Styke looked sharply to Orz. The dragonman sank farther back on his haunches, his chin lifting slightly to regard Ka-poel down the length of his nose. If anything, he seemed more wary than alarmed by this new information. “Ka-Sedial only has one granddaughter. Her name is Ichtracia.”
Say that name again. There was an urgency to the gesture.
“Ichtracia.”
A small smile cracked Ka-poel’s weariness, and she went through a series of gestures that Celine did not translate. It took Styke a moment to realize that she was spelling out her sister’s name.
“Her name isn’t Mara,” Orz said again.
A nickname, Ka-poel explained. It’s all that I could recall. I’m not even certain whether I heard it myself or my nurse told it to me. It’s been too long. She spelled “Ichtracia” one more time with her fingers. Slowly. Fondly. She wiped something away from the corner of her eye. I have gathered rumors from the Dynize that I’ve met. Some willingly. Others… not. I have tried to piece together my own life. From what I know, Ka-Sedial had his son and daughter-in-law murdered, along with two of their three children. Ichtracia is the third child.
Orz settled back even farther until he was sitting, and he no longer looked like a man performing an interrogation but a child listening to a story. “There are rumors,” he said. “But no facts are known. Ka-Sedial’s son and his family disappeared long ago—all except Ichtracia. Supposedly they were strangled and burned for some untold treachery. Ichtracia was the only one spared.”
I am one of those two other children that were said to have died.
Orz pulled a very distinct impression of disbelief across his face. “That is quite a story.”
Do you know anything else about it? About my past? Ka-poel leaned forward eagerly.
“I don’t.” Orz made a noise in the back of his throat. “Like I said, rumors. What you’ve already heard is the unofficial story, and Ka-Sedial never gave an official one.”
Do you know who my parents were?
Orz frowned. “Distantly. I know your mother fought on my side of the civil war.” He snorted angrily. “Your mother.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I take you at your word, yet this is too fantastic to believe.”
Fantastic or not, this is my life. I’ve never known what it meant. I still don’t.
“So what are you using these soldiers for?” Orz gestured around at the Mad Lancer camp. “What hidden goals do you have? Which of them have you seeped your influence into without their knowledge?” His voice began to rise, the cadence of his speech increasing.
Styke took a long step forward, laying a hand on Celine’s shoulder. “That’s enough,” he said.
Orz shot to his feet so quickly that Styke fell back into a defensive stance. The dragonman whirled on his heel and stalked into the night without another word, leaving Styke with a mixture of anger and relief. He looked down at Ka-poel, who herself was staring in the direction that Orz had gone.
“Is this going to be a problem?” he asked.
I don’t know, she gestured. I thought he already knew who I was.
“I thought the same thing. But he didn’t, and telling him now hasn’t made him trust us any more.” Styke ground his teeth. “Why is he so angry about it?”
He doesn’t know whether to believe me. Even if he does, how can he trust me? I am Ka-Sedial’s kin. Ka-poel frowned. I think this is a very confusing time for him.
Styke tapped the side of his lantern, staring off into the dark after Orz. “I really hope he’s still here when we wake up in the morning.”
CHAPTER 15
Vlora sat astride her horse, nodding gently into the morning sun, desperately trying not to fall asleep as the distant beat of drums marked out three full brigades of Adran soldiers falling into rank. Her head hurt from a night without rest, her body ached from her wounds from the Crease, and her mind still wondered at the conversation with General Etepali the night before. She knew instinctively that she had missed something in the encounter and it clawed at the back of her brain.
“Sleep well last night?” Bo asked cheerily, riding up beside her.
“Not a wink. You?”
“Like a baby. Nila brought a young captain back to the tent last night, and I’ll tell you…” Bo made the shape of a woman with his hands.
“Please don’t,” Vlora cut him off. “And what the pit do you think you’re doing, sleeping with my officers?”
“It’s very boring here,” Bo said defensively. “Besides, it was Nila’s idea. She figures we can, uh, spend time with someone from every regiment in the entire army by the time this stupid thing is over.”
“I hate you so much right now.” Vlora poured a bit of water from her canteen onto a handkerchief and pressed it to her forehead. She knew about Nila and Bo’s proclivity for play, of course—they were Privileged, after all, and had the libidos that went with their sorcerous power—but it served as a reminder that Olem had still not returned. She only now realized that the ache of his absence had become almost physical, joining all of her wounds to a pulsing nest of pain in the back of her head. “Are you and Nila ready to deal with anything they throw at us?”
Bo pursed his lips. “Odd, that.”
“What is?”
“We can’t find them.”
“The enemy Privileged?”
“Right. They’ve either left, or they’re very, very good at hiding.”
“You’re out of practice. Talk to Norrine and Davd.”
“Already did. They can’t find any Privileged, either.” He spread his hands. “There’s a lot of sorcerous noise over there—color left over from the Dynize bombardment of New Adopest—but not enough to hide a bunch of Privileged. There were eight yesterday, and now…”
“Shit,” Vlora said under her breath. She searched the horizon, reaching for her sorcery instinctively and clutching at nothing. The one time she wanted to do everything herself, and she literally couldn’t. She beckoned over a messenger. “Send people to the First, Second, and Fifth. Tell them that we don’t know when to expect a sorcerous barrage, and I’m holding our own power back to counter any surprises. They are to proceed with the battle plan.”
The messenger bolted, and Vlora gestured to Bo to join his wife at the front before settling back to watch the proceedings. Her left flank marched over the horizon to the north, swinging around the enemy earthworks with heavy cavalry support. Her right clung to the river in a tight column while their cannons rained down a withering cover fire on the Dynize artillery platforms. The center, directly in front of her, ground forward in a line four-deep, bayonets fixed, prepared to ford the river tributary as soon as pressure had been applied to the flanks.
Vlora swept up and down the length of the river tributary with her looking glass, that feeling of uncertainty still wedged in her gut. The Dynize returned fire with their heavy guns, but by the time her men reached the tributary, she had the odd feeling that the return fire was too sporadic, that there wasn’t enough movement on those earthworks.
It was with some surprise that she saw her own cavalry sweeping down the length of those earthworks before her center had even reached the other side of the river. The cavalry galloped over a handful of Dynize, swept through multiple artillery platforms, and then rode out of sight beyond the earthworks. Her soldiers crossed the river and followed them without a single scrap of resistance from the enemy line.
Messengers soon came flooding back to her, all of them with the same story: only a token resistance. A few hundred Dynize soldiers threw down their weapons the moment the Adran infantry arrived. There was no sign of General Etepali, her officer corps, her Privileged sorcerers, or the main body of her army.
The Dynize were gone.
Vlora walked through the Dynize camp, the seeds of their deception unfolding before her eyes.
It was clear that most of them had already been gone by the time she met with General Etepali last night. Every third tent had been left standing, and all the campfires
stoked just enough to smolder. It was shockingly clean—the Dynize had taken everything with them but the tents—evidence of an ordered withdrawal rather than a frantic retreat. The withdrawal had forded the river within sight of New Adopest, but around the bend from Vlora and her troops.
Exhaustion tugged at her shoulders, slowed her feet, but Vlora was galvanized by her anger. She strode around the camp in wider and wider circles, ignoring the soldiers who stared at her as she passed, swearing under her breath.
On her third circle, she ran directly into General Sabastenien and his bodyguard. Sabastenien was dismounted, examining the ground at his feet. He shook his head as Vlora approached, said something to one of his bodyguards, and came to meet her. “Ma’am.”
“It’s the same damn thing.”
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
“The same damn thing I did to the Fatrastans and Dynize when they cornered me at Windy River. This was why I couldn’t sleep last night. I had an inkling of what was happening, but I just couldn’t put the pieces together.” Vlora was angry at everything—her officers, her scouts, the enemy, and especially at herself. “Your cavalry. Were they ever able to gain ground south of the river last night?”
Sabastenien pulled a wry face. “They just reported in. They met stern resistance until dark, then pulled back and conducted a night crossing after midnight. When morning came, it was like the enemy had never been there. Except…”
“Except what?”
“Evidence of a mass exodus. Easily thirty thousand men. They must have crossed the river over the last few days and headed west while we were heading east.”
“Yeah,” Vlora said crossly, “I figured as much.” Everything came into focus. The tributary bridges had been left standing to give Vlora an easy ride on purpose. Had they been burned, she would have taken a longer time getting to New Adopest—she would have spread out her forces to look for a better route and been more insistent about scouting south of the river and caught wind of their retreat. Those cavalry she saw crossing yesterday afternoon must have been the tail end of their forces. “Why?” she demanded, half to herself. “Why would Etepali slip away when she had such a good defensive position?”
Sabastenien clasped his hands behind his back. “If she only had thirty thousand, and she knew the size of our force and our offshore fleet, then she was wise not to allow a confrontation here. Slip around us, head back to the mainland. She loses New Adopest, but she puts herself in position to be reinforced by the rest of the Dynize Army.”
A messenger approached, starting when he saw the look on Vlora’s face.
“What is it?” she snapped.
“Sorry, ma’am. One of the Dynize soldiers. He had a note for you.”
Vlora snatched the note from the messenger and broke the seal. It was written in Adran in a gorgeous, flowing hand in crimson ink.
My dear Vlora. It was a pleasure to meet you last night. I’m sorry for the deception, but I felt I was not prepared to face you in open battle at such a disadvantage. I’ll save the rest of the whiskey. I do hope we have an opportunity to share it one day, regardless of the outcome of our next meeting. Best, Etepali
Vlora crumpled the letter and dropped it, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Used my own tactic against me and I didn’t even see it coming.”
She heard horses and looked up to find Bo and Nila approaching at a trot. The two Privileged dismounted, and it was Nila who came to Vlora’s side and picked up the letter she’d dropped. She read it silently and handed it to Bo.
“If you laugh, Privileged Borbador, I will shoot you in the face,” Vlora said.
Bo turned a chuckle into a cough, then began to hack and spit. “I would never,” he said when he recovered.
“This isn’t funny.”
“It’s kind of funny.”
“No, it’s not. I now have the most decorated general in Dynize at my back. She’s put herself in a position to block my progress off the Cape and bring in reinforcements. What’s more, I missed what should have been an obvious deception.”
“We all have bad days,” Bo suggested.
“My bad days get people killed.”
Sabastenien cleared his throat. “Ma’am, I understand we’ve received messengers from the city. They’re hailing us as liberators and have asked that you come meet with the mayor.”
“I don’t have time,” Vlora said. “Get everyone turned around. I want you to take command of our combined cavalry and head upriver. See if you can get in front of Etepali’s army. Harry them. Slow them down.”
“We’re going after her?”
“Yes. I’m not going to let her get reinforcements, not if I can help it.”
“What about the prisoners?”
The words “execute them” floated on the tip of Vlora’s tongue. The terrible urge rooted in her belly almost pushed them out, but she managed to choke them off. “Hand them over to the city garrison of New Adopest.”
“And the city?”
“Strip their granaries and munitions. Take everything we might need to fight our way to Landfall.”
Sabastenien’s eyes widened. “We’re sacking the city?”
“Not a sack,” Vlora replied. “Keep the men in line, but requisition everything. If they disagree, signal the fleet to fire a few salvos at their harbor.” This was it—the second lesson she needed to teach both her allies and her enemies: that Fatrastans were not their friends. The Adran Army was not here to liberate. They were here to accomplish a task. “Get to it, General. I want you at the head of our cavalry and after the Dynize within the hour.”
CHAPTER 16
Michel didn’t like the idea of leaving Greenfire Depths. Through some cruel corruption of the laws of nature and in defiance of common sense, it had become the safest spot for him in Landfall. He climbed out of its stinking, twisted embrace with reluctance and joined the morning traffic heading east across the plateau, wearing thick cotton laborer’s trousers, a vest, and a wide-brimmed straw farmer’s hat to shade—and hide—his face.
He let the crowd pull him along, nudging his own trajectory every couple of blocks until he’d navigated to Proctor, not far from where his mother had lived before she’d been whisked inland by Taniel’s agents. He wondered, not for the first time, where she was and how she was doing. He wondered if she’d forgiven him for all those years of making her think he was a Blackhat stooge.
Michel slipped down the basement stairs of a large tenement near the edge of the plateau, trudging the length of a musty hall until he reached the last door on the left. The lock had, by some miracle, not been smashed, and the door showed no signs of tampering. He let himself in with a key hidden behind a loose brick. The single-room apartment was lit by one rectangular window not much bigger than his head, and the air was thick and full of cobwebs.
It took him just a couple of minutes to move the mattress out of the corner, lift the dusty old rug beneath it, then find the knots in the floorboards that allowed him to pull them up, revealing a hidden cubby that could, in an emergency, fit a person. It currently contained a handful of Taniel’s old fake passports, a few thousand krana in cash, and a long map case that he’d stolen from the Yaret Household after the successful search of the Landfall catacombs.
He took some of the cash, ignored the passports, and then spent the next hour examining those old maps of the catacombs. Once he was satisfied, he copied down a bit of one of the maps and then stowed them back in their original spot, leaving the place exactly as he had found it.
He returned to Greenfire Depths and picked up Ichtracia from their shared apartment before heading to Meln-Dun’s quarry to meet his fellow hunters.
The crew was in good spirits and, at Michel’s orders, headed out into the Depths to spread around bribe money and listen for rumors. Michel pocketed a thick wad of petty cash and Dynize rations cards from Dahre. He led Ichtracia out into the street, down along the river, and then into one of the tenements that the two of them were meant to be searchi
ng. He waited inside for several minutes, watching the street behind them through a crack in the tenement wall.
“What are we doing?” Ichtracia asked.
“We’re making sure no one is following us.”
“You think they would?”
“I don’t,” Michel said reassuringly, “but better safe than sorry. Okay, I think we’re fine. Follow me.” They went up two levels and then left the tenement for the spiderweb of the Depths. Even with a working—if dated—map of the quarry in his head, Michel got them lost three times before he found their destination: a tall building, almost entirely still in one piece, near the very center of the Depths.
“We’re here,” Michel announced.
“What is here?” Ichtracia asked skeptically.
Michel rapped on the door. A peephole opened and a pair of eyes stared out at them. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t,” Michel said, “but I do have this.” He counted off exactly eighty-three krana in Adran bills and held it up to the peephole. It was snatched quickly and the hole closed. “This,” he told Ichtracia quietly, “is the home of the most successful Palo arms dealer in Fatrasta. Don’t say anything. Just look menacing.” He held up one finger to qualify that statement. “But not too menacing.”
The door opened suddenly, and they were greeted by the smiling face of a Gurlish hunchback. The man bobbed his head twice. “Up the stairs,” he instructed, pointing them toward a narrow staircase. “All the way to the top.”
Michel frowned at the narrow lift beside the stairs. A sign on the lift door said, OUT OF ORDER. He shrugged and nodded to Ichtracia. They began their climb.
They were on the sixth floor when he heard the very distinctive hum of a steam-powered engine somewhere in the bowels of the building. They reached the eighth floor at almost the exact same moment as the lift. The hunchback doorman stepped out, gave them a cheeky smile and a bow, and opened the door for them. Michel paused to catch his breath, nodded, and stepped out into the sun.
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