by Kate Elliott
“It goes against all tradition,” objected the old marshal.
Commander Joss’s eyes widened as he noticed the blood on Nallo’s leathers. “Masar, if we are all dead, then how will our traditions have served us? The ones who command the Star of Life army have cleansed tradition from their ranks. We need not kill tradition to fight them, but we must change to survive. Do you want Nessumara, and this branch of Copper Hall, to fall to the army? To suffer what High Haldia and Toskala have suffered?”
The outlander captain raised a hand. His gaze skimmed over Nallo and Pil in a way that made her stand up straighter; Pil said nothing, his gaze lowered as if he were ashamed, although what in the hells he would have to feel ashamed of Nallo could not imagine.
The captain lowered the hand and tapped his own chest. “Listen. I can move my army quickly. They’re trained for exactly such a contingency. But I desperately need your support, and your support in particular, Marshal Masar, before I lay my plan before Nessumara’s council tonight.” He paused, brushing the back of a hand along his beard, his gestures neat and graceful. “We must strike while the people of Nessumara and Toskala and High Haldia and the entire countryside along the immense length of the River Istri still possess the will to resist. We must strike before they begin to prefer any form of peace, however onerous, to continued suffering.”
The marshal dropped his gaze like a man beaten in hooks-and-ropes. An agony of sorrow shuttered his eyes. Abruptly, Commander Joss touched him on the arm in a manner meant to comfort.
“There was nothing you could have done,” Joss said. “Do not blame yourself when the blame must rest on those who forced the choice on you.”
“Why do you people hesitate?” Nallo cried, the words pouring out before she knew she meant to say them. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s lost a kinsman? Don’t you understand I’m standing here today because that cursed army killed my husband and orphaned my helpless stepchildren? Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if there had been reeve wings fighting along West Track. I would rather fight and kill these gods-rotted bastards than sit around on my clean bench and moan about tradition while folk are being slaughtered, women assaulted, villages burned, children enslaved. But who am I to know? Just a cursed hill girl, born to goat herders, married against my will to a kind man who treated me decently despite my bad temper. I’d be dead if it weren’t for the Qin.” The marshal was actually cringing, but that didn’t make her feel the least stirring of shame for yelling at the sodden old fool. She fixed her glare on the captain, who watched her with unsettling interest. “My thanks to your men.”
“Reeve Nallo, isn’t it?” the captain said. “Yours is the daughter—she must be your stepdaughter, for you’re not old enough to have birthed her—who turned down my good chief’s marriage offer in favor of a mere tailman.” He laughed, looking at the commander. “Bring Reeve Nallo to the council meeting. She’ll argue our case convincingly.”
“Because she’s right,” whispered the old marshal. “How many more must perish while we hang on to what is already dead?” With an effort he mastered himself, pushing up on his cane to regain some of the stature years and grief had taken from him. Behind that seamed visage trembled a younger man, the body and strength he had once worn: upright, pious, fair, or believing himself to be. “We believed the past could protect us. We believe that if we serve justice, then all will be well. But it isn’t true, is it? Without order, there can be no justice. If the stubborn fools on Nessumara’s council do not listen, then they deserve to have their beautiful city pillaged and burned and their corpses tossed into the channels to feed the fish!”
“Eiya!” began Joss. “I grieve with you, Marshal, knowing your sorrow at losing your grandchildren and family, but surely you cannot wish upon others what you have suffered.”
“It is natural to be angry,” said the captain. “But let me admit that I have taken part in the sack of cities.” His tone was so thoughtful and calm it was impossible for Nallo to imagine him engaged in any such horror, yet on he spoke, not making light, but making sense. “I do not think even so that the folk in those places deserved what befell them. They were merely unfortunate enough to be there. If any should suffer, it should be their leaders, and yet too often those who rule can buy their way out of worse grief while those who live ordinary lives receive the full blast of the storm. How do you think I got my beautiful wife? I saw her in the market one day, and because I could, I took her. That she proved to be much more than even I had imagined is not to my credit, but to hers.”
A horn’s sad voice raised in a long plaint, and faded.
“That’s the call to council,” said the old marshal.
• • •
NESSUMARA’S COUNCIL WAS divided: Surrender and beg for protected status. Buy off the army with coin and supplies. Fight, despite not having enough men to defend the city after so many had been killed in the first battle nor an experienced commander to lead them.
It was pretty cursed obvious, thought Joss, that their arguing rose as much from the strain of a months-long siege as from any significant differences of opinion. They quieted respectfully when Marshal Masar braced himself on his cane to speak.
“The army has been spread out over Istria and Lower Haldia for weeks, but now they’re joining forces and marching on Nessumara. You’re cut off from the countryside, which itself has been pillaged and burned. While the delta protects you to the south and the swamp forest to the north, the eastern marshland is very dry. Lord Radas’s cohorts don’t need the causeway to advance from the east. This army has raised fifteen full cohorts. They are turning on you now and they mean to fight until they win.”
His words fell hard; afterward, all sat in silence. Lamps hissed, a familiar and almost comforting sound. The council speaker carried an infant in a sling at her hip, its sleeping face illuminated by a pool of light. She took the speaking stick from Masar and offered it to Anji. “Sobering words, Marshal. How can anyone defeat fifteen cohorts, Captain?”
“I will not fight a pitched battle unless I can win it,” said Anji in his cool voice, the one people listened to because they mistook it for that of a man who harbors no strong emotion. “There are many ways to win a campaign. If you sit here, you will starve even if you aren’t overrun. Those of you who have ships can flee, as long as you are not caught and thrown into the sea. But in the end, the shores you run to will be overrun in their turn. A commander who can raise fifteen cohorts will raise more. He will take your sons as soldiers and your daughters to serve those soldiers—”
As voices swelled, people angrily protesting, the baby woke and began to fuss. Anji crossed to the council speaker and offered to take the child, a pleasing baby of about the same age as Atani. After a hesitation, she handed over the infant. Anji had a deft arm, and as he paced, the little one quieted and, likewise, the assembly fell silent, watching him calm the baby.
He kept pacing, his tone incongruously pleasant and his aspect, with the babe in arms, so harmonious that his words fell like rocks dropped from a clear blue sky. “I ask you to hear me out. The Hundred is not like the rest of the world. Let this army overtake you, and you will discover you have far less control over your lives than you had before. Your sons will be forced to join as soldiers, or be killed. Your daughters will be raped. Your temples will be burned. Your coin and your children and your possessions and food stores will be stolen. You will be their slaves, because they will hold the sword. They are commanded by cloaks—whether demons or corrupted Guardians—who cut right into your heart. Who can kill you with a word. Is that what you want? As long as a single one of those cloaks walks on this earth, they have the power to raise another cadre, another company, another cohort. Another army.”
He shifted the now happy baby to his other arm so he could hold the speaking stick like a sword. “Or do you want to fight? Because the only army that can defeat them now is an alliance of all those remaining who do not want to suffer under their rule.”
&n
bsp; The baby babbled in cheerful reply to Anji’s brutal words. Was the man brilliant, or did he simply miss his son?
Joss scanned the assembly; this tidy speech had frightened the council more than the very events and consequences they had seen with their own eyes. People were strange that way. They pretended their bags of rice and bins of nai flour weren’t almost empty, sang tales to wish away the news of spoiled harvests or a trade ship gone missing. And then the storm would hit, and they weren’t prepared.
Yet was he any different? Sometimes he felt he was hooked into harness but held no jess, at the mercy of winds and wings, so far above he could watch the land unfolding beneath and yet never be touched by it. Until a baby’s babbling set into relief the harsh reality of the situation.
He rose. He’d been quiet all evening, and Anji stepped back to give him the speaker’s stick. “Listen, I know a few of you remember me from when I was a young reeve stationed at Copper Hall on the Haya shore.”
Some cursed woman in the back benches whistled admiringly, and folk did chuckle, but this time he did not blush. It was good they remembered him. It gave him a weapon.
“I was known as a reckless young man. I lost a woman I loved, another reeve.” Who is a Guardian now, having died to protect you gods-rotted fools. Yet after Anji’s talk of cloaks and corruption, he must speak circumspectly. “She was killed twenty-one years ago, and I am pretty cursed sure she was killed by men under the command of Lord Radas. Why do I tell you this? Because I got in a hells lot of trouble when I was a young reeve. I broke boundaries, I flew to Guardian altars looking for answers, and in the end I was disciplined and sent to Clan Hall. In the end, I told myself my elders were right, that I was walking where I wasn’t meant to go. But now I ask myself: What if we had understood what was going on sooner? If we’d made more effort to figure out why Herelia and Vess kicked out the reeve patrols. If we’d paid more attention to villages who cut themselves off from the assizes. If we had bothered to notice that young men were vanishing, that the settlements around Walshow were growing. If we hadn’t avoided it then, maybe we wouldn’t be in this terrible situation now. Do we keep avoiding the truth? Or is it time to accept that this is no tale, this is no chance event. Like the orphan girl in the Tale of the Guardians, we cannot live in the world we grew up in. We have to ask the gods for the strength to change things. It is time to go to Indiyabu, as the orphaned girl did. Maybe you say, Indiyabu is just a tale, a place long since lost to humankind. But it is also a place in our hearts, a place where we find the courage to do what we must.”
Suddenly the air seemed too thick to breathe. His skin burned, and his hands and forehead went clammy. “How long must this talk go on and on when we don’t have a choice?” he demanded, and heard that he had spoken aloud what he’d meant only for his thoughts.
Anji handed the baby back to its grandmother and pulled his riding whip from his belt, pulling its length through his hand like a man impatient to ride. “Honored council members, I cannot wait while you chew through all your fears and hopes and suspicions. At dawn, Commander Joss and I leave to continue our scouting. Then he’ll return to his hall and I to the army. This is a dire situation. We are weak, and they are strong, but their strength is also their weakness because they do not believe anyone can fight them, much less defeat them. If we go our separate ways, then in the end, we will all fall into the shadow. But if we act together—” He raised his riding crop, slashed it once for emphasis in the air, its hiss cutting into their fears. “—we can triumph. I have said every word that I can say. To go on discussing it is to pretend words will win this war. Some wars, words can win. Not this one.”
He gestured. Sengel and Toughid turned to make sure the path was clear. To Joss’s surprise, Masar tottered after him to show which course of action he favored. So Joss rose as well. Nessumara’s council members called after him in desperate voices to stay, to talk more, and it was Nallo, who had been standing in silent attendance through the meeting, who spoke.
“Go ahead and talk yourselves to death,” she snapped, a parting shot as they walked out. “Just send someone to let us know when you’ve all expired so we’ll know we can finally get something done.”
BEFORE DAWN THE council sent a messenger to Copper Hall: Nessumara would ally with Olo’osson. Joss saw something he’d have sworn he would never see: Anji severed his faithful guard Sengel—Joss had actually never seen Anji without Sengel standing within sight—and left him in charge of Nessumara’s defenses.
The hells.
It was like that instant when your eagle shifted, and you knew he was about to dive: the fight was on.
34
A WANING GIBBOUS moon shone over the promontory of Law Rock. The River Istri streamed south, a ribbon glistening under the pearlescent light. A lantern winked on the river, but although Joss scanned the darkness, he did not see it again.
“What do you think of our outlander captain?” Peddonon asked. “He strikes me as a cautious man. He keeps his guard close. Yet the Qin seem to haul around some odd notions, and hold to them pretty rigidly.”
“They’re disciplined,” said Joss. “It’s an admirable quality. That Anji is cautious makes me think better of him. If he were rash, I would think him likely to leap into a clash he could not win just out of recklessness. But he’s got something to lose, should he fall and die. An infant son, and a cursed beautiful young wife.”
“So everyone says,” said Peddonon with a smile, “although I’m not the right man to admire her. Of more interest to me is that folk say she’s a cursed clever merchant, who drives a brutal bargain. I’d say she shares that quality with her husband.”
Joss leaned against the polished wood railing that surrounded the thatched-roof shelter built over the upright slab of rock—the actual stele on which the law was carved—whose base was buried in a trough filled with packed earth. Lamps hung from each corner of the shelter, although these days only one of the four was lit. It burned all night, of course. No matter how little oil they had, one lamp must always burn at Law Rock.
“Sometimes we only look at the surface of things, forgetting what substance lies beneath.”
“Poor Joss. Women whistling at you again?”
“Eh, it’ll take a better insult than that to hurt me. Since when can a Fox’s nip harm a handsome Ox?”
“Since the Ox got too slow to move out of the way. If you need a walking stick, just let me know. I’m a fair hand at carving.”
“That’s one word for it, so I hear.”
“Aui!” The younger reeve laughed. “A hit!”
“I’ve stored up a lot more insults in my very long and very old time. You’ll never defeat me that way.” Yet his mood clipped his smile. He tried to read the words bitten out of the rock, but one lamp did not provide enough illumination. “I’m just thinking about the law, and about Guardians.”
“The captain calls these cloaks demons, but what you say makes more sense, that they’re corrupted. Although the hells what sense there is to be made of Guardians becoming corrupted I could not say. I just don’t know what to think.”
“What if Guardians could be killed?” Joss asked, keeping his tone flat.
“They can’t be. Anyway, I’d say that would be a cursed thing to do, wouldn’t you?”
“What is this Star of Life army, if not cursed? Could you kill a Guardian, Peddo, if there was a way to do it? If it meant saving others?”
Peddonon glanced around. The shadowed figures of two firefighters stood at the guardpost on the farthest spur of the promontory, too far away to overhear. Behind, on Justice Square, a lamp burned to mark the entrance of the reeve compound; there was another at the barracks porch and a third at the warehouse entrance where two militiamen stood guard. Law Rock’s defenders now consisted of eighteen reeves and two cadres of fighters, and most of them were loitering outside the council hall. At dusk, they had hauled up an ostiary and four other holy priests in the basket at the hidden cliffside so that these digni
taries from occupied Toskala could meet with Anji. The priests, the captain, the commander, and the rest had talked for quite some time, until Anji had called for a break in the proceedings so folk could stretch their legs, drink, and pee. Joss had taken the chance to contemplate Law Rock.
“That’s a cursed odd question,” mused Peddonon. “I can’t say—it’s hard to even imagine—it would be like burning a temple, wouldn’t it? What makes you even think of it?”
As Anji had said, they could not tell anyone unless they were absolutely sure that person would act immediately and succeed on his first attempt. So Joss let it go. “Lord Radas wears a cloak and commands the Star of Life army. He’s no holy Guardian, not judged by his actions. So how do we defeat him?”
“In alliance, just like Captain Anji says.” He gestured toward Justice Square. Lanterns swayed where Anji, in company with the priests, walked back from the balcony overlooking the occupied city. “Do those soldiers who attend Anji ever sleep?”
“I wouldn’t know. I was cursed surprised when he left Sengel at Nessumara. I would have been less surprised had he cut off a hand and given it orders to coordinate the delta militia. That’s Toughid to his right. Tohon, the other fellow, is one of the solidest men I have ever met.”
“A bit old for me, but good-looking in that outlander way.”
“Don’t you ever stop?”
“Not until I cross the Spirit Gate,” said Peddonon with a grin. “And, I pray, not even then.”
They began to walk back, sticking to a path that cut between strips of raised garden. The earth filling the troughs had looked pale in daylight, more grit than soil, but they were cutting it with night soil and leavings from the kitchens to strengthen it in the weeks before the rains.