by Matthew Ward
“Perhaps because she stopped the last war,” breathed Rasha. “Because she gambled everything she holds dear on the hope of preventing the next. Or perhaps because a warrior’s worth is not in who she kills, but who she is prepared to die for, and why.”
Rosa glared, furious at his presumption. He comprehended nothing of the debt the House of Saran owed the Republic. Malachi Reveque slaughtered at an Emperor’s hand. The Eastshires, conquered. The dead of Govanna, Haldravord and Terevosk. Prydonis obliterated and Essamere driven to the brink. Ten thousand unmarked graves along the Ravonn, and the proud fortresses of Ahrad and Vrasdavora cast down.
But Rasha’s words echoed hints Josiri had dropped in the years since Govanna. Turns of phrase that suggested personal knowledge of an Empress who should have been no more than a loathed stranger. And Josiri was no fool.
Were Rasha’s claims true?
Voices sounded in the corridor, back the way Rosa had come.
“Choose quickly,” breathed Rasha. “While choice remains.”
Ever since Govanna, Rosa had striven to be better, and had stumbled more than she’d succeeded – her failure to confront Viktor with what he’d done to her was only part of it. Did she share that with Melanna Saranal? And even if she didn’t, what manner of monster abandoned a child to her death?
She took Kaila’s hand. To her surprise, the girl made no attempt to pull away.
Voices grew closer. The wet, rippling sound of a cut-throat silenced a pained cry.
Rasha nodded. “The corridors are not safe. But there are passageways hidden behind. She knows them all.” He brushed Kaila’s cheek. “Beneath the tears, she’s an imp of soot and secrets. But first, one last favour. Help me stand.”
After brief hesitation, Rosa laid aside her sword and seized his wrist. Between that and the wall, Rasha reached something approaching upright, hand still pressed to the scarlet ruin at his waist. Seeing wordless question in his eyes, Rosa returned to him his sword.
A deep, stuttering breath, and Rasha twisted to face the pursuit. “I will trouble them one last time. How does it go? Death and honour?”
Rosa nodded. “Death and honour.”
Death for Rasha and honour for her, and both of them his gift. For the first time in her life, Rosa found herself looking upon a shadowthorn – a Hadari – and wondered what fortune might have brought them had they met as friends. Her world grew suddenly more complicated, and her place in it far simpler. A shield, not a sword, and a girl’s life beneath her aegis.
Offering Rasha one last nod, she gathered Kaila in her arms.
Halfway down the next corridor, the air behind shook to a battle cry in an unfamiliar tongue. Screams followed, the last more defiant bellow than cry of pain. Then a wooden panel swung outward beneath Kaila’s probing fingers. In the darkness beyond there was no sound at all.
Four ranks of stag-shields and serried spears rippled apart. Brackar and Thirava at his side, Cardivan spurred forward to greet the woman who stood before the barred gate, figure-hugging white robes plastered to her skin by the rain. There would be others close by, no doubt. Concealed among the trees of the temple gardens, perhaps. Theatricality was the least of the lunassera’s skills.
“You’ve no business here, Cardivan Tirane.” Sera spoke evenly, no expression showing beneath the gentle curve of her silver half-mask. “Withdraw your spears, and the Goddess may yet forgive you.”
Cardivan leaned low over his horse’s neck, more amused than affronted. “You dare address your Emperor with insolence?”
“You do not rule here.”
“But I will. The House of Saran is done. Come midnight, you will acclaim me beneath the moon.” He stared up at the skies. A mistake, for no moon could have penetrated those clouds. Other men might have taken that as ill omen. “You are lunassera. Your service is to the throne.”
Sera’s head snapped up. “Our service is to the Goddess, and to those she claims as kin.” She raised her hand, and a spear of silvered light and jagged, planar edges coalesced in her hand. “Withdraw your spears.”
Cardivan couldn’t quite suppress a shiver. He saw fear reflected in the faces of his warriors, in the reflexive tightening of Thirava’s hand about the reins. The lunassera had a reputation that transcended healers’ gifts. But in duty, there was weakness.
Quelling his fear, Cardivan sat high in his saddle, and raised his voice to proclamation. “If the Goddess claims Melanna as her own, let her do so. Let her Huntsman summon the mists and ride out with the Court of Eventide at his back.” He stared past her to the temple, its white stone still bright, even through rain. “But if the lunassera leave this place, the wounded in your care will be left unprotected. The temple will be unprotected. I will raze it to the ground, and have the land given over to something useful. A pig farm, perhaps.”
Murmurs rippled through the assembled ranks. Whispered expectation that the Goddess Ashana would not let such words pass unchallenged. But these faded when no bolt of searing flame leapt from the heavens, when no otherworldly hunting horn shook the sky. Absence brought reminder that Ashana had been distant since the close of the Avitra Briganda.
The shard-spear faded from Sera’s hand.
Cardivan nodded, careful to keep his relief hidden. “This will all be over soon.”
“Yes,” she replied icily. “It will.”
Somehow the simple, unprepossessing words shook Cardivan more than any that had come before. More theatricality? The lunassera rejoiced in playing at prophets, but prophecy was not truth.
“To the palace!” he shouted. “A new era begins!”
As he wheeled his horse about, the wind brought new clamour from the west. Sounds that had dominated recent hours roused again to wakefulness. The growl of battle and the strike of swords. Cardivan’s confidence, battered on the rocks of Sera’s certainty, began to fray.
“What now?” he snarled.
When Jorcari returned to the throne room, he did so not just in the company of two dozen lodgemates – all time-worn, and many with bindwork limbs as proof of valiant service – but also with Ori Chakdra, a havildar of the palace gate. As trustworthy a soul as any Melanna had known… but then, trust was a coin greatly devalued that day. Blackwinders busied themselves barricading the doors with benches and tables. Jorcari escorted Chakdra forward.
The havildar dropped to his knees, head bowed. “My Empress, we failed you.” His voice shook, wrath and humiliation in the balance. “Those I trust are hunting the faithless as we speak.”
“How can I believe anything you say?” Melanna replied sourly. “For the first time, I’m glad my father is gone. To see this would have broken him.”
Chakdra slid his sword from its scabbard. Grasping it by the blade, he offered her the hilt. “If you doubt me, strike my head from my shoulders. I offer it gladly.”
Melanna took the sword, every passing moment of Kaila’s absence weightier than the one before. Her father would have accepted the sacrifice. Haldrane would have urged it. Certainty demanded it. But if there was to be any hope in coming days, there had to be trust. Blind suspicion crippled as surely as any wound.
She reversed the sword and held it out. “Rise, havildar. There’s failure enough this day. If I take your head, I must offer my own alongside. How many remain—”
Cries of alarm rang out. Blackwinders rushed towards the towering statue of Jack with scavenged weapons drawn. As Melanna joined them, she spied a half-height panel in the sculpted robes, so cleverly concealed she’d no suspicion of its existence. That she saw it now was only because it hung slightly ajar, frozen in the act of opening.
“Announce yourself!” she shouted.
A pause. Blackwinders edged closer, weapons levelled.
“Madda?”
For a moment, Melanna thought a longing heart deceived her ears. Then the panel creaked fully open. Kaila, her hair matted and filthy, her face streaked with dried blood, clambered into the room as if there were nothing unusual in the deed.
“Kaila?”
Melanna held her daughter tight. She’d no notion how long she knelt there, only that it wasn’t long enough – could never be long enough. A piece of her world returned, and she the stronger for it.
She pulled back. Fingers probed for harms, and found nothing but grazes. “Are you hurt, essavim?”
Kaila shook her head, welling tears a match for Melanna’s own. “Shar Rasha kept me safe. And her. She killed so many…”
Fresh growls of challenge dragged Melanna’s gaze back to the panel. Face unflinching, her rent and torn clothing covered in blood, Lady Orova cast a sword to the tiles. The Blackwinders closed in.
“Stop!” Melanna stood, once again little crediting the evidence of her eyes. Orova the truce-breaker, the widowmaker of Govanna Field… her daughter’s saviour? “Is it true?”
Orova staggered, a faltering hand leaving a crimson smear against the statue’s flank. “If you don’t believe your daughter,” she said in halting, accented Rhalesh, “what surety can I offer?”
“And Jasaldar Rasha?”
“He died for her.”
There was no parsing that swirl of emotion. Relief that Rasha had been true to the last. Sorrow for what it had cost him. Gratitude to the woman who’d slain more of Rhaled’s loyal warriors than any save the Droshna himself. As Melanna floundered amid their confluence, the air grew chill, a scent of stale yesterdays rising to challenge the scents of woodsmoke and stale blood.
Green-white vapour spilled from a doorway no longer bounded by stone and timber, but swirling mist. A lifeless body draped across outstretched arms, a ragged Apara Rann stumbled into the throne room and eased her burden down.
“Haldrane?” Melanna pushed Kaila to Apara’s keeping and crouched beside him.
The mists dissipating behind, Apara gave a sharp shake of the head. “I found him in the streets. He was all but gone then. I didn’t want to bring him through Otherworld – it’s stolen most of what was left – but he insisted. Cardivan’s warriors are everywhere.”
Haldrane uttered a great, wracking sigh and clutched and grabbed Melanna’s shoulder. Red-rimmed eyes burned in a greying face. “It seems… my warning has come too late.”
She laid a hand on his. “That doesn’t matter now. You need to live.”
“I have erred… this is my payment. I encouraged Cardivan, you see. Better to draw out his poison… not fester in the shadows. Force you… to deal with him in kind. But I was complacent.”
The confession should have provoked anger, but Melanna found she’d none to offer. “You old fool. You should have listened to me.”
“I should.” A laugh gurgled in Haldrane’s throat. Still prone, he craned his neck, bloodshot eyes taking in the chamber’s occupants. “I would have had you… force enemies and rivals to be resentful servants. Bound them with lies and protocol. The way of your sires. Instead, you’ve made them into allies. Your way… will serve you better than mine.”
“And what if it’s too late for that?”
Haldrane gave no reply. He’d never again offer one that side of the mists.
Laying the lifeless hand across his chest, Melanna closed his eyes and stumbled to her feet. The loss hurt more than it should. She’d never liked Haldrane overmuch, nor he her. But for all his contrition, he’d also confirmed the horrific scale of what was underway. It wasn’t just the palace. It was the city. Perhaps even the Empire. Was Aeldran already dead upon the road? Mergadir overrun? The twin thoughts squeezed every scrap of breath from her lungs.
“What are your orders, Empress?” asked Chakdra.
They were all looking to her for guidance. Not just Chakdra. Not just Jorcari and his lodgemates, but Apara… and even Orova. Kaila seemed more confused than anything else, a blessing among dire times. What did she tell them? An Empress was nothing without warriors, and hers were dead, or gone. The business of Empire would continue readily without her. Few cared who ruled, so long as someone did.
It was over. The House of Saran had fallen. Not through Haldrane’s hubris, but her own.
Jack had been right. She was alone.
“Do you hear that?” asked Jorcari.
And there was a new clamour in the streets outside. Battle renewed, and voices raised in unity, though the words were distorted.
Apara skirted Haldrane’s corpse and stood eye to eye with Melanna, her voice too quiet for any other to hear. “The streets were empty when I found Haldrane, but as I entered the mists they were filling again.” She glanced at Jorcari. “The spears of your garrisons are dead. But old warriors do not forget their loyalties. The populace has not forgotten all you’ve done since taking the throne. They’re finding their courage, and learning that it burns hot enough to kill.”
Melanna at last sifted words from the cacophony beyond the walls. Saranal Brigantim. Victory for the daughter of Saran.
Despair yielded to shame. Her Immortals were riven. Her garrison was gone – perhaps her husband and her armies too. But her people remained. And they fought for her.
She stared about the room, Haldrane’s final words taking on fresh meaning. You’ve made them into allies. Apara. Orova. Jorcari. The absent Aeldran, if he lived. His sister Aelia. Even Haldrane. Her father would have made enemies of them all. For their allegiance, for their deeds – for demanding something of the throne it was not prepared to give. Some had been her enemies also, but not at that moment. How had Josiri Trelan put it, less than a fortnight and a lifetime ago? Enemies make the finest friends. The kindness he’d twice shown had echoed through her own deeds, and now brought hope out of despair.
Because Jack had been wrong. She wasn’t alone.
“My place is with my people.” Melanna’s voice was once again something she recognised. “Those who would join me there do me the greatest honour.”
Jorcari and his lodgemates knelt, hands clasped to their chests in salute. Chakdra bowed. Apara nodded, a smile banished as soon as seen.
Orova set her back against the statue, her face pale, but her eyes steady. “I won’t fight to preserve your throne, Empress, but I will guard your daughter’s life with what remains of my own.”
Melanna nodded, the response far more than she’d hoped. Strange to trust an old foe so completely and without doubt, but that was the tenor of the day. “So be it.”
She stalked towards the throne. No fire blazed as she drew the Goddess’ sword free of its sheath. No matter. She’d plenty of her own.
Forty-Four
They came without orders through the rain, without fanfare of trumpets and without shields. For every sword, there was a woodsman’s axe, a mallet, a mattock, a scythe or a cudgel. What leaders they had were marked not by rank or golden armour, but by bellowed command. Veterans of the Empire’s wars, leading not spearbands or cohorts, but friends and neighbours roused to purpose. No blazons of banners, no heraldry to mark allegiance. Just a rallying cry that hammered out beneath the bitter smoke from Triumphal Gate’s burning barracks. It echoed along the stark black walls of Ravencourt Temple and into the streets.
“Saranal Brigantim!”
Safe among the two hundred cataphracts of his bodyguard, Cardivan stared down into the temple plaza with contempt beyond words. A mob remained a mob, no matter its allegiance. This last spasm of defiance would end when the gutters ran red.
Silsarian shields buckled, but held. The leading edge of the mob rippled. Screams contested the misguided battle cry, survivors of the Avitra Briganda and foolhardy citizens alike borne to the Raven’s embrace on wings of their own impertinence.
“A shame this couldn’t be avoided.” Cardivan patted his horse’s neck. “But they’ve only themselves to blame.”
Brackar grunted, envious eyes never leaving the plaza. “They must be brought to heel.”
“Indeed. I can be merciful tomorrow.”
Jasaldar Amitra, his armour and the tails of his rust-coloured cloak flecked scarlet from the day’s labours, walked his horse along the formation
’s front. An old warrior, with the scars to prove it, he regarded the one-sided battle with stony expression.
“There’s no end to them, savir. Should I send a rider to Prince Thirava?”
Cardivan snorted. “We can manage this without my son’s unique brand of valour. Let him stay at Mooncourt, caging the holy drabs.” In the plaza, the shield wall stuttered and shifted as warriors fought to contain a crowd thrice their number. One end curled back about the fountain and the forest of cast-iron ghostfire braziers above. “But despatch a rider to Triumphal Gate to summon Ganandra’s spears. And send in your outriders. I want this city at heel before moonrise.”
Amitra spurred away, upraised sword and bellow of command forming waiting outriders into a wedge of spears. In the narrow streets around the plaza, the mob might have fared better, but in the broad, open ground before Ravencourt Temple, riders would tear them to pieces.
A shame to mar so great a day with slaughter, but the throne was all. Not the city, and most certainly not the people.
With a blare of trumpets, the cataphracts spurred away.
Melanna beheld the palace’s outer gate, the old, familiar frisson of a battle yet to come buzzing beneath her thoughts. Fear. Anticipation. The excitement she’d thought passing years had placed behind her. And the impatience most of all. She was Empress. If she called for the gate to open, its keepers would obey. The waiting would end. But premature deeds were more dangerous than no deeds at all. The coming hour turned on symbols more than haste.
Hardest of all was to wait in the saddle with the sounds of battle washing over the walls. Her people, dying with her name on their lips.
She gripped the reins tighter and stared across the courtyard towards the palace. Where was Apara? How long could so simple a task take? Aware that scores of eyes looked to her for example, Melanna bit her lip and resumed contemplation of an outer gate whose every knot and rivet she’d come to know intimately in preceding minutes.
“Cardivan will not take your throne, savim.” Jorcari spoke without turning, his back spear-straight in the saddle and his eyes on the gate. Clad in a mismatch of armour salvaged from the royal vaults, he looked part Emperor and part brigand. As did the Blackwinders waiting in silence behind – all save those who had barricaded themselves within Penitent’s Tower with Kaila and a Lady Orova who looked on the point of collapse. Emeralds glistened at helm and hilt, the heirlooms of Empire summoned again to the battlefield. Chakdra and his Immortals waited further back, the courtyard thick with wounded pride. Tarnished by the treachery of their peers, they’d not guard their Empress this day. “The people won’t let him.”