold leaped to his feet with all the excessive energy of youth. "Tiron, you spoke of my crafting the narrative of my rise so as to cement my authority and power. Well, what better chance to do just that than to seize this opportunity and embrace it for all it is worth? The Order of the Star shall ride forth to do the Ascendant's bidding!"
Isentrud slammed her fist on the table and stood up, eyes shining. "This is how legends are born! We will be a small company, but we will be the bravest!"
Pex grinned. "To think that some of our companions were afraid that the next few years would consist of little more than patrol and border skirmishes." He ground one fist against the other palm. "We'll carve our fame out of this horde, one kragh corpse at a time."
Winlin sighed and sat down.
Ramswold took a deep breath, and though he was fairly thrumming with energy, like a plucked harp string, he turned to Tiron and spoke in a careful and respectful voice. "Tiron, you know what I'm going to ask."
Tiron grumbled and shifted in his seat again. "I agreed to help you sort out your domain, not to lead you into war."
"Sacred mission," said Isentrud. "You're an Ennoian– doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Sacred mission?" Tiron considered the term and shook his head. "Once, maybe. Today? It sounds like a great way for the Ascendant to get an army to do his bidding for free."
Eyes widened around the room. Even Winlin appeared shocked.
Tiron sighed and sat forward. "All right, perhaps that was a little harsh. A kragh invasion, is it? Ogri the Destroyer come again? What strange timing."
"Strange timing?" asked Ramswold. "How so?"
"Never mind." Tiron didn't feel like explaining his doubts about the veracity of this invasion, the providential timing that coincided with Iskra's plan to invade the capital. Was this merely a means to rouse every lord and knight in Ennoia, to have them ready to crush the Agerastians? Had word slipped out? Were the Aletheians aware of Iskra's plot?
"Tiron?" Ramswold moved his head slightly to the side so as to enter his line of sight. "You were saying?"
"Yes, all right." Tiron stood up. "I'll march with you, but know that we're not moving into a realm of myth and magic wherein legends are forged and grea
tness is achieved and each of us will have our own sparkling moment of euphoric heroism that will be immortalized by the bards throughout all the ages to come. We're going to war. And if Ogri is really coming, if we are to face ten thousand kragh, then this is going to be a lethal, vicious business unlike anything you can imagine."
He paused. Isentrud and Pex had sat back down, eyes wide. Osterhild looked full of reproach, while Ramswold had those spots of color high on his cheeks that always betrayed his embarrassment. Winlin was inscrutable, and Leuthold appeared soberly attentive.
"Have any of you even seen a kragh?" he asked.
Nobody spoke, then Winlin nodded. "While I was fighting alongside the old Lord Ramswold, some three decades ago. They're fearsome."
"Fearsome is right. They are nearly insensible to pain. They wield axes and hammers as large as your leg. You can stab them a dozen times, and they will keep coming. They don't tire. They're as strong as bulls and as vicious as mad dogs. When they come, they come like a forest fire, consuming everything in their path with a roar. It takes three skilled men to kill one kragh. Not because they're good with the blade, but because they won't stay down."
Tiron didn't know why he was so angry. His mood had shifted, become black as coal. "So, if I'm to march with you, I don't want to hear you wittering on about glory and honor. I'm coming not because the Ascendant wants me to, but because I can't stand the thought of your precious Order of the Star being butchered like cattle on the very first day of battle. Am I clear?"
Ramswold's jaw was clenched, but he nodded all the same.
"Good," said Tiron. "Leuthold, have your men ready to march at dawn. Ramswold, gather your Order. Appoint a steward to watch over your holdings while we're gone. I'll see you all in the morning."
He marched around the table and out into the hall, letting the door slam behind him.
The guard at the door was staring wide-eyed at him, so he kept walking and found himself climbing the stairs to the roof. It was only three flights, and he stamped the whole way up. When he finally emerged under the late afternoon sky, he moved to a corner of the keep. His glower was enough to keep the sentries away.
Tiron stared out over the land below. The keep's position atop the cliff gave it unparalleled views of the lowlands that stretched to Nyclosel's holdings and Kyferin's beyond. On particularly clear days, he could see the castles, small, dark smudges in the far distance. He stood fuming, not even seeing the beautiful landscape.
Why was he so angry with Ramswold and his foolish Order? Why go if he was so upset? He leaned forward on his elbows, restless and irritable. Because he was a fool? Because he never learned?
No. Be honest with yourself. You're too old to hide from the truth in a petty rage.
Tiron scrubbed at his face and then sighed and slumped over. He'd come to like these young men and women. Even Isentrud, though her enthusiasm and unstoppable optimism put his nerves on edge. As much as he scowled during dinner, he enjoyed their innocent boasting and their poetry contests, enjoyed letting them drag tales out of him about past battles and the wisdom he'd learned standing knee-deep in bodies.
They were good people. Foolish, young, naïve, idiotic at times in their lack of understanding about the true nature of the world – but good. He'd been unable to resist wondering how his own life might have been different if as a young man he'd fallen in with Ramswold's Order instead of Kyferin's Black Wolves. Might he have vied as enthusiastically as the others to be nominated the evening's poet? Might he have laughed as joyously, clapped as loudly, and boasted as arrogantly about the deeds he would one day commit?
Tiron felt old and bitter and cynical and sour. A curmudgeon – that was the word. He resented these youths their right to enjoy the world, to savor their innocence, to marvel at the miracle of simply being alive and healthy, with their lives and mistakes still ahead of them. Was it fair for him to chastise them so? No, it was mean, perhaps even petty.
Perhaps he was the wrong person to accompany them. Perhaps they should march with Ramswold at their head, buoyed by their faith, singing their songs and wearing their shining armor right up until that last deadly moment. Why ruin their finest hour with sour warnings that would change little, if anything at all?
Then he thought of the kragh. He'd only fought them once. A small band of them had broken away from their main fighting force and pillaged a hamlet. Only ten of their warriors, but Enderl had been almost shaking with excitement. He'd summoned every Black Wolf, and together the forty of them had ridden into battle.
Memories of the kraghs' bellows and roars came back to him. He could still remember how their leader, the largest kragh, one with skin so dark it was almost black, had swung Black Star, its massive flail, and knocked Enderl's destrier's legs right out from under it.
He'd helped kill one. It had taken Ser Octhe's head clean off, even after Tiron had stabbed it deep in the side. Then it had gored Ser Janos with its fucking teeth before finally going down.
Tiron shuddered. Ten thousand of them. The walls of Abythos couldn't be high enough.
Resolve hardened within him. He'd march with Ramswold, and he'd keep his bile to a minimum. He'd do his best to keep the Order and their thirty militia alive for as long as he could. He'd go, knowing that he was doomed to fail from the outset.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Kethe led her Honor Guard and Consecrated down into the hollow heart of Aletheia, following the Way of Righteousness toward the vast chamber in which the Solar Gates were contained. Massive as they were, even the Gates appeared minute compared to the scope of the central hall, whose ceiling was lost in the dimness above them and from the circular floor across which extended countless roads and avenues like the spokes of a wheel, spearing in all directions to the farthest extremities of the stonecloud.
Kethe had never been here before, and couldn't help but slow down as the Way opened up into the hall, as the walls pulled back and the ceiling vanished overhead. The tramp of their boots disappeared, the space being too large for echoes, and the column of Synesis' and Ainos' Honor Guards diminished from a flood to a trickle, marching up toward the circle of Gates that arose within the hall's center.
The sheer amount of activity taking place within the hall was stunning. The Gates were all in use, their milky-white surfaces constantly shimmering as people traveled to and fro across the Empire. Wagons laden with grain from Ennoia and carts packed with fish from Zoe and Nous accompanied missionaries, servants, noble families, bonded traders and merchants of every stripe, a mass of humanity that constantly emerged and disappeared through the Gates, following carefully designated routes so that they flowed neatly past each other with a minimum of disorder.
It took them fifteen minutes to navigate their way toward the Bythian gate. It rose to improbable height, easily fifteen yards tall, built of black rock and broad enough for twenty people to march through. Kethe watched as first Ainos, then Synesis led their guards into the rippling white surface, and then suddenly it was her turn, and she took a deep breath and strode through.
She felt a wave of disorientation, akin to what she'd felt when she passed through the Lunar Portals, but more wrenching and sudden. The Lunar Portals felt as if she were being shuttled along obscure pathways through the darkness, but this was a straight shot directly into the sun; Kethe blinked, gasped, and stumbled forward into the night.
No, not night – Bythos. She'd never visited before. Kade was by her side, hand on the hilt of his sword, her Consecrated emerging behind her, so Kethe moved forward, falling in behind the last of Synesis' troops, her eyes wide as she took in the dark and gloomy majesty of the underworld.
Improbable and surreal clouds of emerald and sapphire swirled above them, an artificial and delirium-inducing sky that obscured the cavern's roof. Tall, cruel-looking edifices whose tops were curved and sharp like wicked blades of black iron rose in a cluster to her left – buildings, she realized, the height of which was such that they would tower over even Castle Kyferin's w
alls. Darkness blanketed everything, smothered all light and defied her vision so that she couldn't get a sense of this cavern's scope. It didn't feel like a cave; it felt like a world, an alien vista that made her want to turn and retreat to Aletheia, with its white luminous walls and careful order, its beauty and vast open skies.
The Solar Portals were an exact replica of those in Aletheia, and Kethe saw that the Portal to Bythos had of course here become the Portal to Aletheia; it had pride of place, and the road before her led straight toward the blade towers, angling down over the harsh, savage, rocky landscape toward that bastion of civilization.
Something was profoundly wrong, however. Something was, if not gone, then nearly absent. Kethe couldn't pin it down, searched for the right adjective to describe her sense of loss, and then suddenly understood. The presence of the White Gate had dimmed. She could still feel it, but now it was at a great remove.
"We'll split off from the road about half a mile down," Kade said quietly. "The Portal to Abythos is only a mile beyond that."
Kethe nodded, trying to master her expression. Of course, the Portal to Abythos would be apart from the others. The Ascendant had discovered it in his youth, a hidden Solar Portal that led to the land of the kragh. No other like it existed anywhere else in the Empire.
They weren't the only armed forces arriving in Bythos, Kethe saw. A large column of Ennoian soldiers was emerging from that Portal, marching ten abreast and seeming to be without end. One of their officers called for a halt as Ainos' Honor Guard met the main road to the towers, giving the Virtue's forces precedence. Ainos didn't even acknowledge the Ennoian officer, but simply marched ahead with calm and simple arrogance.
Down they went, the towers looming ever higher before them, the road lined with Bythians who had turned out to watch their passage. Kethe caught herself searching for Asho's face, almost overwhelmed by the sheer number of men who looked like him in passing, even if only due to their build and hair. Of course, she didn't see him. Still, she couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment even as she ridiculed her own hopes.
