Rule of Wolves

by Leigh Bardugo

  “General!” A soldier was running toward her with a note in his hand. “I was asked to deliver this to you.”

  Genya plucked it from his fingers.

  “By whom?” said Zoya.

  “A man in monk’s robes. He came ashore a little ways up the coast.”

  “Were his robes brown or black?”

  “Brown and bearing the Sun Summoner’s symbol.”

  Genya’s eyes moved over the paper. “Oh, Saints.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “Zoya, you must keep your head.”

  “What the hell does it say?” She snatched it from Genya’s hand.

  The note was brief and in Ravkan: I have Mila Jandersdat. Come to the eastern observation tower aboard Leviathan’s Mouth. She will await you in the cells.

  Zoya crushed the note in her hand. The Apparat had Nina.

  “This is a trap,” said Genya. “Not a negotiation tactic. He wants you to do something rash. Zoya? Zoya, what are you doing?”

  Zoya stalked back to the tent. “Something rash.”

  “We have a strategy,” Genya argued, hurrying to follow. “It’s working. We need to stick to it. And Nikolai needs you to help guide our rockets.”

  Zoya hesitated. She didn’t want to leave her king without the resources he needed. And damn it, she wanted to be beside him in this fight. Every time she thought of him lying on the floor of the Cormorant, his arm cushioning his head as he spoke those words, those absurd, beautiful words … No prince and no power could make me stop wanting you. The memory was like drinking something sweet and poisonous. Even knowing the misery it would cause her, she couldn’t stop craving the taste.

  You should have said yes, she thought for the hundredth time. You should have told him you loved him. But what good was that word to people like her? Nikolai deserved more. Ravka required more. But for an hour, for a day, he might have been hers. And if something happened to him on that battlefield? She’d been too afraid to say yes to him, to show him the truth of her longing, to admit that from the first time she’d seen him, she’d known he was the hero of all her aunt’s stories, the boy with the golden spirit full of light and hope. All Saints, Zoya wanted to be near that light, she wanted to feel the warmth of it for as long as she could.

  She shook her head and plunged into the tent, stripping off the First Army uniform she’d worn to disguise her identity. “There are other Squallers,” she said as she dug through her trunk for something less recognizable. “Adrik can guide the missiles. And I’ll be back in plenty of time. With Nina Zenik in tow.”

  “She may not even be alive.”

  Zoya nearly tore the roughspun shirt she’d drawn from her trunk. “She is not dead. I forbid it.”

  Genya planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t flash those dragon eyes at me, Zoya. Nina isn’t a child. She’s a soldier and a spy and she wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for her.”

  “She’s alive.”

  “And if she isn’t?”

  “I’ll kill every living thing Fjerda can throw at me.”

  “Zoya, stop this. Please. I don’t want to lose you too!”

  At the break in Genya’s voice, Zoya froze. The sound scraped against her heart, the pain sudden and overwhelming. There were tears in Genya’s single amber eye.

  “Zoya,” she whispered. “I can’t do this alone. I … I can’t be the last of us.”

  Zoya felt a tremor move through her. She could see her friend suffering, but she didn’t know how to fix it, who to be in this moment. Genya was the one who offered kindness, who wiped away tears, who soothed and mended. Give me something to fight. Something to swing at, to destroy. That was the only gift she had.

  Zoya felt like she was choking on her grief and shame, but she forced the words out. “I should have been there to protect him. Both of you.”

  “Protect me now. Don’t go.”

  “I have to, Genya. The Apparat is a threat to Nikolai and always will be until he’s eliminated.”

  Genya’s laugh rang with disbelief. “You’re not going to fight the Apparat. You’re going to save Nina.”

  Zoya pressed her palms to her eyes. “It was my mission, Genya. When Nina was first captured on the Wandering Isle, I was her commanding officer. I pushed her harder than I should have. I let her stomp off in a huff. If it wasn’t for me, Nina never would have been captured by Fjerdans. She never would have ended up in Ketterdam or fallen in love with a witchhunter. I can’t lose her again.” She drew in a long breath. “If the Apparat has Nina, her cover is blown. He could turn her over to Jarl Brum. I won’t let her be tortured, not when I have the chance to stop it.”

  Genya cast her hands out. “All of the people in this camp have been put on this path because of decisions the Triumvirate made. They’re choosing to stand between Ravka and destruction. That was Nina’s choice too. We are all soldiers. Why were you so hard on Nina if you didn’t want her to use her skills?”

  “Because I wanted her to survive!”

  “Zoya, do you know why the Darkling lost the civil war? How Alina stopped him?”

  Zoya pinched the bridge of her nose. “No. I wish I did.”

  “Because he always fought alone. He let his power isolate him. Alina had us. You have us. You push us away, keep us at arm’s distance so that you won’t mourn us. But you’ll mourn us anyway. That’s the way love works.”

  Zoya turned away. “I don’t know how to do this anymore. I don’t know how to just go on.”

  “I don’t know either. There are days when I don’t want to. But I can’t live a life without love.”

  Zoya slammed the trunk lid shut. “That’s the difference between you and me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re walking into. You’re powerful, Zoya. Not immortal.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Genya blocked her path. “Zoya, the Apparat knows you’re an asset who can turn the tide of this war.”

  Now the dragon inside her bared its teeth, and Zoya smiled. “He doesn’t know anything about me. But he’s going to learn.”

  37

  NIKOLAI

  A HARD WIND BLEW OFF the shore to the west, and Nikolai wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake. The terrain that stretched before him was rocky and desolate. No mud, at least. But that also meant an easier road for Fjerda’s tanks. He’d hoped the forest might slow them down, but the Fjerdans simply dosed their Grisha and had the drugged Squallers level the trees, obliterating woods that had stood guard along the northern border for hundreds of years, their heavy trunks cast aside like so much driftwood. The sky was the dark slate of early morning, stars still visible above the horizon. When he peered toward the coast, he could just make out the soft gray line of the sea. Maybe some of those fallen trees would roll all the way to the cliffs and tumble into the waves. Maybe the current would carry them to a faraway shore to trouble some fisherman or maybe they would wash up on a beach and become lumber for someone’s home. A family would gather beneath a new roof, never knowing they sheltered under a little piece of Ravka, a fractured part of a country that might never be made whole.

  Once Nikolai’s scouts and flyers had confirmed Fjerdan troop movements, Ravka’s forces had set up camp on a low rise north of the tiny town of Pachesyana. The grubby little village served as their base of operations as General Pensky sent out First Army troops to dig trenches—some deep and wide enough to stop a tank, others that they would use to protect their rocket launch platforms.

  Nikolai hadn’t known where the Fjerdans might attack, and that had meant Ravka couldn’t mount a defense. So he’d let Sturmhond’s blockade give way and tempted them with the chance at a two-pronged attack—at the bay and here at the border near Arkesk. He’d given the wolf an opportunity to wrap its jaws around Os Kervo and seize West Ravka in a single tremendous bite.

  A risky wager, but was it the right one? He’d know soon enough.

  Nikolai didn’t wait for dawn to break. In the muddy fields at Nezkii, they�
�d hidden until the very last moment. Not today. Today, there would be no grand subterfuge, no mines to greet the Fjerdans in the field. Instead the enemy would wake to a show of force that Nikolai hoped would make them think twice.

  “Sun Soldiers!” shouted Adrik. The order moved through the ranks of gathered Grisha and First Army.

  Sun Summoners, the heirs to Alina’s power, stood positioned all along the front, Adrik in command, the highest-ranking Etherealnik on the field. Zoya was in the south. But there was no time to think of the dangers she faced. He could only continue to believe in her, as he always had. And if there were words he wished he’d spoken, others he wanted to take back, the time for that had come and gone. His fight was here.

  Adrik raised his brass arm and gave the command. “Daybreak!”

  The Sun Soldiers flooded the empty fields of Arkesk with sunlight. Nikolai squinted at the brightness, at the blighted field, at the pocked earth in the distance where a forest had once stood. He could only imagine the Fjerdans were doing the same, wondering what strange sun rose in the south. They wouldn’t have long to wonder.

  “Squallers prepare!” cried Nadia to her deployment of Etherealki.

  “First volley!” Leoni yelled to her Fabrikators. “Deploy!”

  The sound was like a crackle, followed by a low whistle as the rockets ignited, their titanium shells glinting dully in the false sunlight. They arced into the sky, silver darts shooting toward the horizon, as the Squallers held the wind from the west at bay and guided the rockets to their targets—Fjerdan tanks, Fjerdan troops.

  When they struck, the sounds of impact rent the air, a staccato rhythm that shook the earth, the drumbeat relentless. Nikolai climbed a rickety staircase to the lookout tower they’d erected and peered through a double long glass. Smoke and fire rose from the Fjerdan lines. Men ran to put out the flames, to help their fallen comrades, to pull bodies from the wreckage. It was like looking out over Os Alta on the night of the bombing. From this distance, those soldiers might be Ravkans, friends, his own subjects scrambling to make sense of this sudden strike. The land was pitted by smoking black craters. How many dead in a single blow? In a matter of moments?

  A game of range. The Fjerdans had thought they could ground Ravka’s flyers, and they’d largely succeeded. But they hadn’t counted on Ravka’s titanium missiles. If they wanted to use their guns and artillery, they would have to push closer and put their troops and tanks into the line of fire. The Fjerdans had given them a very big target to aim at. Their war chests were full. Their army hadn’t been battered by years of fighting on two fronts. It showed.

  Nikolai had no intention of letting them recover from the first strike. He signaled his forces on the ground, and General Pensky ordered his tank battalion forward, followed by infantry and Grisha, with Adrik at the lead. This was their chance to seize the advantage and force their enemy into a hasty retreat.

  “Is it too much to hope that they’ll just pack up and go home?” Nadia asked as Nikolai descended to the field.

  “They won’t,” Tolya said, slinging his rifle onto his broad back. “Not with Brum in charge.”

  Nikolai believed it. Brum’s political future was tied to the success of this campaign—a brutal and decisive victory that would grant Fjerda most of western Ravka and put the east within their grasp. With enough titanium, Ravka could have simply stood back and fired on the Fjerdan forces until they were too weakened to advance. But they couldn’t build a house from bricks they didn’t have.

  Nikolai was more tired and more afraid for his people than he’d ever been, but he could sense the hope in them. The night before, he had walked the camp, talking to his troops and his commanders, stopping to share a drink or play a game of cards. He had tried not to think of how many of them might not survive this battle.

  “We’re ready with the second volley?” he asked.

  “On your order,” said Nadia.

  “And the Starless?”

  Tolya bobbed his head toward the east. “They’re encamped on the periphery of the fighting.”

  “No engagement?”

  “None.”

  “Are they armed?”

  “Hard to tell,” said Tolya. “For better or worse, they’re people of faith. They’ll fight with fists and sticks if they have to.”

  “Maybe someone will shoot the Darkling,” Nadia suggested.

  “Then I’ll have to send Jarl Brum a nice thank-you note.” Nikolai didn’t know what the Darkling intended, but the Sun Soldiers would be ready.

  Leoni appeared, her purple kefta already thick with dust and soot. “The Fjerdan lines are forming up again.”

  “Second volley,” said Nikolai.

  She nodded, her face grim, as she and Nadia returned to their positions. Nikolai knew neither of them would forget what they’d witnessed today. They were fighters, soldiers; they’d both seen combat and worse. But this was a different kind of bloodshed, murder at a distance, final and swift. David had warned them it would change everything. Bigger rockets, with longer range, would mean they could fire on much larger targets from afar. Where does it end? Tolya had asked. And Nikolai didn’t know. They couldn’t just push the Fjerdans back today. They had to somehow beat them badly enough to make them question war with Ravka entirely.

  “Tolya—”

  “No word from Zoya and Genya yet.”

  Had they succeeded? His troops were counting on reinforcements from the Grisha and First Army in the south. And he needed to know she was all right.

  Shouts rang out down the Ravkan line, and a moment later the second volley of missiles flew, lobbed even farther into the Fjerdan ranks. But this time the Fjerdans were ready. Their tanks rolled over the smoldering bodies of their own troops and their infantry surged forward.

  That was it: two volleys, the last of their missiles. In the trenches, he saw Leoni’s troops reloading, but he knew those shells were steel, not titanium, and empty of explosives. If any Fjerdan scouts were watching, Nikolai didn’t want them to know just how vulnerable Ravka was.

  Most battles were waged over weeks, long slogs through bullets and blood. But Ravka couldn’t fight that kind of war. They didn’t have the funds, the flyers, the bodies to sacrifice. So this would be their stand. If the Saints were watching, he hoped they were on Ravka’s side. He hoped that they had protected Zoya in the south. He hoped they’d fight beside him now.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said Tolya. “Put down that gun.”

  Nikolai checked the sights on his rifle. “I can’t very well plunge heroically into battle unarmed.”

  “We need you alive to issue commands, not blown apart by Fjerdan repeaters.”

  “I have officers to issue commands. This is our last chance to make a real charge. If we lose, Ravka won’t need a king anyway.”

  Tolya sighed. “Then I suppose you won’t need bodyguards. We go together.”

  As they drew closer to the front lines, the noise was overwhelming, the thunder of tanks and artillery like a hammer to the head. They pushed forward through the ranks, past the injured and those preparing to be called into battle.

  “Korol Rezni!” soldiers shouted when they caught sight of him.

  King of Scars. He didn’t mind the name so much anymore.

  “Who fights beside me?” he called back.

  And they bellowed their names in response, falling into step behind him.

  Nikolai smelled gunpowder, burning flesh, turned earth—as if the whole field had been dug as a grave. He remembered Halmhend, the bodies spread out before him, the spatter of red on Dominik’s lips as he died. This country gets you in the end, brother. Don’t forget it. Nikolai had promised to do better, to build something new. But in the end, all his inventions and diplomacy had come down to this: a brawl in the dirt.

  He was walking, then running, and then he was in the thick of it. Nikolai’s world narrowed to smoke and blood, the sounds of gunfire, the roar of tanks. Figures emerged in flashes, and t
here was only the briefest moment to tell friend from foe. The Fjerdan helmets helped—a design Nikolai had never seen before but distinct from what the Ravkan soldiers wore. He shot, shot again, reloaded. Someone ran at him from his left—a gray uniform. He yanked the knife from his belt and plunged it into a soft belly. This was a feeling he had been happy to forget, the knowledge that death walked with you, breathing down your neck, guiding your hand but ready to turn the blade on you in the space of a moment.

  A bullet grazed his shoulder and he flinched back, lost his footing. Tolya was there, laying down cover as Nikolai righted himself, reloaded, strode forward again. He wouldn’t remember these faces, brief glimpses like ghosts, bodies underfoot, but he knew he would see them in his nightmares.

  “Nikolai!” shouted Tolya.

  But Nikolai had already heard the beast approaching—the gigantic transporter they’d glimpsed in their first engagement with the Fjerdans, the one that had been full of drugged Grisha. Its huge treads thundered over the earth, metal gears shrieking, the air thick with the stink of burning fuel.

  Nikolai had ordered his remaining flyers to keep Fjerda’s air support at bay as best they could, but to watch for the transport. Now he saw them descend, releasing clouds of the Zemeni antidote. But the Squallers who rode atop the vehicles were wearing masks this time. They raised their hands, driving back the haze of antidote in a hard gust that sent the flyers wobbling off course.

  “Those masks!” Tolya shouted over the din.

  They weren’t ordinary masks, like those worn on the Ravkan side. Nikolai suspected they were being used to keep Fjerda’s Grisha dosed with parem.

  The transport’s huge metal mouth opened and another row of sickly Grisha emerged, masks in place. All along the Fjerdan line, soldiers were pushing strange objects into position—big metal disks somewhere between a dish and a bell shape, winter sun gleaming off their curved edges. Nina’s parabolas. Songbird. Suddenly Nikolai understood the strange helmets the Fjerdan soldiers wore.

  “Open fire!” he shouted. “Take out the drugged Grisha! Take out the bells!”