We'd already agreed we wouldn't try to disguise the giants. Thanks to Lupa, Mounteban knew they were coming. In the short term at least, the fear their presence would generate in his ranks outweighed the risk of his trying to move against us. Still, marching them into the filthy streets of the Suburbs would have been a melodramatic, not to mention muddy, business. Instead, we left them camped on the outskirts while we continued on to seek out Navare.
We made no attempt to hide our own presence either. In fact, at Alvantes's suggestion, we rode by the most conspicuous route, even going so far as to risk the main road that ran against the edge of the city. Let Mounteban know we were here. Let him waste energy worrying over what to do about us, even as we plotted our move against him.
At least, that was the theory. In fact, my eyes stayed nervously locked upon the battlements above. Every slight noise threatened to send me tumbling from my horse. I started every time a helmeted head peeked through the crenulations.
Yet if I hadn't been staring at that impenetrable sheet of stone, I'd never have seen it. Not believing, I blinked hard, looked again, even rubbed a knuckle against my eyes.
It was still there. My missing piece.
Now I knew how a handful of guardsmen and an army of peace-loving giants could force their way into a fortified city, and how they might stand the tiniest of chances against its legion of defenders and its tyrant of a ruler.
There was only one drawback.
It meant I was breaking into Altapasaeda again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Before we hurled ourselves into untold danger, it was vital we knew what had been happening in Altapasaeda these last few days.
That meant a visit to Navare, and that meant giving away Alvantes's one and only agent in the Suburbs. I could almost feel the resistance radiating off him as he hammered the reinforced door of Navare's shack.
The resulting pause gave us ample time to imagine the worst. Then the door opened the barest crack — just enough to reveal Navare's crossbow, and the man himself just visible in the gloom behind.
"Alvantes?"
"Sub-Captain Navare."
"I'd thought… there were rumours, and…" Abruptly, Navare's face split into a grin. "Well, what are you standing outside for, Guard-Captain?" In a hiss, he added, "You know they're watching, right?"
"Of course," Alvantes whispered back as we brushed past.
Inside, Alvantes briefly summarised the events of the last few days, avoiding most of our time in Ans Pasaeda and touching only lightly on our run-in with Guiso Lupa. His impatience for news was palpable, and I could see Navare recognised it too.
"Our men haven't been discovered," Navare said, "though there've been a couple of close calls, all right. Three times now, Mounteban's sent men to check the barracks. Fortunately, they had scouts out, and got hidden in time. He's also had his thugs hunting through the Suburbs. He calls them 'inspections'."
"But they haven't found anyone," Alvantes said — more to himself than as a question.
"No. Well, not until now, anyway."
Alvantes let the implied criticism slide. "What about the situation inside the city? No one's tried to move against Mounteban?"
"He has things locked down tight," Navare replied. "He's lost ground in a few areas — some of the families, the ones who rely most on trade, are furious the gates are still closed. I think it's thrown his nerve, knowing we're out here, but not knowing where. On everything else, though, word is the families are toeing his line. Mounteban's been making all the right promises… and he's kept a fair few of them too."
"How can he, with the city still shut off?" inserted Estrada.
"Well, there's the thing," said Navare. "Lupa wasn't alone. Mounteban's been sending agents out to all the towns and the larger villages. Most times it's one of his lackeys, but a couple of the families have gone over wholeheartedly to his cause now. I heard a rumour Lord Eldunzi's set himself up in Muena Delorca."
"Eldunzi?" I laughed. "He couldn't run a free water stand in a drought."
Alvantes looked at me with surprise. "You know Eldunzi?"
I realised I never had told the full story of my adventures in Altapasaeda. "We passed a little time together," I said. "It didn't end well. The man has a big mouth."
"That's one of the kinder things the Muena Delorcans have been saying," agreed Navare.
"Whatever Mounteban might have set up elsewhere," put in Alvantes, "the problem stays the same. Chop off the head and kill the body. None of this will hold together with him gone."
"You have an idea?" The hope in Navare's voice betrayed the strain he'd waited under these last days.
"Not me," Alvantes said. "Damasco thinks he can get us inside."
I flushed — partly with modesty, more with a thrill of horror at the thought of what I'd somehow got myself into. "Getting in will be the easy part," I said.
I realised Navare was staring at me expectantly. The heat in my cheeks deepened. Planning was one thing, taking part another, but being pushed into the role of leader was more than I'd ever bargained for.
Then again… it was my plan.
"All right," I said, "here's how we begin."
Time was crucial. Darkness was one of the few things on our side, and we'd likely only have a single night before Mounteban concocted a scheme against the giants or shored up his defences.
Navare set out minutes later to summon our forces waiting at the barracks. We would need them in the morning, and a little extra manpower wouldn't hurt in the meantime. Soon after he'd left, Estrada announced her intention to speak with Saltlick and the giants.
"You should get some rest, Easie," she told me.
The idea seemed preposterous. Then again, there was nothing I could do for the next few hours. I sat at the end of Navare's narrow cot bed and closed my eyes.
The next I knew, I was waking to the sound of pounding upon the door. I watched Alvantes cross to it, listen carefully and then draw it wide. Outside, Navare stood flanked by half a dozen figures in hooded travel cloaks. I vaguely recognised them from amongst the Altapasaedan guardsmen; as they strode inside, I caught flashes of the uniforms they wore beneath their cloaks. Tonight they'd be acting in their official capacity for the first time in weeks, and I suspected that fact meant a lot to them.
A few minutes later, the door nearly shivered off its hinges, with a crack like muffled thunder. My first thought was a battering ram; when the blow wasn't repeated, I realised the truth. Someone else was knocking, and only one person I knew could knock like that.
Alvantes opened the door to reveal Saltlick squatted on his haunches, with Estrada stood beside him.
"Ready," Saltlick rumbled, as if concluding a conversation started long since.
Alvantes's only reply was a nod to his men. Together, they trooped into the night, Saltlick falling in behind.
Estrada slipped inside and drew a chair from the room's small table. We sat in tense silence — until the first sounds of banging and clattering began a few minutes later.
"It's started," she said.
I nodded. "No going back now," I added — and wondered how true that was.
For my plan to work, it was vital Mounteban know the giants were coming. For all that there were similarities, invading Altapasaeda wasn't a sly housebreaking in the depths of the night. The last thing it required was discretion. Only when I'd fully accepted those facts had the last details swum into focus.
To anyone watching, the events taking place in the streets of the Suburbs over those next few hours would have looked much like the preparations for a war — a war of giant proportions. Estrada and I sat listening, far past the hope of sleep. I had a fair conception of what was going on outside. It had been my idea, after all. Still, just listening to the jarring shocks of noise from all around gouged at my nerves.
I remembered my first sight of Saltlick, hunched in shadow, a monstrous living sculpture carved from the fire-lit darkness. I remembered how I'd watched the giants
fight at Moaradrid's behest, their colossal forms indistinct amidst the rain and the half-light of sunrise. Unless his agents were blind and deaf, Mounteban knew the giants were coming. I thought about how on edge he must be by now, desperately struggling to keep control over frightened minions — and I couldn't but smile.
My smile sagged. The night was almost done. It would be my turn soon enough.
Estrada must have caught my expression. "You really don't have to do this, you know," she said. "Any one of Alvantes's men could go in your place."
"I don't, do I?" Somewhere in the excitement of the last few hours, I'd managed to forget that simple fact.
A knock on the door nearly separated me from my skin. When Estrada opened it to reveal Alvantes and Navare, I wasn't sure if I should feel relieved. Was their arrival a reprieve or the last stick for my funeral pyre?
"The giants are ready," Alvantes said. "The remainder of the guard and the Irregulars have their orders. We're going to get into place now. Then it's up to you, Damasco."
I barely suppressed a shudder. "About that…"
I'd seen scorn for me so many times in Alvantes's eyes that I was astonished to realise it bothered me now. I'd certainly never felt the need to defend myself to him. Yet this time, I was actually frustrated when Estrada put in on my behalf, "I was just telling Damasco that he doesn't have to do this."
As Alvantes considered, he pointedly looked at Estrada rather than me. "No. I suppose he doesn't."
"If we're risking our lives," she added, "we should be sure we're doing it for the right reasons."
Now it was Alvantes's turn to be defensive. "This is the right thing to do."
"We're all agreed on that. Still, it shouldn't be for revenge. Not anger either. And definitely not for some king who let his family squabbles get out of control."
Well, I thought, that's all of Alvantes's motives out then. Then I registered those closing words. "Family squabble?" I said.
"You know what I mean," she replied. "If it hadn't been for Moaradrid…"
"I understand how this is Moaradrid's fault. The invasion, turning the Castoval upside down, kidnapping the giants, I know all about that. And I'm hardly the King's greatest supporter; but I don't see how…"
Estrada's eyes widened. "Wait. Damasco, are you really saying… you don't know, do you?"
"Unless you tell me what you're talking about," I said, exasperated, "how can I tell you what I do or don't know?"
"But what did you think it's all been about?"
"What what was about?"
The disbelief in Estrada's face came close to awe, as though she'd stumbled across a level of ignorance she could never have imagined. "He was Panchessa's son, Easie."
Alvantes's face clouded. "It was never proved."
"He was Panchessa's son," she said. "Everyone knew it."
"Who was…"
"Panchessa was stupid and irresponsible. Instead of owning up to what he'd done, he let his mistake fester into a civil war. Damn it, Lunto, don't you dare defend a king who ordered your father's death!"
"How did you know…"
"Wait," I bellowed. "Wait, wait, wait! Are you saying Moaradrid… that the King… are you saying Moaradrid was Panchessa's son?"
Finally, both Estrada and Alvantes paid me a little of the attention they'd been reserving for each other. "There were rumours," said Alvantes, almost apologetically. Catching Estrada's eye, he added, "And they were most likely true. In his youth, before he assumed the throne, Panchessa spent some time in the far north — and with a certain chieftain's daughter. He denied it later, of course, and the Court backed him to the hilt. But it turned out Moaradrid was one indiscretion that wouldn't be ignored."
"Hold on… this is ridiculous! It makes no sense."
Yet even as I said it, a part of my mind was busily cataloguing the ways in which it made perfect sense. Stray moments came back to me, cast in an entirely new light. I thought of Moaradrid calling Prince Panchetto brother when I first saw them together, how I'd mistaken it for irony — just as I'd misinterpreted Panchessa's careless mention of his sons. I thought of Moaradrid's barely pent-up rage at the King, which I'd taken for mere tyrannical craziness.
Well, he had been tyrannical and he'd certainly been crazy, but as the disowned bastard of a horse's testicle like Panchessa, I could see why he might have been a little righteously indignant. It was as if a distorted mirror had been held up to my image of the past few weeks, throwing it in strange new shapes, demanding I reconsider every small aspect to see what might have changed. Would I have made the same decisions? Would I have struggled so hard against Moaradrid if I'd known his true motives?
I couldn't think about it. Not now. Not when there were other questions a hundred times more immediate. Like… "What about Mounteban?" I asked.
Caught off guard, Estrada asked, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, is he related to the King? A distant cousin, maybe? An uncle on the mother's side?"
"Of course not."
"Is he related to anyone? Alvantes, tell me he's not secretly your disowned half-brother."
The look Alvantes turned on me would have curdled new milk.
"Well then," I said, "I can't speak for anyone else — and maybe it's not so right or proper — but my motive is wanting to make sure that bloated snake gets his due."
After so much heated discussion, the hush following my proclamation lay heavy. Had I gone too far? Was the truth too unheroic for the likes of Estrada and Alvantes? It was Navare who eventually broke the silence. "He has a point," he said.
Alvantes gave a tentative half nod. "Mounteban's had it coming for far too long."
Estrada sighed. "You men."
"You have to admit…"
"Yes," she said, with a wry smile, "I'd like to see that arrogant bully lose a few teeth before the day's out."
I couldn't say if Alvantes looked more shocked or impressed.
"But it's also the right thing to do," she added.
"Agreed."
Navare turned back to me. "So, Damasco — you still haven't told us how you plan to get back into the city."
"Oh. Right," I said. "Getting into Altapasaeda."
Damn it. Amidst the unexpected history lessons and the talk of Mounteban's well-earned kicking, I'd just about managed to forget that part. Now that I thought, there was another crucial detail I'd neglected too.
"The thing is… I'm going to need to borrow some knives."
Scrambling onto the roof of the shanty was hard enough. Since my brief and rapidly descending last visit, it had been crudely patched with boards that wouldn't have supported a starved cat. I kept close to the edge, clung to the wall, and wished I didn't have to perform so hazardous a task in near-absolute darkness.
Reaching the rope, I shifted my weight onto it. I still couldn't quite believe it was still here. Granted, it was invisible from above, and hardly noticeable from below, but still it was hard to accept that so many days had passed without one of Mounteban's lackeys paying sufficient notice to have it cut down. One thing was for sure, it would never have happened on Alvantes's watch.
I looked up at what I had to climb — and up, and up. For a moment, my head and knees turned to jelly and swapped places.
I'd done this sort of thing once or twice in my criminal heyday. That didn't mean I'd ever been much good at it. I'd known men who claimed climbing a rope was no great endeavour, that there were techniques to make it easy as walking. I'd called those men liars, though rarely to their faces. In my experience, its ease could be roughly compared with nailing a rabid dog to a live bear.
At least experience told me the shack would probably break my fall.
Beginning to climb, I found it every bit as hard as I'd expected. I'd barely covered any distance before the strength in my arms had ebbed to nothing and my shoulders felt ready to tear from their sockets. All I had in my favour was that the wall was uneven enough for me to swing close, dig my toes into a gap and rest a little that way
. Franco had done right by me, at least. It was a fine rope, and without the weight of my body dragging, my fingers almost clung to it of their own accord.
I found I could progress by rationing my strength and climbing in short bursts. Slowly, my confidence and what little technique I'd ever learned began to return. If nothing else, I knew better than to look down. Down meant hideous dizziness and the sure potential for broken bones. Down was the past; up was my future.
I climbed. I rested. I climbed. Rested. Climbed.
I was concentrating so intently on the top of the tower, where the grapnel was lodged, that the wall walk came on me unexpectedly. I hadn't dared imagine I was so close to my goal. Yet a little higher, a little slower on the uptake, and I'd have been visible to anyone patrolling.
I hugged the wall once more and strained to listen. As far as I could judge, there was no one directly above. There was no point waiting for a better opportunity. Gripping with my right hand and all my might, I let go with my left and drew out the first of the short, flat-bladed knives I had stashed in my belt. I hunted for a suitable patch of mortar, eyes struggling against the darkness. Eventually I thought I'd found a point where the blocks fit badly, creating a wider gap of weather-scoured mortar. I jammed the knife's tip in as far as it would go, wincing at the ring of metal on stone. Not pausing to check if anyone had heard, I laboured to drive the blade further in.
Satisfied, I returned my free hand to the rope. I climbed an arm's length higher, enough that I could angle a leg up and rest my foot on the protruding knife hilt. I reached for another knife, hunted another gap, jabbed this one at shoulder height. Switching hands, I added a third on my opposite side. Finally, using the lowest knife as a foothold and the leftmost as a handhold, I reached over to hammer in a fourth, low as I could reach.
The result was an off-kilter square, just below the summit of the wall.
Of everything my misconceived plan involved, I'd dreaded this part most. Yet what else could I do? It had to be just after dawn, I was sure of that much — Moaradrid might have been a madman with chronic paternal issues, but he'd understood what made the giants terrifying. Then, once it started, I'd have a few minutes at most. I couldn't possibly have climbed the entire wall and done everything else that lay ahead in so short a time.
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