The Company of Glass

by Tricia Sullivan

  A shower of small stones tumbled down from above.

  Ketar’s voice, breaking pitch as he shouted down the chimney.

  ‘Quintar! Quintar! Quintar!’

  He stiffened.

  ‘There are twenty thousand men on the plain. Quintar! It’s just as you said! Quintar.’

  He shut his eyes.

  ‘My name is Tarquin,’ he said softly.

  The Pharician Army

  ‘Twenty thousand is a guess,’ Ketar admitted when Tarquin finally reached the top of the shaft. ‘It is still some miles away, but displaces a great cloud of dust.’

  ‘I know what it looks like,’ Tarquin said shortly, and heaved himself on to the roof of the monitor tower, which was made of moss-grown metal that made a hollow sound when they walked on it. The greenery had been cleared away from a double trapdoor, which Taro and Ketar heaved open to reveal a flight of stairs descending into the mountain. Strips of lightstone lined the walls, which were smooth and dark red.

  They found a sunlit room looking out across the plain; a brisk wind blew in from the north-west. There was an Eye resting within a metal net suspending from the ceiling. Kivi approached it cautiously. ‘It’s active,’ he murmured, touching it.

  The others fidgeted, their arms and equipment rattling. Ketar crossed to the window and gazed out on the view of the approaching army beneath, fascinated. Lerien said, ‘Wait for us on the stairs. Kivi and I will join you when we are finished.’

  Tarquin stood aside to let the others leave. Lerien ignored his presence, so he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall while Kivi focused his attention on the Eye.

  ‘This is the Eye that we would look through from Jai Khalar to See what is happening down below. The Water of Glass connects it to the Eye Tower there. Now, when Tarquin arrived and Mhani looked into the Eye, she would have been using one of the monitor towers further north, on the border of Wolf Country and Ristale. If those towers were to blame, then this tower should show us an accurate picture of that army down there.’

  ‘And does it?’ asked Lerien, stepping closer to the suspended Eye.

  ‘There’s the plain below,’ Kivi said.

  ‘Nothing. Not one fucking soldier.’ Lerien spun away, slamming into the wall with his shoulder as if tackling an enemy. ‘What about Mhani?’

  Kivi said, ‘It’s filthy.’

  ‘What’s filthy?’

  ‘The Eye. There are a hundred signals at least passing through it. Maybe more.’

  Lerien frowned. ‘I don’t understand what you are on about.’

  ‘To get a clear vision, the Eye has to be kept clean, focused on the here and now – directed according to the will of the Seer. Imagine the Water of Glass became muddy and weed-grown. You wouldn’t be able to see anything, would you?’

  ‘But you just showed me a vision of the plain, and it was clear enough. Wrong, but clear.’

  ‘It’s not a true vision. Someone is projecting it here. This Eye’s being interfered with. I can’t see out. Look! Here, look at my Carry Eye. It is the same way. It’s like trying to look into a storm.’

  Lerien glanced at the sphere and backed away, blinking and rubbing his eyes. ‘Damned magic,’ he muttered. ‘There is always some excuse lately, isn’t there, Kivi? You’ve got to get this Eye working. We can’t afford to be out of communication with Mhani.’

  Tarquin left them fussing. He could tell by the look on Kivi’s face that the Seer had no hope of reversing whatever was interfering with the function of the Eyes, and it was embarrassing to watching Lerien pace around the room in frustration over Knowledge he couldn’t begin to touch, much less grasp or use.

  The others were waiting expectantly at the top of the stairs.

  ‘They cannot use the Eye to any effect,’ he said, pre-empting their questions. ‘Lerien will have us go down and get a closer look at the army. He will need to determine whether they serve Hezene or are a rebel faction. If they are a rebel faction, I expect he hopes for aid from Hezene his friend.’ He took out his sword and began polishing it without looking at anyone.

  They shuffled and murmured among themselves. Then Ketar said, ‘We would that you should lead us now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lerien was wrong,’ said Ketar. ‘He didn’t believe this army was real. He can do nothing without consulting his Seer-glass, and now he will have us try to infiltrate an army that could crush us as easily as drawing a breath. Tarquin, did you return to take orders? You declared yourself Free, but you were Ysse’s favourite. Everien is in your hands. Tell us what to do and we will be yours.’

  Still Tarquin said nothing. The others all looked at him expectantly.

  ‘We don’t care if you’re half-mad,’ Stavel said bluntly. ‘It was so with many warriors of legend. Tarquin, do not fail us!’

  Tarquin resisted the urge to laugh and sighed heavily instead. ‘I cannot.’

  Ketar looked shocked – offended, even. ‘What cowardice is this? How can you have changed so?’

  ‘I am Free. I am my own master only. You must look elsewhere if you want a ruler.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Ketar. ‘You led the twelve greatest warriors in Everien.’

  ‘I led them to their doom,’ Tarquin said. ‘Often I have asked myself, did I make them too savage; did I destroy their natural caution? For an animal will fight without thought and without reserve; but men are not animals, and my Company were fighting for the purpose set to them by Ysse and me, not for their own need to hunt and defend their territory. Did I make them into something too extreme? Did I push them too far?’

  ‘But last night you said that the warrior spirit—’

  ‘And this morning you have told me I am mad. What are any of you thinking, asking me to depose Lerien?’

  ‘If not you, then who?’

  Tarquin shook his head, scowling at Ketar. ‘I’m through playing nursemaid to warriors. It is for you to determine your own actions; it is not for me to bring something out of you.’

  ‘But you are a natural leader. To refuse to use your gift …’

  ‘Is what? Irresponsible? I became Free so that I need never face such a situation again. I am outside your Clan politics and your ethics. You must not see me as Quintar. He was destroyed long ago.’

  He knew he sounded commanding; it was ironic, but because he spoke in such a tone, they would have no choice but to accept his rationale. He could not help sounding like a leader.

  ‘Then why do you travel with us?’ asked Taro quietly. ‘Why did you come to warn us, and why do you help us now?’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ Tarquin said, trying not to let his tone falter. ‘That is the point: they are my reasons. Do not look to me to save you! You will be disappointed.’

  He shrugged past them and walked away. Behind their backs, the king was ascending the stairs with Kivi; he had overheard these last remarks. Lerien drew his sword and said, ‘Shall we settle it with weapons? Ketar, you are mistaken if you think me effete. Come test me.’

  Ketar, seeing his plans dissolving, began backpedalling. He looked down, stammering apologetic refusals.

  ‘I would kill you, Ketar, had I more men. You are nothing more than a wide-eyed boy. You would be better served to shut your mouth and do as you are told. Why Ajiko thinks you are officer material is beyond me. I wouldn’t trust you with my horse after this.’

  Ketar fell on his knees. ‘Forgive me, my lord. Let me redeem myself.’

  ‘Redemption would be premature. I couldn’t care less what you do, Ketar. Follow instructions and not another word out of you. Kivi!’

  The Seer had begun to edge towards Tarquin. He turned in response to Lerien’s questions.

  ‘Can we descend to the plain inside the tower? Where are the stairs? I don’t wish to be seen by the Pharicians.’

  The others stirred and made helpful noises, acting a little guilty but relieved that Lerien had taken firm control. Kivi went to search the rest of the tower. Lerien repeated his
intentions before the others.

  ‘We will meet at the base of the next monitor tower, twenty miles south of here. Taro, you know where it is, and Kivi has seen it with the Eye here, so we should all be able to find it. I want information,’ he concluded. ‘Ideally, we should try to capture an officer for questioning; but I will settle for knowing whether or not this group represents Hezene or some dissident faction hidden in his government. Pair off and be stealthy, whatever you do! This is no time for heroics.’

  No one looked as if he were even thinking of being heroic against such an enemy. Lerien nodded an invitation to Tarquin, and the two descended ahead of the others.

  It was a long climb, and their aching legs rebelled at taking their weight on the way down. Tarquin was thinking how any fighting that might occur at the bottom would have to be concluded quickly, or he wouldn’t be able to stand up. By the time they had descended, the army was marching past the monitor tower, parallel to the cliffs, at a distance of about a mile. The ground right under the cliffs might have appeared flat from above, but actually it undulated and sported many small streams draining from the mountains. The Pharician army marched on flatter land, but there was little cover, and Tarquin and Lerien could not afford to walk straight across the plain towards the army: they would be picked up by scouts in no time. Instead, they made their way parallel to the moving men, using ditches, high grass and brush for cover; Kivi and Ketar split off towards the north and the rear of the force; and Taro, Jakse and Stavel made a dash to try to catch up with the vanguard, which was composed of the cavalry and a number of chariots.

  ‘There will be outriders,’ Lerien assured Tarquin. ‘They have scouts constantly searching the ground ahead and fanning out to either side. So long as we can keep pace, we will encounter riders sooner or later, and then we can make our attack.’

  ‘We need to get closer as long as there’s good cover,’ Tarquin said. ‘We might learn much without ever engaging them at arms, if only we could see!’

  They crept through the long grass at an angle to the line of march, periodically glimpsing the formation of the soldiers. Tarquin’s eyes were not so sharp as they had been in youth, but even from this distance he could see that the army was not as well-trained as he’d first believed. Occasionally he would see a mounted Pharician officer with curving sword and body-sized shield passing between the files to enforce discipline, but the ranks were not particularly straight, and the pace was plodding. All that passed within his vision were decked out in standard Pharician army uniforms, carrying either spears or short swords with shields. If there were archers, they were not visible from this angle. Tarquin began to think that there might be hope. A couple of well-trained, mounted companies of one hundred or so could cut through an army like this, break it into pieces, and destroy its chain of command. An army of this size would be hampered by rough terrain; they could scarcely sweep through the mountain geography of Everien and wreck every single village – not if they were resisted as Tarquin knew they would have been resisted in his day.

  The difference was that in Tarquin’s day, every village had been well-armed with men organized and trained by the Clan leaders who operated under Ysse. Today the villages were empty or half-empty. Ajiko had drained them to bolster his central army. Lerien would have to move fast to organize a successful resistance now. Tarquin wondered who was supplying materiel and foodstuffs to a force this large; it would be worth trying to cut the supply lines. Then he began to review what he knew about siege warfare. Yet he always found himself thinking as if the warriors of Ysse’s days were at his disposal, and of course this was not true. He had no idea whether Ajiko’s troops were as effective as the general claimed, and anyway he was many years out of practice at this kind of thing.

  The Pharician cavalry was substantial, which meant that there were more than enough outriders to patrol the ranks and keep order on the troops. It also meant that Lerien’s men would not find it easy to enter the columns undetected. At the rear of the formation, trailing more than a mile beyond the leaders, the supply trains wobbled slowly in the dust. That was probably the best point of entry, and Tarquin hoped Kivi and that fool Ketar would make the most of it. In the vanguard rode the elite Pharician horselords with their spears and standards; they were visible only as flashes of gold armour amid the dust of their chariots. It would be impossible to catch up with them on foot, and Lerien insisted on hanging back well out of bowshot, concealed in the vegetation. They jogged along this way for several miles; Tarquin’s stomach was gnawing and his throat aching with thirst when at last the army began to break into sections and come slowly to a halt. They had reached a small river that flowed from a waterfall in the cliff and meandered across the plain in a deep cutting.

  ‘Here’s our chance,’ Lerien said. They picked their way closer to the army, which was now fanning wider across the riverbank; the columns had broken down while men and horses rested, gradually making their way across the river in small groups. A band of soldiers detached themselves from the main group and came along the river towards them on foot, leading mulecarts laden with water casks.

  Tarquin was just thinking how they would get little information out of such underlings when Lerien leaped out from cover and attacked. He felled the first soldier with a single blow to the crown of the head and engaged the second, beating him back with sheer strength and already turning to meet the third. Tarquin was stunned by the ferocity of the king’s swordplay and realized he had underestimated Lerien. For a man not born to the sword, he had certainly learned a few things while in Jai Khalar.

  But by now the others had drawn their weapons and were entering the fray as the mules scattered, and Tarquin hastened to protect Lerien before the king was surrounded.

  ‘Take one alive!’ Lerien screamed as Tarquin fought two men at once. They were wearing uniforms, but they didn’t carry the hooked Pharician swords. Tarquin’s tongue caught in his throat as he looked at them and saw something he didn’t expect. One was a stick-fighter, the other an axe-wielder.

  He was so startled that he took several shots to the head and was almost choked by the stick-fighter, who leaped on his back and tried to pull his head back with one stick across the throat. What saved him was the explosive anger that came over him when he realized he wasn’t fighting a Pharician. He flipped the stick-fighter over his shoulder and dispatched him with a gash to the head and a clean slice from throat to groin. Then, screaming in battle fury, he hurled himself at the one who used axes. He was met stroke for stroke, was driven back, recovered, and was driven back again. With his peripheral vision he detected Lerien, his own opponents defeated, standing by and watching.

  ‘Alive, Tarquin! We need him alive.’

  Out of sheer insubordination, Tarquin abandoned all intentions of showing restraint. He saw his opening and drove his sword through the ribs; when his enemy fell, Tarquin went with him, for he’d held on to his sword, which was wedged between vertebrae. As the death twitching ceased, he rose and wrenched his sword free. The breath was hot in his throat and the blood in his temples sounded like a hurricane. He turned the body over with his foot and looked at the paint on the dead Slave’s face. Wolf Clan. Rank in the king’s army: captain.

  Where is your army, Ajiko?

  His own voice resounded mockingly through his memory. Nearby, the fallen Deer Clan Slave stirred and began to crawl blindly through the heather, trailing his own intestines. Tarquin lunged forward and savagely brought his blade down on the back of the wounded man’s neck.

  Across the landscape of dead bodies, Lerien was watching him. Their eyes locked.

  ‘How many?’ Tarquin said in a broken voice. ‘How many men are you missing?’

  A Wretched Parade

  The pain in her arm woke Istar. She must have twitched in her sleep and jarred the wound, for it was the first thing she was aware of, an angry stab that subsided to deep throbbing. Her body was curled on one side. It rebelled at the idea of stirring, her fatigued muscles behavin
g as if frozen even though the cave was surprisingly warm. The heatstones had shrunk to little heaps of yellow and grey and their fragrance had faded, but they remained radiant.

  She could hear the others breathing. Kassien was snoring.

  She had not slept nearly long enough and didn’t particularly want to be awake. Yet even before she quite realized where she was or what had happened, a thrilling sense of accomplishment rushed through her and negated the pain. They had seen real action. They had defeated a Sekk. No one was seriously injured – not of her own party, anyway. And they were almost over the mountains.

  Satisfaction was succeeded almost immediately by a mixture of apprehension and guilt. Apprehension because the fight easily could have gone the other way, and she could have lost Pallo to the Sekk. Guilt because by now Mhani would be frantic. Well, maybe not frantic – the Seer had cultivated an air of serenity and reason for too long to ever appear frantic – but surely alarmed. Lying in the cave in the slowly greying morning, she could practically hear her mother’s censure.

  ‘You don’t think,’ Mhani would remonstrate. ‘It’s just a lark for you. Ah, you’re more like your father with every passing year. The Wasp blood always tells, no matter what Clan brought you up.’

  She was fairly sure Mhani would be right, too: though she’d tried to develop the dignity and restraint that were supposed to characterize her adoptive Seahawk Clan, she couldn’t now contain her elation. There were a million reasons why flouting Lerien’s orders had been the right move, but inside herself she knew that she’d done it for the sheer daring.

  Anatar jerked and cried out in his sleep. Istar unwound her body and got up, feeling old. She stretched and indulged in a few moans. Outside, the rain had stopped, but a thick mist had descended in the night. As she reached the mouth of the cave, she realized that she had slept longer than she had thought. Morning would be well advanced, but even the strong summer sun was not able to penetrate the fog. Barefoot, she picked her way along the rectangular shelf outside the cave, trying to remember the exact route Kassien had used to bring them here yesterday. The black stone had formed itself into long, tumbled blocks, wrenched from deep in the earth and then fractured at intervals to form castellated ridges and giants’ staircases. Where two conflicting masses of stone met, there were sheer fissures, water-sculpted smooth as ice; and everywhere were unexpected pits and crevices, some of them partly overgrown with grass and heather, waiting to snap the ankles and break the balance of the unwary.