by Sarah Remy
Baldebert scoffed. “Lino suggests nothing of the sort in his writings.”
“Never mind Lino,” snapped Mal. “When we can go straight to the source.” He indicated the dead necromancers. Baldebert blinked vaguely in their direction, unperceiving. Exasperated, Mal waved him off. “Get back, Admiral. Against the barn, if you will, and out of my way. We have three new allies. They were there, they know how it was done and you weren’t wrong—they’re not inclined toward forgiveness.”
“Fantastic.” Baldebert retreated. “Just so long as they understand you’re in charge.”
“They’re dead.” Amused, Mal selected a helm from the fence, fit it tenderly over the wounded skull. “I am not—yet.” And there in the open air, evening settling by way of purple shadows waking autumnal breezes, power sparking in his blood and setting aflame the yellow stone on his finger, Mal silently exulted. Life, he thought, had never been so sweet. “Let us begin.”
At his request one of the magi separated from her whispering companions. She stopped in front of the cooling forge, watching Mal expectantly. For the first time he noticed her phantasmal form wore a wound on the back of her head to match the hole in her disinterred skull. Dried gore crusted the shoulders of her black cape. Blood and brains matted her short hair. He suppressed a shudder. Her blue flame eyes flickered mockery.
You must tune the bones, she reminded Mal when he hesitated. Speak the binding cant and I shall do the rest. Or have you forgotten how the spell is worked, young man?
He didn’t appreciate her arrogance. “This spell hasn’t been worked for generations.” Near the paddock fence the magi stopped their whispering.
What, he wondered, had they expected would happen to the world once their kind was extinct? Did they suppose their secrets would be preserved?
“What are you called?” he asked.
Sensha, of the Black Coast. She appeared suddenly less certain. Absently, she put a ghostly hand to the back of her head. I am Queen’s Elite.
“Were,” Mal corrected. He placed the helmed skull in the dirt at her feet. She took a step away but then steeled herself and stood firm.
Remember to hold the boundaries, she said, blue stare riveted to the top of the helm. Else you’ll snuff me to oblivion. Better to be bones in a bag than nothing at all—
“Be quiet,” he ordered, stopping her mouth with a twist of power. Her brother and sister began to mutter again. They were uneasy, edging toward fearful.
“Now,” he continued, releasing Sensha’s tongue. “Speak the words to me.”
She did because he commanded it, though resentment made the words harsh when he thought they should have been musical. He committed the cant to memory—it wasn’t difficult, no more so than binding witch-light to a shinbone set in a cold room ceiling or wards to a sliver of femur buried beneath a cottage keystone, yet infinitely more elegant than the provisional spell he’d worked in the Bone Cave to bind Lane. It took more strength, much more than he had expected, but that was easily remedied. He fed Sensha to the working, bolstered her essence with what living magic he had to spare, and when that wasn’t enough, fed her the ghosts of her brother and sister, and for good measure added what remained of the burned magus tied to the cottage chimney on the other side of Holder’s barn. The magi struggled against his pull but the dead were nothing against the living. In an instant they were obliterated, and the Sensha machine stronger for their annihilation.
It was all Mal could do not to steal Baldebert’s living essence and add it to the mix. How much easier it would be to work the magic with more vital energy, how much more powerful the result?
Mal resisted temptation, though barely. He collapsed to his knees. The vocent’s ring on his finger dazzled his eyes. While he knelt on the ground, struggling to regain use of his senses, Sensha began her work.
Plucking components seemingly at random from the ironmonger’s piles, she began to build an Automata. Metal whirled through the air, dangerously close to Mal’s bent head. Talons walked themselves through crushed grass below his nose, soon followed by a length of heavy chain link, winding over the ground. A flock of finger-long spikes tumbled through the evening, rattling as they bounced off each other in flight. Near the barn door Baldebert’s steady swearing became a terrified moan.
When she was finished, the barnyard stood still and too quiet. Mal pressed the palms of his hands flat in the grass, lifting his head. The wards he’d placed around the forge were fallen, their glow demolished. He wondered if Sensha had taken their energy, as well.
Bracing himself on a fencepost, Mal rose to standing. He confronted his creation.
The Automata was beautiful in the way of unknowable things—the efficiency of the human heart, the vibrancy of plague through a lensed scope, the rush of deep water beneath a ship’s prow. And it was ghastly in the way of unbearable secrets—the whimper a man made before death when garroted from behind, the scream of a mind irreparably broken, the echo of a young man’s prayers for godly forgiveness gone unanswered.
Almost he could understand Baldebert’s prostrate terror.
But Mal did not indulge in fragility.
He clenched his teeth and crossed to stand within touching distance of Sensha’s ferric soldier. It was taller by a head than Lane’s monster, but less bulky. While Holder had strung together an original chassis in the likeness of a man, Sensha had pieced her form together with the enthusiasm of the demented. Beneath the barbute helm, the Automata’s cuirass torso was pierced through and then wrapped around with thick chain-link tentacles. It had no arms. It stood balanced upon a single jointed leg and clawed foot. Its iron thigh bristled with spikes.
The tentacle undulated lazily, curling and uncurling around the space where a man would have ribs. When it flexed, scythe-sharp iron talons opened and closed like flower petals responding to subtle changes in daylight.
Metal scraped when the Automata looked down on Mal. Witch-light burned in the barbute’s eye slit. It did not speak.
“Get up,” Mal croaked in Baldebert’s direction. The prince of Roue ignored him.
“Up!” Mal repeated, louder. His head whirled and he braced a hand on the ferric soldier to keep from falling. The Automata was icy to the touch. “Baldebert! Attend me!”
Baldebert raised himself from the ground unto his elbows. His cheeks were wet with tears.
“You’ll have to come to me,” he confessed. “If I were a lesser man I’d be long gone over the hills by now. I cannot come closer; if you held a blade to my throat I would not.”
Mal staggered toward the man. Baldebert wrapped him in a trembling embrace and dragged him, not into the barn, but around the corner and out of the Automata’s eye line. There they collapsed again. Baldebert rolled onto his back and stared sightlessly at the darkening sky. Mal pressed his cheek against grass and listened to the sound of the two Automata breathing.
“Well,” Baldebert managed after a time of silence. “I didn’t believe you’d manage it, in truth.”
“Nor I,” admitted Mal after another timeless lull. “It takes . . . more . . . than I expected. I’m afraid we’ll need quite a lot of source material.”
Baldebert choked on hysteria. “You mean angry ghosts.”
“Aye.” Mal rolled onto his side. He held up a hand, studied the dying fire in the stone on his ring. “Angry ghosts seem to work quite well.”
Chapter 16
Avani dropped her bag with a cry. Liam, busy polishing Morgan’s armor with handfuls of scrubbing sand, looked around in dismay.
“My lady?”
She didn’t reply. Standing rigid a few steps from the young earl’s tent, she appeared not to notice Liam or the dropped bag. Her mouth worked silently; she pressed fingers against her closed eyes.
Liam set aside the sand and rose to his feet. He didn’t want to jar Avani from whatever vision gripped her. Since they’d ridden out from the city five days earlier she was struck often with unexpected fits of what the Widow used to call augury,
though as far as Liam could tell Avani wasn’t seeing into the future, but back in the direction of Wilhaiim and Mal.
He’d surprised her once, the very first time it happened, when she’d been in danger of spilling hot porridge down her front. She’d startled, alarmed, from her waking dream and brought her wards up in a wall of silver fire at the same time, nearly setting Liam’s sleeve alight. After that they’d agreed he wouldn’t touch her but instead call out until she revived. It seemed to Liam a weak plan, especially as the fits were coming upon her more frequently as days passed.
“My lady,” he cajoled, taking another stride in Avani’s direction. “Wake up, now. You’re here with me and the rest of the royal cavalry, my lady, atop the white cliffs amongst scrub and heather, remember?” He snuck forward a second step. “Listen, hear the Maiden crashing below us, can’t you? And look, here comes his lordship, red in the face and riled. I suppose the constable’s given him another tongue lashing, the third in two days, innit it?”
“Liam!” Morgan rasped, abruptly stopping his forward march into camp. He was indeed red in the face, although Liam couldn’t be certain that was the constable’s fault. Morgan, a sensitive sort, was easily vexed by the simplest criticism. The young earl’s men were kind to his face but condescending when they thought he wasn’t listening. It was evident to everyone involved, especially Morgan, that they would have preferred his dead brother in his stead.
“What are you doing?” Morgan demanded. “We agreed it was safest to let Lady Avani alone when she was caught out of body!”
Out of body seemed an odd fancy to Liam who could clearly see the clench of Avani’s hands against her thighs and the roll of her eyes behind her lids. He squatted, picked up a medium-sized stone, and sent it whizzing through the air. He had astonishingly fine aim—the lancer in charge of their most recent training had remarked on Liam’s keenness many times already—and the stone hit Avani square on the shoulder exactly as he’d planned.
“Sir!” Morgan yelped, aghast. He launched himself in Liam’s direction as Liam reached for a second stone. For such a slight lad Morgan was surprisingly solid. He tackled Liam around the middle, employing one of Riggins’s favorite grappling holds. They tussled in the dirt, more for the excitement of their new station as Kingsmen than any real quarrel. Liam choked on giggles. Morgan, trying to land an elbow on Liam’s ribs and still avoid his damaged leg, socked him in the gut instead. Liam, whooping, bit his wrist hard enough to draw blood. Morgan’s curses turned salty as any sailor’s.
Bear, until then dozing in the shadow of the earl’s tent, roused and began to bark.
“Ai, Liam! My lord!” Tepid water drenched them both head to neck. As one they froze and lay still, afraid to look around. “What mischief is this?”
“Not mischief.” Liam swiped wet hair from his face. He prodded Morgan with his foot before sitting up. If they were about to have their ears blistered, he intended they’d do so together. “Practice. We’re supposed to practice every chance we get.”
“Aye, shooting and riding and throwing the lance,” retorted Avani, setting aside the water skin she had used to douse their enthusiasm. “Not rolling about hissing and biting like two pups.” She crossed her arms, looking down her nose at the both of them. Her eyes were clear again, her expression shrewd.
“My lady . . .” Morgan hopped to his feet. “Apologies. Only,” he continued hastily, “you were suffering one of your visions, understand, and Liam threw a stone even though we both expressly gave our word not to disturb you during augury.” He flicked an admonishing finger Liam’s way. “My squire needs to learn that word given is binding. He cannot just ignore direction as he sees fit.”
“He has a bad habit of doing just that,” Avani said. “You’re unlikely to break him of it any time soon.” But she winked Liam’s way as she retrieved her pack and slung it over her shoulders. “I’m going down the hill to check with Brother Absen at the healer’s tent. Unless you’ve need of me, my lord?”
Morgan demurred. The young earl had yet to relax around Avani; Liam wasn’t sure he ever would. The old houses hadn’t forgotten the magi’s betrayal and Wythe was one of the oldest still standing. Morgan had confessed to Liam that his grandsire, on the day Andrew had been installed as Renault’s vocent, had ridden all the way from Wythe to Wilhaiim for the express purpose of begging the young king to put the magus to the sword. The audience had ended badly, Morgan’s grandsire had not again set foot inside the white walls, and Wythe had been Renault’s most grudging subject ever since, obedient only insofar as to not give undue offense.
Avani whistled. Jacob stuck his head through the flap of Morgan’s tent where he’d taken to sleeping the days away as his wing slowly healed. Though Morgan claimed the raven muttered at night in his dreaming, Jacob had not spoken a word in public since the cavalry had left Wilhaiim, and Liam was glad of it. If a black-feathered bird was considered ill luck in battle, how much worse a black-feathered bird screaming broken king’s lingua?
Jacob hopped out of the tent and made his way awkwardly to Avani’s shoulder. She scratched his neck in greeting before arching a brow in Liam’s direction.
“My lord’s armor won’t scrub itself clean,” she reminded him. “The stew pot’s empty and we’re low on kindling. Either get yourself to the quartermaster for rations or find us some rabbit while you’re foraging wood.”
“Yes’m.”
She ruffled his hair as she left camp. Liam took the gesture of affection with better grace than usual. He watched after as she made her way down the hill through Wythe’s strictly ordered tent garrison. A few men and women called out in acknowledgement as she passed. Many more did not. Wythe’s prejudices were not confined to the countess and her son.
“Are we to now pretend it’s not happening?” Morgan asked when Avani was safely out of earshot. “Pick up and carry on just like she’s not gone all stiff midconversation?”
“Avani’s been struck with visions since I was a wee lad.” Resigned, Liam glowered into the empty stew pot. “Why, before the sidhe burned Stonehill she was having them fast and regular-like. She knows better than you and me how to handle them. My lord.”
“Before the sidhe burned Stonehill,” Morgan ground out. “Are you listening to yourself? Don’t you think it’s worrisome they’re coming fast and regular-like now, again?”
“Nay,” Liam lied. “I told you, she can handle them. I’m going to check our snares. Bear, stay, guard!”
The brindled hound, curled nose to tail again near the earl’s tent, opened one eye in lazy agreement.
“I’m coming with you,” Morgan decided. Liam refrained from sighing. It wasn’t that he disdained the lad’s company. It was that lately Morgan couldn’t seem to decide whether he was coming or going. Absent Arthur’s blunt companionship, Morgan’s anxious nature had turned high-strung as one of the cavalry’s overbred coursers.
“As you like,” Liam replied. “Just . . . try to keep up, my lord. I’ve plenty left to do before midday.”
The white cliffs, while steep and unsurmountable to Wilhaiim’s north where they abutted the Maiden Gate, at their heights sloped gradually further northward until the incline collapsed into prairie near the verge of the king’s red woods. At their summit on a clear day the cliffs provided unobstructed views of countryside west of the forest as far as the eye could see; the King’s Highway snaked on past Wilhaiim toward sandy Whitcomb where brilliant blue sea merged with the skyline beyond. Low Port, further to the west and north, was too distant for even Liam with his lauded eyesight to glimpse, but he’d taken to looking that way first thing in the morning when he woke, as if somehow the horizon would look different once Roue’s small navy had arrived.
The highway was busy from dawn to dusk and often into the night with refugees come from farm and cottage to shelter within Wilhaiim’s walls. The old keeps—and thanks to Mal’s drilling Liam could list all fifteen houses by device and by title—were protected from invasion by even old
er bone magic, wards set into their walls tuned to repel even the most determined enemy, but the keeps were not large enough to contain every surrounding farm family, tinker’s brood, or traveling merchant. Wilhaiim was meant to accommodate the overflow, and Kingsmen were busy up and down the flatlands spreading word that the time had come to seek the castle.
Liam couldn’t help but marvel at the crowd below on the highway as he and Morgan walked the edge of the cliff nearest their campsite. He wondered how many families had come with children. He worried at the sheer number of mouths to feed, and whether Wilhaiim’s food stores would hold out in the face of war. He hoped many of those men and women, come at Renault’s call, would willingly stand in defense of the city alongside career soldiers, even once the royal armory was emptied.
Mostly, Liam wondered if they were afraid.
There were ground squirrels living in holes in the face of the cliff: fat, happy creatures with short whiskers and long, bushy tails. They were shy around men and difficult to catch but they were tasty in a stew and plentiful, and Liam had spent the first years of his life surviving off small game and determination. Squirrels on the Downs dugs their homes in the ground, which made for easier snaring, but Liam enjoyed a challenge and the puzzle of trapping dinner on a sheer, vertical surface kept his mind occupied during what was beginning to seem a ceaseless wait.
Like any lad, Morgan knew how to construct a simple noose snare out of strong leather cord and was eager to put his knowledge to the test. But without horizontal space to scatter bait, a basic lariat at first seemed of no purpose. Gorse, heather, and flowering scrub grew in abundance above the cliff face but the squirrels appeared to shun the plants, ignoring an array of bright red berries in favor of the nuts on a single, stunted oak growing halfway down the cliff.