by David Weber
“I know where you could borrow one,” Merlin put in helpfully.
“Off with his head!” Cayleb said.
“Nonsense. I’ll write you a pardon in my own hand, Merlin! Pick me up on the palace roof at midnight.”
“Tempting,” Merlin said with more than a trace of wistfulness. “Very tempting. But”—he opened his eyes and rose smoothly from the lotus—“since I can’t do that for the two of you, I’ll do the next best thing. I think we’ve finished all the business that needs to be discussed, and you two haven’t seen each other face-to-face in way too long. You go ahead and talk. I’ll find something else to do.”
OCTOBER
YEAR OF GOD 896
.I.
Spinefish Bay, Icewind Province, Republic of Siddarmark
The pall of smoke above what had once been the town of Salyk was thicker than it had been, despite the rain. There was ice in that rain, tiny bits of sleet rattling off HMS Tellesberg’s armor. They slid slowly down the rain-slick steel and Captain Lainyr Dahglys shivered in the raw, wet chill despite his gloves and the warm watch coat under his oilskins.
It was a thoroughly miserable day, with low cloud and no hint of sunlight. Spinefish Bay was a gray, wrinkled wilderness, the waves barely two feet tall as they washed onto the stony shingle. In a lot of ways, he’d be far from sorry to be shut of this place, yet a bitter reluctance washed through him with the same persistent rhythm as those listless waves.
The bastards’re just waiting, he thought, raising his double-glass to peer shoreward once again. I wonder how they’ll phrase their reports? I’ll damned well bet one thing they won’t do is admit they’re sitting there with their thumbs up their arses while we pull out in our own good time. Whatever they tell him, though, that bastard Clyntahn will turn it into another glorious triumph for the defenders of Mother Church!
His mouth twisted at the mental image his own words provoked. If it had been up to him, they’d’ve stayed here, holding Salyk till Hell froze over, but it wasn’t up to him, and they couldn’t stay. Not because Hell might freeze over, but because Spinefish Bay most certainly would.
Most of the galleons had already left, carrying every single civilian—and also every cow, every pig, every chicken and rabbit—from Salyk. Only the warships and the last troop transports remained, and Tellesberg and her sister Saygin were anchored close inshore, smoke pluming from their funnels to merge with the cloud cover as they lay between the land and the bombardment ships Whirlwind and Tornado. The ironclads’ thirty-pounders were run out, covering the flanks of the innermost entrenchments while the bombardment ships angle-guns waited to punish any Temple Loyalist foolish enough to press too closely upon the rearguard. Most of the artillery had been withdrawn along with the bulk of the garrison. The last two batteries of twelve-pounders were falling back to the docks even now, and the Temple Loyalists had learned enough about Shan-wei’s fountains and footstools to keep a respectful distance.
It was a picture-perfect example of a planned withdrawal, Dahglys thought. They were leaving at the time of their choosing, evacuating their men and material on their own schedule, unmolested by the Army of God which had “besieged” Salyk for so long. It had been a peculiar “siege,” since the port’s seaward approaches had never been seriously threatened. The Temple Boys’ one attempt to push guns far enough forward to reach the waterfront had turned into a costly catastrophe. They’d tried to move the guns under cover of darkness, but rocket-launched flares had illuminated them and Tellesberg and Saygin had moved in close and devastated the guns, their gunners, and the fatigue parties which had been supposed to emplace them before dawn. Instead of the guns, over four hundred Temple Boys had been permanently emplaced by the defenders’ burial parties.
The troops and civilians in Salyk had actually been far better fed and healthier at the height of the “siege” than they’d been since the preceding autumn. Dahglys hadn’t seen the gaunt faces and emaciated bodies which had greeted the original ICN relief force when the ice melted in the spring. The ironclads had arrived too late for that. But he’d been ashore to see the cemeteries, the long lines of wooden grave markers, the painted dates which all too often told the tale of a child’s life cut short by starvation. He knew what the citizens of Icewind and especially of Salyk had endured, and he hated—he absolutely hated—abandoning all they’d fought and starved and suffered to hold.
But there’s already ice forming on the bay. We’re lucky it’s been a relatively mild autumn, but it’s only a matter of time, and the Emperor and Lord Protector Greyghor are right. Best we pull out now instead of being forced to improvise a withdrawal or find ourselves caught by a surprise cold snap that freezes the bay—or even Hsing-wu’s Passage—solid.
There was no question in his mind that they were doing the right thing … and as he looked around at the dreary, rainy sky, felt the snow loitering on the far side of that raw, wet breeze, knowing that made him feel not one bit better.
“Signal from the shore, Sir. The artillery’s lighters are pulling for the transports now. The last infantry’s falling back to the boats. And—”
A sudden, earthshaking bellow made the rest of the signalman’s report superfluous. They’d landed plenty of gunpowder in Salyk over the preceding months, and the garrison had seen no reason to pull it all back out again.
He raised the double-glass again, looking past the dark columns of smoke from the torched warehouses and barracks, and saw the fresh wings of smoke—white and gray, this time, shot through with a fierce red glare—as the first charges blew apart the gun emplacements and magazines in the outer ring of entrenchments. Almost exactly one minute later, the next ring of earthworks erupted like a man-made volcano. One minute after that, the third ring exploded, and then it was the innermost line of entrenchments.
He lowered the double-glass as longboats and cutters lifted the last of the rearguard from the docks. As the oarsmen pulled strongly, white water curling at the boats’ stems, the town itself exploded. The blasts leveled every structure, leaving nothing to shelter any garrison the Army of God might choose to leave over the coming winter. And then, when the boats were clear, the waterfront—the broad expanse of docks and wharves and warehouses the Imperial Charisian Navy had improved and expanded during the months of the siege—disintegrated into splinters and flying timbers. The fragments soared upward, many of them trailing smoke or drawing lines of fire against the sullen gray clouds, and then they hit the rain-dimpled water in feathers and fountains of foam.
Dahglys looked at the rolling billows of smoke obliterating what had once been a community of brightly painted homes and red-tiled roofs. He let the image sink fully into his memory, then drew a deep breath and stepped from the exposed bridge wing into the conning tower’s warmth. He looked across the polished voice pipes and the handles of the engine room telegraph at Lieutenant Brahd Solayran, Tellesberg’s first lieutenant.
“Show’s over, Brahd,” he said. “Time to be going.”
.II.
The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands
“I suppose whoever it is is still running rings around you, Wyllym?”
When Zhaspahr Clyntahn decided to use an unpleasant tone, it was very unpleasant indeed. Now he sat behind his desk, hands folded on the blotter, beefy face showing an expression which probably would have been called “petulant” on a man who did not command the power of life and death whenever he chose to exercise it, and glowered at Archbishop Wyllym Rayno.
“Unfortunately, Your Grace, that would be an accurate way to describe it,” Rayno replied, hands tucked into the sleeves of his cassock, as he met his superior’s angry eyes with the levelness of long practice. “I’ve shared my reports with you on a five-day basis,” he continued. “As those reports have indicated, our sole real success was the interception of the assassins dispatched against Vicar Malikai. That cost them five of their number. Unfortunately, we took none of them alive—two of them poisoned themselves—and as many as three o
thers escaped in the end.”
Clyntahn snorted. Vicar Malikai Bordyn was not one of the vicarate’s brighter lights. His loss would have been no more than a minor inconvenience, if not for the intended manner of his demise and the impact it might have had. Despite Rayno’s best efforts, word that someone was assassinating vicars was circulating more and more freely. So far, they’d at least apparently managed to prevent anyone from realizing the vicars who were being killed weren’t merely targets of opportunity—that they were being skillfully and methodically stalked. They’d also managed to downplay the fact that they’d been among Clyntahn’s closest supporters … for reasons which all too often had more to do with the power of blackmail than the fervor of conviction. The knowledge that Clyntahn’s allies were at special risk might not have done a great deal for those allies’ loyalty.
“I trust you won’t take this personally, Wyllym,” the Grand Inquisitor said nastily, “but dead assassins strike me as a piss-poor source of information.”
“I agree,” Rayno acknowledged. “We did learn a few things from them, however, although most of those things merely confirm that these people are very well trained, well organized, and understand the essentials of operating covertly better than anyone Mother Church has encountered since the War Against the Fallen itself. For example, all of the dead were completely devoid of anything which might have suggested their origin, identities, or the location of their headquarters. In many ways, one might almost think of them as counter-Rakurai, except that they’re operating as an organized group rather than the individuals we’ve dispatched against the heretics.”
As the archbishop had hoped, Clyntahn’s ire seemed to settle a bit at the reminder of his own brainchild and its successes. Rayno wasn’t about to breathe any sighs of relief just yet, but every little bit helped. He also chose not to mention that however spectacular some of the Rakurai’s successes might have been, the heretics had done a far better job of intercepting or preventing their attacks than the Inquisition had achieved against the organization his agents inquisitor had nicknamed the Hand of Kau-yung. They were careful to avoid using the name where Rayno might hear it, but there were very few things of which Wyllym Rayno did not hear eventually.
“Three of our agents inquisitor have disappeared over the last month, however, Your Grace,” he continued in a graver tone. “This suggests that each of them got too close to someone operating against Mother Church. Given these assassins’ effectiveness, it’s very tempting to conclude that the someone—or someones—in question was those for whom we’re searching. I’m not prepared to assume that’s necessarily the case, but I’m having all of their reports for the last year analyzed and compared to one another. It may be that we’ll find some common element that might give us a lead to these murderers.”
Better not to mention his own fear that not all the vanished agents inquisitor had gone missing as the result of hostile action. It was unfortunately possible that at least one of them might actually have been an agent of the Hand of Kau-yung planted upon the Inquisition, instead.
“Humph.” Clyntahn frowned, then shrugged. “I suppose if that’s the best you can do, that’s the best you can do.”
He sounded as if he begrudged every word—which he no doubt did—and let silence linger for a moment before he changed the subject.
“You said you had something you wanted to discuss with me. Since I rather doubt that it was your continuing lack of progress against these murderers, why don’t you go ahead and tell me what it was?”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Rayno bowed slightly. “First, Vicar Allayn’s clearly pleased by your decision to grant the dispensation regarding the new primer caps. Also, my agents inquisitor suggest that Vicar Rhobair’s analysis of the increased production rate—and lowered costs—achieved by the St. Kylmahn Foundry’s new methods is essentially correct. Indeed, some evidence suggests he’s actually underestimating the improvement.”
Clyntahn’s expression was an interesting mix of satisfaction and disgruntlement. Rhobair Duchairn’s incessant harping upon the cost of the Jihad and the fragile state of their finances had passed well beyond the irritating stage, and the notion that there might actually be some positive news was a relief. At the same time, he’d almost hoped Duchairn had exaggerated the projections from St. Kylmahn, instead, because it would have provided the pretext to eliminate Brother Lynkyn Fultyn, whose pernicious influence was pushing Maigwair further and further in the direction of simply ignoring the Proscriptions. After all, Fultyn would clearly have lied to Duchairn, and if Duchairn had attempted to shield him or protect him from the Inquisition, it could only have weakened Duchairn’s position.
That position needed weakening, too. The unfortunate downturn in the Army of God’s fortunes in Siddarmark—due, whatever anyone else might say, to Maigwair’s failure to predict the heretics’ canal raid and, even more, to the stupidity of Duchairn’s transport managers, who’d failed to destroy the locks in their path—had actually strengthened Duchairn. It was bitterly unfair—and inconvenient—but the repair of the crippled canals and the need to replace and upgrade the Army of God’s weapons had forced Clyntahn to make concessions to the united front of Duchairn and Maigwair. Worse, all indications were that the working relationship between the treasurer and captain general was growing steadily closer. Had Clyntahn been foolish enough to allow any substantial army garrison to be posted in Zion itself, that relationship could have been ominous, but he’d ensured that all the armed power in and around Zion, Port Harbor, and the Temple was under the Inquisition’s control. He meant to keep it that way, and in the end, of course, the problem was only temporary. Eventually, Duchairn’s lily-livered bleating over the stern necessities of the Jihad must inevitably bring him back into conflict with Maigwair as the military commander responsible for waging that Jihad.
“In addition, Your Grace, some new information has come into our possession from Siddar City.”
“Ah?” Clyntahn straightened in his chair, eyes narrowing intently.
“Indeed, Your Grace.” Rayno bowed once more. “One of our Sword Rakurai returned it to us.”
The archbishop noted the pleased flicker in Clyntahn’s gaze. Unlike the Rakurai dispatched for the purpose of striking the heretics in the hearts of their own realms, the Sword Rakurai held a much broader commission. Forbidden to associate themselves with any of the Faithful in the realms to which they had been assigned—an unhappy and infuriating concession to the efficiency of the heretics’ counterintelligence capabilities—they were intended primarily as gatherers of information. The lack of any support structure reduced their reach, but they were highly trained and chosen for demonstrated initiative. And, privately and without mentioning it to Clyntahn, Rayno had taken care to select Sword Rakurai who weren’t eager to die for God. Men who would recognize the value of surviving for future service to Him and His Church, instead.
“What might this information be, and how did he obtain it?”
Clyntan didn’t ask for the man’s identity. Security for all the Rakurai, and especially the Sword Rakurai, was almost insanely tight. By his own direction, not even Clyntahn knew which had been assigned where, even though he continued to make a point of personally vetting each of the Sword Rakurai. From that point on, however, their identities and assignments were solely in Rayno’s hands. Given what had happened to every other effort to penetrate the heretics’ defenses, that paranoia had proved itself very much worthwhile.
“He obtained it, Your Grace, as the result of an operation which struck down four of Shan-wei’s servants in the heart of Stohnar’s capital.” Rayno allowed himself his first smile of the interview. “There remain many Faithful in Siddarmark, even in Siddar City itself, Your Grace. Many of them have more than one reason to hate Charis, and our Sword Rakurai had made it his business to seek out several groups of Faithful who were … most vocal in their opposition to the Charisians’ presence. In accordance with his instructions, he was careful not to attach
himself to any of those groups, yet he’d identified them and marked them down for potential use.
“Last month, he recognized one of the Charisian ‘advisers’ in the employ of the heretic Howsmyn, deep in conversation with several of the Siddarmarkian heretics laboring to copy Charisian methods as they passed through the streets en route to a meeting of Stohnar’s ‘Council of Manufactories.’ Our Sword Rakurai got ahead of them, entered one of the taverns he knew a particularly fervent group of Faithful favored, and as soon as the heretics came close enough, he pointed them out.”
Clyntahn produced his first smile of the meeting, as well—a cold, predatory thing which would have looked very much at home on a kraken.
“It turned very quickly into a riot,” Rayno continued. “A riot our Sword Rakurai used to get close enough to the Charisian to personally strike him down. All three of the Siddarmarkians were killed, as well, and the Faithful went on to burn the businesses of several heretics and heretic sympathizers before the City Guard managed to disperse them.
“It was only afterward that our Sword Rakurai realized the potential value of the briefcase he’d seized from the Charisian.”
The archbishop paused, and Clyntahn leaned towards him.
