“Fire and Fury, Bayzu,” the commander said. “How could you let this happen?”
The captain took off his helmet, ran his bloodied fingers through the brush, then gave it to Coml. “You always told me there would come a day when even I would not be fast enough, Commander.”
“I did, didn’t I? Monument sustain me. How do you want it?”
“Will you come with me to the temple, Commander? If it’s time to leave the Way, I’d like to pay my respects first.”
“Of course. Jolu has only just returned; I’ll summon him if you like.” Coml turned to walk with the man into the fort. His colorless gaze fell upon Tejohn, and he paused briefly to confer with his second. The second nodded, then bustled toward Tejohn and Arla.
“Commander Finstel offers his rooms to you in case you would like to eat and rest. He will join you after he attends his duties.”
“Of course,” Tejohn said.
The second nodded and started toward the tower. “This way, please. Is it true you came from Fort Samsit?”
“Yes,” Tejohn said in a tone that he hoped would cut off further questioning.
“Ah” was her only answer.
They followed her into the main hall, climbed three flights of stairs to the top floor of the tower, and strode into the commander’s rooms. The furniture and cushions were as fine as those in the palace, and wood had been laid for a fire. The accommodations were certainly finer than Tejohn had received at Fort Samsit.
“Please make yourselves comfortable,” the second said. “I don’t know how long the commander will be. I’ll have the steward bring food. If you want to bathe, just step through that door there and pull the cord. The servants will know what to do.” She indicated a heavy drape hanging across the far end of the room. “If you please, I have duties of my own.”
“Of course,” Tejohn answered. “Second...”
She was about to close the door behind her. “Yes, my tyr?”
“You should feed that work crew down there.”
That took her by surprise. “Commander Finstel has said they would receive a meal when the work was done.”
“The work is sloppy,” Tejohn told her. “They’re starving and their energy is flagging--even I can see it. Sneak something to them and remind them how close their enemies are. That will motivate them better than starving them.”
The second kept her face very still, but Tejohn could see her weighing her contradictory orders. “Yes, my tyr,” she said, and closed the door.
“Did she really offer us a bath?” Arla threw back the heavy drape to reveal a huge basin made of beaten copper.
Tejohn whistled. “The Finstel mining camps have been productive.”
Arla stared down at it. “It takes a special sort of bastard to build it on the top floor of a tower, so the servants had to carry the water and firewood up all those stairs.”
Tejohn felt a flush of embarrassment. He’d grown up in a one-room farmhouse, one bad harvest away from debt-servitude himself, but he hadn’t even considered that.
He went to the bowl of water by the window and began to wash his face. As a landless tyr, he wasn’t descended from chieftains, tyrants, or warlords. He was just a farmer with a knack for killing and more than his share of luck. A hot bath suddenly didn’t seem worth the trouble.
When the food arrived, he and Arla reclined on couches and ate sticky salt rice and mashed apricots. After some prodding, she began to tell him of her childhood in the mining camps. Her clan, the Grimfields, were minor tyrs of the empire, but her family had to flee after her grandfather had made a failed bid for the tyrship. The Chin-Chinro came upon her parents’ mountain hideout, killed the adults or sold them like slaves. Arla was born four months later. Tejohn had thought his own life was full of hardship, but her tales, simply told, were full of pain.
They had not yet finished when there was a knock on the door. Before Tejohn could answer, six soldiers walked into the room, their swords bared. They were accompanied by a short man with the flat, dead eyes of an eel. Instead of a sword, he held a burning torch. “Stand,” he commanded. “Do as you’re told and no harm will come to you.”
Tejohn and Arla stood, warily. When Arla spoke, her voice came out in a hiss. “My Tyr Treygar is shield bearer to—”
“I don’t care if he’s the king himself. Keep silent while I do my duty.” He bowed his head slightly in Tejohn’s direction. “I am Watch Commander Stollik, my tyr, should you seek satisfaction at some future time. Now strip.”
Tejohn glanced at Arla. Her eyes were wide and her teeth bared. She was ready to die fighting. “I know what they want,” Tejohn said to her. He’d already set his cuirass and boots against the wall, so he unwrapped his padded undershirt and skirt. “They’re looking for bite marks or patches of blue fur. Isn’t that right?”
“You’ve just come from Samsit, so you have to be checked,” the watch commander said. “No more talking. Just do it.”
“Have some respect, man,” Tejohn snapped. “At least have my scout taken to another room where she can be searched by other women—”
“The next words I speak will be the order to kill you both.”
There was no doubt that he would do it, and there were too many to fight. Tejohn stripped nude. Arla, beside him, did the same. The soldiers Stollik had brought leered at her lean, muscled body.
“Turn,” Stollik ordered, and they did, slowly, while the Watch Commander held the torch close enough to their bodies to singe their skin.
“Satisfied?” Tejohn said.
“Entirely.” Stollik waved at his men, and they began to file out. He shut the door behind him.
Tejohn turned his back and pulled on his skirts while Arla dressed. After she had finished, he heard her gather up the last of her meal.
“If my tyr please, I’d like to finish in the little enclosed space there. Behind the curtain.” She wouldn’t look at him.
“Take the cushions with you.”
She stripped the cushions off the couch and dropped them into the copper basin. It wasn’t large enough for her to stretch out, but it would do, he supposed. She pulled the curtain closed.
Fire and Fury, the only tyr who would be treated this way was a landless one, without spears to his name. It made sense for them to check newcomers, but Coml could have handled this with courtesy, but instead, he made the deliberate insult out of it.
The Finstels had turned against the Italga family, and Tejohn had no idea why.
At no point in the night did the commander return to his own rooms to trade news with them.
In the morning, a servant woke them to say that Coml Finstel, Commander of Fort Caarilit, requested they break their fast with him.
As they crossed the yard to the hall, Arla touched Tejohn’s shoulder. “My tyr,” she said, pointing upward above the wall.
Tejohn could barely make out where the dark gray mountain ended and the dark gray sky began. “I hope you don’t expect me to see—”
“I apologize, my Tyr. Ruhgrits. Three of them, watching.”
“Then let’s get inside before we attract their attention.” A servant opened the mess entrance for them, her gaze never leaving the ground.
“My tyr, I must apologize,” Coml said as they approached his table. He stood and bowed to them both. “Everyone who makes their way here from the south and west must be examined, else we suffer the same fate as Fort Samsit.”
Arla froze in place. “What happened at Samsit?”
Coml gestured toward the chairs, smiling like a genial host. He had chosen a round wooden table for their meeting, placed on the raised dais that was the privilege of commanders and Tyrs. “Have you not heard? Samsit was overrun by grunts not twenty-five days ago. It seems that one got inside the walls, started biting people, and the curse spread. Tyr Gerrit tried to retake the fort, but their numbers were too great and he nearly lost one of his flying carts.”
Tejohn shut his eyes. If Samsit had fallen, what hope did any of Regl
is’s family have? There was little chance now that Tejohn could speak with the Singalan family about their son. They’d almost certainly been burned off The Way.
Tejohn did his best to keep his expression calm. Stoneface, Cazia Freewell had called him. He could still be Stoneface. “Any survivors or escapees?”
“None,” Coml said confidently. “I’m told Tyr Gerrit was furious at the death of his cousin, but it did prompt my own cousin to send me an extra squad. Not that it helped, in the end.”
“How long ago did the Witts take Caarilit?”
“Five days.” Coml smiled ruefully. “And I did not retake it by force, I’m embarrassed to say. I was planning a counterattack when they withdrew on their own, at speed.”
“I would be willing to wager that Witts and Finstels are not sharing news.”
Coml smiled more broadly. “No, my tyr. When Finstel and Witt speak on the mirrors, they do nothing but curse and threaten each other. Still, I think we all know why the Witt spears and bows withdrew.”
Tejohn nodded. “If the grunts have come far enough west to attack Finstel villagers, they must be ranging all over Witt lands.”
“Our Witt spies have fallen silent, and I hope theirs in our lands have done the same. Also, they got their hands on a flying cart, somehow, which was supposed to be a gift for only Ellifer’s supporters.”
“King Ellifer,” Tejohn corrected.
The commander nodded. “Of course, my tyr. And King Lar, I’ve heard.”
“Of course,” Tejohn said. “What plans has Finstel made?”
“Plans?” Coml seemed confused by the question. “We have destroyed every bridge across the Shelsiccan.” It took Tejohn a moment to recognize that name. Shelsiccan was the original Finshto name for the Wayward River, which ran from Caarilit down to Deep Stone Lake and Splashtown.
“We guard the headwaters here in Caarilit,” Coml continued. “But all my cousin’s spears have been pulled back to his holdfast. Many of our citizens have fled there as well. As far as we know, none of the grunts have managed to cross the Shelsiccan, but it is a matter of time.”
“What of the reconnaissance flights to Peradain?” Tejohn lowered his voice. “I have heard a person of great importance was rescued from the city.”
“I have heard the same rumors,” Coml said. He did not lower his voice to match Tejohn’s. “My own mother, in the heart of power at the Finstel holdfast, has told me the rumors are not true. Yet they persist. The most common is that it was Amlian Italga herself who was rescued from the burning city and is now recuperating on cushions in my sister’s house.”
“No,” Tejohn said flatly. “I saw Amlian Italga fall. She fought and died not thirty paces from me.”
“As you say. But the rumors persist.”
Tejohn was anxious to change the subject. “What of other lands and other tyrs?”
“The Redmudds have withdrawn to their islands down in the Waterlands, burning their bridges behind them. The Shooks have been overrun. The Holvos retreated into Rivershelf and were hard pressed as of a few days ago. I’m told they no longer respond to messages.”
“Fire and Fury.” Linder Holvos was a good man and loyal to the Italgas. Worse, unlike the Shooks and Redmudds, he had enough spears to make his support matter.
“And the same is true for Rolvo Simblin.”
“What’s this?” Tejohn couldn’t conceal his surprise. “Simblin lands are as far from Peradain as they could be without falling into the Bescos Sea. Grunts could not have overthrown them already, could they?” At least I won’t have to explain to another mortal enemy why I abandoned his child to die in Peradain.
“Not unless they stole a cart and overflew all the lands between. And the passes into the Simblin flats have been blocked by rockslides.”
“And of course no one can spare a cart to investigate,” Tejohn said.
“Just so,” Coml answered. “What’s more, our Tyrs and commanders have troubles enough of their own. We’re facing the first incursions of grunts in our lands, and I have guards fleeing into the Sweeps when they should be on duty.”
“Deserters?” Tejohn was surprised to hear it. Fleeing west through the Waterlands would make sense for imperial soldiers. The north held nothing but wilderness and the enemies who dwelled there.
Coml spread his palms. “They climb the wall and flee into the night without so much as a Fire-pass-you-by to their comrades. We’re undermanned as it is. And we have no scholars with the spells to repair our walls.”
Arla cleared her throat. “Commander, my Tyr Treygar, if I may...”
Coml scowled, but Tejohn answered first. “What is it, scout?”
“Even if the mining scholars can not create stone blocks for you out of the air, they will know how to cut them out of the mountainside and shape them with their magic. They will also know how to move the blocks into position through mundane means.”
Coml inclined his head to her. “Thank you for the recommendation.” His tone was slightly ironic, as though he couldn’t bring himself to show real gratitude. “I shall confer with the scholars we have rescued.”
Tejohn noticed the commander had used the plural. Scholars. So much for the king’s monopoly over magic.
“But tell me,” Coml said speculatively, “When were you ever in a mining camp?”
“I grew up in one, sir.” Arla seemed to be making a dangerous admission.
Coml seemed thoughtful. “Your family is Durdric, then?”
“No!” Arla sounded aggrieved at the suggestion. “I’m a Grimfield, but I was born among the Chin-Chinro. Durdric Holy Sons murdered my best friend. My people and theirs kill each other on sight!”
“Ah,” Coml said patiently, “It is hard for me to tell the difference. From my perspective, both drop rocks on my patrols when we venture beyond the pass.”
Tejohn interrupted. “My scout has stood back to back with the king in battle, fending off the ruhgrit, when we were outnumbered and overmatched. She has proven her loyalty.”
“I heard about that,” Coml said, changing the subject smoothly. “Your Samsit captain told the tale to a few of my spears, and word spread. Is it true that Lar Italga drove off a flock of giant eagles with a single spell?”
“And slew one,” Tejohn said.
“I admit,” Coml said, “I’m surprised to hear it. I know scholars are useful in a supporting capacity to a square of spears or line of bows, but I have never thought them useful in the thick of battle.
Tejohn shut his eyes, as the memory of fire, crumbling rock, and fierce volleys of iron-tipped darts overwhelmed him. He had faced scholars on the battlefield. He didn’t have the luxury of underestimating them.
Arla filled the silence by answering Coml’s unasked question. “I myself saw the king bite into the beast’s heart while he laughed.”
“That’s what Captain Dellastone reported. Huh. Now I can’t help but wonder what the...ruhgrit’s heart is like.”
“Huge,” Tejohn said, “and hot to the touch. Which brings up other news I must share. The ruhgrit stalk their prey in the daylight but they strike at night, in the darkness. You should double up your watch stations. It’s possible that your night guards are not deserting after all.”
The commander looked startled. “That’s a disturbing thought.” Coml turned his attention to his bowl, scooping out a few mouthfuls of roasted dark meat and sticky rice. When he looked more composed, he said, “My tyr, I must say, when I mentioned that Samsit fell, you did not seem surprised.”
“I wasn’t,” Tejohn said. “One of the spears began to change en route.”
“Ah. What did you do with your spear?”
Tejohn shrugged. “I took his head. He had become an enemy of the empire.”
Coml stopped chewing for just a moment, then continued again. When he looked up from his food again, his expression had subtly changed. He had never been truly friendly, but now he looked like a man about to do battle. “Of course, my tyr. And what can I do for you
?”
Tejohn had planned to ask to use the commander’s mirror, but what he said instead was “All I need is a small rowboat and a few supplies for my scout and myself. I need to reach Splashtown as soon as possible on the king’s errand, and I hope to take the Shelsiccan around the spur.” If the commander was going to use the Finshto name, so would Tejohn.
Coml wiped the bottom of his bowl with a hunk of bread. Without looking up, he said, “You will need a few of my soldiers, I suppose?”
“No,” Tejohn answered. “Your need is greater than mine. I hope.”
“That is fine,” Coml said. He stood and bowed. “Please accept my apologies, my tyr, for not waiting for your food to arrive. I have a barricade to oversee. If you would excuse me.”
“Of course.”
The commander hopped down from the dais onto the main floor of the mess. Arla leaned toward Tejohn. “Am I misreading things, or did he seemed threatened by something you said, my Tyr?”
“Watch him for me,” Tejohn said. When he’d said enemy of the empire, Coml’s insincere chilliness had turned into something else. Something Tejohn didn’t like. “What is the scrawny little liar doing?”
“He’s crossing the room toward the tables in the back. He’s stopped to talk with the members of a fleet squad,” Arla answered. “Archers and scouts by the look of their gear. The commander’s back is to us, but he’s leaning down to speak to the squad leader...who just looked directly at us.”
“Try to look bored. Now, at the squad leader’s order, the rest of the squad will rush through their meals and go.”
“Yes, my Tyr. That’s what they’re doing. Commander Finstel is with them.”
“As they file out, do any of the others glance at us?”
“The squad leader again,” Arla said. “And the tall woman in the back. And another dark-eyed one. Now their backs are to us and they’re leaving the mess.”
“Fire and Fury.”
The stewards set bowls in front of them. More salty rice with apricots--the food of the common soldier.
Tejohn wasn’t hungry anymore, but he’d been on too many campaigns to push the bowl away. He forced himself to eat.
The Way Into Chaos: Book One of the Great Way Page 35