Crown Thief

by David Tallerman

  So what I was really asking was, Will you lead the giants into a battle where they can't fight back, but where their enemies will kill you all given the slightest chance?

  Saltlick had understood without me needing to spell it out, though; I knew him well enough to realise that much. He'd taken so long to answer that I'd even thought he might say no.

  He hadn't, of course.

  That only left the question of what possible help a battalion of pacifist giants could be against the most secure and heavily defended city this side of Pasaeda – another flaw in a plan that, even as we drew close to Altapasaeda, seemed to consist of little else. What hope did we have, when our greatest weapon was no weapon at all?

  On the fourth day, we broke free of Paen Acha, stepping from tree-lined gloom into bright sunlight reflected through endless-seeming seas of golden corn. There, barely visible in the distance, were the walls of Altapasaeda. They looked small at such a distance, fragile even, especially compared to the monolithic creatures marching behind me.

  Nevertheless, those fortifications were ten times sturdier than those of Muena Palaiya. They'd been built by paranoid northerners to withstand siege from an entire revolting population. Alvantes had stated with absolute certainty that not even the giants could smash those defences, nor were they tall enough to climb over. Even if we could somehow lay our hands on a job lot of giant-sized hammers, the giants would be cut down from the walls before they could make a breach. Perhaps they could shrug off a few arrows, but not the volleys that would be laid down by the forces under Mounteban's command.

  Yet seeing the walls like that – so distant, so frail – none of it seemed to matter. I couldn't bring myself to believe that any one of the giants couldn't snap that faraway thread of stone in two.

  "That's it," I muttered, more to myself than Alvantes riding beside me.

  He started. "What is?"

  "We've been tying ourselves in knots about what the giants can or can't do. But it doesn't matter. All that matters is what Mounteban thinks they can do."

  "They can't bluff their way into Altapasaeda, Damasco."

  "Maybe they don't need to."

  "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I, just yet. Give me time, though."

  We rode on – and deep in the workings of my brain, pieces began to click into place. The giants. Alvantes's guardsmen. Mounteban. Wasn't it just like a burglary? I'd never been much of a thief, but I'd gotten by, because nine times in ten it wasn't about being a good thief. If you could find weaknesses, work out how to exploit them, then the rest took care of itself. Everyone, everything had a weakness – and I thought I was beginning to see Mounteban's.

  By the time we drew close to the Suburbs, only one problem still eluded me. But it was the problem that all else hung upon.

  We'd already agreed we wouldn't try to disguise the giants. Thanks to Lupa, Mounteban knew they were coming. In the short term at least, the fear their presence would generate in his ranks outweighed the risk of his trying to move against us. Still, marching them into the filthy streets of the Suburbs would have been a melodramatic, not to mention muddy, business. Instead, we left them camped on the outskirts while we continued on to seek out Navare.

  We made no attempt to hide our own presence either. In fact, at Alvantes's suggestion, we rode by the most conspicuous route, even going so far as to risk the main road that ran against the edge of the city. Let Mounteban know we were here. Let him waste energy worrying over what to do about us, even as we plotted our move against him.

  At least, that was the theory. In fact, my eyes stayed nervously locked upon the battlements above. Every slight noise threatened to send me tumbling from my horse. I started every time a helmeted head peeked through the crenulations.

  Yet if I hadn't been staring at that impenetrable sheet of stone, I'd never have seen it. Not believing, I blinked hard, looked again, even rubbed a knuckle against my eyes.

  It was still there. My missing piece.

  Now I knew how a handful of guardsmen and an army of peace-loving giants could force their way into a fortified city, and how they might stand the tiniest of chances against its legion of defenders and its tyrant of a ruler.

  There was only one drawback.

  It meant I was breaking into Altapasaeda again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Before we hurled ourselves into untold danger, it was vital we knew what had been happening in Altapasaeda these last few days.

  That meant a visit to Navare, and that meant giving away Alvantes's one and only agent in the Suburbs. I could almost feel the resistance radiating off him as he hammered the reinforced door of Navare's shack.

  The resulting pause gave us ample time to imagine the worst. Then the door opened the barest crack – just enough to reveal Navare's crossbow, and the man himself just visible in the gloom behind.

  "Alvantes?"

  "Sub-Captain Navare."

  "I'd thought… there were rumours, and…" Abruptly, Navare's face split into a grin. "Well, what are you standing outside for, Guard-Captain?" In a hiss, he added, "You know they're watching, right?"

  "Of course," Alvantes whispered back as we brushed past.

  Inside, Alvantes briefly summarised the events of the last few days, avoiding most of our time in Ans Pasaeda and touching only lightly on our run-in with Guiso Lupa. His impatience for news was palpable, and I could see Navare recognised it too.

  "Our men haven't been discovered," Navare said, "though there've been a couple of close calls, all right. Three times now, Mounteban's sent men to check the barracks. Fortunately, they had scouts out, and got hidden in time. He's also had his thugs hunting through the Suburbs. He calls them 'inspections'."

  "But they haven't found anyone," Alvantes said – more to himself than as a question.

  "No. Well, not until now, anyway."

  Alvantes let the implied criticism slide. "What about the situation inside the city? No one's tried to move against Mounteban?"

  "He has things locked down tight," Navare replied. "He's lost ground in a few areas – some of the families, the ones who rely most on trade, are furious the gates are still closed. I think it's thrown his nerve, knowing we're out here, but not knowing where. On everything else, though, word is the families are toeing his line. Mounteban's been making all the right promises… and he's kept a fair few of them too."

  "How can he, with the city still shut off?" inserted Estrada.

  "Well, there's the thing," said Navare. "Lupa wasn't alone. Mounteban's been sending agents out to all the towns and the larger villages. Most times it's one of his lackeys, but a couple of the families have gone over wholeheartedly to his cause now. I heard a rumour Lord Eldunzi's set himself up in Muena Delorca."

  "Eldunzi?" I laughed. "He couldn't run a free water stand in a drought."

  Alvantes looked at me with surprise. "You know Eldunzi?"

  I realised I never had told the full story of my adventures in Altapasaeda. "We passed a little time together," I said. "It didn't end well. The man has a big mouth."

  "That's one of the kinder things the Muena Delorcans have been saying," agreed Navare.

  "Whatever Mounteban might have set up elsewhere," put in Alvantes, "the problem stays the same. Chop off the head and kill the body. None of this will hold together with him gone."

  "You have an idea?" The hope in Navare's voice betrayed the strain he'd waited under these last days.

  "Not me," Alvantes said. "Damasco thinks he can get us inside."

  I flushed – partly with modesty, more with a thrill of horror at the thought of what I'd somehow got myself into. "Getting in will be the easy part," I said.

  I realised Navare was staring at me expectantly. The heat in my cheeks deepened. Planning was one thing, taking part another, but being pushed into the role of leader was more than I'd ever bargained for.

  Then again… it was my plan.

  "All right," I said, "here's how we begin."

&nb
sp; Time was crucial. Darkness was one of the few things on our side, and we'd likely only have a single night before Mounteban concocted a scheme against the giants or shored up his defences.

  Navare set out minutes later to summon our forces waiting at the barracks. We would need them in the morning, and a little extra manpower wouldn't hurt in the meantime. Soon after he'd left, Estrada announced her intention to speak with Saltlick and the giants.

  "You should get some rest, Easie," she told me.

  The idea seemed preposterous. Then again, there was nothing I could do for the next few hours. I sat at the end of Navare's narrow cot bed and closed my eyes.

  The next I knew, I was waking to the sound of pounding upon the door. I watched Alvantes cross to it, listen carefully and then draw it wide. Outside, Navare stood flanked by half a dozen figures in hooded travel cloaks. I vaguely recognised them from amongst the Altapasaedan guardsmen; as they strode inside, I caught flashes of the uniforms they wore beneath their cloaks. Tonight they'd be acting in their official capacity for the first time in weeks, and I suspected that fact meant a lot to them.

  A few minutes later, the door nearly shivered off its hinges, with a crack like muffled thunder. My first thought was a battering ram; when the blow wasn't repeated, I realised the truth. Someone else was knocking, and only one person I knew could knock like that.

  Alvantes opened the door to reveal Saltlick squatted on his haunches, with Estrada stood beside him.

  "Ready," Saltlick rumbled, as if concluding a conversation started long since.

  Alvantes's only reply was a nod to his men. Together, they trooped into the night, Saltlick falling in behind.

  Estrada slipped inside and drew a chair from the room's small table. We sat in tense silence – until the first sounds of banging and clattering began a few minutes later.

  "It's started," she said.

  I nodded. "No going back now," I added – and wondered how true that was.

  For my plan to work, it was vital Mounteban know the giants were coming. For all that there were similarities, invading Altapasaeda wasn't a sly housebreaking in the depths of the night. The last thing it required was discretion. Only when I'd fully accepted those facts had the last details swum into focus.

  To anyone watching, the events taking place in the streets of the Suburbs over those next few hours would have looked much like the preparations for a war – a war of giant proportions. Estrada and I sat listening, far past the hope of sleep. I had a fair conception of what was going on outside. It had been my idea, after all. Still, just listening to the jarring shocks of noise from all around gouged at my nerves.

  I remembered my first sight of Saltlick, hunched in shadow, a monstrous living sculpture carved from the fire-lit darkness. I remembered how I'd watched the giants fight at Moaradrid's behest, their colossal forms indistinct amidst the rain and the half-light of sunrise. Unless his agents were blind and deaf, Mounteban knew the giants were coming. I thought about how on edge he must be by now, desperately struggling to keep control over frightened minions – and I couldn't but smile.

  My smile sagged. The night was almost done. It would be my turn soon enough.

  Estrada must have caught my expression. "You really don't have to do this, you know," she said. "Any one of Alvantes's men could go in your place."

  "I don't, do I?" Somewhere in the excitement of the last few hours, I'd managed to forget that simple fact.

  A knock on the door nearly separated me from my skin. When Estrada opened it to reveal Alvantes and Navare, I wasn't sure if I should feel relieved. Was their arrival a reprieve or the last stick for my funeral pyre?

  "The giants are ready," Alvantes said. "The remainder of the guard and the Irregulars have their orders. We're going to get into place now. Then it's up to you, Damasco."

  I barely suppressed a shudder. "About that…"

  I'd seen scorn for me so many times in Alvantes's eyes that I was astonished to realise it bothered me now. I'd certainly never felt the need to defend myself to him. Yet this time, I was actually frustrated when Estrada put in on my behalf, "I was just telling Damasco that he doesn't have to do this."

  As Alvantes considered, he pointedly looked at Estrada rather than me. "No. I suppose he doesn't."

  "If we're risking our lives," she added, "we should be sure we're doing it for the right reasons."

  Now it was Alvantes's turn to be defensive. "This is the right thing to do."

  "We're all agreed on that. Still, it shouldn't be for revenge. Not anger either. And definitely not for some king who let his family squabbles get out of control."

  Well, I thought, that's all of Alvantes's motives out then. Then I registered those closing words. "Family squabble?" I said.

  "You know what I mean," she replied. "If it hadn't been for Moaradrid…"

  "I understand how this is Moaradrid's fault. The invasion, turning the Castoval upside down, kidnapping the giants, I know all about that. And I'm hardly the King's greatest supporter; but I don't see how…"

  Estrada's eyes widened. "Wait. Damasco, are you really saying… you don't know, do you?"

  "Unless you tell me what you're talking about," I said, exasperated, "how can I tell you what I do or don't know?"

  "But what did you think it's all been about?"

  "What what was about?"

  The disbelief in Estrada's face came close to awe, as though she'd stumbled across a level of ignorance she could never have imagined. "He was Panchessa's son, Easie."

  Alvantes's face clouded. "It was never proved."

  "He was Panchessa's son," she said. "Everyone knew it."

  "Who was…"

  "Panchessa was stupid and irresponsible. Instead of owning up to what he'd done, he let his mistake fester into a civil war. Damn it, Lunto, don't you dare defend a king who ordered your father's death!"

  "How did you know…"

  "Wait," I bellowed. "Wait, wait, wait! Are you saying Moaradrid… that the King… are you saying Moaradrid was Panchessa's son?"

  Finally, both Estrada and Alvantes paid me a little of the attention they'd been reserving for each other. "There were rumours," said Alvantes, almost apologetically. Catching Estrada's eye, he added, "And they were most likely true. In his youth, before he assumed the throne, Panchessa spent some time in the far north – and with a certain chieftain's daughter. He denied it later, of course, and the Court backed him to the hilt. But it turned out Moaradrid was one indiscretion that wouldn't be ignored."

  "Hold on… this is ridiculous! It makes no sense."

  Yet even as I said it, a part of my mind was busily cataloguing the ways in which it made perfect sense. Stray moments came back to me, cast in an entirely new light. I thought of Moaradrid calling Prince Panchetto brother when I first saw them together, how I'd mistaken it for irony – just as I'd misinterpreted Panchessa's careless mention of his sons. I thought of Moaradrid's barely pent-up rage at the King, which I'd taken for mere tyrannical craziness.

  Well, he had been tyrannical and he'd certainly been crazy, but as the disowned bastard of a horse's testicle like Panchessa, I could see why he might have been a little righteously indignant. It was as if a distorted mirror had been held up to my image of the past few weeks, throwing it in strange new shapes, demanding I reconsider every small aspect to see what might have changed. Would I have made the same decisions? Would I have struggled so hard against Moaradrid if I'd known his true motives?

  I couldn't think about it. Not now. Not when there were other questions a hundred times more immediate. Like… "What about Mounteban?" I asked.

  Caught off guard, Estrada asked, "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, is he related to the King? A distant cousin, maybe? An uncle on the mother's side?"

  "Of course not."

  "Is he related to anyone? Alvantes, tell me he's not secretly your disowned half-brother."

  The look Alvantes turned on me would have curdled new milk.

  "Well then
," I said, "I can't speak for anyone else – and maybe it's not so right or proper – but my motive is wanting to make sure that bloated snake gets his due."

  After so much heated discussion, the hush following my proclamation lay heavy. Had I gone too far? Was the truth too unheroic for the likes of Estrada and Alvantes? It was Navare who eventually broke the silence. "He has a point," he said.

  Alvantes gave a tentative half nod. "Mounteban's had it coming for far too long."

  Estrada sighed. "You men."

  "You have to admit…"