The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3)

by H. Anthe Davis

  “A brothel?” said Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek, grinning.

  “No, and don't make me speak to you about your attitude. We've been tipped off to a cult storehouse. I expect a trap, so we will be cautious. Lieutenant Arlin, I want half of your platoon geared for close quarters; the other half stays here. Houndmaster, I want all of your ruengriin in whatever armor they can wear and still haul things. Bring Sergeant Presh for lights, and I will need all of your scouts as well, but for a different task. The rest of your men are excused.”

  “That doesn't leave many,” said Vrallek with a chuckle.

  “Send up two scouts—any two—immediately. Dismissed.”

  The heavy boots thumped away, and Sarovy moved to pull on his armor. Off went the uniform-coat, on went the padding, then the chainmail, then the light plates.

  The sound of slippers alerted him to Scryer Mako. He glanced back to find her watching him with a raised brow as he worked the buckles at his sides. “You summoned?” she said.

  “We have a—“

  “Tip, I heard. Any reason you didn't use the earhook? Or our connection?”

  He grimaced. For all the convenience of mentalism, he still felt leery of it. “I prefer to speak in person. I need a portal.”

  The other brow went up. “We need a portal for clearing out a storehouse?”

  “No, I'm considering—“ He saw the scouts crowd up behind her and beckoned them all inside, the plan still assembling itself. “I need you to give them portal stakes,” he said, nodding to the scouts. “I want a portal on the rooftop. Archers, veiled.”

  “Why do you need a portal for that? You could just send them.”

  “To climb a building under veil?” He paused. “Can a veil cross through a portal? I do not know how magic interacts with itself.”

  Scryer Mako shrugged one shoulder, arms crossed. “Mine will. I'm a Scryer, it's my job. Why do you need veiled archers on a roof?”

  “Why would I ever not need veiled archers on a roof?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you're very tactical. But is there a threat?”

  “Not stated.”

  “Then why the subterfuge?”

  “Because we are taking a cult storehouse. They attack from darkness, spring traps—“

  “Then someone should take portal stakes into the storehouse, not up on a roof.”

  He frowned. She had a point. “Can you sustain two portals at once?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then portal stakes with Sergeant Presh as well.”

  “The place isn't teleport-blocked?”

  “And how would I know, Madam Scryer?”

  “I'll go through with the archers then and take a good scan of it.”

  “I do not want you exposed to—“

  “How sweet. But I'll be fine with the archers. I don't care if they get shot for me; they're Trivesteans.”

  “Not all of them. There are several Wynds.”

  “Oh, that's even better. Wynds are meaty.”

  “Er,” said a scout, and Sarovy tore his gaze from the gleam in the Scryer's eyes. This scout was scruffy, earth-dark—local-looking. “You said you wanted all of us, but most are still in the field...”

  “I asked the Houndmaster to bring them in. I have been told he has his ways.”

  “Yeah, but so what do you want from them? If it's to re-deploy them, he can do that himself, you don't have to summon them all the way back here.”

  Sarovy regarded the man, wondering how that worked, then nodded stiffly. “Tell him to give them the location—here, I've marked it—and have them disperse around the area to observe. You can make yourselves undetectable?”

  “Hard to notice, more like. Works best in crowds but we'll do our best. Anything else?”

  “No. See to it, scout...?”

  “Telren.”

  “Scout Telren.”

  The scout saluted then scurried off with the map, leaving Sarovy with the Scryer and a second scout blending into the woodwork. If he did not stare at the man, he could easily forget he was there. “You. Get me one team of archers. Dismissed,” he said pointedly, and the scout gave a sheepish look and slunk out.

  “You would prefer us have some privacy?” said Scryer Mako, amused.

  Sarovy turned away, ostensibly to attach the rest of his armor. He knew he had a hard shell. He had cultivated it over more than a decade of grinding effort, intent on regaining something that he had lost—not honor, not rank, but the fire he had once possessed. The drive, the desire for anything.

  He did not have it. Just duty. And no patience for flirtation.

  “You are capable of wards?” he said.

  “I'm not brilliant at them, but we're all taught how.”

  “Ward me, please.”

  He heard the question on her lips, but then she let it die and came forward, and as he felt her start tracing something on his back-plate, he let himself exhale. He did not want to deal with this, did not even want to be aware of it, but now that he was, he had to work around it.

  A shiver of sensation passed over him, like being enfolded in a blanket. Then it dissipated and she said, “Done.”

  “Thank you.” He swung on the short red cloak with the Blaze Company flare, clasped it, buckled on his heirloom sword. Pulled the crested helm and diamond-shaped shield from the stand.

  “I don't see why you need all that gear,” she said, eyeing him up and down as he turned. “Or a ward. You're not leading them in, are you?”

  “No. But I plan to make of myself a target.”

  She gaped at him but he brushed by, already hearing the buzz of anticipation from the men below. They hushed as he stepped out to the balcony, most of the ruengriin still struggling with their bulkier armor. Chain tunic, steel cuirass and gorget, sallet helm, winged pauldrons, gauntlets, greaves, like miniature battering rams. He had seen them in action similarly armored, and knew they could move frighteningly fast. Sergeant Presh, on the other hand, matched the infantrymen in chain and hardened leather plus a broad-brimmed iron hat, an adaptation from the Jernizen campaign to ward off the saber-blows of their cavalry.

  “Good,” said Sarovy as he rattled down the stairs. “We have a storehouse to empty at the river's edge, possibly benign, possibly full of cultists. We will enter and secure the building, determine the ownership of the materials and remove them if they are Shadow Cult. Civilian opposition is to be captured, cult opposition killed. I have already warned the council of this. Now we carry it out.”

  A rough cheer went up from the crowd, and Sarovy knew that this was necessary. The men needed to stretch their legs, flex some muscle, do some work, even if it was running after rumors. Otherwise, penned up in here like they were under siege, they would take it out on each other. But the tension made this dangerous; an unwarranted clash between soldiers and citizens could bring the city down around his head.

  Thus his presence. He had to see bad behavior to correct it.

  “Vrallek, Arlin, start them out. I will join you shortly.”

  The lieutenants saluted, and with hollers they began to herd the men into the street. From the stairs above, Sarovy felt Scryer Mako's stare boring into his back. Before she could speak, the second scout rushed up with six yawning archers on his heels.

  “Archers, sir!” he crowed.

  “Yes, I see that. The six of you with Scryer Yrsian. You, scout...?”

  “Kemithry, sir.”

  “Scout Kemithry. Where did Scout Telren go?”

  “Here,” came a voice from his side, close enough to make him twitch.

  “The two of you, get portal stakes from the Scryer. Deliver one pair to Sergeant Presh, who I believe just marched out the door. Tell him to use them once inside. Take the other pair to a rooftop overlooking the storehouse entry. You can climb, I hope.”

  “Sure,” said Scout Telren. “This whole city is brick. Easy as pie.”

  “Sure, sir,” the other scout corrected in a sharp undertone.

  “
Right. What he said.”

  Sarovy eyed them for a moment, then said, “Dismissed. You as well, Scryer.”

  He heard her slippers on the stairs, her frosty silence, and then the scouts and archers brushed past to follow her.

  Sarovy made for the door, hoping to get out before Lieutenant Linciard could spot him and send the entire Lancer platoon as his guards. Linciard was off-shift according to the roster, and usually spent that time holed up in his office—luxuriating in privacy for once in his peasant life—but the commotion might yet draw him out and Sarovy did not want to deal with that.

  Outside, Lancers Garrenson and Serinel were already waiting, armored and horsed.

  He swallowed the urge to berate them. He had to be a responsible captain, which meant accepting some level of never-ending protection. Three lancers still made a tempting target for an assassin, so he simply nodded to them and went to his horse.

  The big tawny Tasgard beast nudged his shoulder with its nose and he gave it a greeting pat. Its—his—name was Havoc for what he had wreaked on the Jernizen lines, and though his hide was furrowed with scars, Sarovy preferred him to the horse he had been assigned for the Guardian pursuit: a younger, faster but fairly brainless creature. Upon reassignment, Sarovy had pulled Havoc from the Crimson stables himself. While they had not always gotten along, he owed the old horse more than to let him languish in an eight-foot cell.

  Swinging into the saddle was like returning to his domain. He felt comfortable in the embrace of his armor, comfortable ahorse; it reminded him of better times. There had been an invisible beacon hanging over those Jernizen battlefields, a bright light guiding him onward. To victory, to redemption...

  Now he was raiding cultists and threatening civilians. The shine had tarnished.

  “What's the plan, sir?” said Lancer Garrenson as Sarovy turned his horse after the infantry. The wind cut cold through the canyons of the streets, stinging through padding and plate; it had turned from northerly to southerly a few days ago and now kicked their cloaks ahead of them as they angled toward their target beneath the winter-white sky.

  “We are going to get me shot at,” said Sarovy.

  *****

  From the comfortable darkness of the eiyenbridge, Ardent watched the Crimsons maneuver beneath her feet. She could only see into the physical world through shadows, but those shadows did not have to be cast by walls and rooftops; they could be cast by men, and as long as she walked in their footsteps, her connection remained.

  Thus, she observed her quarry like reflections in a mirrored floor. The captain and his two bodyguards were restive; she had shifted her position many a time to stay in their horses' shadows, catching glimpses more of their gestures than their features. Her cloak of eiyets clung tenebrous to her, whispering the words of her agents into her ears; they told of abominations, portals, the shimmer-shapes of archers, painful mage-lights, scouts at all corners.

  Good information for the future, should they ambush these men for real.

  A part of her screamed to do it now. She could see the captain's throat from below—the underside of his jaw as pale as raw dough between the cover of his gorget and his crested helm. One bolt, well-aimed, would crack through the roof of his mouth at this angle, straight into his fanatical brain.

  He deserved it. Nearly a hundred Kheri had been captured in his raids on the smugglers' coves. Her contacts said that they had been shipped to the Imperial outpost of Miirut and then forced through portals, which meant their destination was probably the Imperial City.

  In the shadowless circle, where no rescue could come.

  She hissed through her teeth, and the eiyets echoed her. For all her careful talk, she was vindictive by nature, and well understood Commander Tonner's complaints. To remove her enemies—to crush them in her seething fist—was a great joy, and she wanted to feel it at this captain's expense. Brazen man, showing himself so openly!

  Yet he was no fool. She could hear him through the mirror of shadows, directing his troops within the storehouse via the magic that connected them. Though he thought himself prepared for her, he was not content to rest on that surety. He knew there was more to do.

  “A dance, you and I,” she told his image. Slow and cautious at first, learning the steps, but then swifter and fiercer until one of them slipped up.

  Even as she smiled, her mind slid to the other man—the one her eiyets had shown her. The Pajhrasthani within the storehouse, shaking the bangles out from under his chain sleeves to summon elementals of air and fire. Taradzuren by the cut of his goatee, perhaps the same one reported by the survivors of the cove raids. A blood-traitor.

  If the call came to destroy this company, she would deal with him first.

  Then she would kill the captain.

  *****

  Linciard stirred, then cracked one bleary eye open, wondering what that sound was. Like shuffling papers...

  Realization struck, and he swung from the bed, the thin blanket shedding from his back. “Savaad, what are you doing?” he snapped even as he stepped past the privacy screen that separated the living-space from the office.

  Rallant glanced over his shoulder, one fine blond brow arched, a sheaf of papers in his hands. By his expression, it was Linciard's fault for interrupting, not his. “Reading.”

  “Don't touch those.” He grabbed for them but the senvraka whisked them away, smirking, and it was all he could do not to lay hands on the man. “Those are official business.”

  “Yes, and you really should learn to spell, Erolan. Where did you grow up, the Night fringe?”

  “I— That's none of your business, and get your naked ass off my chair.”

  Rallant rolled his eyes but rose and stretched indolently, giving Linciard an eyeful. “It's not very comfortable anyway. I prefer the bed.”

  “Then get back there and stop touching my work.” Linciard snatched the papers and smacked Rallant with them as the senvraka slid past him, much too close.

  “Tease. Now where did I leave my breeches...”

  Linciard dropped the papers back on his mess of a desk, then took a moment to just breathe. He did not want to throw Rallant out, but this kind of behavior was—

  Something missing. He scanned the desk for whatever his subconscious had noticed, then snapped, “Sav! The piking earhook!”

  “Calm down,” said the senvraka from around the screen. “It's not as if I don't have my own, I just left it with my armor. Listening to you snore was too much to tolerate.”

  “You're a bastard. Did I miss anything?”

  “The captain is out there tempting fate. I don't know what you see in him.”

  “What?”

  “He's uptight, he has no sense of self-preservation—“

  “Give me the hook!”

  “Quiet, I'm trying to listen.”

  Scowling, Linciard stalked around the screen and nabbed the arcane object from Rallant's ear. The senvraka smacked his arm in annoyance, but when he slid it into position on his own ear he heard nothing.

  “You're messing with me,” he said.

  “I'm not. He ran off with some infantry and all the ruengriin and is out there trying to bait assassins. As if those two in the cells weren't enough.”

  Linciard scowled, a headache already coming on. He wanted to crawl back into bed and pull Rallant down with him—have some quiet time. It felt like he'd been running in circles ever since his promotion, yelling himself hoarse at the lancers that used to be his comrades and superiors and chasing after the captain's back. He had no idea how he was doing, or whether the others would tell him if he slipped up. And that was just dealing with company strife, never mind the piking city.

  He moved back to his desk instead, determined to start his day. Rallant had been reading his attempt at a platoon report, and faced with his own childish, painstaking scrawl, he had to admit that his lover was right. He was lucky he knew how to write at all, it not being a prized skill in the backwoods, but such an excuse would not satisfy t
he captain.

  “It's not illegible,” said Rallant, emerging to drape an arm across Linciard's shoulders and play with one of his war-braids. The contact between clothed hip and bare sent a warm surge through the lieutenant, which he struggled to ignore. “I can get the gist of it, but you shouldn't use big words if you don't know how to spell them.”

  “I'm trying to be professional.”

  “Just be what you are. He didn't promote you for your calligraphy skill.”

  “Then what did he—“ Linciard swallowed the words, hating to whine. Hating to be so uncertain. He wished he'd stayed a lancer.

  “You're doing fine. Confidence comes with time. I was born in the backwoods myself—northern Tremen county before the accursed Corvish forced us out. But I spent a few years in the court at Thynbell and learned how to fake it. You will too.”

  “If you were at court, how did you end up here?”

  Rallant fell silent, and Linciard glanced at him sidelong, not wanting to move from their pose. The golden teardrop gleamed at the hollow of the senvraka's throat, but above that his smile was brittle—almost sullen—and his gaze had gone distant.

  “I was there to influence those whom the lagalaina could not, but I...made a mistake,” he said finally. “We're all here because of our mistakes, aren't we? What was yours?”

  Flames and screams and bare feet running over snow...

  “I— Nothing. One day I was in the Border Corps, the next day transferred.”

  Rallant's smile broke. For a moment there was something in his eyes like thin ice on a lake, treacherous. Then it dissolved and the curve returned to his lips, the purr to his voice. “Well lucky you, to be saddled with the likes of us.”

  Linciard opened his mouth, wanting to explain, but he couldn't find any words that didn't feel like exposure. After a moment, Rallant pushed away to make a show of looking for his undershirt. For all their physical closeness, they'd known each other barely two weeks and been sleeping together for less than one, and that sporadic. They were strangers.