“Of course, my lord.”
“Yes, sir.”
“By the Order’s will.”
“It shall be as you say, Lord Chancellor”
Ipid looked at the men and found varying degrees of sympathy from Jon’s heartbreak to Illich’s calculating concern. He held up a flyer. It showed Dasen’s face, described the reward, emphasized that he be returned unharmed. A print maker and his apprentices were already preparing the etching that would be set into one of the presses that Captain Tyne was preparing to seize. Within days, hundreds of copies would be ready for distribution. Dasen would become the most wanted man in the Kingdoms with a small fortune promised for his return. Ipid would gladly pay it. He just hoped that he would be able to turn over his son as easily as he would turn over the money.
Chapter 27
The 29 – 30th Day of Summer
“We’ll camp here,” Jaret declared as they came to the top of the ridge. Lius did not hear him from where he struggled half-way up the hill, panting and gasping, legs straining and burning, heart hammering. The sight of the legionnaires pulling to a stop and removing their packs was enough. He fell immediately to his knees, rolled to sit, and placed his head between his knees to catch his breath. His robe, as filthy as it had been before the farm, clung to him, soaked with his sweat. Rings of salt marked it, standing out even from the dirt, where his sweat had dried day-after-day like the rings of a tree marking his days of hardship like years.
From his perch, Lius watched a hundred riders, the setting sun sparkling off their helms, emerge from a copse of trees and start cautiously across the plain that separated them from the hill where Lius sat. They stopped almost as soon as they emerged. A blinding light rose like a beacon off the glass that their commander used to watch the progress of his quarry. The first evening away from the farm, this scene had nearly sent Lius into a palsy. The cavalry could take them at any time. They had them hopelessly outnumbered, were mounted, well-armed, and armored. On the plains they’d traversed the past few days, it wouldn’t have even been a challenge. But just as that first night – and all of the previous three – the riders kept their distance. They never got closer than a mile, stopped whenever Jaret did, set-up and broke camp within minutes of the legionnaires. They never attacked, did not even send out scouts or raiders to test Jaret’s strength. They just followed, and Jaret did not seem concerned about them in the slightest.
“Are you going to join us?” Jaret asked, voice low. Lius had sensed his presence, had felt the distortions in the Order that the commander caused.
“Eventual,” Lius sighed. Jaret sat down next to him. He had not spoken with the commander since their departure three days hence, but after the grueling day’s they’d endured, he hadn’t felt much like talking.
“Is the Order still guiding me?” Jaret asked after a long pause. The question surprised Lius enough that he actually looked at the strands of possibility around them as if he didn’t already know the answer. Every strand ran through Jaret, was consumed by the black pit of unreadable destiny that was the former warlord. Lius could find no way to predict where they would lead or how to change them.
After the time he’d spent reading at the farm, Lius had thought he had a better grasp of his powers. He was now able to see farther, to expand his reach, and to almost lay the lines of possibility over what his eyes saw rather than switching between the two as he had done before. Yet, for all that, he could manage only the smallest changes to the world around him – just enough to allow him to keep the legionnaires’ impossible pace. Even if he weren’t too exhausted, too focused simply on keeping up, there was always the unreadable blot that was Jaret Rammeriz absorbing his changes and creating his own as if Lius did not even exist.
“It is the same,” Lius answered. “Why do you ask? Do you not feel it guiding you?”
“No,” Jaret admitted with as much doubt as had entered his voice since Lius had met him. “Before it was like I was a prisoner in my own mind, like I wasn’t controlling anything I did or said. But that feeling is different now. I . . . .” The commander looked back toward his men, preparing their camp. “I just keep driving us toward the forest, and the cavalry just keeps following, because I don’t know what else to do. I keep expecting the Order to step in as it did all those times before and push us toward some bit of . . . insanity that will somehow save us. I keep expecting that, looking for it, waiting for it, but there’s nothing.”
Lius considered. “Maybe the Order doesn’t need to guide you because you are already following Its plan.”
Jaret shook his head and eyed the men in the field below as they picketed their horses and prepared their camp. “Have you ever been hunting, Lius?”
“A few times,” Lius answered cautiously, wondering where this was going. “My older brothers enjoyed it, but my father was not much for it, and I could never kill anything.”
“I never had much time for it,” Jaret barely allowed Lius to finish, “but it is a necessity with many of the nobles. It always surprised me how little sport there was to it. We would ride out to a well-appointed camp, have a lunch, some wine and conversation. Then a number of fellows – I probably would have been one of them if my life had gone another way – would come beating through the brush pushing animals to us. We’d pop out with bows, make easy work of whatever happened to be there, then congratulate each other as if we’d done something more complicated than target practice.”
“We were never so rich as that,” Lius admitted, feeling almost nostalgic for the older brothers who had largely ignored him through his childhood. “One of my uncles owned a stretch of forest to the west of Ca’ Einir. He’d let us walk through it with bows and shoot whatever we found. We saw deer occasionally, but never hit any. My brothers got a few birds, some rabbits, but that was about all.”
“So you see what we face?”
Lius did not. He had no idea how his childhood hunting trips had anything to do with their current situation.
Jaret must have read his doubt. “We are only a day or two from the edge of the Great Northern Forest. Have you ever visited it?”
“No, but I have heard the stories.”
“Do you believe them?”
“I believe in the Order. Ghosts and monsters are for . . . .” Lius realized what he was saying and stopped himself.
“For children,” Jaret finished with a humorless laugh. “I used to think so as well, but it is true of that forest. There are no ghosts or monsters, but there is a camp, a secret place where members of the Legion are trained. The Camp is there because it is the only place in the whole of the Empire where it could not possibly be discovered or disturbed. The forest is dark and dense and deep. The terrain is treacherous, development, even logging, is almost impossible. If we reach it, the Emperor will never find us. He knows it, his men know it, so why does he let us run toward it with such abandon?”
“Because it’s a trap?”
Jaret nodded and looked on toward the riders in the distance. “Those men are the beaters, driving us toward their masters who are waiting to receive us. Once we arrive, we’ll be smashed between them. Not even the Order will be able to save us.”
“What are you going to do?” Lius felt suddenly panicked. Jaret was right of course. Lius knew it without even referencing the strands of the Order around him. It was the only possible explanation.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Jaret admitted. “As I said, I cannot feel the Order guiding me. I feel like I should be able to think of something, some maneuver, feint, or trick. That is what I do, but my mind is blank. The only thing I can think to do is keep going, to keep running into the trap I know is waiting. How can that be what the Order wants? After all this, how can that be the answer?”
Lius did not say anything. He focused on the possibilities around him, tried to trace all the lines and patterns. He stretched his mind out and out, following strand after strand until he found the anomalies that could only be hundreds of people. Within
the Order, it looked like a small city. It was all the confirmation he needed. It was an army, and they were heading right at it. He turned his attention to Jaret, to the lines of possibility that flowed from him, tried to see how those changed the world around them, tried to predict how their actions might end. It was an overwhelming task. Even if he could trace those strands all the way to the army, the intersections were too many. This far out, with so much time, so many possibilities, Lius could not hope to find a path that might save them.
“The Order is often mysterious, but it is not our place to question.” Lius settled for platitudes when he could think of no more comforting words. “It is the will of Hileil. If we trust It, It will never betray us.” Even as he said the words, Lius felt the lie in them. If the Order is the will of Hileil, then how is it that I, a lowly monk ordained less than a year, can change it?
Jaret scoffed. “It betrays us all the time. It picks winners and losers every day. Whatever Hileil’s plan may be, we have no reason to believe that it includes our success. What if we have played our part, and the Order is done with us?”
Lius gulped. He could not believe that was true. He had seen what the Order had done over the past weeks. He had felt its power, had seen it guide them, had seen it deliver them time and again. Why would it abandon them now? Why does It do anything? a voice answered. Why grow a forest over generations only to destroy it with fire? Why create life only to see disease take it away? Why build an empire, protect it through every foible, only to see it fall to revolution? To think that you are the center of the Order is like a fly that thinks he is king, a vanity that will end as quickly as a slap. “Then that is how it will be, and there is nothing we can do about it,” Lius said, but he no longer believed it was true.
#
If he could still feel emotion, Jaret would have been lost between curses and laughs, between rage and revelry. The Order had played him perfectly. If not for the irony, he would have been irate. It had turned his most shining moment against him, had used him exactly as he had used the Pindarian mercenaries twenty years ago. It had convince him that it was protecting him, that he was special, that he could not fail, just as he had convinced the mercenaries. He had allowed them to march uncontested across the Empire, had allowed towns and fortresses to fall with the barest resistance, had retreated every time they grew near, had allowed them to feel invincible. Because the invincible are sloppy. They don’t secure their river crossings, they don’t watch the terrain, they don’t worry that none of their scouts have returned. They believe they cannot fail and allow themselves to be herded right into the trap.
And that was exactly what the Order had done to him. Even though he had known it was coming, he’d allowed it to happen because he thought the Order was with him. Now, he looked down on the army waiting before them – standing right at the line of trees that was their deliverance, blocking them from it as thoroughly as a wall of steel – then at the mounted men behind – pushing them constantly toward that wall – and he knew that the Order had come calling on its debt, had played him every bit the same way he had played those mercenaries, had left him with only questions that were too painful to answer. Why had they stayed at the farm so long? Why had they allowed the cavalry to follow them so easy? Why had they taken this course? Why hadn’t they acted sooner? Why, why, why? Curses upon curses upon curses.
“Make camp!” he yelled in way of order. “We attack at dawn.” Even as he said the words, he wanted them back. Why had he even said that? Their only chance in the world was to make their move at night. If they went quickly, in the tiny hours after the moon was down and the sentries were least alert, they might make it to the trees. A fantasy, he chastised. Both armies – before and behind – knew that they were there. They would not be surprised no matter the time. Maybe if he had a hundred men, but with twenty, not even his opponent’s collective blindness would provide an escape. As well to die in the light of the sun, he decided as he strode to the center of the grove and sat on a fallen log to watch his men prepare the camp.
“Sir, the cavalry are close.” Lieutenant Caspar, the highest ranking of the legionnaires, approached from the side and spoke in a voice for only his commander. “This hill separates them from the rest of the army. If we move quickly, quietly in the night, we might create enough confusion to steal some horses. We could use them to . . . .”
Jaret cut him off with a raised hand then looked at that hand wondering why it was up. The idea was the best he’d heard in a long time. The riders were closer than they’d ever allowed themselves to be. Coming down the hill in the cover of the trees with the help of Lius’ powers, they might actually manage exactly what the lieutenant suggested. Though almost all of his men would likely die, it might be enough for Jaret, Lius, and a few others to escape. And as awful as it sounded, the commander that Jaret used to be knew that revolutions lasted only as long as their leaders. At this point, it was as good an offer as they were going to receive.
“We attack tomorrow at dawn,” he heard himself say. “Those are my orders. Get some food and sleep. We’re safe tonight.”
The lieutenant managed to look shocked for only the briefest second before he saluted and returned to supervising his men as they prepared the camp. Jaret cursed himself again. The lieutenant was a tall, lanky fellow younger than most of the men he commanded. In the rest of the Imperial army it would have meant that he had connections, in the Legion, it meant he was a prodigy. If the reports were correct, he was a better tactician than even Jaret, and he was being used as little more than a sergeant, someone to convey order and ensure they were followed. But was it even Jaret giving those orders? For all that he thought he’d regained some control over his own body and mind, it seemed that was an illusion. Or was he just losing his ability to tell the difference?
#
There was no chance that they would surprise the army below, not that Jaret had really considered it a possibility. The sun was just peeking above the horizon, and the soldiers below looked like they had been prepared for hours – which they likely had. Jaret wondered if any of them had been allowed to sleep. It opened the possibility that they would be tired, but he knew the lie of that as well. Men almost never slept before a battle – certainly he had not, and he doubted his men had. Still, no man ever died in a fight because he was caught in the middle of a yawn. And it wouldn’t matter if those men were sleeping as they stood, there were a thousand of them arrayed along the line of trees. The first ranks held tall shields and long spears, but there were surely archers behind those to ensure that Jaret and his men never made it to the spears. Any hope he dreamt up was just that, a dream as real as the ones where he flew like a bird or fucked the Emperor’s daughter.
Walking across the top of the hill, through the trees that marked it like a ramshackle fort, Jaret nodded to his men, clapped them on the arm or back, reassured them with his eyes as they made their final preparations. He marveled at their discipline. They were about to die in the most pointless and futile way possible, but not a hand shook, not an eye turned away, not a doubt shown. Jaret wondered what he had ever done to deserve such devotion.
On the other side of the hill, the cavalry were on their horses, preparing their formation, receiving final orders from their officers. They wore full armor for the first time that Jaret had seen – fine armor at that, full plate with barding for the horses. Banners snapping in the morning breeze at their sides – the sun rising over the image of a rearing horse – explained the extravagant protection. These were the Knights Imperial, the best equipped, most disciplined, and loyal of any unit outside Jaret’s legionnaires. This was a fraction of their numbers, but Emperor Nabim had to have sent them personally to hunt down Jaret and his fugitive band. There was no doubt that they would be equal to the task.
As Jaret watched, they tested their weapons, long-handled maces ideal for beating down unarmored men from behind. Meant to be used on revolting peasants as they ran from the cavalry charge, they would be just
as effective on Jaret and his men as they ran across the field. Nonetheless, the scene gave Jaret a small glimmer of hope. It meant that the cavalry meant to charge. It was the first of what Jaret expected to be many strategic blunders by Empire’s incompetent officers. He just wished it would make any difference.
“To the north, Commander,” interrupted Jaret’s thoughts. He looked up and saw a broad-shouldered legionnaire with a baby’s face – had he shaved this morning? – pointing through the trees to his left.
When Jaret reached the man’s side, he laughed. He could not help himself. Even the wall that seemed to block his emotions could not hold it back. He laughed until he was out of breath and had to brace himself against a tree. The remainder of the Legion gathered around. The younger members stared at their commander in disbelief. It was only the veterans, those with some years and battles behind them that got the joke. Though they did not laugh as hard as their commander, they raised their heads and chuckled like fools at the joke the Order had played.
“We’re twenty men,” Jaret guffawed when he had recovered enough for words. “What do they think is going to happen here today?” Those who had been laughing shook their heads, wiped tears from their eyes, and went back to their places on the west side of the hill. Those who had failed to see the joke lingered, looking truly uncertain for the first time.
Youth! Jaret thought. He had forgotten that men only realized they were mortal when they reached their thirtieth birthday. These few, these boys, as skilled as they might be, as well trained, as disciplined, had not realized that they were going to die, that it was going to happen today, that nothing their brilliant, miraculous commander did would save them.
The False Martyr Page 32