by Ari Marmell
Audriss decided to let the impertinence pass without comment for the nonce. “I offered gold and jewels for their cooperation.”
“That’s all?” Then, sensing the Serpent’s glare even through the mask of stone, “Maybe they don’t like—uh, money?”
“I know they can be bought! Rebaine managed it. He—”
But the gnomes, whatever else they might or might not be, were clearly not hard of hearing. “It offends him!” hissed the nearest, a hunchbacked creature speaking through a mouth of blocky, broken teeth. “The Audriss offends him, yes, with insult and vexation, and he will break its neck … Break its carapace of rock, yes, and feast upon the sweetmeats within.”
Audriss blinked, trying to translate the foul gnome’s speech into something comprehensible. “I offered you no insult!” he insisted finally. “I offered you only payment for—”
“Not payment, no!” The gnome was spitting, now, its brethren shifting angrily behind. “The Audriss offers, yes, to give him things, but not the Audriss’s to give, no, not to have or to take! The mans rape the wombs of the Earth, yes, the stone and the dirt and the mountain roots. And from him, from all of him, it takes the bones, yes, the bones of all him before, yes, of early days! And then it offers them back, yes, as payment? He, all of he, will feast upon the meats and bones of all mans, yes, its bones as it has taken the bones of old from the rock, yes, the earth! He will break the necks of all mans until none, no, not a one remains, and the earth is silent, yes, again silent and peaceful and ravaged no more.”
For long moments Valescienn and Audriss stared at each other, struggling to make sense of what they’d heard, knowing that the wrong word—or even the right word spoken too late—would be disastrous.
/Ancestors, you dim-witted apes,/ Pekatherosh finally interjected. /By offering gold and gems, you’ve essentially offered them bits and pieces of what they believe to be the bones of their ancestors, raped from the living earth by mankind./ Audriss could almost feel the demon shrug. /Sounds like a fine gift to me, really, but who can account for taste?/
“If that’s truly what they believe,” Valescienn whispered, still vaguely bewildered even after his Lord had repeated the demon’s explanation, “what the hell can we offer them?”
But behind his mask, Audriss had begun to smile. “Why, the same thing Rebaine must have offered, Valescienn. The chance to reclaim whole cities of their stolen ‘bones,’ and to feast on the meats of many mans—uh, men. Come, my friend,” he said, turning once more to the slathering creature before him, “I think perhaps I can make amends for my previous insult.”
THE HESITANT SUN MOVED in fits and starts, rappelling down the western wall as moon and stars peeked through the dome of a rapidly darkening sky. The horizon, a mosaic of wavering tree lines and distant mountains, blazed orange, as if the gods planned to incinerate their previous efforts and start over from day one.
If it was a particularly impressive sunset, however, nobody noticed. No eyes watched westward from Pelapheron this eve, save a smattering of sentinels. Those citizens unable to fight from age or infirmity holed up in their homes, doors locked and windows shuttered. Many cried, many prayed, but all waited with a growing sense of desperation.
And as for the soldiers—the lords’ garrisons, the mercenary platoons sent by the Guilds, and every inhabitant of Pelapheron able to swing a sword without disemboweling either himself or his neighbor—they all stood atop or behind the eastern wall. Nervously, they fingered weapons, holy talismans, or loved ones’ tokens, peering intently into the growing darkness.
From the heavy shadows of the night poured a different darkness: a cancerous, liquid presence, a swelling wave rolling toward Pelapheron. Campfires glowed like fireflies, and even at this distance, the dull roar of thousands upon thousands of voices set the defenders’ walls to quivering.
The Serpent had come to Pelapheron.
As the forces behind him dug in and made camp, one man stepped from the crowd. His blond hair cut short, the scars on his face crags of shadow against his pale skin, Valescienn approached the enemy. Two of his soldiers followed a pace behind, the leftmost carrying a lance on which a white flag of parley flapped in the nighttime air. The dark trio advanced until they stood just far enough from the wall to easily gaze at those atop it.
A plethora of hostile glares met their own. Arms crossed casually before him—though one still ached from Corvis’s attack of months before—his voice rebounding from the walls, Audriss’s lieutenant shouted, “I will speak with your commanders!”
“I SHOULD GO,” Edmund, Duke of Lutrinthus, told the older man before him. “This is my province. This is my duty.”
Edmund was a man on the precipice of middle age, and he wasn’t about to plummet over without a struggle. The vain duke shaved his head bald at the first sign of his hair’s natural thinning, replacing it with a wig far thicker and blacker than his own ever was. He tried every new remedy for wrinkles and sagging skin he could find like a desperate, aging courtesan. He insisted on wearing only the absolute latest styles—until today, when he’d donned a suit of engraved and fluted armor that had only seen ceremonial use before—and he absolutely refused to attend the other nobles’ banquets without first brushing up on the most recent dances.
All of which would have made him, in the eyes of his current companion, an effete snob and not worth so much as a second glance, were Duke Edmund not also a brilliant administrator, a charismatic speaker, a shrewd negotiator, and a man who honestly cared for the welfare of his citizens. For all his personal egocentricities, his duchy was widely considered one of the best homes in all Imphallion for those of lower station.
What Duke Edmund was not, unfortunately, was anything approaching a skilled tactician. That was why he employed Sir Tyler, but Tyler, fleeing Orthessis with the final column of refugees, had been thrown from his saddle when his mount stumbled into a burrow. The knight had fractured a leg and cracked several ribs in the fall, and was in no shape to assist in planning or executing Pelapheron’s defense.
Thus had another man stepped forward, a resident of Lutrinthus and simple landowner, though he had once been so much more. And when Nathaniel Espa, hero of the realm, former Knight Adviser to the regent, volunteered to take command of the defending armies, Duke Edmund was only too happy to hand over the reins.
At least until tonight, when he utterly refused to allow Duke Edmund to set one foot upon the battlements.
“You gave me command, Your Grace,” he said, rolling his shoulders in a vain attempt to shift his steel breastplate into a more comfortable position. “That makes me the man Valescienn wants to speak to. And you, my lord, are too tempting a target. It would be disastrous for morale if you were to be cut down by an arrow.”
“Wonderful. So instead, you ask me to risk the one man who might salvage some modicum of victory from this vile mess! Is that any more strategically sound, Nathaniel?”
“They’re less likely to shoot at me. And I’m not asking you.”
Edmund cast a glance heavenward. “Give a man a little authority, and see what he does with it! And you know full well that they may just take a few shots at whoever delivers the news we have for them!”
Espa raised a gauntlet. “I understand your concerns, Your Grace. But as long as I remain in command, the decision is mine to make. You have, of course, the authority to strip me of that command, but I don’t think either of us really wants you to do that.”
The duke sighed, gaze cast mournfully at his steel-shod boots. “No, Nathan, I don’t suppose either of us does. Are you quite certain of this, my friend?”
“I am.” Nathan forced a smile and clapped a hand on the duke’s shoulder, his gauntlet ringing against the cuirass. “I’m off, my lord. Wish me luck.”
“WELL, it’s about bloody time!” Valescienn called when the line on the wall finally parted to allow a looming figure in ice-bright armor to step to the edge of the battlements. “We’ve only been waiting out here for the p
ast …” He stopped as the man removed his helm. “You’re not Duke Edmund!” he said accusingly.
“How astute of you to notice, Valescienn,” the other man shouted back. “You said you wanted to speak to the commander. That’s me. If you wanted the duke, you should have asked for the duke.”
The blond soldier’s lips curled in a silent snarl. “And who would you be, then, old man?”
“My name is Nathaniel Espa.”
Valescienn froze an instant. The two soldiers behind him muttered briefly to each other, falling silent again only when their commanding officer cast a murderous glance over his shoulder.
Then, “Espa, is it? It’s an honor to finally meet you in person, rather than from opposite sides of the assembled throngs.”
“As I recall, the last time you tried this my ‘throng’ beat the stuffing out of yours.”
Valescienn smiled. “I have a lot more this time.”
“Go home, Valescienn! There will be no battle today!”
“Oh? And why would that be?”
“Because we’ve captured your commander, Valescienn!”
Valescienn blinked. “What?”
“Your leader. We have him!”
The scarred man cursed under his breath. There was no possible way they could have Audriss. None. But the Serpent’s soldiers knew less about their master’s true powers than Valescienn did, and they wouldn’t be so sure. And Audriss was gone for the nonce. It was an irritating habit in his commander at the best of times, this tendency to up and vanish for hours or days at a time. He’d departed around midday yesterday and told Valescienn that he would rejoin them when Pelapheron had fallen and his other business was concluded.
But if the armies believed Audriss had indeed been captured—and his ill-timed absence would go a long way, in the minds of some, toward confirming that story—then taking Pelapheron might have become a much more difficult endeavor.
“Really?” Valescienn called back, determined to keep the qualms he felt from emerging in his voice. “I find that difficult to believe, Espa! I know exactly where Lord Audriss is right now.” The lie was directed more at his own men than the enemy. “And I can assure you, he’s quite free and unthreatened even as we speak!”
He thought he was prepared for any response. Espa’s sudden, mocking laughter proved him wrong.
“Audriss, Valescienn? I think we both know better! I mean your true commander!”
True commander? Jilahj the Mad take the old lunatic for one of his own, what the hell was he talking about?
“Behold, Valescienn!” Espa thundered melodramatically, holding over his head an object nigh invisible in the darkness. “Proof positive that we speak only the truth when we tell you that we have captured Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East himself!”
Something came spinning down from the parapet; Valescienn leapt back, in case this was some sort of attack despite the flag of truce. But what landed in the dirt with a thump was nothing but a shoulder plate of black steel, adorned with a smaller plate of polished bone.
Like a sleepwalker, Valescienn lifted the spaulder from the dust at his feet. Incredulously, he glanced at the two soldiers with him, but they looked even more puzzled than he.
“We’ll have to get back to you on this,” he called to Espa, his voice as nonchalant as he could manage. Then, with a curt wave at his honor guard, he stalked back to his own camp.
His first urge was to contact Audriss immediately. This was an unexpected twist, to put it mildly. What, by all the gods, could possibly have given them the idea Rebaine was behind all this?
On the other hand, though he possessed the means to contact his lord and master, his instructions explicitly defined the circumstances under which he was permitted to use such methods. Unforeseen and bizarre as this particular twist might have been, it didn’t really qualify as either emergency or imminent threat.
“General?” the man carrying the pennant asked quietly. “What were they talking about, sir? What’s all this about Corvis Rebaine?”
Valescienn shook his head. “Nothing to worry about, soldier. I don’t know what sort of herbs they’ve been smoking behind those walls, but I don’t think it much matters. They’re expecting us to turn tail and run, or at least dither aimlessly for a spell.
“Start spreading the word. I want no noise, no hint of preparation, but we attack at dawn.”
“WELL, this is just fantastic,” Davro exclaimed almost before the tent flap flopped shut behind him. “What do we do now?” The winter wind swept by outside, not quite powerful enough yet to howl, and a chill sauntered through the tent, wandering about casually in search of a place to settle down.
“The first thing you do,” Losalis told him, glancing up from the flimsy table on which lay various reports, “is duck. This tent won’t keep the weather off us if you rip it open with that tusk of yours.”
“Tusk?” the ogre protested, crouching until he reached the corner in which he’d previously stacked several cushions. His single eye gleamed irritably. “This is a horn, Losalis. You see this big, round thing beneath it? That would be my head. My head, where the horn is coming from. You see this opening in my head, with all the teeth? That would be my mouth—where my horn would be coming from, if it was a tusk!”
“My apologies, Davro. Perhaps if you stopped talking long enough for me to see anything other than your mouth, I might not have confused the issue.”
Seilloah snorted, and only the ogre’s acerbic glare prevented it from growing into a full-bore chuckle.
“Yes?” Davro asked icily. “Was there something?”
“Why, Davro!” the witch said with false joviality. “Do you really think I would stoop so far as to mock you under such circumstances?”
“Which circumstances would those be? The ones where we’re both awake and breathing?”
“Is there any chance,” Losalis asked pointedly, “that we might eventually get around to discussing the pending battle?”
As though waiting for just such a cue, the flap opened once more to admit Teagan and Ellowaine, followed by another man nearly as large as Losalis himself.
“I understand you’ve been wantin’ to see us,” the chestnut-bearded warrior said, slumping down into a chair and placing one hand on the table before him. The other, fingers splayed, came to rest dramatically on his breastplate. “Well, here we are, sir, ready for duty and reportin’ to be seen.”
“Stow the melodrama, Teagan,” his female companion snapped at him. “Let him get to what he’s got to say so we can be back in our own tents, by our own fires. It’s cold as Chalsene’s ass out there!”
The last man to enter was named Ulfgai. A barbarian warrior from frozen lands far to the south, he’d been Losalis’s second in command and had taken charge of the general’s old company. The polar opposite of his former commander, he was pale, bordering on albino: His skin was pallid, his hair and beard some nebulous shade between blond and white, his eyes the light grey-blue of coldest ice. Unlike the others, he wasn’t the least discomfited by the chill settling into the air around them. He had, in fact, left his heavy furs in his own tent and come to the meeting wearing only bearskin leggings and a light tunic beneath his breastplate.
“So why have you called us out here?” the southerner rumbled. “Perhaps you’ve lost the taste for it, but some of us have better pursuits in which to spend our few free hours.”
“You mean getting sloppy drunk and breaking things?” Seilloah asked acidly.
“You speak as though that was a bad thing.”
“The reason I asked you here,” Losalis announced loudly, “is that we have a decision to make.” He paused to ensure that all eyes were upon him. “Or rather, I have a decision to make, and I want your input on it.
“As you’re no doubt aware—or,” he amended with a dangerous glance at Teagan, “you should be aware, if you’ve been paying attention—the Serpent’s army is camped just outside Pelapheron. We’re looking at a fairly hefty siege. Not
a long one, given the techniques that Audriss has access to, but a large one.”
“Are you supposing that Audriss might hole up in this place for the winter months?” Ulfgai asked, idly spinning a thin-bladed knife around the fingers of his right hand.
“It makes sense,” Losalis admitted. “On the other hand, we’re already a ways into the cold season. Any sane commander would have holed up weeks ago, and any sane army would have refused to come this far.”
“Hmmph,” the barbarian snorted contemptuously. “What you lot call winter—”
“However he’s doing it,” Losalis continued, refusing to be sidetracked, “Audriss is keeping his armies fed and moving.” He turned his head slightly. “Unless you know of any reason why he can’t keep it up?”
Seilloah shrugged, frowning. “Losalis, it’s about all I can do to keep us fed as winter approaches. It’s very difficult to make plants bloom and to call animals when they’d all much rather be hibernating. I can’t imagine how he’s managing it with so large an army, and since I don’t know how he’s doing it, I couldn’t begin to tell you if he can keep it up or not.”
Losalis nodded. “I thought as much. So maybe he’ll stop for the winter, and maybe he’ll keep going. But in either case, I think we have to assume that Pelapheron will fall, just like all the others. Unless we interfere.”
Several shocked stares crossed the tent, forming a latticework of incredulity at about the level of Losalis’s neck. They’d been trailing a day or so behind Audriss’s army for over a month now, and they’d done nothing but harry the enemy’s scouts, or ambush the occasional straggler. Those, in fact, were Rebaine’s parting orders: Harass them, never let them forget that the enemy was on their tail, but do not provoke them. Let him continue to think Rebaine’s army was no real threat, until the time came for a decisive strike.
“But is this really the right time?” Teagan asked hesitantly. “You know how I hate bein’ the one spreadin’ the doom and the gloom, but the Serpent didn’t lose men enough to be worth mentionin’ when he took Orthessis. We’re still outnumbered by four or five to one.”