by S L Farrell
Sergei bowed. A moment later Karl did the same, and the three of them took their seats across from Jan. “Will the A’Hirzg be joining us?” Sergei asked.
Jan’s smile vanished at that. “No,” he said, the single word nearly bitten off. Sergei waited, expecting more explanation; none came. He wondered what had happened between matarh and son-he’d had no more than a glimpse of Allesandra for a day and half now. Even while the army crawled at a maddeningly slow pace closer to Nessantico’s walls, Allesandra had kept to a covered carriage, without either her son or the Archigos as company.
But he wasn’t going to ask the Hirzg to explain. Jan was looking instead to Karl and Varina. “I would like to know your story, from your own mouths,” he said.
For the next turn of the glass, that is what they did, with Jan leading the two with occasional questions. Sergei listened for the most part-inwardly amused at some of the explanation that Karl left out from the tale. When Karl described the black sand, and how it had been used by the Westlanders in their assault on the city, and how the makings of more of it were in the city, Jan leaned forward.
“You say that this black sand is the key to the Westlanders’ success? This is the same magic we’ve heard of them using in the Hellins?”
“It’s not magic, Hirzg,” Karl said. “That’s the interesting thing. It’s alchemy. Varina has some idea-from what Talis has said and from the samples I brought back from Uly’s rooms-of how to mix the black sand. I’ve seen-we’ve all seen-the terrible things it can do.” A dark shadow seemed to pass over Karl’s face with that, and Sergei knew what he was recalling: Ana’s assassination. It was a horror that would never be erased from either of their minds. “They set the city afire with it; they killed hundreds. Perhaps thousands. Hirzg, with this black sand, no army needs war-teni or their spells. No armor can withstand it, no number of swords can prevail against it.”
“And you know where the cache of this black sand is?”
Karl nodded. “I do. So does Varina. We can take you there, Hirzg. But the Westlanders will be after it also. Talis… I suspect that he may be already leading them to it. They may already have it.”
“Hirzg,” Sergei interrupted. “I understand why you’ve let your army idle here. I might have made the same decision, if I were you-even though my heart breaks to see the city burning and to hear that the Westlanders are trampling in the ruins of the places I loved most of all in this world.” He rubbed at his false nose, saw Jan staring at the motion, and dropped his hand. “But-if you’re willing to listen to my counsel at all-I would tell you that the time to wait has passed. I’ve witnessed the effects of this black sand, too. If the Westlanders have time to create more of it, then it’s your own soldiers who will pay the price for hesitation. Hirzg, listen to what my friends are telling you. The Garde Civile of Nessantico has been defeated. That battle’s over. We must strike now-not at Nessantico, but at those who defeated her: before they come to Firenzcia.”
Sergei thought that his plea would have no effect. Jan was looking away, his gaze searching the firelit canvas above him as if an answer were written there in smoke. The young man sighed once. Then he clapped his hands and a page entered.
“Call the starkkapitan to come here,” he said to the boy. “There are immediate preparations I need him to make. Hurry!”
Jan ca’Vorl
He had listened to the grand, glorious tales of war many times over the years: from his great-vatarh Jan; from his vatarh; from onczios and older acquaintances; and most recently from Fynn. Even from his matarh, who told him how Great-Vatarh had complimented her from a young age on her knowledge of military strategy.
He was beginning to realize that these tales had been concoctions and false memories or sometimes outright lies.
Until today, Jan had never ridden into a true battle. Until today, his knowledge of the martial skills had been intellectual and safe. He’d been shown how to ride, how to handle a sword, how to use a spear or bow from horseback, how to protect himself against another chevarittai or against a footman. He had been in mock sword fights, had been part of military maneuvers. He’d been schooled in the craft of war: the tactics to use against an adversary who had the higher ground or the lower, or who had more soldiers or less, or more war-teni or less. He knew which formation was supposed to be best against another.
It was what any young male of his rank would have been taught.
War, in Jan’s mind, had been a very neat and tidy exercise. He’d known-intellectually-that it couldn’t possibly be that linear and efficient. He’d understood that.
But… He had not known that war would be this messy. This chaotic. This real.
No one in the Firenzcian army was under the misapprehension that Jan-like Fynn, like his namesake the old Hirzg Jan-would be the one to truly general the army in this important attack. They knew the strategy was that of Starkkapitan ca’Damont, with aid from the Regent ca’Rudka and input from the A’Hirzg and the two Numetodo who had come to the encampment from the burning city. They knew that it would be Archigos Semini who would command the war-teni.
Jan would be there, and the command banner would fly from the Garde Hirzg and the chevarittai around him, and he would press forward just behind the front lines of his forces as Fynn and the former Hirzg Jan had done before him. But Jan would look to the Starkkapitan before he gave his orders. Jan knew the wisdom of that; he knew that the rest of the offiziers and chevarittai knew it as well. Frankly, he was comfortable with it; Jan could feel his inexperience and he was not so arrogant as to insist on bungling this assault.
The entrance into Nessantico started well enough. A crescent blade, the Firenzcian forces pushed into the city through all the gates on the eastern side of the city. There had been no resistance; to the contrary, their appearance was greeted with cheers and huzzahs from the remaining populace and scattered remnants of the Nessantican Garde Civile. A few chevarittai of the Holdings had even crept out from hiding to swell their ranks. After a turn of the glass inside the city walls, Jan began to hope that this was how it would continue: that they would march unchallenged all the way to the western boundaries of the city to find the Westlander forces in full retreat.
He was sweating in the heat of the day under his armor and longed for nothing more than to rid himself of the heavy burden of steel links. That seemed to be the worst discomfort of victory.
“What way, Ambassador?” Jan asked Karl, riding with his entourage along with his matarh, Varina and Sergei.
“North for a few cross streets,” the Numetodo answered, pointing, “then several blocks eastward.”
Jan nodded. The Firenzcian army swelled along the Avi. The sun shone brightly. It was a fine day. They had already won, and he felt the confidence to give an order of his own. “Starkkapitan,” Jan said to Starkkapitan ca’Damont, “I will take half the Garde Hirzg with me, as well as the Regent and the Numetodo. I leave you in charge of the army. Do what you need to do to secure this area of the Avi and the city. Then you and the A’Hirzg proceed south to the Isle a’Kralji and make certain we hold the Isle and the eastern ponticas. If there’s a problem, send a messenger to me immediately. In turn, I will send a rider as soon as we locate the black sand and know the situation there.”
“Jan. Hirzg.” His matarh was frowning, while ca’Damont merely looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think-”
“I have given my orders,” Jan snapped, interrupting her. “Starkkapitan? Do you see an issue with them?”
Ca’Damont shook his head once. He barked out quick orders. “I will meet with you later, Matarh,” Jan said. “On the Isle.”
Allesandra looked unconvinced. He thought she was going to argue further, but she only glared at him. He saw her glance once at Sergei; the Regent gave her the barest of shrugs under his own armor. His nose sent sparks of sun chasing across his face.
His matarh finally inclined her head. “As you wish, my Hirzg,” she said. “My Hirzg,” not “my son.” He could hear the ir
ritation in that. She yanked hard on the reins of her horse and started south, a quartet of Garde Hirzg and one of the war-teni closing around her belatedly. The starkkapitan gave a salute. “Cenzi’s guidance to you, my Hirzg,” he said. “I will make certain the A’Hirzg remains safe.” He started to move away, then pulled up on the reins. “Fynn made an excellent choice in you,” he said to Jan. “Be careful, Hirzg Jan.”
Starkkapitan ca’Damont saluted again and moved away, the greater part of their entourage moving with him. Jan looked around at the others. “Let’s find this black sand,” he said to them. “Ambassador ca’Vliomani-the lead is yours.”
Karl led Jan’s squadron north along the Avi, the soldiers they passed saluting the Hirzg and his banner, then turned left down a more narrow street, leaving behind the army. The jingling of their armor and the stolid, steel-clad clop of their horses’ hooves on the cobbles was the loudest sound along the street. There were no more faces in the windows, no one visible up the curving way. Some of the doors to the buildings they passed were open; many of them forcibly. Trash littered the avenue. They passed several bodies: people a few days dead from the look of them, their corpses bloated and with limbs thrust at stiff, strange angles, maggot-encrusted and swarming with flies. Jan stared at them as they passed; he noticed Sergei doing the same, with an odd intensity.
Not long ago, these had been living, breathing people, perhaps hurrying to lovers, carrying their children, shopping for food in the markets or drinking in the taverns, carrying on with their lives. He doubted that they’d expected those lives to end so quickly and finally. He doubted they’d expected to turn into transient, accidental monuments to warfare.
He sniffed, unable to keep their stench from his nose-he wondered if Sergei could smell them at all. He clenched his sword tighter in his hand and wrapped the reins more tightly around his left hand.
To the south, they all heard a sudden rumbling like thunder, and faint shouting. Sergei, next to Jan, glanced that way worriedly. “I think, Hirzg,” he said, “that a battle has started. Perhaps we should return.”
Jan shook his head. “Ambassador, how far are we from this place?” he asked.
“Another two cross streets,” ca’Vliomani replied. “No more.”
“Then we’ll go on.”
Sergei pressed his lips tightly together, but made no other response.
They continued, coming to another, even smaller lane, where Karl paused and rose up in his saddle. Glancing down the narrow street, Jan saw a battered, ancient sign hanging from a building to the right: a badly-rendered swan was drawn in red paint on the boards.
“There,” ca’Vliomani called out to Jan and the others. “We should-”
He got no further.
From the left, from the right, several dozen painted warriors came shrieking toward them. The next minutes dissolved into a chaos Jan would remember for the rest of his life.
… a coruscation of blinding light from the front of the group, then another, and he realized that Karl and Varina had both released spells. He heard screams…
… the chevarittai at Jan’s right was taken from his saddle by a leaping Westlander, and the man’s horse rammed hard against Jan’s leg. His right leg was pinned between the two horses and he shouted at the pain that shot through the limb despite the protection of his greaves. He yanked at the reins of his horse…
… but there was more movement to his right and behind him even as he did that. He saw steel and brought his sword across his mount’s body almost too late-enough that the blow that would have taken him above the straps of his cuisse was deflected, but the Westlander’s blade instead chopped deep into his destrier’s rear leg. The horse whinnied in terror and pain. Jan saw the horse’s eyes go wide, felt the horse’s leg give out under him, and he was falling…
… “To the Hirzg!” he heard someone call. Jan was on the ground with a confusion of legs-both equine and human-around him. He pushed himself up quickly (his right leg sending fire up his spine at the abuse). There was a Westlander coming at him, and Jan managed to find the hilt of his sword, lift the heavy steel, and thrust underneath the chest plate of the man’s strange armor. He felt his blade enter flesh. It caught briefly, and Jan-grunting, feeling his mouth stretched in a rictus of fury-twisted and pushed, and the blade went suddenly in. The Westlander, impaled, still completed his strike, but the vambraces laced around Jan’s forearms took the brunt, though he thought that his right arm might have been broken by the blow. He tried to pull his sword from the man, but could not, and the man’s dead weight nearly pulled the weapon entirely from his grip, which had gone numb and dead itself…
… Another Westlander shrilled to his left, and Jan pulled desperately at his sword again, though he knew it would be too late. But another sword-a Firenzcian one-sliced across the man’s throat, nearly severing the head. Jan was spattered with hot blood…
… And hands were lifting him. “Are you all right, my Hirzg?” someone asked, and Jan nodded. His right hand was tingling, but seemed to have returned to life. He clenched the fingers, working them in the mailed glove, then reached down and pulled his sword free. He turned. ..
… he saw a trio of Westlanders gathered as a shield around another of the painted warriors, this one with a bird tattooed over his shaven skull and face. Sergei was there, his sword rising and falling, but the Firenzcian soldier next to him fell, his hand taken from his wrist. Jan rushed toward that gap, not thinking but only reacting…
… and somehow he was past the guard and in front of the bird-marked Warrior. The Westlander’s armor turned Jan’s first cut, and the hard bronze pommel of the man’s sword slammed into Jan’s chin underneath his helm. He went staggering backward, tasting blood…
… As he saw the bird-warrior parry Sergei’s attacking sword. ..
… as he charged again at the man, grimacing and grunting, and the Westlander couldn’t defend against both of them at once. It was Jan’s blade that slithered through, that found the chink between the rounded bands of the man’s armor and entered him. The Westlander gaped as if surprised. Jan heard a voice somewhere call out a strange name: “Tecuhtli!” as the man fell to his knees. Sergei’s sword followed Jan’s, striking the man in the neck and head. The bird-warrior went down onto the blood-spattered cobbles, facedown.. .
… and it was over except for the roaring of his pulse in his ears. Jan realized that he was breathing hard and fast, that his heart was pounding so furiously that it threatened to burst from his rib cage, that his leg and both arms ached, that he was liberally coated with gore, and that at least some of the blood was his own. He was standing wide-legged and bent over, breathing hard. His stomach heaved; he swallowed hard against the searing bile, forcing himself not to be sick. He felt Sergei’s hand clap him on his armored shoulders. He blinked, looking around him: there were at least a dozen bodies on the ground, some of them clad in the black-and-silver livery of Firenzcia. A few were still twitching; as Jan watched, those of the Garde Civile were dispatching those of the Westlanders who were still alive. There were streams of blood trailing from the bodies, and entrails spilled on the street like obscene sausages.
Karl and Varina were untouched-the bodies nearest them were charred and blackened; there was a smell of cooked meat in the air. Sergei’s false nose was entirely gone and his left cheek had been laid open by a cut; where the nose had been, the flesh was mottled and the cavities of Sergei’s head gaped open, making his face look terrifyingly like a skull. The nausea hit Jan again, and this time the world seemed to spin a little around him. He put his sword tip on the ground and leaned heavily on it.
“Tecuhtli!” Jan heard the call again, and this time a man stepped out from the building where the sign of the red swan hung, no more than a half dozen strides from where Jan and the others stood. He held a glass flask in his right hand, packed with dark granules; in his left was a gnarled walking stick. The man stopped, as if startled by the display of carnage before him.
“Talis…” Jan heard Karl breathe the name: a wonderment, a curse, a spell. “Black sand…”
The man scowled. He hefted the jar in his right hand, he brought his arm back as if to throw it. Jan wondered what it would feel like to die, and whether he might meet Great-Vatarh Jan and Fynn there.
A woman rushed from the alley behind the tavern, a blur of brown and gray, so quickly that none of them had time to react. As Talis lifted his hand, she grasped his hair and yanked his head back. Talis’ mouth opened, gaping like a fish in a market, and red followed silver as she slid a knife over his throat. A second mouth gaped wider than the first, vomiting blood. The glass jars fell from Talis’ hands, shattering on the ground but without exploding. The woman leaned down over the body-she seemed to be placing something hurriedly on the man’s eye-and Jan had a good look at her face through the tangled, matted hair.
His heart leaped in his chest. His breath caught. “Elissa?” he whispered.
The young woman’s head came up. Her eyes widened as she saw him, and though she said nothing, he heard the intake of her breath. She snatched something from Talis’ face-Jan caught a glimpse of a pale white stone between her fingers. She ran into the alleyway from which she’d come. One of the soldiers began running in pursuit after her. “No!” Jan called after the man. “Let her go!”
The soldier stopped. Jan heard the whispers around him: “The White Stone…”
The White Stone…
No, he wanted to tell them, that couldn’t be, because that person had been Elissa, whom he’d loved. It couldn’t be because the White Stone had assassinated Fynn, whom he’d also loved. That couldn’t be.
Yet, somehow, impossibly, it was.
It was.
Niente
The ship was crowded with those fleeing the city, with those from other ships now canted over and half-submerged in the river. The deck was slick with water and blood and vomit. The water around them was dotted with bloated, stiff bodies-Easterners and Tehuantin alike. There were wounded warriors and nahualli sprawled everywhere on the deck, moaning in the dying sunlight; those crew members who were still able climbing the masts to loose the sails and tighten the lines. The anchor, groaning and protesting, was hauled up from the muck of the river’s bottom, and the ship’s captain screamed orders. Slowly, far too slowly for Niente, the city was beginning to fall behind them as the river’s currents and the wind bore them away.