by Anthony Ryan
“If you ain’t gonna do it,” he went on, voice hardening, “give us the Endeavour and me and the Longrifles will sail on alone. You can run on back to Stockcombe and take a nice big bath in your self-pity.”
Hilemore’s fists bunched as he started towards Clay, his face the rigid mask of a man intent on violence.
“Sea-brother,” another voice said. It was softly spoken but still managed to bring Hilemore to a halt. Zenida stood close by, Akina at her side. “He’s right,” Zenida said, casting a sombre glance at the fleet. “They fought bravely but they’re done. Time to send them home. But we still have work to do.”
Evidently the Varestian’s word carried more weight than Clay’s, Hilemore’s aggression leeching away as he straightened, nodding stiffly. “The Endeavour will go with the fleet . . .” he began.
“No,” Zenida broke in. “Two blood-burners stand a better chance than one.” She sighed and turned to her daughter who, Clay saw, had begun scowling again, this time with even more ferocity than usual. “Though I would ask that you request Captain Tidelow find a spare berth.”
* * *
• • •
Steelfine had to carry Akina across the gangway to the Farlight, kicking and screaming all the way whilst her mother looked on in stern-faced silence. The girl had twisted away when her mother tried to embrace her, spitting curses in Varestian until Steelfine stepped forward to hoist her onto his shoulder.
As Akina was being forcibly disembarked others were coming aboard. Colonel Kulvetch and thirty of her Marines arrived by boat. Another twenty volunteers from amongst the ranks of the Voters were embarking the Endeavour. In addition to the increase in crew each ship was being loaded with extra cannon donated by the other ships. Some captains, the Dalcian pirate woman and Captain Gurkan chief amongst them, had also offered to have their ships towed by the blood-burners but Hilemore forbade it as impractical.
Every ounce of Red remaining to the fleet had been divided equally between the two blood-burners, meaning they would be able to sail on thermoplasmic power all the way to Varestia. A great deal depended on the weather but Hilemore estimated they would reach the Red Tides within ten days. The only issue remaining was the question of what to do with their allies.
“Just Lutharon,” Clay said. “The others will fly home.”
“We have room for two more aboard the Superior,” Hilemore said. The usefulness of the drakes during their battle with the Blues had evidently made a deep impression on his military mind. “And the Endeavour could carry one.”
“Just Lutharon,” Clay insisted. “We only need him.”
He went to the fore-deck to communicate the decision to Lutharon, who proved surprisingly resistant. He still roiled with excitement after the fight with the Blues, the fresh scars on his flanks seemingly doing little to deter his ardour. It’s my belief, Clay thought, laying a hand on the Black’s snout to send a flow of calming images into his mind, your kin have risked enough on our account already. Time to send them home.
Lutharon let out an aggrieved huff, twin smoke-plumes rising from his nostrils as he pulled his head away. He turned about and launched himself from the ship’s prow, climbing into the sky and wheeling about, mouth gaping as he let out a summoning call. It was soon answered by the other Blacks, all rising from the ships to join him in a swirling flock. Clay could feel some of the conflicting emotions leaking from Lutharon and sense the reluctance amongst the other Blacks. Their cries became discordant and the circling flock took on a confused, disordered appearance, some drakes colliding and snapping at each other in apparent disagreement. Eventually Lutharon let out a huge roar that drowned out all other cries and the discord abruptly ceased. They continued to circle in silence for a short while, then began to peel away, flying north to the Isles in a loose formation one by one until Lutharon was left alone in the sky.
He descended in a wide arc, skimming the sea before flaring his wings and coming to rest on the Superior’s prow. He let out a low rumble as Clay came forward to run a hand along his flank. “Sorry, big fella,” he said. “But I’m fast becoming resigned to the notion that there’s only one way to win this war, and when the time comes it’ll just be you and me.”
* * *
• • •
Hilemore ordered the blood-burner lit once they cleared the Green Cape. The Superior with her larger engine and lack of paddles soon pulled ahead of the Endeavour, though the smaller ship’s comparative lack of weight meant she was able to keep station a hundred yards off the frigate’s bow.
Clay spent much of the first three days pondering every scrap of information he had been able to glean about Catheline Dewsmine. In addition to what Akina could tell him, an appeal to the rest of the fleet for any pertinent information had yielded a number of periodicals, including some copies of Scandal Monthly so beloved by the late Mr. Tottleborn. The details of the woman’s life were so alien to his own that it was hard to find anything to empathise with, something he knew would be important if his scheme was to work. Born rich and kinda nasty with it, was his main conclusion upon reading the various accounts of Catheline’s life. Maybe that’s why the White chose her.
Eventually he was forced to conclude that the most useful aspect of the periodicals lay in the drawings and photostats depicting his subject, albeit with varying levels of accuracy. The drawings were mostly advertorials, a typical example exhorting readers to “Try Daulton’s Skin Cleansing Cream,” above a serene image of Catheline reposing on a couch, perfect profile raised towards the lips of a handsome admirer. Below the drawing was the legend “‘All women deserve to feel special.’—Catheline Dewsmine.”
“She doesn’t look insane,” Kriz commented one evening as they lay together in his bunk. He had previously shared the cabin with Lieutenant Sigoral, who now spent his nights with Loriabeth whilst Kriz spent hers with Clay. There had been no prior discussion of the arrangement, the change taking place in an unspoken atmosphere of inevitability. If Braddon had an opinion about his daughter taking up with a Corvantine Blood-blessed, he had seen fit to keep it quiet, although Clay had perceived a certain frowning disapproval whenever his uncle saw the two of them together.
“Maybe she wasn’t,” Clay replied. “Not then at least. Looks a mite different in this one, though.”
He reached for one of the news-sheets, the front page showing a photostat of Catheline stepping into a carriage outside a large mansion house in Sanorah. “Who Did She Kiss Goodnight?” asked the headline above the photostat. The story beneath related how “Famed society beauty Catheline Dewsmine appears to be keeping late hours these days. Here she is exiting the home of Senior Ironship Manager Rence Cozgrave just after midnight. According to neighbours Mrs. Cozgrave is currently visiting relatives in South Mandinor so perhaps Miss Dewsmine was just making sure Mr. Cozgrave didn’t get too lonely.” It was the expression on Catheline’s face that he found most interesting. In other photostats she was always smiling, in this her slightly blurred features stared into the camera with naked, unabashed hatred.
“I reckon whoever took this was lucky she didn’t have any product on her,” Clay said. “Anyways, whoever she was before, she’s a monster now.”
“Just like Hezkhi,” Kriz said, shifting to rest her head on his chest. “I never knew how much he must have hated Father. In the end, after all those years imprisoned in the Enclave, we all resented him, myself perhaps most of all. But I could never hate him. If I had it might have been me they called to whilst we slept. I wonder if madness isn’t all the White needs to claim us. Maybe it needs hate too.”
Hate, Clay thought, looking at the photostat again and the steady-eyed fury of the woman it depicted. Now that’s something I do know about.
CHAPTER 43
Sirus
He didn’t so much wake from unconsciousness as be dragged from it. Get up! Catheline’s voice in his head, curt and undeniable in its authority, banishing
the vague images that had begun to coalesce into a dream. Despite the immediate plethora of pain that greeted his awakened body, he was still grateful she had spared him the dream, Katrya’s face having been at the forefront of it.
He sat up slowly, displacing the soil that covered him and taking in his surroundings. The soles of his boots were only a few inches away from the edge of a large crater some twenty feet across. Hovering above the crater were the four crystals, glowing bright at first but then beginning to flicker. As Sirus watched, the flicker increased whilst their glow diminished. They fell when the glow faded, landing on the partially scorched earth near by to be swiftly scooped up by a number of Spoiled.
“I hope you kept his memories,” he heard Catheline say and turned to see her standing over a corpse. Morradin hadn’t been as fortunate as Sirus. The upper half of his body lay outside the crater but what remained of the lower half lay within it, reduced to little more than a smear of ash shot through with patches of red. For a moment Sirus entertained the impossible notion that there might be some vestige of the marshal still lingering in his mind and reached out to try and find it. Of course there was only the cold silence of death. Grand Marshal Morradin, perhaps the finest military mind of his age, a singularly horrible human being and a worse Spoiled, was truly dead.
An enemy and ally both, Sirus thought amidst the welter of fear that followed. What must be done will be done by me alone.
“Didn’t know you two were so close,” Catheline commented, moving nearer and offering her hand.
“We weren’t,” he said, taking her hand and getting to his feet. “But his talents will be missed.”
Catheline’s gaze became guarded, red-black eyes downcast as she nodded to the crater. “I think we have a far greater loss to mourn.”
The White lay in the centre of the crater, body curled around three mangled forms. The infant Whites were mostly whole but clearly dead, thick gore leaking from slack and open mouths as the White nuzzled them, letting out a sound Sirus hadn’t heard from it before. It was somewhere between a whine and a rumble, the pitch of it sharp enough to pain the ears. More than the sound he could feel it seeping into his own thoughts; the raw pain of a grieving parent. The two surviving infants crouched near by, tails twitching and eyes darting nervously about.
“She got away, you know,” Catheline said. “The Lethridge bitch. A Blood-blessed in one of their flying contraptions picked her up.”
“She failed,” Sirus said, nodding at the White.
“This time. We can take no more chances, General. We must end this. In the past I have allowed my emotions to guide us. That was my error, for which I expect I’ll soon be punished. You will formulate a plan to ensure our victory beyond any doubt and I will implement it regardless of how long it might take. This army is now yours.”
* * *
• • •
The calamity in the Grand Cut and the rocket attack had cost the army twelve thousand Spoiled and two thousand drakes. The Greens bore the brunt of the losses thanks to the speed with which they had charged into the pass, but the Reds had also suffered greatly, losing close to a third of their number. It was a stark illustration to Sirus that the drakes were a finite resource. They had been the key to victory in so many engagements but every battle reduced their strength. And when they’re all gone, he mused amidst a carefully modulated pall of fear, all He will have is an army of Spoiled. An army led by me.
Veilmist reported that, even after such a setback, the overall strength of the army stood at close to one hundred and eighty thousand. However, Sirus found it an easy matter to convince Catheline they needed to increase their strength yet further. “Our enemy is clearly more resourceful than we could ever have expected,” he told her. “Every time we meet them they reveal a new and more deadly novelty. We have no ships that fly in the air, no rockets of unfeasible accuracy, nor can I find a mind in our ranks capable of producing them. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from Marshal Morradin was the importance of numbers. We need to overwhelm our enemy. Attack in such strength no amount of invention can save them.”
The three columns set off the following day, making for regions Veilmist identified as possessing the most-developed agriculture. “Thousands fled our advance,” Sirus explained to Catheline. “People have to eat. It stands to reason they would flee to where they expect to find food.”
Each of the columns was led by a contingent of tribal Spoiled as they possessed the most honed tracking skills. They were under orders to avoid large-scale engagements and kill only when necessary. Their success was rapid and surprising even to Sirus. It appeared that, having avoided the passage of the White’s army, many refugees had naïvely assumed they were gone for good. Several large groups were captured in the open as they attempted to return to their homes. Reds also prowled the skies, scouting the locations of refugee camps in the hills. These would then be set upon from the air and the fleeing people herded by pursuing Greens into the arms of the Spoiled. The most fruitful area of recruitment lay in the farmland north-east of the Neck. Here most people lived on plantations rather than villages, meaning they were too small and sparsely occupied to be easily fortified. With their farm buildings and crops set alight the people had no option but to flee, once again continually harassed by Greens into following a pre-chosen route.
Once a decent number of captives had been harvested Sirus would take the Blue crystal and climb onto Katarias’s back. Escorting a large contingent of unwilling captives across miles of country was a troublesome business. It was far more preferable to fly to the column’s location and convert them in place. Once all the recruits were converted they would begin the orderly march south to join the main body of the army.
Sirus had persuaded Catheline to limit the drakes’ habitual liking for hunting down the children and elderly left over after a large-scale capture, arguing that it was a waste of time and made the unconverted prisoners harder to handle. This had the result of littering the country-side with large numbers of orphans and old people. Usually the children would flee whilst the oldsters stood around in helpless shock. On a few rare occasions the children would linger in the vicinity, crying out to their converted parents as they marched away, deaf to their tearful pleading.
After three weeks Veilmist reported a total of thirty-eight thousand fresh recruits, more than sufficient to make good their losses and swell the ranks for the advance. Will it be enough? Catheline asked, her new-found caution at the forefront of the thought she pushed into Sirus’s mind. We can send the columns farther north if necessary.
Marching north will increase the risk of encountering large-scale opposition, Sirus replied. There are a number of port-towns on the Varestian Peninsular. They will undoubtedly have been evacuated by now but there are sure to be more recruits in the outlying villages. Veilmist estimates a further yield of ten to fifteen thousand. Thanks to the Imperial arsenal we captured we have weapons enough for all. If employed correctly, an army of this size and discipline can have no equal.
She gave a faint pulse of amusement. Is that eagerness, General? I thought Morradin was the bloodthirsty one.
He didn’t need to summon any fear to mask the intent behind his reply, it being entirely sincere. I should hate to leave this task undone.
* * *
• • •
As expected the first port they came to was empty. It was more of a large fishing village than a port, its streets silent and small harbour devoid of ships. The Varestians had seen fit to raise the harbour door and disable its mechanism, ensuring the docks were subsequently inundated by the tide and rendered useless. An extensive search revealed hardly a scrap of food or ammunition, the only living inhabitants a few cats, dogs and a far larger number of rats. Catheline, in an increasingly rare display of pique, ordered the place burned to the ground and the army marched on beneath skies darkened by a tall column of black smoke.
For o
nce Veilmist’s calculations proved to be substantially wide of the mark for the Varestians had been efficient, even ruthless in clearing the outlying villages of inhabitants. Scouting parties reported a number of corpses amongst the empty houses and farms, each one with their throat slit or a single bullet through the head.
“They know us now,” Sirus concluded when Catheline expressed her puzzlement at the murders. “Every living adult who refuses to leave is a potential recruit, so they are determined not to leave any.”
Another thousand additional recruits were rooted out of the small farms in the hill-country to the west, but Sirus judged most were too scattered to justify the time and effort needed to capture them all. The army moved on, the neat ranks of Spoiled following the coast south in a single huge column with Greens on the flanks and Reds above and scouting ahead. Their line of march took them past yet more empty villages and another two abandoned ports. The last one appeared to have been evacuated in haste, the Varestians leaving the harbour doors undamaged and a large amount of stores in the dock-side warehouses, including food and a quantity of small-arms ammunition. A Spoiled working party several hundred strong had begun to prepare the supplies for transport when the entire warehouse district erupted in a series of explosions.
“Sneaky bastards,” Catheline commented as they stood together on the town walls watching the fires rage in the dockside. There wasn’t much heat to her words, just sour observation. “It appears everything I heard about Varestians was true.”
“Casualties could have been worse,” Sirus said, turning away to scan the country to the south. “I’m more concerned by the lack of serious opposition. They must surely have organised a defence by now. But the Reds report nothing to the south for another hundred miles.” He switched his gaze to the sea, eyes tracking along the empty horizon. “The lack of sea-borne attacks is also odd. For such renowned seafarers the Varestians seemed strangely reluctant to risk their ships, especially given the absence of the Blues.”
