“Indris did it all himself? Couldn’t you help?”
Femensetri gazed down at Indris with naked admiration, and no small degree of love. “Truth is, Mari, I couldn’t. I don’t have the compassion he does. I could have Severed them, but it would’ve been a clinical thing, and I’d have taken more than their Awakening in the process, like a surgeon who needed to cut out rotten flesh. Indris cares. I’ve often berated him for it, because it held him back, but—”
“Now you’re not so sure?”
“No.” Femensetri’s expression hardened. “I’m quite sure it stopped him being the Sēq we wanted him to be. But it let him be the Sēq others needed him to be. What was better? Only time will tell. And by Sedefke’s will, we’ll all survive to know the answer.”
“What about the re-Awakening? Did he at least show you how to do it?”
Femensetri snorted. “If only. I badgered him until he showed me a rendition of the interconnectivity between the body, mind, and soul. He wove an illusion that showed me how it worked, where the power sources were derived, routed, anchored, and shunted up the ladder of existence. He showed me the formulae of how the disparate elements are annealed, at what directions they apply force, and where they are leveraged from each other to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Indris showed it all to me.”
“Then why do you sound so disappointed?”
“Because I didn’t understand it.” Her laugh was self-deprecating. “I realized today how far my greatest student has come without me.”
“It happens,” Mari said. “It’s what every teacher wants of their student, and every parent of their child: for them to be better than the one who came before. But there are those in the qadir who won’t come any further without your, and Indris’s, help.”
Femensetri gazed at Mari, her lips quirked in what was almost a smile. “I think I know what he sees in you, girl.”
“Then perhaps you’ll stop trying to stand in the way of our happiness?” Mari said with false sweetness. “For now, we need you to be the abrasive martinet that people have come to loathe and fear.”
“I can manage that.”
Together they got Indris to his feet. Mari and Shar lent their shoulders, half guiding, half carrying Indris along the corridor. He was awake, if bleary, when they came to the solarium. Femensetri was what Mari expected of her: a force of nature. She strode to the center of the room, crook planted firmly on the floor. Her presence, with Indris at her side, demanded silence without the need for words. Mari, Belam, Shar, Ekko, and Sanojé stood at Femensetri’s back. The message was clear.
“Ajo? Ziaire? Do you mind if I take over for a bit?” Femensetri asked.
“Not at all.” The Sky Lord smiled. Ziaire nodded her agreement, her expression relieved.
“What if we do mind?” Osman said. “The Sēq have been—”
“Poor timing to grow some stones, boy.” Femensetri eyed the man until he reddened. She cocked an eyebrow at Umna. “You have anything to say…? No, I thought not. Listen, all of you. Much has changed of late. Little of it for the better. But we’re here, and willing to help, if you’re willing to put aside your differences.”
“But the rahns…,” came a voice from the crowd.
“Are alive and will recover. But you can’t rely on them for the moment. You need to take action for yourselves. Corajidin would have you blindly follow one leader. Himself. But the Shrīanese Federation was formed to heed the voices of many, and give no one person absolute authority over the destiny of all. It’s your sworn duty to act!”
“Corajidin’s army is formidable, Stormbringer,” Teymoud said fearfully. “And our forces are outnumbered and far from where they need to be.”
“We’ve no generals,” another voice called.
“You’ve got Knight-General Maselane in the field,” Femensetri countered. “One of the finest military minds alive. With him is Indera, the Poet Master of the Marmûn-sûk, and Harish, the Master of Arms of the Rōmarq.
“You’ve got me, who commanded armies before Shrīan existed, before the Awakened Empire existed.” She spread her arms to include Mari. “You’ve got Mari, the Queen of Swords, commander of the Feyassin, the hero of Amnon and dozens of other battles besides. Her brother, Belamandris the Widowmaker, and commander of the Anlūki. They’ve both defied their father. With them is Pah-Sanojé, a witch of fearsome reputation. Shar. Ekko. Champions of the people who fight because it is the right thing to do, not because they follow a rahn!
“Morne Hawkwood and his Immortal Companions are here, in Avānweh, ready to help you. Warrior-poets of the allied schools, elite guards. And Sēq Knights wait in the woods to the south of Fandra, ready to act if needed.” She jutted a finger at Indris, whose head snapped up like an old man battling sleep. “And you have him. Do you really need anything else?”
The tone of conversations changed. There was less debate, more agreement. Ideas were fielded and changed, rather than brought down before they could be grown. Mari saw smiles on people’s faces, and gestures that were definitive, not defensive.
Femensetri came to Mari’s side. “Is that what you were after?”
“It’s a start.” Mari gestured for Shar and Ekko to take Indris to bed, the exhausted man almost asleep on his feet. “But we need more if we’re to survive all this.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Then show me why the Sēq have led our leaders for so long. Make me believe in you, and make me believe that we can win.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Hope and expectation are not the same thing, though both will lead to disappointment. Exist in the moment, accepting all things as they are, not as you would have them be.”
—from the Nilvedic Maxims
Day 80 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
Corajidin held Mēdēya in his arms and watched the industry of war. Below him, the outlying precincts of the Erebus camp were broken down with clockwork efficiency. Tents were standing one moment, sagged upon themselves the next, to vanish into packs and wagons. More than three-quarters of the remaining infantry had been mobilized to occupy Fandra, as well as a third of the Iphyri shock troops. The Erebus cavalry remained at the command camp, the elegantly dressed military elite sipping from bowls of warmed wine as the infantry pounded the ground beneath nailed boots. The crews of the wind-ships looked down upon all, safe and clean. Wagons groaned southward along rutted trails, toward the line of the Fandra Road. Teamsters yelled. Soldiers grunted and swore by turns. The crisp wind shredded the smoke of camp and cook fires alike, adding to the wintry pall.
“Smells like snow.” Mēdēya’s nose crinkled, cheeks and brow wind-burned. She stamped her feet in their long sheepskin boots. “Three kilometers is a long distance on a flat field, Jidi, but the marshland will make the journey take longer. Our reinforcements will be a long way away.”
“We’ll know well before our enemies arrive what their disposition is,” Feyd said from the entrance to the command pavilion. The man eyed a fistful of reports, gave orders to his officers, then stretched. “Mēdēya is correct in that the journey for the cavalry will take longer than usual. I’ve had them doing practice runs for days, planning the best route, timing their approach. We’re prepared for the difference. Another two hundred of the heavy cavalry will be positioned closer, in a small gully to the east where they’ll not be seen until they emerge.”
“I want a decisive victory to show the doubters we are ready for the next step, Feyd.” Corajidin accepted a steaming bowl of wine-laced tea. “Though the Rōmarq has its treasures, its strategic value comes from its proximity to the Ash Field Pass, and the Moon Gate that will lead us across the Mar Silin. From Fandra we will march south, cross the Mountains of the Moon at their lowest point, and come upon Mediin from the west.”
Feyd took a string of Ancestor beads and kissed the small medallion to ward off misfortune. “Pashrea isn’t a place we know enough about, save from legends, and those are dark enough
.”
Mēdēya took Corajidin’s tea and drank from the bowl. He leaned in to kiss her head. Her hair smelled different. Not the aloe vera and henna Yashamin loved: This was something more cloying, and sweetly floral. The kind of scent one used to mask putrefaction. Corajidin gestured for another bowl of tea to be brought him.
“We’ll need to wait for spring,” Mēdēya said. She gazed south thoughtfully, though the tallest peak this far west, Tehvari—the Nightblade—was just a smudge on the horizon. Mēdēya eyed Corajidin challengingly. “Unless you plan on going to war in the south in winter? It can be done, of course, and the Emissary wants us to assault Pashrea—”
“Our soldiers will not fight well in the snow, whereas the Nomads are unlikely to care,” Feyd countered. “Perhaps we can notch our belts with this battle, before we start planning the next?”
“Feyd’s right,” Tahj-Shaheh added as she arrived. She was blowing into her hands, her hair disheveled from the wind. “I’ve sailed the Spectral Strand in winter, both by air and sea. I’ve even made a drunken pass over the forests between Jafir and the mountains. There’ll be precious little forage as the nights lengthen and the temperature drops. You’ll have added more to the ranks of the Nomads than you’d planned, before you even arrive in Mediin.”
Corajidin accepted their truths. The battle at Fandra would unite the disparate political parties under his colors: because either they agreed with his direction or were too frightened to resist. He would need the winter months to solidify his authority, as well as to stack the Teshri more in his favor. Fandra was a large enough city to house the infantry and cavalry he had in the south until spring. The other Houses and Families would muster here before the weather warmed and the snows in the mountains receded. Regardless of what the Emissary may or may not want, or her constant pressure on him to repay his debts, the war on Pashrea would have to wait until the season turned.
Corajidin would have preferred to strike north and bring Tanis into the fold of an Avān nation, but the Emissary had been clear: She wanted the Empress-in-Shadows removed, and the Sēq a thing of the past. Taking the war to Pashrea made Corajidin uneasy. He admitted that it was necessary, but to fight Nomads and scholars was a different war altogether, one for which most would be unprepared. To that end, the artificers and the alchemists would add value, as would the witches. Enchanted weapons, hexes to summon daemons and to bind and banish Nomads, salt-forged steel from Tamerlan stockpiled since the new year.
But how high would the body count be? Who would be left in Shrīan for the Avān to take their rightful place as leaders of the world? Who would Corajidin rule as Mahj, if the majority of a generation were lost in raising him up? And how long would the Iron League wait, were Shrīan to be seen as an easy conquest?
Everything was a risk, but adherence to destiny’s road was not supposed to be a challenge easily overcome. Here at the crossroads, Corajidin sipped at his tea and took what comfort he could from his success. He gazed out across the Rōmarq, seeing the life where it shone in plant and water, soldier and animal alike. His own Communion Ritual had been a re-Awakening—making him twice Awakened. Had not his mortal wounding in Avānweh, and his resurrection here in the Rōmarq, made Corajidin the Thrice Awakened?
So far all had happened as the oracles had foretold, though they had said nothing of his near death, or maiming. It was hard to swallow the price he had to pay, but there was light to be seen: This was his escape from the Emissary’s clutches. No doubt she suspected as much, and had deliberately brought back Yashamin as a spy, and an anchor around Corajidin’s heart and mind.
Beautiful Mēdēya, a prison in which Yashamin languished, or a palace given her by the Emissary with a different view of the world? At every turn, Mēdēya spoke the Emissary’s message, an echo of her demands in sweeter tones. There were times when Mēdēya looked at Corajidin and he wondered whether there was a trace of the Emissary lurking in there, spinning the words on Mēdēya’s tongue. A spy secreted in a house he still loved, though its architecture was not quite right anymore.
“Will you do as the Emissary suggests, Jidi?” Mēdēya asked as if on cue. “Will you wage war on Pashrea sooner, rather than later?
Corajidin took her in his arms. He rested his chin on her head and struggled with the temptation to strangle her then and there. What would the others do? He was Asrahn. He would make his every act, no matter how heinous, legal. He rubbed her back with his prosthetic hand, as he clenched his natural one. “The Emissary has made no mention to me of a winter assault. Though she has alluded to a schedule. Have you spoken with her about it?”
Mēdēya paused for a long moment. Corajidin was not sure whether her breathing had stilled. She sounded confused when she spoke. “No, she has said nothing to me. Perhaps it was something I overheard?”
“Perhaps.”
As snow drifted down outside, Corajidin warmed himself before a small ahm-fueled heater the artificers had recently invented, the ornate metallic pillar a gift from Baquio. Kasraman reclined, muddied and exhausted, on a couch nearby, his hand curled around a bowl of spiced coffee. Mēdēya sat cross-legged on the bed, idly chewing the end of an ink brush as she read, then annotated, or swore at, the reports from the various departments of the Erebus war machine. A witch in a neat robe of red wool kneeled on a cushion, her eyes rolled back into her head, privy to vistas only she could see.
“What progress on removing the Havoc Chair?” Corajidin asked the witch, the intermediary between himself and Wolfram.
“Removing it is proving more difficult than anticipated, my Asrahn.” The witch spoke in her own voice, but with Wolfram’s cadence. “Our work is not without disruption. We encounter resistance from Fenlings, reedwives, and marsh-puppeteers daily. We’ve lost another handful of witches, and a score or more of soldiers to nāga attacks. The natural energies of this place are a magnet to the monsters of the Rōmarq.”
“How do you fare? And Ikedion?”
There was a pause before the witch replied. “It’s not without its challenges. There’s a sense of mania if we spend too long here. I’ve little doubt the mystics who dwelled here in ages past had a solution better than to remain on the edges of narcotic stupor, but this is what Ikedion and I are reduced to. Asrahn, the longer we stay, the less effective we become.”
Corajidin tapped his foot impatiently. “Mēdēya? What weapons have been ferried from the ruins to Fandra thus far?”
Mēdēya did not need to refer to a report to answer. “Nothing remotely close to what we’d hoped for, and nothing we’d call a siege weapon. Less than fifty suits of witchfire ingot armor in reasonable repair. Some one hundred witchfire and kirion swords, spears, and long-knives. Twenty or so storm-rifles, only half of which work. And thirty Salamander Lances the artificers and alchemists are trying to make operational, their power sources drained, or parts damaged.
“We’ve also retrieved some black rock salt, and a stock of salt-forged steel that we can work over the winter into weapons.”
“This was supposed to be Sedefke’s great laboratory!” Corajidin snarled. “Where is everything I expected—everything I was promised—that would be here?”
“And it may well have been.” The intermediary related Wolfram’s message. “This is what we could expect of a well-armed garrison, at an isolated qadir. The wealth here was not in manufactured weapons, or industry. The riches are in knowledge.”
“Have you discovered much of that?”
“The qadir and its surrounding buildings cover a lot of ground, Asrahn. We find new sources of interest every day. Most of these are trapped, and we’ve not the witches left—and those who are here suffer more the ahm-mania than Ikedion or myself—to progress faster than we are doing. For all I know there’s an armory hidden in a cellar, somewhere in the ruins. Or if not here, elsewhere. We’re excavating five different ruins as we speak. Please don’t despair, Asrahn.”
“These traps you speak of. Do the traps destroy the contents?”
“Not as far as we can tell, no.”
“Then I’ll send more of the captives from Fandra so you can use them to expedite matters.” Corajidin felt Kasraman’s and Mēdēya’s gazes on him. They kept their thoughts to themselves. “Once the traps have been triggered, use the time wisely to retrieve all you can.”
There was another pause, longer this time, before Wolfram’s reply. “As you will, my Asrahn.” No need for Wolfram to be in the room for Corajidin to hear the reproach.
“I will have the fodder sent to you in the next couple of hours,” Corajidin said. “Work faster, Wolfram. I want that place, and others like it, cleared of anything useful as soon as possible. End communication.”
The witch slumped, her eyes rolling back down. She was pale, her brow dewed. Corajidin ordered her to make communication with the witches in the field with Tahj-Shaheh’s corsairs. Their reports were bland by comparison, with the enemy forces moving in textbook order, at optimum pace. There was no communication from Nix, though his last had reported the counselors that had been bonded with the marsh-puppeteers were in place, and behaving themselves for now.
“Kasraman, why are we suffering at the hands of these puppeteers?” Corajidin asked. “I was assured they would comply with my wishes.”
“Like the Great Houses and the Hundred Families, there is more than one voice among the malegangers.” Kasraman sounded as limp as he looked. “That which is merged with Kimiya will do as agreed, as will her clan. The ones we’ve not dealt with act according to their nature, which is homicidally territorial.”
“And the Fenlings? The reedwives?”
“We’ve made no overturns to them, so they’re quite hostile.” Kasraman finished his coffee and poured another. He brightened some at the infusion. “There are a number of different societies in the Rōmarq, of which we’re only peripherally aware. The nāga, for example. Added to the native inhabitants, we’ve the Rōmarqim—who’ll kill anybody wearing Erebus colors on sight. There are renegade Seethe who remained after Far-ad-din was deposed, bandits, freebooters, road rangers, and tomb raiders. We’re beset on all sides by those who want us dead, or at least gone.”
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