Not taking the lad?
Truth, Galbrait watched him closely with brows drawn. Draken thought for a moment. Every instinct told him to send the Prince on with the servii and szi nêre, who were scowling at him for not being included on his personal mission. But Galbrait was too valuable to risk on an operation like this. Getting so close to the siege was one thing; bringing a Prince the Ashen wanted was another. But out of some sense of false hope or other delusion, he knew it was a chance for Galbrait to learn: about what his people were capable of, about Auwaer and the Palisade, which was better seen than explained, and how no decision a leader made was simple or right.
He nodded to Galbrait. “You come, too.”
They stripped their armor to cut any noise it would make, which made his szi nêre grit their teeth more, and wore only their under armor padding with a tunic over, tight breeches and boots. They packed their armor onto their saddles, gave the leads to servii, and strapped on swords.
“Feels fair odd. Like training,” Draken said to Tyrolean.
“I’m surprised you remember. That must’ve been a long time ago for you,” Aarinnaie said sweetly.
Bruche guffawed, Galbrait blinked rapidly at her, and Tyrolean didn’t bother hiding his grin.
“Not as long ago as you might think.” Draken’s belt strap cracked like a whip as he buckled Seaborn at his side. He lashed a thick quiver to his back and carried a fine bow from the Khein Fortress armory, well-suited in weight. “And there is still time to send you with Halmar. Do not tempt me.”
She rolled her eyes but fell quiet.
After leaving a few messages to pass on to Geffen, they headed off toward Auwaer. Tyrolean took the lead, his stride steady and confident.
“Do you know the whole of Akrasia?” Galbrait asked him, hurrying to his side. Tyrolean spoke lowly to Galbrait about his career as they walked. Galbrait seemed properly impressed.
“Do we need to keep on the chatter?” Draken finally said, though their voices were quite low. That made them fall quiet.
You’re in a foul mood.
Draken scowled. What was there to be happy about? His Queen was surrounded and even the gods considered her, once again, a sacrifice rather than a key. He wondered that they had not told him to let them ruin Auwaer. The Moonling priest had laid out a suspicion of betrayal that he couldn’t shake. His sister had Korde’s addiction to killing and death, and his only option to salvage any parcel of this situation was to allow thousands of religious maniacs to turn him into a puppet king.
“We’re getting closer. Let me scout ahead,” Aarinnaie said.
Draken considered and relented with a nod. “No killing.”
“I don’t plan on getting so close—not so they will know, I mean.” A flash of teeth, more grimace than grin, and she ran ahead before Draken could growl a reply. She was so fleet and silent, she barely rustled the leaves or undergrowth.
Tyrolean stared after her. “Maybe she’s part Moonling.”
“Keep moving. I want to see this tributary and the whole siege before third moon.”
#
By first moon Draken was wondering if Aarinnaie had simply run away for good. There was no sign of her, not so much as a bootprint or a snapped twig. The men had to slow to make their way as soundlessly as possible. The low rumble of many voices and crack crack crack, as if something were striking something else, drifted from ahead. It made Draken more cautious than usual, and even Bruche kept his swordhand numbed, ready to fight. Firelight flickered through the trees at a distance and well above the ground. They slowed further, maddeningly so, but necessary to hide their presence.
A shadow passed before them; Draken held up a closed fist to stop their progress. Everyone froze behind him.
A sentry, striding along, not bothering to hide his presence. Draken recalled the first time he’d seen Auwaer. A cohort of Escorts had waylaid him. He wondered if that was a regular patrol outside the Palisade. He wondered if they were dead.
They moved on until he could make out the men scurrying about, the snaking small river which hardly seemed enough to water a whole city no matter how many cisterns. Galbrait drew a sharp breath next to him and Draken laid a steadying hand his hand on his arm. The Prince had seen the Palisade.
The wall of black magic, appearing as a void, as if the world dropped off into nothingness, tugged at Draken. He resisted the odd pull at the same time he felt his blood rise. The magic was in him, through him, after all. It wasn’t just the sword. On one level he’d known it must have insinuated itself inside his very bones if he was able to heal himself of the most grievous of wounds. But to feel this great work of Mance magic pull on the magic within him as if it were a tether was another thing altogether.
“Inside that is a city?” Galbrait breathed, breaking the immediate hold the magic had on Draken. Noise rushed in: splashing, voices, the work on the dam.
“Aye.” Now that they were this close, Draken realized that despite the sentries, most of the Ashen were busy working at damming up the tributary, and it was noisy work, so they didn’t have to be as careful as he thought. “It’s Mance-made, and similar to the wall that imprisons the banes at Eidola. It’ll drive a man mad to cross it without permission. That kind of magic is the most powerful sort, the sort that mucks with the mind.”
The land sloped gently downward to the tributary. Most of the trees were set apart and small, as if they woods had been thinned around the river either by magic, fire, or axe. The workers bore no weapons he could see. No tents stretched around the blackness. It was simply men felling trees, dragging them whole toward the water and submerging them as they built a wall to dam it up. Water already was building up behind the dan, breaking the narrow banks, though the logs had yet to breach the surface. The tributary must have cut deep into the little valley indeed, betraying how much water actually flowed off the Eros into Auwaer. More than he’d imagined.
Osias is right. A day, maybe two, before they manage to cut off the water for good.
And then Auwaer had a sevennight at most if the cisterns were filled. The Palisade could surely hold, but the people inside were at risk. How long before they attempted escape?
They crept through the woods as the moons climbed the sky, peeking at the army surrounding Auwaer and the Queen. A small city of tents crammed in pockets where the woods relented. Lanterns gave the oiled canvas an ethereal glow. There was no subterfuge around their numbers here. Every fire was manned by at least three soldiers, some bedded down in cloaks on the ground. The soft rumble of voices, swords on straps, and the snap of burning logs marked each encampment. The smells of cooking food, oiled leather and fabrics, and shallow-buried waste gave the Ashen soldiers just the right invasive feel. They went on and on and on through the woods. Draken had no doubt Osias’ count was correct.
They retreated a safe distance for a rest and drink. Draken lowered his head and looked at his hands. Dirty. Scarred. Fair strong. His fingers curved slightly toward the thumbs from a lifetime of pulling ship lines. The skin was thick and scarred from the bowstring despite shooting gloves. The hands of a seaman and a bowman. A man who worked and killed with his hands rather than with royal decree.
“I always used to fight my way out of battles. Until I came here to Akrasia.”
“You’ve done a fair bit of fighting, Khel Szi,” Aarinnaie said.
“Perhaps not this time.” He gave her a humorless smile at the thought of a lifetime of balancing politics, sycophants, and hypocrits all under the guise of heresy.
Bruche’s amusement rumbled in Draken’s chest. Heresy? And here I thought you hated the gods.
I do. They’re still fair superior to the Ashen.
“Something I thought of while you’re brooding, brother, is letting our natural habitat do some of the work for us.”
He lifted his head only to be met by her wicked grin.
She added. “They are spread out, these thirty thousand heretics, are they not?”
“I’m liste
ning.”
“Even an army of soldiers dies one man at a time.”
He snorted. “That sounds like something Truls would say.”
She dropped her eyes, making him wish he’d not spoken. The Mance King Truls had trained her. It wasn’t something she talked about, ever.
“Guerilla attacks and ambushes. That is what we have come to?” Tyrolean shook his head.
“It’s honorable to strike from the light, Captain. But it’s far healthier to strike from the shadows.” Draken rose. “Come. We’ve another siege to destroy.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sunlight shone harsh and hot on dirty, strained faces and grimy tunics. Draken had bathed in the cold Eros and dressed in loose trousers again, his sword at his hip, his chest and feet bare in the way of his people. His servii from Khein stared but truth, he felt more comfortable now in his Brînian garb. Besides, it was too bloody hot for tunics and quilted armor padding and leather breeches and boots. Elena’s pendant and chain still stuck to the sweat on Draken’s neck and chest.
Geffen stroked her chin as she examined the map of siege encampments on the slab of stone that served as a rough council table. It was actually an overturned altar. The remains of Khellian lay nearby, face weathered smooth of righteous anger, horns broken to nubs. The ends lay like amputated fingers in the soft moss and tiny-leaved groundcover that carpeted the ruins. Draken nudged one with his bare foot as Geffen concentrated.
“Divided into cohorts, it might be doable. The thing is to cut communication. The main encampment with Priest Rinwar is here, we think.” Her finger left a smudge on the map. “We take out them and the camps on either side early. That leaves them with no primary command.”
“We don’t know how they’re organized, nor that they haven’t placed other commanders in other camps.” They wouldn’t be so stupid as to put all the chained lords of rank in one camp, would they?
Geffen looked up at Draken. “You’re right. We don’t. But we have to make some assumptions here. I’d rather not die by indecision.”
“I’d rather not die at all.” Tyrolean pushed off the broken pillar he was leaning against and strode a couple of steps to the overturned altar. He, too, had braved the icy waters of the Eros to bathe. His hair was pulled into a neat tail and he wore tidy Escort greens over his armor. A sheen of sweat glimmered on his pale skin. The little group quieted at his voice. Even Aarinnaie looked up from cleaning her nails with her dagger.
“I have killed, Your Highess,” Tyrolean continued. “I have seen war. This you know. Fair more than I ever thought I would. I have done as I was ordered, always. I will follow orders tonight, if you insist. But I cannot condone this. Attacking with only the light of the Seven Eyes to guide us is sacrilege.”
Draken crossed his arms over his chest as everyone’s gaze shifted to him. He lowered his head in thought. “I know, Ty.” He had thought to recuse him from the action because he knew him well enough to guess his disapproval. “I don’t like it any better than you do.”
“I should think not. Even though the Ashen are going about this poorly, they are right about you.”
“That I should be King? You know I wouldn’t have that.”
Osias had attended without a word, though he chose to incessantly pace round the temple, examining it close enough to memorize patterns in the moss. Now he, too, stepped forward. “But the gods chose you, Draken.”
“I didn’t choose them. I didn’t choose their bloody sword, their magicks, nor the Brînian throne. I did choose Elena, though. I will see her and our … child freed.”
No one reacted to the break in his voice. No one blinked. Tyrolean’s face hardened to stone and Draken knew he had lost him, maybe for good this time. Geffen waited to take orders, feigning close attention to the rough map. Aarinnaie went back to her nails, sliced a finger. Blood dripped to the moss and her lips moved in a silent curse. Galbrait stood with his hands clasped before him, torq gleaming as if he were waiting in the gilded Great Hall for his father-King to speak. Draken had seen the pose before and thought how far they had fallen from Sevenfel to a court of war in the moss and temple ruins. Osias had spoken and retreated.
“You swore your oath to her in your time, Tyrolean,” Draken said quietly.
Tyrolean’s perfectly shaped lips quirked, a rare, brief asymmetry to his features. “I could not save her once.”
“No amount of honor could save her from me. And she bears saving again, Captain. Her attackers are no more honorable than I was.”
His lined eyes wouldn’t meet Draken’s. But he bowed his head in a nod.
Draken dragged his attention to Galbrait. “You stay here.”
“Your Highness, but—”
Draken led him a little apart from the others, laid his hand on his shoulder, and gentled his tone. The young Prince deserved that much. “I would not have you kill your countrymen, Galbrait.”
“Your countrymen as well,” Galbrait said sullenly.
“Not any longer.”
#
War Night, old seamen had called it when Khellian was alone and full. Tonight the battle god hung pale, full, and heavy in the sky as Elena’s pregnant belly, and his glow picked out every color better than daylight. The air was still hot and sultry, running down Draken’s bare back. Draken stared up at the Eye and pressed the horn sign against his chest, his lips, his brow. But he was just going through the motions as Tyrolean led them in prayers before the attack. His mind was on his Queen. Had she birthed yet? Was there an infant with a tight cap of Draken’s curls drawing breath through Elena’s finely drawn lips? His jaw tightened. He had no way of knowing and he had to get through thirty-thousand Ashen to find out.
Draken still hadn’t decided if he should kill the Priest Rinwar or not as he crept up toward the encampment He could be a valuable prisoner, and if things went wrong, he’d be needed to convince them to accept Draken as their King. Smaller tents and guards encircled agrand, fringed tent, tasseled to signify the rank of commanders and aides within.
Makes them convenient to find, Bruche said.
Too convenient. He didn’t trust it.
You’d like a little blood of your own, eh?
It would be better for us if he’s dead. But I am still torn. Perhaps we can learn from him.
Bruche rumbled his disagreement. I think we know all we need.
Questioning Rinwar had been Draken’s reason for dismissing their arguments that he and Aarinnaie participate in the attack. Besides, she was fair desperate for blood and Draken wasn’t sure what she’d do if she didn’t get it. The affliction seemed to worsen by the day.
He shoved the thought from his head. Aarinnaie was ready to follow the darkness that compelled her to kill. This night they could make good use of it. He’d worry about other nights later.
The forest was quiet around the Palisade, always had been, though the encampment was set between sight and safety, well back from the blackness. The magic repelled ordinary people, seeping nightmarish visions and terror into their psyches. Truth, Draken didn’t know how the Ashen managed to stay this close for the sevennight they’d been here.
Back several paces where Draken had concealed himself in the woods with his servii and Aarinnaie, he had some small hope the Ashen would fail to realize the significance of the bird’s whistle signal from the servii at his elbow—at least until after it was significant.
He nodded without looking back at the servii. He heard the slightest rustle of fabric, the soft chime of chainmail shifting over her arm as she brought fingers to lips.
Low-low-high. Low-low-high. Low-low-high.
Around them servii rose like spectres, swift and silent in waves of one hundred. They took out the patrolling guards first, most of whom managed to gape and yelp an alarm at the same time. Ashen in various stages of armor kits and undress rushed through tent-flaps, but servii slashed their way through the oiled canvas with one strike and killed with the second. Draken rushed forward with the second wave, a
ll pretense of silence gone. His throat filled with guttural noises as he raced toward the fringed tent. Servii were already there, tugging a man out by the arms. He bled from a few places but was alive enough to protest noisily.
Draken pushed between servii busy with killing. His sister emerged from a tent splashed with blood made sharply crimson by Khellian’s bright light. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth, knives in each hand. He dragged his attention from her as she disappeared into another tent, telling himself he was buying her time …
“So you’re Rinwar.”
The Ashen Priest dragged his greyed head up to look at Draken. He was Rinwar all right; same fleshy cheeks and lips. His narrow chest heaved. He was naked and had been recently … preoccupied … if the state of his organ was any indication. Behind him, in his tent, the theory was confirmed as a woman’s scream was cut short with a wet thud. The scent of blood rose sickeningly up. Draken schooled his face against reacting to the wanton killing.
Rinwar fell to his knees. The fight went out of him. “Your Majesty. You came.”
This time Draken couldn’t keep the muscle in his clenched jaw from twitching. The Palisade tugged at him, making the world tilt. Bruche breathed cold through him, bolstering his muscles. Easy, lad.
Draken cleared his throat. “I assume you’re in charge of this siege—”
A sharp, familiar battlecry made Draken turn. A swarm of sword-wielding Monoeans rushed into the clearing. The first of his servii hit the ground, her head rolling aside without a sound. All around him the camp erupted. Servii screamed orders and warnings. Swords clashed. Fresh blood splattered canvas peaks. The undulating warcries of the Ashen rose up from the trees.
Ice scoured Draken’s muscles and he started to fight it, but then he realized: Bruche. His weight had shifted. The swordhand had drawn his sword without his realizing.
Emissary Page 40
