by David Hair
Each night she ate with her commanders. Paolo Castellini, the tallest man in Javon, sat at her left hand. Seir Luca Conti was at her right. Both were grim men with little conversation. Opposite sat Emir Ilan Tamadhi, commander of the Jhafi forces which comprised four-fifths of her army. They were anticipating encountering a third of a legion, less than two thousand Dorobon, newly landed in the desert and exhausted, their Air-magi drained from the crossing. The Nesti and Jhafi army combined numbered almost thirty thousand, fifteen times the forces of their enemy, which should be plenty. Except it wouldn’t be; the Dorobon forces would in fact be two fully rested legions. The Rondians had sent most of their wind-fleet to Javon, despite the loss of impetus this would give to the Crusade in Kesh, and the Gorgio would be with them. Cera, faced with this unexpected might, was instructed to capitulate to save the lives of her army. With their queen-regent and boy-king held captive, the Nesti would have no choice but to sue for terms, and the new Dorobon reign would begin.
And I will be given to Francis Dorobon.
‘The men are in good spirits,’ Luca Conti said, interrupting her bitter thoughts. He took another mouthful of curried chicken and potato. ‘In two days we will meet the enemy. Our scouts report that they have landed less than a thousand men so far, and they have no idea we are coming.’ His voice held just a touch of satisfaction.
I’m so sorry, Luca. This loss will break you. ‘And the Gorgio?’ she asked, trying to sound positive.
‘Still in Hytel, immobile,’ Paolo Castellini responded, his morose eyes doubtful. ‘Their inactivity is puzzling. I would that Donna Elena were here,’ he admitted, quite a concession for a man who’d never been comfortable around her, even before she became Not-Elena. ‘Is she near?’ he asked.
Cera gave a small shrug. Be confident. ‘She is aware of all that is happening,’ she said, hating herself, but her words satisfied the two men, neither of whom was an intriguer.
Ilan Tamadhi was more inquisitive. ‘It makes me uncomfortable that all we might say may be heard by the enemy without her presence. The original reason Olfuss hired the magi in the first place was to ward our councils from eavesdropping Gorgio magi.’
‘I know,’ Cera said, ‘but she will be back before the battle, I am sure.’
The emir still looked troubled. He had liked her bodyguard, won over by Elena’s heroics and dry humour; he had been the most openly puzzled by the aberrant behaviour of Not-Elena.
She pushed her food away. Lying and eating was too hard. She felt like she’d choke if she had to say another word. ‘I need to walk,’ she said apologetically, and the three men rose, making noises about her lack of appetite and her pallor. She knew this confirmed their fears; they’d rather she’d stayed in Brochena. She wished with all her heart she could tell them the truth, but that would trigger the very slaughter she was trying to prevent.
She said her goodnights and fled to her tent. Standing guard was Maxi, one of Lord Stefan di Aranio of Riban’s younger sons. He saluted briskly, eager to impress. The Aranios had dozens of sons, all stolid and all a little dim, in her view, but they were loyal, and that was what counted. ‘Maxi, would you like to walk with me?’
The young knight’s face lit up. ‘At your service, Majesty.’ Maxi was a simple soul. Solinde would have broken his heart without even realising she was doing it.
She bit her lip, sad to be thinking of poor dead Solinde at a time like this.
They wrapped themselves in cloaks against the cooling air before walking through the Nesti camp. The sun was barely below the horizon and the hills were dusted with lavender, the violet hue washing into the evening sky. All about them, camp fires fuelled by dried dung glowed. The stench of the ditch-latrines wafted on a swirling wind, mixing unpleasantly with the smoke; the miasma of military camps that she had been enduring the whole march. Tonight especially it made her stomach turn.
‘What is this place?’ she asked.
‘Fishil Wadi, Majesty,’ Maxi replied. ‘A dried riverbed runs through the valley.’ The young knight was cheery, waving to the men who lined up to call out greetings, eager to show their willingness and readiness to fight, and Cera found herself wishing she’d stayed in her tent so she need not see all these optimistic faces. If there was fear, no one was showing it, and that tore at her soul.
I am so sorry for what is going to happen. Please forgive me, but I’m doing it to save you. It just won’t look that way.
They walked on, heading for the horse-pens, where the Nesti knights’ giant stallions were kept. These heavy-hoofed beasts were of Yuros stock, much larger creatures than the Antiopian steeds. They might be slower, but they were terrifying when massed for the charge. Their highborn riders were confident and assured as they came to pay their respects, the same young men she’d seen peacocking around the court, preening as they strained to catch her eye.
A handsome man with familiar features called out, ‘Majesty, are the enemy near?’
She bit her lip. Rico was one of Lorenzo di Kestria’s older brothers. He’d only just arrived, replacing Lorenzo as the Kestrian son attending the throne, and she hadn’t yet found a role for him. She forced a smile and shook her head just as a sudden gust of wind from the west made every tent flap wildly.
A cloud of dust rose and rolled over the valley and they watched it swallow the horizon. ‘Majesty, is it a dust-storm?’ Maxi asked, his face perplexed.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. It wasn’t the season, and there had been no wind a few seconds ago.
Then she realised it was all going to happen tonight, not tomorrow or the day after. The Dorobon are here, now. ‘Seir Rico,’ she called to the Kestrian knight, ‘have your brethren see to their horses. There must be a storm coming.’ She felt tears stinging the backs of her eyes.
It’s all going to happen right now …
A stinging gust of wind slapped them all, dust lashing their skin, and all around her the men pulled up kerchiefs to cover their mouths and covered their eyes. She did the same. The wind blast through the camp, causing the tents to flap wildly, uprooting the poorly secured as a high wail rose about them, like a funeral lament. Visibility collapsed, and the world turned a dirty brown.
Maxi seized Cera’s arm. ‘I’ll take us back to the tent,’ he shouted, the words snatched from his mouth, and she let him pull her along. Horses squealed and men shouted, the sounds like the voices of afreet, wisps of sound darting about at the edge of hearing. And all the while the certainty grew within her that this was just the prelude. They clambered back up the hill to the command tents as men staggered blindly across their path, trying to shield their eyes, even as her own filled with stinging grit, bringing tears that soaked into the scarf over her head.
Abruptly the winds dropped, but the dust cloud still enveloped them, destroying all visibility – then a dull orange light flashed vividly from down the valley where the Jhafi were camped, followed by another flash, and another. Distant shouting reached her ears, and screams. The air had gone almost still and as the dust began to settle the sky started to emerge, still pale despite the onset of night.
The sky was full of windships – forty or more, including twelve massive warbirds that were pouring fire down from the heavens while skiffs went swooping low over the Jhafi camp, spraying lightning and death.
She dropped Maxi’s hand and fell to her knees. The trap was tonight, and it would not be bloodless at all.
*
I love a plan that works. Gurvon Gyle’s windskiff skimmed the Nesti camp, leaving the Dorobon fleet pounding the huge mass of Jhafi warriors lower down the valley. Mara Secordin stood before him in the bow, her bloated form a strain on the craft, but it was worth the extra effort to keep it airborne, for the lightning that crackled from her fingertips and flashed into the clumps of men below was devastating. The Nesti knights were being tossed around like toys. He preserved his own powers, waiting for when he would need them most.
Behind him were four more skiffs bearing the magi and
crossbowmen placed at his command by the Dorobon leadership. He sent a mental command for them to close up as he bore down on the low knoll where the Nesti banners hung. It was like a nest of ants, but he could see his quarry immobile below him, staring out at the gradually revealing battlefield. To the north, the Dorobon cavalry were beginning to sweep into the valley, a steel onslaught that would wash over the top of the Jhafi footmen like a blue and white avalanche. Dorobon footmen were circling behind the Jhafi, already east, the anvil upon which the cavalry hammer would smash the Jhafi. And all the while the fleet would roll on, pinning the Nesti in place and forcing them to watch the destruction of their native allies.
Afterwards, the Jhafi survivors will say the Dorobon did not assault the Nesti. They’ll whisper of collaboration. Divide and conquer.
He swept lower, targeting the command tent. Light flashed across the battlefield, Dorobon magi illuminating the field so that their men could see to massacre the natives. As he watched, the cavalry ploughed through the Jhafi, whose lines had already been so destroyed by repeated fire and lightning that they struck not a blow in return. People spoke of outnumbering and wearing down a Rondian legion, but when that legion held the initiative and commanded the air, they were nigh-on invincible.
Arrows began to fly at them, some striking the hull, but Mara blasted apart a clutch of archers in retaliation while he strengthened his shielding. Behind them, the skiffs in his train returned fire, before the Nesti scattered in confusion – all apart from one group who clustered grimly around the royal tents. He saw the royal carriage being readied and glimpsed a womanly shape being bundled inside. He set course directly for Cera.
They simply flew into the lines of men being thrown into a cordon before the carriage. Mara had opened the way, growling savagely as she poured raw energy before her, her dead eyes the only part of her that wasn’t incandescent. The Nesti line buckled as the royal guardsmen were enveloped in blue fire. Arrows ripped through his sails, but any that might have hit him were flipped aside by his shields. Then the hull slammed through the walls of bodies and he glimpsed a soldier speared on the bowsprit before his weight snapped it off.
Mara rose up, roaring like a beast, and the flying wedge of the skiffs struck a second later on either side of him as he launched himself from the hull, blade already drawn.
A young man threw himself bodily at him, but he blocked with the gnosis and held the youth in place by telekinesis, then punched his blade through the youth’s breastplate. As he crumpled another man closed in: old Seir Luca Conti, waving his heavy Rondian broadsword. Beside him, Mara lumbered forward, drenching men with water before blasting lightning into the quagmire she’d created. A swathe of men collapsed, their limbs crackling and jerking, thrashing about.
‘Gyle!’ Seir Luca snarled, and his blade hammered down at him. He blocked calmly and threw the man backwards with the gnosis, then flung a bolt of lightning at the man’s breastplate and watched him dance too. He paused to flash light into the eyes of a young man foolish enough to think he might be a hero, then skewered him calmly through the belly as he fumbled about blindly. As he kicked the fallen guard off his blade, Seir Luca steadied himself. He ignored the sparks crackling about his armour, and screamed, ‘Die, Rondian diablo!’
Talk is cheap, Conti. He caught the next blow, steel belling as the impact jarred his grip, but he held on and countered, a move Conti barely managed to block. His big blade wasn’t as nimble as Gyle’s, so he darted forwards and sideways, slammed a man on Conti’s left away with a push of gnosis, then cut down, straight into the back of Conti’s knee. The old knight with whom he’d shared many relaxed evenings of wine and tabula in former times choked back a cry. His heavy blade arched around savagely in reflex even as he went down, but Gyle leapt the blow and drove his narrow blade in under the knight’s armpit and split his heart. Blood erupted from the grizzled warrior’s mouth as he shuddered and fell to the ground.
Gyle saw Mara take the head off another man with a sweep of a taloned hand when a shout arose from his right. Paolo Castellini, his sad face towering above the press, swept his two-handed falchion through the neck of a Dorobon mage. Then a blast of air picked up the knight and flung him head-over-heels backwards. He slammed against the carriage.
The carriage! Gyle strode forward as the lines in front of him reeled from another fire-strike, then fell apart as Mara waded forward, using telekinetic energy to tear apart the men before her. He parried the one man left standing, then jabbed with his blade, thrusting his point over his foe’s guard and into his eye. Then he was through.
The carriage door opened and Cera was there, her face white as she took in the destruction of her guards. Mara snarled happily, hungrily, and started forward, her teeth growing and her face changing to something that was in no way human.
‘NO!’ Cera shrieked, her eyes going to his. ‘NO!’ Her eyes said: You promised no blood!
‘Cera Nesti,’ he called aloud, using the gnosis to amplify the sound. ‘Command your men to surrender and they will be spared!’
*
There were hundreds of yards of chains. Each Nesti man had been manacled and the long lines sent marching towards Hytel. The Gorgio’s iron and coal mines were about to receive a generous consignment of slave-miners. Cera wished she were among them.
Better to die beneath the earth than let Pater-Sol see what I let happen.
She could just make out Paolo Castellini, his birth not noble enough for the Gorgio and Dorobon to single him out for ransom. He was bent over, though he still loomed above the rest of the soldiers as he trudged away. She felt her eyes fill up again. All she did now was cry.
If she turned around, she would be able to see self-satisfied Alfredo Gorgio fingering his neat goatee, his pink pig eyes gloating happily. The soldiers of the Nesti, his oldest enemies, were now prisoners destined to work his mines until they dropped dead. Better yet, the Jhafi, the despised mudskins, had been slaughtered by the tens of thousands. Their surrender had not been accepted, and Emir Ilan Tamadhi was dead; captured and hung ignominiously.
If I had any honour I’d kill myself.
She looked sideways at Gurvon Gyle, who was hovering protectively beside her. His narrow eyes took in everything, but in spite of his great triumph he seemed restless, tired – somehow dissatisfied. She wondered why, then guessed. ‘Where is Elena?’
‘Do not speak unless addressed,’ he told her, avoiding her question. ‘Francis Dorobon will expect to be called “Your Majesty” though he is not yet crowned. He is a boy and his moods are changeable.’ Gyle didn’t sound like he thought much of his new master.
But he still expects me to bed him.
She felt like a used rag. Her evening dress was coated in grime, like her skin. Her armpits were soaked and she could not cry all the grit from her eyelids. Her tangled hair was coated in dust.
Gyle made a huffing noise. ‘Go and wash your face, Princessa,’ he ordered in a low voice. ‘You’re about to meet your husband-to-be.’
I don’t want him. I hate him. I hate you. But she bowed her head and went into her tent. Someone had come in already and removed all the weapons, even the eating knives. Now only Mara Secordin and Tarita were in here, and the obese mage-woman was eyeing Tarita as if she were a dish at a feast. The little maid looked petrified. ‘Majesty,’ she gasped, falling to her knees when she caught sight of Cera.
‘Get up, Tarita.’ She pulled her up and hugged her, tried to impart comfort she didn’t feel. ‘I need to wash, so that I do not look a disgrace before them.’
‘Do not wear violet,’ Mara Secord
in rasped, her jowls wobbling as she stepped closer. There was blood on her hands and face and she looked immensely satisfied. ‘Wear blue or white. Dorobon colours.’
‘No,’ said Gyle behind her. ‘Stay in violet: it will amuse Francis Dorobon to humiliate you whilst in your family colours.’
Cera looked back at him, hatred in her eyes and heart.
‘Get out,’ Tarita snapped bravely, lifting her chin. ‘This is a lady’s tent,’
Mara Secordin chuckled wetly. ‘The girl has spirit,’ she noted with amusement. She licked her lips, her eyes going cold. ‘I like that.’
‘Tarita is my ward,’ Cera said, clutching the little Jhafi to her.
Gurvon Gyle considered them both. ‘She is your ward,’ he agreed eventually, to Mara’s visible disappointment. ‘But she will keep a civil tongue in her head.’
‘She will,’ she agreed, looking pointedly at Tarita. Please don’t upset them, Tarita. I couldn’t bear to lose you too.
Tarita said nothing, as if she felt she’d made her point. ‘I’ll bring water, my queen,’ she whispered.
‘No,’ Gyle interjected. He indicated the washing basin. ‘Mara.’
The fat Rondian witch waddled to the basin and then gestured. Water spewed from her fingertips and filled the basin. Cera felt her stomach clench. ‘I’m not washing in that,’ she choked.
Mara turned to her, an ugly smile on her face. ‘It’s perfectly clean, girl. I am a Water-mage.’
‘No.’
‘Wash,’ Gyle hissed. ‘Francis Dorobon is outside waiting.’
Sol et Lune! She shuddered, then abruptly stepped around Mara, taking care not to touch her. She plunged her face into the basin. The water was body-temperature, but it felt intrinsically tainted to her. She grabbed soap and washed furiously.
When she was able to look about her again, Gyle was gone and Mara Secordin was watching her with flat eyes. She had thought Rutt Sordell and Samir Taguine vile, but this woman was worse. She had eyes like an crocodile. Then trumpets blared outside and Mara grabbed her upper arm with pudgy fingers. ‘Go out alone, girl. Look frightened. Beg and grovel for your life.’