Revenant

by Bevan McGuiness

  Slave tucked his Claw away under his jerkin.

  ‘I don’t like you either,’ he said evenly. ‘But I am not planning on killing you.’

  Quetzalxoitl gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘You have already killed thousands with your arrogant stupidity. What difference would one more make?’

  Slave frowned, but said nothing.

  Behind the Queen, Keshik strode on deck, his face like thunder. For a moment, Myrrhini thought he might lay hands on the Queen, but he restrained himself and kept his distance. His right hand was dangerously close to the hilt of his sword. As he moved, it seemed that every agent on deck paused to watch. The shouts and cries that had accompanied the arrival of the attackers died, leaving an eerie stillness, punctuated only by the splashing of the sea and the slap of the sails. Keshik, aware of the abrupt tension, pulled his hand away from his sword.

  His action brought no change to the mood on deck. Agents rested hands on sword hilts and stared with malice in their eyes at the Tulugma warriors who came out behind Keshik. The warriors spread out, forming a defensive ring, returning the malice.

  ‘What have you brought onto my ship?’ Quetzalxoitl spat at Keshik.

  ‘The rest of the Tulugma,’ Keshik replied.

  ‘And that?’ she demanded, pointing at Slave. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  Slave ignored the Queen, turning away and walking to the railing to stare out at the Silvered Sea. Myrrhini moved to stand beside him, trying to ignore the murmuring, the muttering from those who watched. The tableau was a strange one — the ship scything through the water; the forty or so Tulugma standing, hands on weapons, staring at the agents who stared stony-eyed back at them; the Blindfolded Queen, her hair flying in the wind, her face turned towards Slave; and Slave himself apparently uncaring, gripping the railing, eyes fixed on the withdrawing ships. Around them all, the rest of Quetzalxoitl’s ships were engaged in the pursuit, almost hungrily it seemed. Slave’s eyes were intent as they sought out ship after ship, examining each one carefully before moving on to the next. Myrrhini wondered what those eyes were seeing that she was not.

  ‘Who are we chasing?’ Slave asked.

  ‘Them,’ Myrrhini answered, regretting the word the moment it left her lips.

  ‘Ah, them,’ Slave said. ‘Do you know who they are?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wonder if anyone does.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are they flying any standard? Their sails carry no device, and they are a mix of different types of ship. It’s not a fleet of any kingdom.’

  Myrrhini took a deep breath, closed her eyes and focused her mind on trying to See into Eztli-Ichtaca. When she opened her eyes again, the retreating fleet took on a strange, indistinct aspect. It was as if every ship were only an image seen through a poorly made mirror.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Myrrhini said. ‘They’re only partly here.’

  Slave rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Keep looking,’ he said.

  There was something more about these ships that was not as it seemed, but her vision into Eztli-Ichtaca was still weak and gave her only glimpses, which were not enough to discern their purpose.

  ‘Tell me, what is that fleet doing?’ Slave asked. Myrrhini was about to answer when another voice spoke.

  ‘Fleeing from us.’

  ‘Are you sure? I have been watching them and if they were men, I would say they were retreating, not fleeing. How bad were their losses?’

  ‘Bad,’ the new speaker said, ‘but not devastating.’

  Myrrhini tore her gaze from the ships to regard the newcomer. It was Iskopra. He was clad in the blue of an agent and he carried himself more like the commander of a flagship than a simple sailor.

  ‘So why flee?’

  Iskopra’s eyes widened. ‘Have you studied the words of Tulugma?’

  Slave nodded. ‘Among others,’ he said.

  ‘Never pursue those who seek to deceive,’ Iskopra shouted. He spun around and cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Halt the pursuit!’ he roared. ‘Send word to all ships — halt the pursuit! Come about!’

  His words broke the tension around the Queen and galvanised every agent into action. The Haven of Couatl slowed in her progress and heeled around alarmingly, sending several of the Tulugma warriors crashing to the deck and skidding helplessly across the wooden planks. A number of agents laughed at the warriors’ plight as they scurried on sure feet to do Iskopra’s bidding. The Queen strode across the deck towards Iskopra. He saw her approach and lowered his gaze. Out of the side of his mouth he whispered to Slave, ‘This could be fun.’

  Myrrhini held her hand in front of her mouth to cover her sudden grin. The agent’s inappropriate humour and irreverent view of his queen was unusual among agents and caught her by surprise.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the Queen demanded.

  ‘Saving your life, my beloved queen.’

  The Queen scowled, but her fury seemed to fade just a little. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t think that fleet is fleeing a rout. In fact, thanks to Slave’s keen understanding of strategy, I think it is making an orderly withdrawal, and it is a well-understood axiom of battle that you do not pursue a withdrawing army. Not unless they are clearly fleeing in disarray, my beloved queen.’

  ‘A trap? Out here in the sea. How could they hide ships out here?’

  ‘It depends how far we pursue them, exquisite queen.’

  ‘And what will change on the open water?’

  ‘The horizon can hide anything. Once we get far enough away from the shore, we can be surrounded on all sides.’

  Quetzalxoitl looked out at the horizon, as if seeing a vast fleet holding position just out of sight, waiting to fall on her ships to send them to the bottom of the sea. She looked back at Iskopra.

  ‘So we ignore them, and let them go?’ she said finally.

  Iskopra grinned broadly. ‘Indeed we do, most wise queen.’

  Quetzalxoitl gave him a mistrustful look and walked away with a swirl of her skirt. Iskopra watched her for a moment before shifting his gaze back to the departing ships.

  ‘I love my queen dearly, but she does so want to interfere,’ he mused.

  ‘Whose fleet was that?’ Slave asked.

  ‘I have no idea. If I had to guess, I would say Kielevinenrohkimainen’s.’

  ‘It has a fleet?’ Myrrhini asked.

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘How?’

  Iskopra shrugged. ‘I’d better get back to the wheel. Young Ilhuitl is strong of body, but in mind —’ Iskopra tapped the side of his head ‘— he wanders a bit.’

  After he was out of earshot, Myrrhini spoke to Slave.

  ‘Kielevinenrohkimainen has a fleet now?’ she said.

  ‘Probably. Its followers won’t be mindless like those of the Revenant. They could have the discipline to take to the waters.’

  ‘But the battle will be on the land,’ Keshik said.

  Myrrhini turned quickly to see the compact, powerfully built swordmaster approaching, with Maida close behind him. He looked weary but alert while Maida looked wan, as if drained of all her fire. She attempted a smile at Myrrhini, but it failed almost as soon as it began.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ Keshik went on, gesturing at the rapidly disappearing fleet.

  ‘I don’t know, but it was probably an attempt to lure us out from the coast.’

  ‘Feigned retreat?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘And who was the military genius who fell for it?’

  ‘Iskopra.’

  Keshik grunted disdainfully, as if this was all he could expect from the man. ‘Where is Apros from here?’

  Myrrhini pointed at the brown smudge on the southern horizon.

  ‘So why aren’t we heading there?’

  ‘Asnuevium is further to the west, that’s where we’re heading.’

  ‘I would ask why, but there’s probably no point,’ Keshik went on.

  ‘And
you’d be right,’ Myrrhini agreed. ‘Once she —’ she jerked a thumb towards where Quetzalxoitl was berating an agent ‘— makes up her mind, there’s no shifting it.’

  Maida unexpectedly stepped up to Myrrhini and gave her a hug. Myrrhini was shocked, both by the action and her own response. She stiffened and could not return the hug, leaving her arms at her side as Maida held her close for a moment before stepping back.

  ‘It’s so good to see you alive,’ Maida said. ‘We all thought you were dead. Keshik was really upset, and I think he was too,’ she added, indicating Slave with a jerk of her head.

  ‘It’s always hard to know what he’s thinking, isn’t it?’ Myrrhini agreed, speaking a little too quickly to cover her confusion. Slave slowly turned his head away from the horizon to regard the two women, his eyes a mystery as usual.

  26

  They left the other fleet well behind as they made for Asnuevium. The wind blew in strong and steady from the northwest, causing the Blindfolded Queen’s ships to tack sharply, but they made excellent time running before it. The Haven of Couatl with its purple, red and gold standard crashed proudly through the swell at the head of the fleet.

  The bunking arrangements on board the ship had finally been sorted, with most of the additional Tulugma sent off to other ships, leaving the Elbar, Li, Slave, Keshik and Maida aboard the Haven. This could have created a few problems when Keshik first crossed paths with the Ogedei. Word of Keshik’s assumption of the title had spread like a fire through the Tulugma, and Zhan Tien was apparently moved to a raging fury when he heard it. All the Tulugma aboard the Haven of Couatl seemed to be awaiting some sort of confrontation, but nothing happened as the meetings, few as they were, between the two men were icy but civil.

  Slave, however, found an additional complication — Myrrhini.

  During their long trek from the Hidden City, Slave and Myrrhini had become lovers. Or at least, that was the word she had used. Slave had struggled with the word, and what she clearly invested in it. For him, it was physical pleasure they shared. Myrrhini had never aroused the same strange sensations that Waarde and the unnamed assassin from so long ago had done. Yet the disconcerting woman had insisted they resume their physical intimacy as soon as possible when he arrived aboard. And then she spent every waking moment as close to him as she could.

  And the incessant talking!

  Myrrhini had, Slave presumed, never learned the value of silence, had never spent whole days at risk of her life were she to make a single sound. She could talk through a day.

  Slave knew about conversation. He had watched many people engaging in animated ones, quiet ones, intense ones, even desultory ones, and the one commonality was the shared speaking. One spoke, then the other. The mechanics were not complicated, but the nuances still eluded him. A few days after joining the Queen’s fleet, Slave had to conclude those same nuances eluded Myrrhini also. She talked at him whenever the chance presented itself, telling him how she felt about just about everything from flowers to the Revenant itself. Mostly her talk was about herself in one way or another.

  Slave learned two main things during this time: Myrrhini’s emotions were unendingly complicated, and his life spent studying military history, strategy, tactics, weaponry and combat gave him next to no insight into the woman’s mind. About the only time they were together and she did not talk was at night in their tiny shared cabin below decks.

  But even when she did not speak, she was not silent.

  Asnuevium came into view late on an afternoon when the sun was sliding into the Silvered Sea, sending golden shafts of light over the ancient city. In the liquid gold of the sunlight, it looked to Slave like a vision of a drunken poet. Spires reached skyward over massive city walls that were wreathed in an unnatural glow. Every spire was topped with some sort of sign, almost like a sigil or pictogram, and even from this distance, it appeared that each was different. Two great fingers of stone reached out into the Silvered Sea, creating a long, straight, sheltered entrance into the city. The channel led, it appeared, right into the walls, and either side was lined with huge ballistae that could rain swift death on any unwelcome vessels daring the passage.

  All along the city walls stood hundreds, if not thousands, of flags that flapped and snapped in the sea winds. Slave recognised some from the Eleven Kingdoms, but most were a mystery to him. Armed guards, identified at this distance only from the tall pikes they bore, moved steadily along the walls behind the crenellated facade. In the spectacular sunset, even the pikes seemed to have been dipped in gold.

  As they approached the city, Slave came to appreciate the sheer scale of the place. The walls were not merely impressive, they were monumental. What he had taken as pikes carried by guards walking the wall had to be massive lances borne by horsemen. The walls rose at least a hundred paces straight up from the water. The channel that emerged from the base of the wall was high enough to completely overshadow any ship entering.

  The Haven of Couatl came around and headed for the channel, leading the rest of Quetzalxoitl’s fleet between the intimidating weaponry. As soon as they entered the channel, the wind died to a zephyr. In moments, it seemed, they slowed to a halt, wallowing helpless in the channel, with hundreds of armed men aiming weapons at them that would sink the fleet in moments were they to be used.

  Surprisingly quickly, the whole fleet was within the enormous channel, still and silent, expectant. An eerie quiet fell upon the becalmed vessels as not a voice was raised by anyone on the looming walls. The sun had already dipped below the level of the wall to the west, leaving them in shadow. Chill air enveloped them. Slave found his Claw in his hand once more. He looked down at it, then up at the huge walls, the hundreds of watchers and the line of hungry weapons. How feeble his own weapon seemed in this context.

  Ahead, the channel disappeared into utter blackness as it vanished under the walls of the city. With no wind, it was difficult to see how they were supposed to enter, and with no break in the smooth, sheer sides, there was no place to dock out here. Were they to simply await death to crash down on them from above?

  A loud grinding sound rolled out from beneath the city walls. To Slave’s ears, it was similar to the noise made by the raising of the Great Wall that held back the Great River of Kings. The sound continued for longer than seemed right and was accompanied by a rush of green-tinged water that gave the ships a push backward. The rush was like a long wave that did not break and was about a pace in height. Anyone swimming in the channel would have been hard-pressed to survive the fast moving wall of water. A strong smell of decay and foulness rose from the wave, causing many on the ships to recoil and cough. It reminded Slave of his cell beneath Vogel and made him oddly comfortable, almost as if he missed his dank, stinking hole.

  He had no time to consider this peculiar set of feelings as a broad barge powered by rows of oars pulled out from under the wall. It seemed to have far too many oars for its size. It moved swiftly through the fouled water to stop before the Haven of Couatl.

  ‘Ho the ship,’ a man bellowed up.

  ‘Ho the barge,’ Iskopra called back.

  ‘Prepare to take on a tow,’ the barge captain called. He was a huge man, resplendent in a bright uniform of clashing red, yellow and dark blue stripes with a green, wide-brimmed hat set with a long white plume that swept back from the right, rising inordinately high above the peak of the hat. Slave wondered what manner of creature had given up such a magnificent feather, and how it managed to stand so proudly.

  ‘Cast on,’ Iskopra shouted back.

  Another big man hurled a rope across the intervening space that was caught by an agent aboard the Haven of Couatl. He and another agent made it fast before signalling back to the barge. At their signal, the barge captain gave an unintelligible bellow at his own crew, who heaved on their oars. Slowly, the joined ships started to move towards the archway over the channel. Their speed increased at a steady rate. Three other barges the same as the first came out of the archway, passi
ng them to tow the other ships, but Slave had no eyes for them as the huge archway drew near. The light vanished quickly beneath the archway leaving it a black tunnel towards which they moved disconcertingly quickly.

  The smell of decay grew stronger as they moved under the arch. Overhead, the ancient stones were dark with smoke and old, unidentifiable stains. The air grew chill as the light faded with the noise from outside, leaving them in a black chamber filled with the sounds of water and oars, the smells of long-forgotten rot, and only vague flickers of reflected light that danced over the surface of the water and sent dim, half-seen glimmers across the walls.

  Everyone who spoke did so in whispers, as if affected by this eerie place. Slave examined the walls as they moved swiftly along, sensing other openings in the blackness, smelling different scents from each opening hidden in the dark. On three occasions, he sensed odours indicative of people, probably other barges lying in wait for any hint of threat from a towed ship. In addition, there were two places where a black-on-black line was traced across the curved stone ceiling high above them. The smell of cold iron drifted down from them. Slave guessed there were heavy gates hidden in the dark, ready to be dropped at a moment’s notice should there be an attack.

  This was a city that would not be easily taken from seaward, he concluded.

  Ahead, daylight appeared first as a dim glow on the surface of the water which grew until, once again, the world around them became large. The barge pulled the Haven of Couatl out of the tunnel into what Slave could only describe as a huge, circular pond. It was thousands of paces across, surrounded by a wall of stone that rose almost as high as a mast. Stairs led up the wall from the water at regular intervals. Hundreds of cranes dotted the top of the wall, with ropes hanging down for unloading cargo.