Syr Ippeas had found a place to sit, at the very edge of the sabre grass where it grew to the base of the old breach.
“Careful, there are razor ants,” Aranthur said.
Ippeas nodded. “I led the assault here.” He pointed into the tall grass. “I crawled right up the tongue of grass. The ants were everywhere.”
Aranthur sat next to him.
The silence went on for a long time.
“I feel as if I went on a trip and I didn’t come back,” Aranthur said.
Ippeas nodded. “I know that feeling.”
Aranthur frowned. “Is it all pointless?”
Ippeas was looking out over the sabre grass.
“You have friends—people who love you—comrades. Cling to them. They are your lifeline. Fight the urge to walk out on them. People can always help.”
“People,” Aranthur said. “I have killed so many people. It was never my intent.”
He looked out over the dirty ground, where just a day before, the Imperial Army had crushed the remnants of the besiegers, driving the survivors into the hills. The pursuit still went on. Aranthur knew what “pursuit” meant.
“But?” Ippeas’s mild eyes locked with his. “You have more to say. Say it.”
“I enjoyed it.” It wasn’t quite a sob. “By the Eagle, I killed them, and I felt…”
Ippeas smiled enigmatically.
“Like some sort of Dark god,” Aranthur confessed.
Ippeas put a hand on his shoulder.
“When I do something wrong, I struggle with why and how I did it. And there is always the temptation to believe that actually, I did no wrong. There’s a taste to that sort of self-deception—a sickly-sweet taste, like a children’s candy. You did not enjoy it. You are merely becoming accustomed to it, and you prefer victory to defeat, like all of us.”
Aranthur could see where his raging saar fire had fused some of the old black stone and charred the rest. Where his sihr had stripped the life out of the Dhadhi as if he’d been killing insects. He shuddered.
“I am tired of killing. I swear, I must find another way. Or I will become…”
Ippeas smiled. “That would be a noble thing. And in that, I hear the Lightbringer that you want to be.”
“I want to be—how can I be a Lightbringer? I cast the blackest fire.” He sagged. “And I revelled in it.”
Ippeas nodded. “Now you know the temptation.”
“You are a good priest, Syr Ippeas.”
Ippeas smiled. “In this case I am merely a comrade who has killed more innocents than you.”
Aranthur shook his head. “I feel… tired. I want it all to stop.”
Ippeas leant back. “Listen. The first time I was in battle, we were fighting very ordinary pirates, and one of them snapped a puffer at me—maybe ten paces away. And the bullet creased my armour and broke my wrist, and I remember thinking “He shot at me! But I’m… different! And people love me!”
Aranthur laughed, as he had had similar thoughts.
“But immediately afterwards, I was exhausted. Fear? Near death? My wound?” Ippeas shrugged. “Everything we know is under threat. Even if we triumph, a triumph none of us can foresee now, our world will never be the same. I’m tired too. But I will not stop, nor will my sword sleep in my sheath, until I am dead, or the Pure are destroyed. I see no remedy besides killing.” He shrugged. “The best I can do is to not love the killing, or the power to kill.”
Aranthur brushed a razor ant off his hand.
“You inspire me,” he said.
“Good.”
“You are a Lightbringer,” Aranthur said. “Aren’t you?”
Ippeas shook his head. “I prefer simpler choices,” he said after a moment. “I chose to commit myself to a saint, to a path, because I know so well what I would be if I didn’t find some… limits.” His mild eyes crossed Aranthur’s. “Unlike you, I actually like to kill. Every death I cause—it’s like a contest I have won. Yet I can still discern right and wrong…”
Aranthur met his eyes. Ippeas was waiting to say something; in fact, he put a hand on Aranthur’s shoulder to speak. And then his head turned, and he smiled, as if relieved.
“Now, you see that woman coming into the bastion?”
“Dahlia,” Aranthur said.
“Very lovely,” Ippeas said in a very un-celibate voice. “But what I mean is, I can tell she is looking for someone. And she is, herself, someone. Hence, I assume she is looking for either you or me.” Syr Ippeas stood and brushed razor ants off his hose. “General Tribane was summoning a military council.”
Aranthur nodded. “Thank you, Great Sword,” he said formally.
Ippeas glanced at him.
“You came out to commune with your own dead, didn’t you?”
Ippeas nodded. “I lost… a good friend.” He glanced at the sky. “Right about here.” He shrugged. “And I killed a great many helpless victims.”
“Oh, gods. Refugees?”
“No,” Syr Ippeas said. “No, they were soldiers. But when you have twenty years of training, perfect armour, and comrades, all the militia in the world are just so many lambs waiting for the knife. War is not a fair contest. War is terrible, deliberate murder. But you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Aranthur said.
Ippeas smiled. It was terrible, feral and bleak at the same time.
Two women with a wheelbarrow approached, and they glared at the two loafers in the shade.
“Let th’ Engineer tell ’ems to move,” said one in a thick Armean accent.
“We’re moving,” Aranthur said in Armean.
A moment later, Dahlia saw him.
“Both of you!” she said. “Alis told me to find you.” She smiled at Ippeas.
“Dahlia Tarkas, this is Syr Ippeas, Great Sword of the Magdalenes,” Aranthur said.
Dahlia bowed like a swordsperson, right leg back, knee almost touching the ground.
“Your servant,” she said.
Syr Ippeas bowed as deeply.
“Your humble servant.”
Aranthur had once thought that the courtesies of the aristocratic class were empty and foolish; then he’d aped them as protective colouring at school. But on a bastion, between peers, they were somehow fitting, as if, with their bows and courteous words, they rose above the smell of death and quicklime. He thought about Tirase, trying to make everyone an aristocrat.
Tirase, who’d apparently made quite a few decisions that were affecting Aranthur’s life.
“Let us go and attend the General,” he said, in the same courteous language. “It would never do to keep her waiting.”
Alis Tribane wore high boots and a black silk under-doublet over a snowy white shirt. Her feet were up, and she was writing on a lap desk. Around her were members of her staff; Syr Klinos waved at Aranthur as if they were old friends, and so did another staff officer Aranthur only dimly remembered. Coryn Ringkoat pushed effortlessly through the crowd of officers, Magi, and sailors to shake his hand.
Aranthur didn’t know half of the men and women present. He was introduced to Vanax Kunyard by Centark Uschar. Equus, also a Vanax, shook his hand and congratulated him on his promotion, as if it was a normal day at the great gate of the City.
“Well done, eh?” Equus said, twirling his mustachios. “Have you seen your commission, young Timos?”
“No, syr,” Aranthur admitted.
Equus grinned. His uniform was perfect: a scarlet doublet with tiny gold buttons; a small scarlet jacket that seemed to function as a half-cloak, lined in fur, on his shoulder; thigh-high boots as black as the General’s, and a tawny-gold fur busby with a green plume.
“And you brought Vilna back alive,” he said.
“He brought me back,” Aranthur said. “He was wounded in the Black Bastion.”
“Just so,” Equus said. “He’ll recover. He’s made of leather and steel.”
There were some thirty chairs at the long table, and then another hundred seats, benches
and stools around the outside wall of the room. Aranthur sat with Dahlia behind Equus. Ippeas sat close to Kallinikas; neither sat near the Vicar.
The General finished reading the dispatch she’d been handed, and then she took her feet off the table, stood up, and drank off a cup of white wine.
“Hetaeroi,” she said, using the ancient Ellene word for companions.
The soldiers stiffened to something like attention. The sailors nodded; the Magi stopped talking. She smiled up and down the table.
“We have won a second victory. It’s not a decisive victory, but as long as we hold Antioke, we make it virtually impossible for the enemy to strike in Masr. And while our opponent thinks that people are expendable, I’m going to wager that he’s running low on even the most expendable bodies.” She looked around. “That said, our scouts indicate that there is another army marching here. Long-range scouts—” and here she smiled at Aranthur—“detected them two weeks ago, and now we are contesting their approach.”
Her smile could only have been described as sinister.
“We will meet them here. But only after we’ve bled them for a hundred leagues. In the meantime, I need a massive lift of supplies from Masr. Capitana del Mar?”
The Megaran admiral stood.
“Majesty, I understand that there are foodstuffs in the Delta, but that Al-Khaire itself has… requested food. From the Empire.”
Tribane looked down the table.
“We have a nested set of problems—”
“Surely we can get food from Megara or Lonika?” Syr Vardar asked.
Tribane glanced at him. “The City is currently in a state of turmoil. An attempt was made on the Emperor and he is recovering; and I do not trust—”
“We are being cautious,” the Capitana del Mar said to Vardar. The admiral was sitting next to Myr Comnas, who nodded.
Vardar rose to his feet.
“General, isn’t it true that you have been ordered, directly, in the Emperor’s name, to take the fleet and army home?”
There was a sudden buzz of talk.
All eyes turned to the General. She smiled.
“If my cousin the Emperor so ordered me, I would ignore him. He’s not here and could not understand the situation.” She shrugged. “As it is, the order was signed only by a discredited Imperial officer whose recent behaviour suggests that he is not competent to command a quarter guard.”
Vardar remained standing. His brown skin mottled with fury.
“We are ordered home!” he shouted.
The General ignored him.
“We’re not going home while the Pure have an army in the field. And Atti is still in disarray—we’re all recovering from the event.” She raised an eyebrow at the admiral. “Can you fetch me food? We’ll need about fifty tons a day.”
“Lenos and Octos will have reserves,” the admiral said. “I need to work it out, and send out scout ships, and if possible I’d like the co-operation of the merchant marine.”
Lenos and Octos were islands—large ones, part of the Empire. Lenos was the location of the Imperial Heart of Stone, the source of the best kuria crystal, a rich island and a reasonable source of grain. Once again the admiral nodded to Capitana Comnas, who nodded slowly.
“We could help. We can lift huge amounts of grain or flour, but my goods would have to be warehoused and I need absolute promises of indemnities for my owners. I’m sorry, Majesty. I would like to make a ringing statement of loyalty, but the sums of money involved…”
Tribane nodded curtly. “I’ll find you indemnities, and a banker to cover them.”
The council moved on with painful slowness. Most of it was about food and water and finding horses, as the cavalry were using up horses almost as fast as the fleet used water. Aranthur went to sleep and Dahlia woke him with a tap. A little later, he found Dahlia’s head a weight on his shoulder, and listened to her snoring softly.
Twice Aranthur was asked to rise and speak, both times about matters in Masr. Both times, the Vicar smiled at him, as if he was one of the Vicar’s cronies. Equus and Kunyard were tasked in detail; the entire meeting began to devolve into minute logistical planning.
Myr Jeninas, Buccaleria Primas and chief of the General’s staff, rose to her feet. Her lungs were of brass and iron, or so it seemed.
“This general war council is at an end. All of the following will remain.”
She read off a list, which seemed to principally consist of Aranthur’s friends.
The senior officers rose, saluted, and left, followed by their junior officers, most of whom cast glances—curious, admiring, envious or anxious—at Aranthur and Dahlia, Sasan and Val al-Dun, and Jalu’d , who seemed unaffected by the siege, looking about himself curiously, like a small child in a tavern full of adults.
“I’ve never thanked you,” Aranthur said to the old robber, “for retaking the Black Bastion.”
Val al-Dun, known among the Safian refugees as “Il Khan,” was fifty. His skin was burnt the brown of an old tree’s bark, and his eyes were as bright as diamonds. Kati said that he was a famous bandit; Sasan said that he was utterly trustworthy.
Val al-Dun nodded. “Sasan said we had to fight the Pure.” He shrugged. “I owe them nothing. They tried to burn my mind.” He shuddered.
“He spent a few minutes under a subjugation,” Kati said. “When the Disciple broke the—I don’t even know what to call them—the ‘worship receptacles’ in the Black Pyramid, he was released.”
Aranthur was interested. “Why, I wonder? Because the Disciple died?”
“Died?” Kati asked. “It’s still alive, in the pyramid. I could feel it, until we got far enough away. It kept trying to subjugate me.”
Dahlia was taking notes.
“Why don’t you all sit?”
Tribane waved to Myr Jeninas and the last unwanted staffers were swept out of the room.
“This is a meeting of Cold Iron,” General Tribane said. “Which at this point might be called ‘the conspiracy to save the world.’” She looked at Aranthur. “Syr Timos, would you care to outline what we know?”
Aranthur sat up. “Majesty, I’m not sure I’m the best informed—”
“I’m quite sure you are,” Tribane said. “Outline the threats.”
Aranthur stood. He knew everyone present: Equus was still there; so were Syr Ippeas and one of the polemagi; the other people were all his companions and friends.
“Very well. First, in Masr, the breaking of the Black Pyramid threatens to release a flood of Apep-Duat that a reliable source refers to as a ‘ravening maw of chaos.’ One or more of these wraiths had opened the rift in reality that we are calling the ‘Forge of Darkness,’ which is growing. I think I can speak for the other Magi here present when I say that the crystal winds blow with increasing force every day.”
Dahlia nodded, as did the Weather Magos from the Rei d’Asturas, Ettore, and the Polemagos, who seemed unsettled.
Aranthur locked eyes with Myr Tribane.
“It seems to me that the first order of business must be closing the rift in the sky.”
“Give us the rest,” she said, from a serene face with lowered eyelids.
“General, I can’t speculate as to what has happened in the City, except that it must be bad.”
Tribane nodded. She sipped wine.
“In Ulama, a dozen assassins tried for the Sultan Bey. He was badly wounded, and the resulting search for traitors is doing more damage than the assassination did. In Megara, we do not know exactly what has happened to the Emperor—only that he is sick, and accusations have been made that he is not actually functioning. I’m worried that Roaris has concealed my orders about him and is actually trying to gain and hold power. I need to send a high-level messenger over his head.”
“Roaris,” Aranthur said. “ I remember that Drako asked Roaris to fix things…”
Tribane nodded. “Yes, it needs to be said out loud. It now looks possible that Roaris is an active enemy—maybe an independent
player, or maybe, worst case, a servant of the Pure.” She frowned. “I find that very difficult to believe. That he’s a Lion, yes, obviously. But a man can be a damned fool for power and not be a traitor.”
“Blessed Sophia! He’s my great uncle!” Dahlia said.
The Great Sword, Syr Ippeas, nodded.
“This would be terrible news if true. And I am a veteran not only of war, but of the bitterness of court politics. Majesty, could it not be simply that General Roaris refused to accept your orders from personal antipathy?”
“Totally possible. And yet, he knew almost every member of Cold Iron,” Tribane went on, speaking slowly. “So maybe everything is blown. Or at least, it may be blown. I have to worry about the worst case.”
“What do we do?” Sasan asked.
“I’m here to ask you. As a general, I’m the absolute commander of this expedition—I can even make treaties. But in Cold Iron I’m just another agent of change, hoping that someone will make the right decision.”
“Majesty, my role is almost purely military.” Sasan was on his feet. “I want to take all the Safians who will volunteer, and ride for Safi. With some eldritch support, I think that we can be a thorn in the Master’s side—and perhaps pull my country back from subjugation.”
“How many of the prisoners would go with you?” Tribane asked.
“All of them.” Val al-Dun stood up and joined Sasan. “We are done running. You only have to experience the Exalted once, up close, before you know what they are—a collection of live corpses.”
Kati also rose. “All of the Safians will ride against the Pure.”
“And for… occult matters?” Tribane asked.
“I’ll go,” Dahlia said.
“As will I,” said Kati, with a hard look at the blonde Byzas aristocrat.
Tribane put her chin in her hand.
“The Dhadhi in the assault tell me a great deal. They tell me that the Master is running out of bodies to do his fighting. They also tell me that while we covered Masr, however ineptly, the Master is now in full possession of the Altos and the Attian highlands. That and the recent attacks will force Atti into a defensive posture…” She sat up. “I think in terms of armies. The Master must have a main army—I believe it’s in the highlands, mopping up the poor Dhadhi.” She shook her head. “Anything you could do to shake the Master’s hold on Safi would be a godsend.” She raised an eyebrow. “I needn’t tell you it’s insanely dangerous?”
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