But then, there wasn't much to celebrate.
Behind him, Rallant said, “For you, of course. And you need to wash up before you put that on. Here, I'll help.”
The trickle of water pouring into the basin, and the splish and drip of a washcloth being wrung out, made Linciard's shoulders hitch tight. His knuckles whitened on the lid of the footlocker. In the back of his mind, a cold voice said, Enough.
“Enough,” he echoed, then louder as he turned: “Enough!”
Rallant, washcloth raised and barely a step away, blinked at him. The golden teardrop hung bright around his neck—his only adornment. His façade. “Erolan?” he said quizzically.
“Don't—“ It was difficult to maintain his anger under that amber gaze, but Linciard steeled himself and grabbed Rallant by the wrists, pushing him back. “Stop doing this to me.”
“Doing—“
“All of it. Everything. Leave me alone.”
“I'm sorry it made you ill...”
“It's not that!”
“Then what?” If the grip bothered Rallant, he didn't show it. He moved unresisting with Linciard's push. “What have I done?”
“You controlled me. You thralled me.”
Rallant smiled sadly. “Oh Erolan, I did that to protect you. To protect us. You didn't listen when I told you to run, and that could have killed us both. So I had to hide it. Thralls' minds are too difficult for mentalists to penetrate, so that was my only choice. Don't you understand?”
“We're gonna die anyway!”
“No. You will be converted. I will...” He trailed off, gaze drifting away. “I will be rewarded or punished at my masters' whim.”
“I don't want to be converted!”
“You have no choice. Though perhaps, if I am rewarded, I will be granted a request.” He twisted a hand from Linciard's grip and reached out to trace fingers along his stubbled jaw, ignoring his scowl. “Your thralling was temporary, but it can be made permanent. You need not go to the Palace.”
Linciard ground his teeth. “I don't want that either. I don't want any of this.”
“Since when has that mattered? We are tools in the hands of our lords and leaders, and that will never change, no matter who they are. The Crimson Army has been sheltered compared to the others, but if we wish to bring the world to the Light, we must be of the Light ourselves. No matter our personal wishes.”
“But—“ Linciard struggled for words, for reasonable opposition. “But we don't have to force people! We don't have to turn them into—we don't have to change them. It's not real if we do that. It's just fear and domination!”
“Welcome to the world, Erolan.”
“Shut up! You're not right. I don't know why you believe this shit. The Light I was brought up on is sheltering, protective, kind! It's not this...this—”
Rallant caught his gesturing hand and tried to lace his fingers with Linciard's, but Linciard wouldn't let him. “It is,” he said. “It always has been.”
“No.”
“It always will be.”
“I refuse to believe you.”
“You don't need to believe, because soon you will know. You will know as that little wretch Weshker now knows—“
“What?”
“—and your good friend Vyslin should be learning it as we speak. There is no escape from the Light, Erolan. Its gaze is everywhere, its beneficence and its castigation both without limit. Soon the Crimson Army will be cleansed of its flaws, and we will hammer down the walls of those Dark-lovers and False Light heretics that would keep us out. We will bathe all the world in the purifying flame of our faith, and remake it in our god's image.”
Staring into the fevered gleam of Rallant's eyes, Linciard felt his heart creep into his throat. He'd thought—hoped—that there was something to salvage in this man, but this was a level of madness no less than that of Messenger Cortine's.
Wasn't it? Cruel and manipulative as they were, they couldn't be right—could they?
“You should accept my offer,” said Rallant. “Thralls lose much of themselves when they are made permanent, but it is far safer than the conversion. Only one in ten survives without being primed, and only the Maker can do it right. We seem to be clashing with him, which bodes ill for the converting.”
“What?”
Rallant smirked. “How many men took the Messenger up on his offer? Eleven, including your Vyslin? It's possible they're all dead by now, especially the weak or faithless. Vyslin is probably a mindless husk, or fodder for the ahergriin, unless they don't even bother converting him and just feed him to the hounds like that fool Serinel—“
Until that moment, Linciard hadn't thought he had it in him to strike a lover. Even as he yanked from Rallant's grip, even as his fist connected, a part of him still couldn't believe it. The way Rallant's head snapped to the side, the way his eyes flew wide—he wanted to take it back.
Instead he committed to it, and stepped in to deliver the second punch.
Rallant was faster.
Snake-like, he lashed a hand out to clamp on Linciard's upper arm, nails biting in hard. His other latched onto Linciard's throat just under the chin, and though Linciard managed to get his arm locked over it, he couldn't twist away. The senvraka was too strong.
Then Rallant was pushing him backward, madness in his amber eyes, until Linciard's shins hit the footlocker and made him half-stumble, half-fall into the wall.
“How dare you?” Rallant snarled, pressing close, his teeth a bare inch from Linciard's upthrust chin. “I thought you were better than the others. Different. But no, you won't listen, you won't let me help, and now you dare to strike me!”
Linciard scrabbled at Rallant's fingers but they just clamped harder. He felt his trachea bend, air coming thin. Blood pounded in his ears.
“I have sheltered you from so much,” the senvraka continued, his snarl taking on a buzzing plurality. “Your backwoods naivete and misplaced loyalties would get you killed in the Field Marshal's army, and I don't want that. Light only knows why! And then you think you can lay a hand on me? You think I'll let you get away with that? You are not the one in power here, Erolan. It is only by my generosity that you even have a choice.”
With a last contemptuous shove, Rallant released Linciard and stepped back. Linciard's hands rose to his throat, to the incipient bruises, and as he hacked out a few harsh coughs he felt where damage had nearly been done.
Nearly, but not quite.
Through watery eyes, he stared at Rallant and saw his own tension, his own misery mirrored back. Then Rallant's face tightened, and he turned away.
“Wash yourself,” he said as he stalked off beyond the privacy screen.
Lacking any better option, Linciard obeyed.
*****
Captain Sarovy looked up at the sound of a slamming door. Above the stairs where he stood was the balcony that led to the command offices, storage and meeting room. Lieutenant Linciard stood there outside his own door, dressed in uniform red, with Lieutenant Rallant at his side in white like a couple prepared to enter a ballroom.
An unhappy couple, to judge by the nascent bruises on both.
Sarovy exhaled through his teeth and beckoned at both to come down. Rallant reacted first, and for a moment Sarovy feared he was in control again, but then Linciard looked over as well and he realized it wasn't control that fogged the man's gaze, but defeat.
Though he felt the same, it pained him to see it. He wanted desperately to act, but there was nothing he could do now that would make things better, and so much that could make it worse. The colonel had already condemned Blaze Company, but there was still time left for suffering.
As the two descended toward him, Linciard's gaze slid away. His face had assumed a mask of weary indifference, so different from the concern and engagement Sarovy was used to that he seemed a different man. Sarovy opened his mouth, trying to find words for this—an apology maybe, or a demand for resistance—but nothing came. They passed him in silence
, Rallant with the poise of a long-time courtier and Linciard heavily, obediently, to take their positions on the steps below him.
Lieutenants Vrallek, Korr and Herrick made room for them. The latter two had only been in their roles for two days—Korr replacing his own lieutenant and Herrick pulled from the specialists to lord over Arlin's infantrymen. And lord he did. Sarovy had lost count of the men Herrick had dragged into the yard for a whipping, for Arlin had been well-liked by his platoon and Herrick had no social graces at all.
There might have been a mutiny already if not for the fact that it was Midwinter. Crown Prince Aradysson's army had never officially observed the holy days, but had allowed its men to do so in private, and even the heretical westerners celebrated the turn of the year. In the Empire, formal Midwinter Rites demanded observation starting at midnight and ending at dawn for each of the four festival days—the Light's Vigil—as if the act of prayer and constant attention could raise the sun anew. This being a Dark year added a fifth festival day—Darkness Day—to the center of Midwinter, along with a special rite of cleansing and sacrifice.
This was only the second night of Midwinter, but already the men down below looked exhausted from the need to stand Light's Vigil. They still slept in shifts because even though they had been confined to the garrison, they were not safe; the Shadow Cult had already broken in once to steal away the men from the basement cells.
Sarovy was not sure whether to hope those men were alive, or wish them the mercy of death. Since the loss of Presh, more than two dozen men had vanished, and he had no idea what had become of them. The little lump of glass and metal in his jacket pocket—the eiyetakri—might gain him answers, but he feared the Dark too much to use it.
Or do I fear the truth?
“Are all in attendance, captain?” said Messenger Cortine from above. Sarovy looked up past the railing to see the priest approaching from the storeroom that had been cleared and outfitted for his purposes. As had become the norm, he was flanked by his white-robed aides and trailed by Scryer Yrsian and Magus Voorkei. Warder Tanvolthene brought up the rear.
Magus Voorkei was collared and shackled, but Scryer Yrsian had been blindfolded as well, and by the rumpled look of her robe and hair she had obviously had it rough. No bruises showed, but Sarovy knew all too well that trauma need not be physical, and anger clenched in his chest. Their alliance had been professional but he had come to rely on it—maybe even to consider her a friend. That she would suffer for his actions was—
“Captain?” prompted the Messenger.
Sarovy blinked, then skimmed the patchy red-and-white crowd. “I believe so.”
“The doors are sealed?”
“Yes. I saw the wards activate.”
“Then we shall begin.”
The crowd had already hushed, having learned from the ritual last night, and Messenger Cortine set his hands on the banister and looked down upon the assembled soldiers as if he could actually see them. He was garbed in the same vestments as always, his bleached hair slicked nearly flat, and Sarovy realized with a weird sense of déjà vu that he was emulating the sleek and simple look of the Emperor.
“Friends,” he began. “Brethren. We gather tonight to sing the praises of the fading Light, and to bid it rise again to lead and strengthen us against the depredations of the eternal enemy. In these days of greatest Darkness, of deprivation and cold, it can be easy to let one's heart sink into despair. Yet there must be hope, for though the Darkness ever surrounds us, and though the warmth and comfort of the Light may seem far, it is through our reaching—through our faith—that we draw it closer to us. It is through our praise that it remembers us and turns its glorious face upon us, and through our sacrifice that it gains the strength to drive away the night. On this festival eve, we call across the Darkness to our lord and liege, to our bright sovereign.
“I know that you, my brothers, have strayed from the path. I know that you have followed our prince, the very child of the Prime Scion of Light, into a place of heresy and confusion. You have been tricked, and you have fallen—as we all may fall.
“But you have not been abandoned. And though you may have turned your eyes away for a time, I see them now seeking the Light—for amnesty, for clarity, for glorification, for all the purpose and joy that its service brings.
“And you will find those things, for when the Light rises again and you are bathed in its great radiance, you will be freed of fear. You will be scoured of your crimes and emptied of all your torments, and you will know peace and grace as you are remade in the image of our god. This I promise you: that there is nothing you have done that can not be forgiven, and no harm done to you that can not be made whole.
“This is a night for praising, a night for raising yourselves up from the mire of Dark thoughts and desires. We shall begin with the mourning chant 'How Lost In Deepest Night', and then through the dirges to the paeans as before. Those of you who still do not know the songs, please pay attention; it is vital that our voices align by Darkness Day Eve. Now, we begin.”
The priest launched directly into plainsong, his strong dramatic tenor ringing out over the silent crowd. A moment later, a host of ruengriin picked up the drone note, bass voices rolling a heavy counterpoint that made Sarovy think of a bird skimming over a dark sea, ever in danger of being consumed by the waves. Cautiously he murmured the words—known but rusty, unsung for nearly a decade before last night.
Note by note, more voices joined, quiet at first as old memories kindled but then more firmly, the easy cadence drawing in men who had learned to march to harder tunes. Glancing down, Sarovy saw a few of the non-Imperials mouthing the chorus, faces screwed up in concentration. A singing crowd made others want to sing, faithful or not. Even the white-robed mages joined in, their voices fine but none with Cortine's strength.
Once remembered, the song came automatic to Sarovy, so he let his gaze wander. He could not bear to look long at his soldiers. Beyond them, the walls glowed with faint warded light, a persistence that made sleep difficult even for the most tired. He wished he could take comfort in it, but some part of him—some essential element of faith—was gone.
Something flickered at the corner of his vision. The entry hall. He glanced there but saw nothing amiss, the wards the same brightness as always...
Glancing back at Cortine and his robed assemblage, he saw that Scryer Yrsian and Magus Voorkei were not singing. Yrsian was smiling ever so slightly.
The wards behind her, which lit the front hall with its many windows, went out.
The song slid from Sarovy's mind, and for a moment he stood open-mouthed, on the cusp of shouting the alarm. Yrsian and Voorkei still maintained some of the wards, he knew, but the white-robes had been scrambling to take over from them due to the lapse with the holding cells. As another set of upstairs wards flickered and failed, he realized they were far from done.
His hand fell to his pocket, to the eiyetakri. Perhaps—
No. The Shadows were still the enemy, and he had a responsibility to his men.
“To arms!” he shouted, but the drone-line was loud, and as cutting as his own voice could be, Cortine's still rang over it. His lieutenants looked askance at him, perhaps suspecting mutiny. Their mouths still shaped the ritual words.
A set of wards on a wall in the assembly hall went out, and his fear painted an image of his men swallowed before him. It gave him all the drive he needed.
“TO ARMS!” he shouted again, moving up the stairs at the same time, and glimpsed heads turning, heard voices falter. Up to the balcony he went, toward his door—his sword and shield—half-turned all the way to roar, “ALL TO ARMS! THE SHADOW STRIKES!”
Cortine's song broke. As he pushed into his office, he heard the priest say, “Captain, you are not excused—“
Then came a roar like wind in the throat of a chasm, and a shaking—a rending, full of the sound of shattering timbers. Voices rose in surprise and fear.
Sarovy took two steps into his office bef
ore he registered that the wards inside were gone.
From the shadow of the privacy screen came a dark-garbed figure, with a dull-black weapon that could have been a club or a blade—too hard to tell in the sudden gloom. And another from the corner behind the door, and another from his immediate right.
For once, he was grateful to be a monster.
He went straight for the one by the privacy screen, driving in with his shoulder, indifferent to the weapon. It punched through the side of his uniform jacket, but though a burning sensation spread from the wound, there was no actual pain, and no stopping him as he bowled the man over. The blade, hitched in his coat, yanked free of his assailant's hand as Sarovy stumble-stepped over him.
He knew the placement of his gear even in the dark. His heirloom blade came to his hand as if called, his shield much the same; alas for the armor, as even the chain hauberk would take too much time to don, and the enemies were already breathing down his neck. So he turned and caught a ringing blow on his shield, stabbed out blindly with the heirloom blade and felt it skim across leather. Shoved forward hard and hit someone in the face and chest with the shield.
The privacy screen went down under the enemy's weight. He heard furniture crunch and the whisper of papers scattering. The other shadow moved in on his right, trying to take advantage of the gloom, but the fall of the screen had let in enough light to cast him in silhouette, and Sarovy hacked without finesse until his vigor drove the shorter-bladed cultist out the door.
The others were getting up. He swatted his shield into the face of the one who had brought down the screen, but the other came at him from low and aside, and he felt a blade carve his leg. The burning erupted there as well, and he half-turned to guard himself as he stepped through the doorway.
On the balcony, all was chaos.
He could spare only a glance for his surroundings, but to his right he saw straight into the midnight street. A massive portion of the building's façade had been torn away, including all the windows and a chunk of the hall, and there were figures out there, limned by lantern-light. Figures with crossbows.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 97
