by Matthew Ward
Izack shrugged. “Should have the sense not to fight, shouldn’t they?”
Viktor nodded. “Redress the ranks. Knights to the fore. Everyone else behind.”
Izack clasped a hand in salute. “Gladly, my lord.”
Truth was, the constabulary had held longer than he’d expected. Long enough for a new line to form. A stiffer proposition, thick with the red of Prydonis and the blue wolf of Sartorov – to say nothing of the kraikons waiting silently behind. Viktor counted a full dozen waiting on the steps of the pyre. Enough to batter his tiny army apart. Elzar had salvaged three kraikons of his own from the initial battle. It wasn’t going to be enough.
If nothing else, they’d robbed Ebigail of her audience. What had been a muster of thousands had quickly reduced to a few hundred curious or macabre souls. And the hymns had fallen silent. Viktor had never cared for hymns.
Josiri drew up in bloodied armour. “I’m surprised Ebigail’s still here.”
Viktor cast his gaze to the knot of figures on the pyre’s steps. “Why would she flee? Our deaths set her ascension hard as iron. How does it feel to live your mother’s dream?”
“Waging war against the Council on their land, not ours?” He flashed a weary smile. “I fear we’ll end as she did.”
Deep down, deeper even than his shadow, Viktor shared that fear, but he dared not say so.
“Thank you for standing with me, brother.”
Josiri stared off across the hilltop. “You stood with me first. I just wish this had ended better.”
“That’s not for us to choose. We do all that we can, and hope our labours are equal to the task. But I think Calenne would be glad to see us fighting together.”
“Perhaps.”
Viktor stared back at his dwindled army and let his shadow swell. Just a little. Enough to know it would come when called. Even a glimpse of his magic would make truth of Ebigail’s lies. But the time for discretion was rapidly falling behind.
“We go in hard. We go in fast. Essamere leads the charge. You come behind. Free as many prisoners as you can, and get them away.”
Suspicion gleamed in Josiri’s eyes. “And you?”
“I fear I shall have to do something . . . provocative. But I would not see it wasted. Can I trust you with this duty, brother?”
The play of Josiri’s expression told Viktor he at least suspected the truth – that the request sprang as much from giving Josiri a fighting chance at survival as any other factor. But he nodded all the same.
The church was as decrepit inside as out, with cracked tiles underfoot and pews sagging like mooring rope at high tide. Rubble skittered away from Malachi’s feet as he drew near to the altar.
Mist hid the walls from sight more often than not. At times, they were narrow tile. At others, rotten plaster or crumbling brick. The world drew back with every step, leaving Malachi abandoned in a place that was no place.
The elder cousin held up a hand as he reached the altar. No other had crossed the church’s threshold. A bell tolled. The mists ebbed, and three black marbled thrones stood revealed beneath a vast iron chandelier; preachers’ pulpits left for centuries in sodden dark, their stalactite-crusted flanks lending stone the waxy appearance of dying candles. No two were on a level, nor shared more than the simplest of shapes. Dark clung to the hollow beyond, though Malachi made out a deeper gloom within, given shape by the backwash of gleaming green eyes.
The elder cousin sank to his knees in the mist. Malachi stood firm, though his own knees strove to betray him.
“You have a petition,” said one, her voice dry as dust.
Malachi sucked down a deep breath. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. Nothing in the chamber felt real, save for the scrap of ground upon which he stood. “I do.”
“Do you speak for yourself, or for the Council?” asked another.
“Or for your family?” asked a third.
“I speak only for myself, Malachi Reveque.”
Dry laughter echoed through the mist. “So say they all.”
“Will you hear my petition?”
The shadow within the shadow shifted. “We will hear it.”
“What do you desire of the Crowmarket?” said another.
Only directness would serve, Malachi decided. Strip away the supernatural, and this was a negotiation like any other – and a negotiation from a position of weakness was no negotiation at all. So he told himself, and so he almost believed.
“Withdraw your support from Ebigail Kiradin. Return those you have stolen.”
“Ebigail Kiradin has long been a friend of the Crowmarket,” said one.
“You have brought only persecution,” said another. “Why should we accede, Lord Reveque?”
There was challenge in his voice, but curiosity also. The Parliament were at least prepared to listen. It was more than he’d expected.
“Because Ebigail is bad for business,” he said. “She knows loyalty to no one save herself. She killed her own son out of pride. How long before she turns on you?”
Shadows shifted about the central throne. Ridged, ivory fingers steepled. “She will not.”
“She cannot threaten us,” said another. “Nor can you.”
A bleak answer, but one Malachi had expected and prepared for. “Ebigail prizes order above all. Her fist will close so tight about the Republic that even down here you’ll find it hard to breathe. Do you think she’ll abide your smugglers slipping in and out of harbour, bleeding her domain of wealth? Do you believe she’ll tolerate the ‘influence’ you’ve spread? The blackmail you levy? The petty crime upon which your vranakin thrive?”
“She has before,” said one.
“She needed you before,” said Malachi.
His words faded, dampened by mist. No reply came. Had he, by directness, broken protocol? He glanced about the mist. Even now, a kernclaw could be drawing nigh, talons readied to repay insult.
A dull rumble arose in the distance – the rhythmic, growling grumble of a runaway wagon, running at the gallop. A dozen such wagons, with some howling beast swept along behind. The ground shook beneath Malachi’s feet. Wax-crusted feathers drifted lazily down from the chandelier. He closed his eyes, expecting the floor to open up and swallow him. That moment never came. The rumble faded to nothing and the floor ceased its dance.
Pallid fingers grasped the outer edge of the rightmost pulpit. “Your petition is understood.”
“What do you offer as payment?” said another.
Somehow, Malachi found his voice. “A return to normality.”
“Then you offer us nothing.”
“I offer certainty.”
Dry, rasping laughter echoed through the mists. “You offer what we already have.”
“How much is Ebigail Kiradin worth to you?” asked another.
“Fifty thousand crowns. Paid once the taken are returned.”
“Insufficient.”
“One hundred thousand, then.” He winced. Such a sum would leave him and Lily nearly penniless – unless sanity returned to Tressia, and with it a councillor’s access to the city treasury. He doubted that the Parliament would take payment in promises. “I’ve nothing more to offer.”
“Look around, Lord Reveque,” said one. “Drink in our glory.”
“What use do you suppose we have for gold?” said another.
“We are not fledglings, distracted by baubles,” said the third. “Your petition is rejected.”
“You may go.”
The bell tolled anew. The elder cousin rose and gestured.
Thoughts crowded by failure, Malachi held his ground. “What do you want of me?”
The thrones remained dark and silent.
“Their decision is made,” said the elder cousin. “You must leave.”
Malachi remained rooted to the spot. How had this happened? What more could he offer? What had Ebigail offered? What was worth more to the Crowmarket than a lord’s ransom in gold?
Only one thing came to mind.
>
“I’m sorry, Lily,” he whispered. He thrust his head back and stared up at the silent thrones. “I have a new proposal.”
Sixty
The Essamere line came forward in a wild barrelling run more suited to the barbaric tribes of old than the flower of Tressian chivalry. Apara hunched her shoulders tight and drew deeper into the fitful shadow of the nearest hayadra tree.
“They’re coming, lady.”
Captain Horden made the pronouncement in a flat, disinterested tone. He and Lady Ebigail stood a half-dozen paces to Apara’s front, in the bright sunlight of the outermost ring of hayadra trees. Apara suspected his thoughts lay more with the dead than the living. Essamere had certainly made a butchery of his constables.
“What a perceptive fellow you are, captain.” Teeth parted, Apara’s mother stared across the field of mournful stumps and felled trees. “Young Viktor was always a brute. Tailinn? You may send in the kraikons.”
Golden robes whispered at Apara’s side as the red-haired proctor set a hand to her control amulet. Metal screeched into wakefulness. The hillside shook. The kraikons strode away, picking up speed.
Apara stared uneasily through the trees. “Are you sure this is wise, lady?”
“They will break. They always do. A firm hand, and they will crumble.” Lady Kiradin gestured to a nearby hearthguard. “Tell Rother and Mannor that I want prisoners for the gallows once the kraikons have done their work.”
The hearthguard scurried away through the trees, towards the motionless ranks of scarlet and blue. Torvan Mannor stood still as a statue among the Prydonis ranks, though out of discipline or from denial, Apara couldn’t readily judge. By contrast, Markos Rother had long abandoned stillness in favour of pacing back and forth.
Apara stared at the giant leading the Essamere charge. Viktor Akadra. Her legs turned to jelly at the thought that her mother might send her against him a second time. And yet . . . once her eyes settled, she found she couldn’t look away . . . as if something called her.
“Apara!”
Lady Ebigail’s command brought Apara up short. She spun around, disoriented. Her mother and Captain Horden now stood several paces behind. In the outer grove, the first kraikon struck the Essamere line. Bodies and broken shields cartwheeled through the air.
Her mother strode forward and took her none too gently by the elbow.
“This is no time for spoiled pride,” she snapped. “I know the humiliation burns, but I need you here. You may have whatever remains of Viktor once the battle is done.”
Apara blinked the fog from her memory. “Of course . . . Mother.”
She gave a sharp nod. “And Captain Horden? Light the pyre. Let them burn.”
The kraikon’s sword crashed down. Shields buckled. Screams rang out. Swords chimed against bronzed flesh but found no weakness. Jag-headed maces found better fortune, but first had to crack layered armour plates and thick corrosion. Soldiers’ wisdom was that you never knew the strength of a foe before you had to face him yourself. For the first time, Viktor truly appreciated the valour of those Hadari who’d gone willingly into a kraikon’s path.
“Keep on! Keep on!”
Even as he bellowed, Viktor knew the command would do no good. His advance had stalled. Even if they made it to the line of Prydonis and Sartorov shields, they’d do so in laughably piecemeal fashion.
It needed something else. Something provocative.
The ground shook beneath a kraikon’s lumbering tread. Viktor threw himself aside. A down-thrust sword churned the turf. Three knights hurled themselves at the construct, hacking and hammering at its legs. A massive hand swept them aside.
The kraikon blotted out the sun, sparking memories of Davenwood – where one had almost crushed him flat. But there was something else, wasn’t there? Something about that battle . . .
“Viktor!”
Josiri’s impact bowled him clear out of the kraikon’s path and into the trunk of a willowy hayadra. As the construct turned about, a second kraikon thundered past from behind, magic crackling from a wounded shoulder. It struck the first with the hollow boom of a ship slamming into a quay.
Viktor pushed away from the tree. A glance behind revealed that Josiri was not alone – the hearthguard had come with him. “You were to wait until we’d cleared a path!”
“There’s no more time. That’s the last of Elzar’s kraikons. If you’ve something planned, we need it!”
But there wasn’t a plan, was there? Only an idea, half-glimpsed amid the motionless kraikon of the lunassera charge. A tactic of desperation.
“Viktor!” Josiri cried again.
Two more of Ebigail’s kraikons descended on Elzar’s last, embattled construct. Fists rose and fell as they pummelled their estranged brother.
Pushing Josiri’s impassioned pleas to the back of his mind, Viktor let his shadow slither free.
Captain Horden strode through the weeping and huddled prisoners. Constables set as guards shied away from his approach. They didn’t want to be there. They didn’t want to be part of the unfolding madness. Horden didn’t blame them.
He reached the base of the pyre and drew a brand from the brazier. Flames spluttered impatiently. Two more deaths to join the constables he’d sent against Essamere, not knowing Lady Kiradin had held back the blades of Prydonis and Sartorov. All to save his sons.
“You’ll never be free of her,” gasped Sevaka.
Unable to meet the accusation in her eyes, Horden glanced away.
“It’s almost over.”
“Not for you. You broke. She’ll break you again. And she’ll despise you more each time.”
On the far gibbet, Roslava Orova stared down at her feet, lips twitching in the silent speech of addled wits. Horden had spent too long on Dregmeet’s boundary not to know that demons existed. For all he knew, she was something worse. But Sevaka? She’d done nothing more than defy her mother. A good man would have recognised that. But Horden had no illusions to being a good man. Sevaka had to die so that his sons might live.
“I’m sorry, I’ve no choice.”
He raised the brand.
A brisk wind sprung up across the hilltop. The air came alive with crow-voices. The brand’s flames flickered and rushed back brighter than before. His blood cold as ice, Horden spun about, but saw no sign of the screeching flock. There was only the clutch of prisoners, the battle raging beyond the outer ring, and the remnants of the crowd on the western roadway.
A crowd at whose forefront now stood Malachi Reveque. At his back stood a dishevelled, filthy mass of men, women and children, familiar faces among them. Lady Adrias Rother, wife of Sartorov’s master. Hawkin Darrow, whose marriage Horden had attended only a week prior. And at Malachi’s side . . .
Horden stared at his distant sons. Perhaps there was still time to be a good man. He thrust the brand back into the brazier and began to climb.
Viktor closed his eyes and let his shadow soar. The lunassera had brought the kraikons to a standstill. Proctors had failed to restore them at battle’s end, claiming that some other, heretical magic had doused the light within. And what was his shadow but anathema to the light?
Through the shadow he saw not constructs of steel-clad bronze, but shards of light on a hilltop buffeted by shifting greys. One such blaze flickered and died – the last of Elzar’s kraikons torn apart by its brethren. Others remained. Could he quench the light as he’d absorbed the Dark in Josiri’s soul?
He dove down into the light.
His shadow screamed.
It was a moment before Josiri realised the bellow of pain had been Viktor’s. By the time he turned about, the other man was on his knees, sword abandoned and hands clamped about his head.
“Viktor?”
He rocked back and forth. A low, thin moan – more the growl of a wounded animal than a man. Frost whitened his surcoat and gathered in the stubble of his beard. One eye on the kraikons, Josiri crouched beside him.
“Viktor?”
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sp; Mist curled up from Josiri’s mouth and danced briefly in the sunshine before fading from sight. How many times had he imagined the hated Lord Akadra laid low? How often had he prayed for it? But not now. Not like this.
The victorious kraikon turned from the remains of the vanquished. Golden eyes fixed on Viktor as if they sensed his weakness. White leaves scattered from branches as they bore down.
Josiri gave a fruitless tug at Viktor’s wrists, and then abandoned the attempt. He raised his sword high. “Essamere! Essamere to Lord Akadra!”
Knights and hearthguard alike took up the cry. The space beneath the branches filled with running feet. Not all of them belonged to friends. In the middle distance, the scarlet and blue of Ebigail Kiradin’s knights started forward.
“What is that fool doing?”
Her attention snapped from the battle by her mother’s exasperated shout, Apara stared back at the pyre. Horden, moving with the ponderous care of the heavyset, clambered onto the raised platform beneath Sevaka’s feet. A log slid away beneath his boot.
“I’ve no patience left for the man,” muttered Lady Kiradin. “Deal with him. He can burn with them for all I care. Don’t disappoint me.”
Apara ran for the pyre.
Fresh despair crowded Rosa’s heart as the mingled Prydonis and Sartorov line came forward. The green of Essamere was a shrunken blob among the trees. Surrounded, outnumbered. Doomed.
“You needn’t watch,” said the Raven. “Say the word, and we’ll be gone.”
“Why . . . do you care?”
A bitter note crept into the gravelly voice. “Because I’m a friend. Sooner or later, I’m everyone’s friend. So why not sooner, if only for the change of pace?”
“You think . . . I’d believe that?”
He scowled. “Fine. You were supposed to be mine. You’ve worshipped me so completely, and with no expectation of reward. You know how rare that is?”
Rosa shot Sevaka a sidelong glance. The other woman paid them no heed. Likely she couldn’t even see the Raven. Rosa still wasn’t convinced he was anything more than delusion.
“I’ve never . . . served you,” she croaked.
“But you have, and so readily.” He stared up at her. Black eyes twinkled beneath the mask. “The Reaper of the Ravonn. Service is service, no matter how it hides its face. Would you like to see your offerings? They are legion.”