Canticle poi-2
Page 35
Perhaps, Rudolfo thought, they should have pushed on for Sanctorum Lux after all. At least that seemed a scenario with odds more in their favor. Certainly, Charles had advocated for that robustly for the first two days. But in the end, Rudolfo had told him-sharper than he wished to-that the hidden library would simply have to remain hidden a bit longer, until this present matter was addressed. The old Arch-Engineer had been sullen at first, but had gradually seen the wisdom in confirming just who now controlled Tam’s fleet of Androfrancine-designed vessels and what their plans might be for those iron ships and the people they carried away prisoner.
He heard a soft knock at his door and turned. “Yes?”
The door opened and Charles peeked in. “They’re back. We’re gathering in the galley.”
“Thank you, Charles. I will join you momentarily.”
With a nod, the old man pulled the door closed, and Rudolfo scooped up his green turban of office. He wound it about his head and fastened it in place with the clasp his mother had given him when he was a boy. Then, he tied his crimson sash around his hips and took up his scout knives.
When Rudolfo entered the galley he saw Rafe Merrique and Charles but no one else. Of course, fresh from the jungles, the scouts were still magicked. He could see the places where the chairs were pulled out and from time to time, a flagon lifted of its own accord.
He took a seat at the foot of the table, opposite Rafe. “What have we learned?”
Rafe’s first mate spoke first, and Rudolfo turned his head in the direction of the disembodied voice. The voice sounded heavy with something Rudolfo could not quite place. “The island is unoccupied save for the structure and the docks. They have a small garrison of soldiers-maybe a hundred strong judging from the size of the barracks. They’re well armed, bows and swords, but not particularly vigilant about keeping their watch. They appear to be mixed-some Marshers, some of Delta or Emerald Coast dialect. They spoke a unified subverbal that was unfamiliar to me.”
Rudolfo nodded, reaching for the carafe and sniffing the contents. Cherry wine was not one of his favorites, but it would suffice. He poured a glass. “How many ships?”
“Two schooners of a trim and line I do not recognize plus the ten Tam ships-all unmagicked at this point. The steel vessels are anchored and powered down. They patrol with the schooners-one pass per hour, more of a token watch, which suggests they do not expect visitors.”
Rafe nodded. “They’re far enough into the Ghosting Crests to keep most away.”
Rudolfo raised the glass to his lips and sipped the sweet, cool wine. “Gypsies, what saw you inside?”
Even his Gypsy Scout seemed restrained, subdued somehow. “It is accessible, General Rudolfo, from at least three unguarded points. Two windows and a door. We mapped a basement holding area and two floors above that. Third floor and anything beyond, we assume, is guarded more diligently.”
There was a pause, and Rudolfo did not need to see the man to know he felt uncomfortable with what he was about to share. “What else?” he said.
“There are pipes moving fluid from the upper floor-the domed structure-into some lower basement we were unable to reach. We think they’re cutting.”
Cutting. Rudolfo sucked in his breath at the word. “Why do you think they are cutting?”
The first mate spoke up now. “On account of the bodies, Lord.”
The Gypsy Scout continued. “They’ve been burying their dead in mass graves. Like Windwir. We estimate nearly a thousand, and the holding cells below are full to overflowing.”
Rudolfo stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “But where would they. ” He let the words trail off as the answer became apparent. House Li Tam was under the knife-their fleet forfeit. But he doubted very much it was the penitent torture of his own Physicians-those twisted Francines who looked to T’Erys Whym and his darker beliefs about human behavior. Blood magicks had returned to the Named Lands, and these were the old cuttings, the Old Ways. The path of Xhum Y’Zir and his seven sons. and the Wizard Kings that went before them.
His mind flitted back to the Firstborn Feast. It is all connected. Those men had been Marshers, and there were Marshers here. Blood-magicked men had swept the Tam ships to surrender just as they had killed Hanric and the others. Rudolfo would not be surprised at all to find that their blades were all iron, the wizard-bargainer’s steel.
He suddenly recalled something the first mate had said and moved his hands. Attend me, Scout.
There was a warm rustle of wind, and fingers pressed into Rudolfo’s forearm on the table. I am here, General.
He reached out, found a shoulder and put forward his question. The subverbal they used; you recognized it, yes?
Yes. A pause. Y’Zir.
Rudolfo nodded. Yes. A language used still by the Wandering Army of the Ninefold Forest and by the Marshfolk, both peoples once allied with Xhum Y’Zir. recipients of the New World for their servitude and friendship with that dark house. He dismissed the scout with a gesture.
Rafe Merrique looked to Rudolfo. “A resurgence is under way. It makes sense that it would with Windwir gone. The Androfrancines kept watch on those things.”
Rudolfo thought about the packet of papers now in Brother Charles’s care and looked over to the old man. Their eyes met, and the Arch-Engineer inclined his head ever so slightly. What if the resurgence had not simply sprung up in this fertile post-Androfrancine soil? The structure on the island was at least fifty years old, and while an Y’Zirite resurgence could have grown and blossomed here in the Ghosting Crests, outside the purview of the Order, such a thing seemed unlikely.
No, Rudolfo thought, the answer is darker yet.
An Y’Zirite resurgence somehow established enough of a foothold within the Named Lands to bring down Windwir. It bent Sethbert into the plot, using him and his paranoia to bring back a dead master’s last spell. How far could it run?
The details were not difficult for Rudolfo to cipher. They’d infiltrated the Order at some level. And certainly House Li Tam had been compromised along with the United City-States.
It staggered him, but he forced his mind back to the moment. The woman who could cure his son was in a holding cell beneath that white temple-if she hadn’t already gone beneath the knife. He could not bring himself to worry about anything but that. Rae Li Tam’s freedom and Jakob’s life had to be his primary concern.
And yet.
If this resurgence had manipulated the most powerful nation in the Named Lands into bringing down Windwir with such carefully orchestrated precision-using one of the Named Lands’ most powerful families to do so-and if they had also systematically and with ease led the assassinations that dark, winter’s night.? The possibility of it grew in his stomach, cold as a pit of ice. He looked to Rafe Merrique. “What do you propose?”
Rafe sighed. “I propose that we come back with a fleet and an army, bring them down, end this dark business they’ve begun.” He paused and ran a hand through his gray bristling hair. “But that doesn’t free your alchemist. We’re here now, and we have surprise on our side.”
Rudolfo thought for a moment. “They have numbers on us. And their iron vessels are lethal in close quarters.”
“If they can see us,” Rafe added.
Rudolfo nodded and looked to Charles. “Can you operate them? Can you teach others to do so?”
Charles nodded. “I could. But it would take time.”
He looked to Rafe Merrique again. “And could you get men aboard them?”
The first mate’s voice piped up. “They are lightly manned, more a watchman than any kind of opposing force.”
Rafe’s brow furrowed as he thought. “We could take half of them-any more would be unrealistic. But once the boilers are fired, there will be no element of surprise.”
“Then we wait until the last minute to fire them; but once we did, could you hold them?”
He thought for a moment. “It could be done but not easily. They have the schooners and blood magicks t
o contend with.”
Charles cleared his voice, and all eyes looked to him. “You have cannon powder?”
Rafe shrugged. “Some.”
The Arch-Engineer continued. “And there’s more upon the iron ships?”
Rudolfo nodded. “Yes, if they’ve not unloaded it for storage.”
The Gypsy Scout shimmered now at the table as the powders began to burn out. He leaned forward when he spoke. “They were taking on supplies earlier, not unloading them.”
Charles smiled, and it was grim in the dim-lit galley. “Then I can help you disable the schooners and any of the Tam vessels that will be left behind. I’ll need some time and a few other items.”
“I think we have our plan,” Rudolfo said in a low voice. It sounded more sinister than he intended it. “Rafe, you will see to the vessels. Disable any opposing force on the shore, make sure their ships cannot pursue.”
“That,” Merrique said, “is only half of a plan, Rudolfo.”
Rudolfo sighed. If Gregoric lived, that First Captain would have scowled now and tried to talk him out of the course so clearly laid out in his mind. Maybe it was because of his origins, a young orphan king faced with insurgency within his people, or maybe it was because of his father’s firm guidance and insistence upon what was right. He didn’t know for sure, but the end result was the same: He rarely doubted the right path to take in any given situation, and this was no different. He loathed Vlad Li Tam, had vowed to kill him, but he could not bring himself to leave the man’s family in the hands of these blood-bent cultists.
He looked up at Charles and Rafe. The sailors were shifting back into focus now, too, as the powders lifted. “I will take my Gypsy Scouts, and we will free those we can.”
Rafe choked on his beer. “Three men against a hundred? Are you mad, Rudolfo? Has grief and desperation for your son clouded your judgment?”
No, not him, the assassin had said back in the Great Hall on the night all of this had begun. And the Ninefold Forest Houses had not only survived Windwir’s fall but had benefited from it. There had to be a connection between this resurgence and his family’s dark heritage-but what?
“Perhaps,” Rudolfo said, “I am mad.” When he looked up and his eyes met Rafe’s he watched the man blink and look away at the ferocity of what he saw there. “Regardless, I am going to do what I can.”
And hope, he thought, that it will be enough to save my son.
As their voices lowered to tones reserved for careful strategy and well-timed movements, Rudolfo steeled himself for the work ahead and summoned up the gray face of his ailing son once more for assurance that this path before him was true.
Chapter 21
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam spent the morning on the line, riding with her closest commanders as she inspected the ragged border they’d established between the armies to the south and the Marshlands to the west.
Reinforcements to those armies had arrived and already been cut through. Three times in as many days, her lines had been breached, and try as they might, the Wandering Army could not hold them. Neither did the blood-magicked foe linger to engage the Gypsies. They’d pressed on in their raids against the Turamites and Pylosians. Because they had no intention of returning, they did not need to leave an opening behind. They surged through and did not even bare their invisible weapons. With their hands, they shoved the Forester soldiers easily aside with minor injuries, and their hapless pursuit of them yielded no results.
Her Gypsy Scouts fared only slightly better.
So now, she rode the line and tried to keep spirits up. Rudolfo’s officers were a hard lot who loved their men fiercely and exacted a loyalty not dissimilar to that they bore for their Gypsy King. And it was a different kind of love, a different kind of loyalty than what her father exacted. His love was sharp, and no one doubted that he loved his strategic purposes and the world they shaped more than the tools that he used to do that shaping. This new way of leading confounded her.
The Wandering Army had not marched beneath a queen in more years than any of her captains or commanders could tell her. It had happened, certainly, during times that the Gypsy King was away attending other business. And despite this, and despite her newness, they honored her and followed her orders as if they were Rudolfo’s.
And though she knew it was no place for her infant son, she saw also the way her husband’s men looked to their prince and knew of a certainty that they would give their lives before letting any danger near their lord’s firstborn. She’d even found trinkets left for the boy at her tent flap-anonymous tokens of welcome to the new heir.
Jin Li Tam felt a stray snowflake brush her cheek and started. The powders made her mind wander, and she looked around quickly to be sure no one had spoken. They rode the line in single file, slowly, pausing here and there to ask the men how they were and how the food was.
Soon, it would be time to turn back and tend to Jakob. The River Woman and Winters watched him now while Lynnae slept off yesterday’s powders. The girl had taken the baby two days in a row while Jin Li Tam and the young Marsh Queen attempted another parley with the others. It had gone no better-Turam’s man had shown up, but Meirov hadn’t even deigned to send a subordinate. Pylos was not interested in parley.
Around them, the forest was thin, with open spaces between trees. Most of the ground was mud and dirty clots of snow. The cold air smelled like wood smoke and pine, and apart from the noise of a waiting army, it was a quiet morning.
When Third Alarm sounded, it came from the west. Jin’s hand went to her sword, then relaxed. Ahead, she heard whistles and saw men turning north. She followed their stares and held her breath. Leaning forward in the saddle, she heard the clacking of tongues and watched the spatter of mud kicked up by magicked feet as invisible men raced toward the line. The Gypsy Scouts were in full retreat.
“Hold the line,” a commander barked.
She saw the men, saw the Gypsy Scouts spread out and turn, and then saw the surge of something pouring across the forest floor faster than a magicked stallion.
And suddenly, something broke in her and she felt her head grow hot as her jaw clenched.
Jin Li Tam drew her sword and spun her horse, her eyes scanning the northern forest. She spurred forward, lining herself up with the mass of bending light and mud that bore down upon her men. Bellowing with a rage she did not know she possessed, she rode down that wind of blood, feeling the solid thud of the horse’s steel hooves as it connected with flesh and bone. She spun the horse, whistling at it as the sword darted out to find something within that blood-magicked swell of running men.
Something heavy and fast struck the side of the horse, and Jin yelped as she tumbled from the saddle. Before the horse fell, she was out from its shadow and discarding her sword for the slender scout knives she’d taken from Rudolfo’s desk. They felt natural in her hands, and as another cold wind approached from the north, she danced into it, low and swinging for hamstrings she was trained to find, especially upon the magicked. Around her, she heard the sound of other horses and other men as her retinue chased after and joined her in the fray.
I must earn their respect with blood. But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t why she did this. Why she risked her life-her, a new mother-as if it meant nothing.
She was angry. No, she was enraged. And she poured it all into this work before her. She felt the knife moving over skin, felt it catch and hold and pull her along behind. Gathering herself up, she threw herself forward and buried her knives into the fleeing back.
She fell upon her prey, and it bucked and twisted until it threw her off. “You should not be here, Great Mother. You might be hurt.”
Jin Li Tam lunged forward, the knife finding purchase. She brought the other in and twisted them both. “I am not your mother,” she snarled.
Laughing, he shoved her back. “You brought us the Child of Promise. You are a mother to us all.”
Around them, the line was breaking.
“He will not die, Great Mother. He cannot, for he brings forth the Crimson Empress from afar. She who will make all things right.”
I should stop, she told herself. I should question him. But the rage in her-anger that had hidden in her tears of late-required otherwise. And she felt the white heat building behind her eyes with every word he uttered. She drove the knives into him again and felt him buckle to his knees beneath her blades. Again, and the Marsher collapsed.
The voice gurgled now. “I am honored,” it said, “to die at your hands, Great Mother.”
Jin Li Tam gave the knives a final twist and then withdrew them from the still form. Only then did she realize that she tasted iron in her own mouth, that her breath came in ragged gouts of steam and that she shuddered from adrenaline and exertion. Stooping, she wiped her blades clean of that magicked blood as best she could upon the invisible corpse at her feet.
When she looked up, she saw that the line had re-formed and all eyes were upon her. Finally, Philemus scanned the line that had not held and then looked back to her. He nodded slightly, and she saw great approval in his eye.
When he shouted, his words were sharp and clear on the morning air. “Hail the Gypsy Queen,” he cried.
And as one voice, the Wandering Army hailed their general’s wife. She bowed deeply to them.
Then, sheathing her knives, Jin Li Tam called out for her horse and mounted up to finish riding the line.
She would general now, and in an hour or so, she would return to camp, wash herself clean of the morning’s violence, and feed her infant son.
Winters
Winters walked the muddy footpaths between tents and pondered the difference between queens and mothers.