He thought about the sea monster again. Shrawn will do anything to protect his position. Anything. Destroying an alliance seems like a natural thought for him. “I get the feeling the storm is coming, that’s certain.”
“Then we’ll need a strong boat,” she said, and he felt her light touch on his shoulder.
Maybe it would be better to drown, he did not say. Maybe it would be better to let our houses sink, to defy expectations, to thwart my father and let the wheel roll on without us. He felt the air rush out of his lungs in an uncontrolled burst as he thought of Sanctuary, of the lounge, with fresh kegs set out and a roaring fire to sit beside with companions—of Niamh, and her natural red hair, without a hint of wildroot dye, of Curatio and his stoic pragmatism, of—
He cut it off in the middle, and came back to himself to feel her hand still upon his shoulder, her fingers kneading into the muscles there. Duty. “I suppose we will,” he said, and placed his hand upon her own. He could feel her skin against his, and it felt colder than the air around them.
Chapter 42
The hammering at his door fell in the very early morning hours, jarring Terian out of a sound sleep. He could feel Kahlee stirring next to him, and cleared his throat in the cool night air. “Yes?”
“Lord Terian,” came Guturan’s voice from behind the door. “Lord Amenon requests your immediate presence in full armor.”
“Okay,” Terian said, cotton-mouthed from the whiskey he’d had hours earlier. “Did he say why?” His eyes slid in the dark toward Kahlee’s form and saw her head off her pillow, listening into the night the way he was.
Guturan’s answer came after a pause. “There is a disturbance in the Back Deep of Sovar, Milord. Your father has been summoned to deal with it.”
Terian saw Kahlee’s eyes widen, he suspected in direct response to his own. He fought his way through the sheets to the edge of the bed and let his unclad feet hit the rug, the small fibers digging into the skin as he hurried to dress.
“Do you think it’s an uprising?” Kahlee asked from the bed.
“I don’t know,” Terian said, slinging his underclothes on at a rapid pace. He jumped into his pants both feet first, sliding his way into them before throwing his shirt on. “I kind of doubt it’s a veredajh that’s gotten out of control if they’ve called Amenon Lepos to come running to the Back Deep.”
Kahlee held her tongue for a moment before responding, giving Terian time to start fastening plates into place. “How bad could it be? If it is an uprising?”
“I don’t know,” Terian said. “I think the fish supply has returned to normal, so I’m not sure what it is, exactly.” He held his tongue before saying anything more. But if it’s an uprising, you can bet Shrawn is behind it somehow.
Kahlee got out of bed as Terian put his breastplate on and began to fiddle with the straps. “You have servants for that,” she said, draping herself with a robe.
“Yes, and I’m sure Guturan would have thought to send them in—if Guturan wasn’t panicking right now,” Terian said, trying to get the straps to fasten.
“How can you tell he’s panicking?”
“Because he didn’t send in the servants,” Terian replied, almost mumbling as he fastened the last strap. He grabbed his helm and slid it carefully onto his head before securing his axe on his back. “Go back to bed.”
“If it’s all the same,” Kahlee said, sounding a little irritable as he reached the door, “I’ll likely join your mother in the foyer to await your return.”
Terian stopped at the door, hand on the frame, holding himself back. He shot a look over his shoulder. “Why?”
Kahlee stood with her arms crossed over the cloth robe. She was straight-faced, without an eyebrow out of place. “Because it is expected.”
Terian felt a hint of chastening in the way she said it and tried to decide how to respond before ultimately giving up and throwing himself through the door without uttering the one that came to mind. So long as it’s not because you love me.
He nearly collided with his father in the hall but dodged narrowly. “Guturan woke you,” Amenon said without prelude.
“You didn’t think he’d let me sleep through this, did you?” Terian said, falling in like a shadow, a step behind his father. “Is it an uprising?”
“Too soon to tell,” Amenon said stiffly, “but suffice it to say there is some act of rebellion taking place at present. Arms have been raised, hostages taken—all in a communal house. Some of the residents of the home have fled, some from neighboring homes have taken up arms and joined the troublemakers.”
“I notice you didn’t say ‘insurrectionists,’” Terian said.
“No reason to start a panic,” Amenon said, “and loose use of words like that is sure to set fire to the tinder of gossip throughout Saekaj and Sovar.”
They burst out the front door to the waiting carriage, Terian sliding in just behind his father before shutting the door himself. The driver lashed the vek’tag into motion and they stuttered down the drive over the rutted roads. The sound of running water drew Terian’s eyes out the window of the carriage to the chimneys in the rock overhead, where water sluiced down from the ceilings. “Not a great day for this.”
“How’s that?” Amenon said, and looked past Terian. “Light of the sky! A torrent from above? What would you care to wager that the Back Deep is already under an inch of water and rising?”
“All your money and none of mine,” Terian said. “You didn’t get word that it was flooding?”
“No,” Amenon said, stiffly again. “I had suspected my messages of late have been somewhat compromised, but to see water flow of this sort with my own eyes and not receive a single word of warning …” His brow creased, and adopted a dark expression. “Someone shall be flayed for this.”
“Sounds like fun,” Terian said, shaking his head. The noise of falling water was a dull roar, but something else seemed to reach his ears, something faint. He sat against the carriage’s hard seat, shifting in his armor as the sound grew louder. It was almost a chattering, something on the order of the sound of Shrawn’s ball, but with the noise of the water to give it depth.
He took a deep breath through his nose and caught the scent of the vek’tag, the earthy, deep aroma of the spiders pulling the carriages. The carriage pitched in a sudden, jerking slowdown, and the driver yelled ahead, shrieking at the vek’tag to stop.
Terian hit the side of the carriage with a spiked pauldron, chipping wood from the surface as he cursed. He stuck his head out the window once he’d righted himself, and the cool cave air came through his facial slit. “Son of a bitch.”
“What is it?” He could hear his father scrambling to look out the other window.
The square of Saekaj was filled with a crowd—servants, women and men standing from end to end. The houses had emptied, and people in nightclothes were thronging in the streets. Hands were being wrung, and Terian could hear the shrieks of children and the high, fearful tones of women and men. “They think it’s started. The big one. They think Sovar is rising to destroy them.” He looked over the crowd, packed tightly in the streets, blocking access to the square, to the roads that would carry them down to Sovar, where they could conceivably quell the panic already in the streets. Before his eyes, Terian watched a bulky woman in fancy nightclothes faint dead away in the middle of the lane, her companions useless to prevent her fall.
“I think the tinder has already been lit,” Terian said to his father, staring at the chaos on the streets of the upper city. “And the gossip has already spread in a way far beyond what we could have hoped for.”
“Indeed,” Amenon said ruefully, “and these fools have no idea that by their mere stupidity, they may be allowing the very thing they fear the most to grow enflamed enough to consume them—and us—in the fires.”
Chapter 43
It had taken three hours to reach Sovar. Three tense, terrible hours in which Terian and his father h
ad hung out the open doors of the carriage, screaming profanities at the nobles clogging the streets of Saekaj. After the square they were aided in this by Sareea, who hoisted herself into Terian’s side of the carriage after elbowing her way through a knot of men carrying dueling canes. She showed little remorse in her blows, Terian thought as he watched her, and when one of the dandies spoke against her she silenced him with a punch followed by a Lockjaw curse.
The down slope of the tunnel to Sovar was a steady flow of running water. The carriage slid every few feet, going diagonally until the driver managed to straighten it back into the ruts. It bumped over the hard rock and slowed when it hit clay and sediment. Amenon’s expression grew blacker and blacker as they descended.
When they reached the gates of Sovar, the army was already visible in the streets. There were guards on the corners and not a civilian in sight. Helmeted heads dominated the avenues, columns and formations filling the plazas and squares around the Front Gate. As they followed the road, lines of soldiers moved aside for them. The running water was not so bad here, at least not until they reached the slope in the Mids that led to the Back Deep.
The straight-line street they took was a disastrous, sloping waterfall. Pooling water was visible at the bottom, and Terian cringed as he kept his head out the window. He could see an entire regiment of the army marching along the cross streets, a show of force so blatant he wondered if the message was anything less than obvious.
Terian glanced up at the windows and cloth walls of the buildings to see faces staring down at him, peering from the cracks. I think they get the message. Otherwise they’d be out here. “Not exactly the full-scale uprising they think it is in Saekaj, is it?”
“Perception may veer wildly from reality but when the perceivers help control reality, it’s best not to let the misperception linger too long,” Amenon said darkly.
Their progress halted at the bottom of the hill. Water stood in the streets like a small-scale version of the Great Sea, dark water that barely revealed the sandy roads beneath it. “We walk from here,” Amenon pronounced. Sareea dismounted out of the carriage before Terian could even remove himself from his seat. She pushed him aside, making no attempt to be gentle, her armor clashing with his as she made her exit. The splash of her boots on the ground coincided with a surge of annoyance that flushed his face.
He followed her out, but she was already trailing his father on her way down the street. “Find the commander in charge,” Amenon said, and Terian watched Sareea immediately veer toward the nearest cluster of soldiers, a patrol of four standing on the nearest street corner. They straightened to attention as she approached, and Terian watched her speak in quiet tones to the patrol leader.
“She is quite the find, isn’t she?” Amenon asked.
“She’s quite something,” Terian said.
“Hrm,” Amenon said, his strides long and making dramatic splashes with every step. “I should think you’d be singing her praises, given that you’ve made her your mistress.”
“Wouldn’t want to compromise my ability to lead with any sort of emotional attachment,” Terian said, as seriously as he could. His father glanced back at him, as though trying to see if he were speaking in jest. Terian gave no sign.
“I see,” his father said and nodded once, sharply. “An admirable attitude. Still and all, the two of you seem to have handled things well enough thus far. Do not give me cause to change my opinion.”
Terian rolled his eyes. The man spreads warnings even when they’re unneeded; I know full well what happens if she and I become a problem. One of us gets the axe, possibly literally. Hopefully it’d be her, but I wouldn’t care to lay all my gold on that bet.
“The commander is this way,” Sareea said, returning to them. The splash of her boots in the standing water sent beads of water onto Terian’s armor, prompting a flash of annoyance in his head. “He’s set up a field headquarters in one of the buildings ahead.”
“Very well, then.” Amenon broke into a jog, and Terian fell in behind him, Sareea keeping pace at his side.
The water made for slower going, and Terian could feel the drag against his feet. This will be like a fight in a swamp. Clearly I’ve been neglecting my physical fitness. He glanced at Sareea, and saw the light of humor in her eyes as she watched him—she’s got a jest on her mind about how our exertions together have clearly not conditioned me for this. Predictable.
They passed two blocks of buildings, thin structures of wood framing with cloth pulled over them as a facade. Some of them had real walls, made of plaster or slabs of stone. Banners dyed wild colors hung off the shop fronts, which blended with the residence houses here in the Back Deep.
Ahead, Terian saw a figure in a white robe lingering outside one of the houses. He was next to another, a large man in armor. Dahveed and Grinnd. Terian looked up and saw Bowe sitting in a careful knot with his knees crossed, hanging in the air.
Where is Xem?
“Hello, General,” Dahveed said with a sharp bow. “We have a situation unfolding.”
“I gathered as much from the urgent missive,” Amenon said, slowing to a walk as he approached. “And the Third Army being deployed here in Sovar.”
“Aye, sir,” Dahveed said, a little more formal than Terian was used to from him. “They have the building surrounded. We have other forces in route from Saekaj—”
“This doesn’t even look to fit the description of a small-scale insurrection,” Amenon said, frowning at the building across the way. It was silent, absolutely silent, the cloth walls of the upper floors not even moving. Drips of water fell from the porous ceiling above. “Why haven’t we stormed the building and killed everyone in it?”
“There could be innocent people in there,” Terian said quietly.
“Best not to take chances with these things,” Amenon said without looking back, “lest you allow some marauder to survive.”
“They have a wizard,” Dahveed said.
There was a stark silence for a moment. “That … changes things,” Amenon said.
“Indeed,” Dahveed said, his hands crossed in front of him and hidden in his robes. “I should mention, just for the sake of it, that they do have women and children in the building.”
“That’s a shame,” Amenon said with no more interest than he’d shown when water had begun to splash on his armor. Bastard, Terian thought. “The good news for us is that they’ve chosen to deploy their wizard at a moment when his fire spells are going to be of minimal effect. Everything in this place is soaked.”
“Would it matter if it wasn’t?” Terian asked. Amenon shot him a look. “I wasn’t criticizing, just pointing out that we have a task in front of us regardless of the weather.”
“It matters,” Amenon said, not removing his glare. “Very well. I’ll consult with the commander while you lot make plans to storm the building. We need to make sure that wizard does not escape. Bowe,” he glanced up at the druid, “make ready to kill him at distance if need be, understand?”
“He will not see the spell that kills him,” Bowe said quietly.
“We do have other spell casters en route,” Dahveed said. “I have the Commonwealth of Arcanists and Gathering of Coercers sending several of their instructors to assist us—”
“They will be hours in arriving,” Amenon said abruptly. “Saekaj is in utter chaos at the moment. We cannot afford to wait for wizards and enchanters. We do this now. If necessary, we burn the building with the wizard in it.” He gave one last look at each of them and then shouldered his way through the door into the army headquarters.
“That may not be enough to stop the wizard,” Bowe said through slitted eyes that Terian could barely see from below. “I will ensure he does not escape.”
“What else is inside?” Terian asked. If we’re going to do this, best to do it right.
“No idea,” Dahveed said, and Terian could sense his discomfort. “We only know there’s a wizard because
he hurled a spell at us.”
“He could teleport if things get dicey,” Terian said. “Just disappear out of here.”
“No, he couldn’t,” Dahveed said. “The Colonel in charge of this regiment brought with him an iridescent sphere that prevents teleportation out of Sovar. The wizard—and any others within those walls—are trapped.”
“Trapped means dangerous,” Sareea said. “Like a cornered rat, they’ll strike at anything.”
“And a cornered wizard means their strikes are somewhat more effective than tiny claws and teeth,” Dahveed said.
“Will they be expecting someone to come from the air?” Grinnd asked, breaking his silence.
“Depends on how much of a veteran their wizard is—hell, how many veterans they have in total,” Dahveed said. “Anyone with any experience serving in an army knows that when you bring spell casters into a fight, the rules change dramatically. Assume they know we’ll come at them from all directions, including above.”
“Army moves in and seals off the ground exits,” Terian said, staring at the building across the street. It looked to be in shambles, just another dilapidated shanty home in Sovar that had probably seen its best days centuries earlier. “We crash through the plaster wall there,” Terian pointed to indicate one of the solid walls, “but also come in through the second floor simultaneously with three floaters through that cloth wall,” he gave a nod to Bowe, “and try to get this wizard before he causes any damage. He goes down, we mop the rest up.”
Amenon reemerged from the door of the headquarters, the sharp spikes jutting off his armor cracking against the plaster frame and dislodging grey powder. “I heard the gist of what you are proposing and I approve. Grinnd will lead the way on the ground, I will follow with Dahveed behind me. Sareea, Bowe and Terian will strike against the second floor.”
“How soon will the army start to move into position?” Terian asked as he felt the effects of Falcon’s Essence take hold, pulling his feet above the surface of the water.
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