by Morgan Rice
Anka looked different from how she had in the slaver’s cage. Different even from how she’d looked in the courtyard of the castle. Ceres could see the worry etched in her features, but also the sense of strength there.
Ceres hurried and they embraced. She could feel the strength in Anka’s arms and shoulders.
“It’s good to see you again. It looks as though you’re doing a bit more than just holding things together now.”
Anka spread her hands. “It turns out I had a talent for it, and I’ve had a lot of help. Sartes has done a lot. And of course, I would never be alive if it weren’t for you.”
They shared a look of mutual admiration.
Anka led them all away from the space by the forge through to a larger spot that had probably once been a storeroom, but was now filled with people.
Ceres could hardly believe how large the rebel army was now.
“Anka?” a woman asked. Ceres recognized her as Hannah, who’d been with the rebellion from the start. “Is that…Ceres? How is she alive?”
Ceres waited while Anka walked into the middle of the room, following her into a clear space there and letting her speak. Ceres could feel the way that people were looking at her. They knew who she was. They’d seen her in the Stade, or they’d heard about her role in the army.
“Those of you who’ve been in the rebellion long enough will recognize Ceres,” Anka said. “Maybe some of the rest of you will as well. She fought in the Stade, and she is the reason why many of us are still here today.”
Anka gestured for Ceres to step forward.
She did so, feeling the weight of the many eyes upon her. Most of these people would know who she was, some would even know her, but many wouldn’t.
“I’m guessing that you have heard about the army besieging the city.” She took a breath. “I am leading it.”
Gasps arose from the crowd.
“You’ve brought an army to attack our city?” a man asked Anka.
She could see their confusion.
“We are not trying to destroy the city or hurt its people,” Ceres said. “I’ve brought an army to help the rebellion.”
“And how do we know that?” someone called from the crowd. “I saw the banners out there. Those are Lord West’s men. Why would a lord help the likes of us, common peasants?”
“Because he hates the way the Empire rules,” Ceres explained. “He just needed the right prodding to rise up against it.”
“And we’re supposed to believe that?” Hannah asked. “For all we know, he’s just planning to replace the king with himself, and nothing will change. He could be duping you, Ceres.”
“Everything will change,” Ceres said. “And even if you don’t trust Lord West, trust me.”
“It’s not about trusting you,” Edrin said. “It’s—”
“It’s about trying to win!” Anka said. “Listen to yourselves. You’re so worried about what might come next that you’re not paying attention to what’s happening now. We have a chance to crush the heart of the Empire. We have to take it. I trust Ceres. We should listen to what she has to say.”
Ceres looked around at the people there.
“I understand that you’re scared. You’ve been working for the overthrow of the Empire, but even so, this must feel like a huge step. I’m asking you to make the stand you’ve been preparing for. I’m asking you to take a big risk. I know that.”
She waited for a moment or two, letting it sink in.
“But there comes a time when you have to stop preparing and act,” she continued. “We have a chance to take Delos, but that chance will pass far too quickly. I have an army waiting out there, but when the rest of the Empire’s forces get here, it will be caught between them and the city. If we attack the walls, we’ll be slaughtered. But if we can take the city quickly, we can hold it against anyone.”
“So you want us to do all the fighting for you?” one of the combatlords there asked.
Ceres shook her head. “You know me better than that. You’ve trained beside me, haven’t you?”
The combatlord admitted: “You didn’t shy away from the fights in the Stade.”
“And I’m not going to run from this one,” Ceres said. “I don’t want you to win the city for me. I want us to win it together. My army can’t get into the city, so I want us to open a gate where they can get inside without being cut to pieces. You wouldn’t be fighting the whole of the Empire, just a few guards.”
All of them fell silent. She understood. Someone would have to volunteer for the risky assignment of emerging from these tunnels and seeking out the least-guarded gate. It was a life and death task, and no one wanted it.
“I shall do it,” came a voice.
Ceres turned, and her heart fell to see Sartes, standing there proudly.
“I can find the least defended gate,” he said. “I’m the best placed to do it. No one would suspect me.”
Ceres felt a wave of pride and fear for her brother. She didn’t want to put her brother in danger, but no one else had volunteered. And he had a point.
“Sartes is right,” Anka said. “And he is brave.” She then turned to the crowd. “Will you be as brave? Once we find this gate, will you open it for Ceres and her army?”
A silence lingered, as a few nodded.
“And then you shall storm in?” Edrin asked.
Ceres nodded.
“And then we fight together,” Ceres said. “Together, we can do this. Together, we can take Delos. Together, we can overwhelm the Empire and hold the city against the world. Together, we can forge a new world, but only if we do this now. Are you with me?”
There was silence, but that silence was quickly broken by a low chanting. Sartes started it, but the others soon took it up, one word rising until it filled the room.
“Ceres! Ceres!”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Sartes moved carefully through the city streets in the hour before the dawn. He was watchful as he darted from doorway to alley mouth, clambered up stacked pallets, and blended in as best he could with those people who were out on the streets in spite of the early hour.
This being Delos, there were more than a few of those. It didn’t matter that there was an army outside the city; its business still had to go on. That meant fishermen and merchants rising early to catch the tide out of the docks. It meant traders and food sellers setting up their stalls in the streets. It meant the night people coming back from whatever jobs they’d been doing by starlight, legal or otherwise.
It meant guards too, which was why Sartes was being careful. The Empire hadn’t tried to impose a curfew on the city, presumably because everyone knew it would be unworkable, but Sartes still couldn’t afford to be seen too openly. There was too much of a chance that someone might recognize him from the army, and then he would be taken as a deserter or a rebel.
Even so, he had better odds than most of the rebellion, which was why he was the one doing this. To any guard who didn’t recognize him, Sartes would just look like an urchin worth no more attention than it took to kick him out of the way, or perhaps like an apprentice late to start work in his master’s shop. Either way, it was easy enough to blend in with the people around him, to keep moving, making his way toward the city’s gates.
Ceres undoubtedly had a harder job. While Sartes got to walk along safe streets, she had the job of sneaking back out to her waiting army to direct their attack. Sartes didn’t want to think about the danger his sister might be in. He knew that she was a great fighter, but right then, one mistake and she would find herself facing the whole of the army within the city alone.
He couldn’t do anything to help her, though. He just had to trust her, and make sure that he did his part.
He walked in the direction of one of the smaller gates first, the Dead Gate, where bodies were taken out on their way to the burial grounds. He ducked in behind a water butt while he watched the guards there. Too many, but more than that, the ground in front of the gate w
as too open. The guards would see any attack coming, and that would make it harder to succeed. No, he needed a better—
“Hey, what are you doing there, boy?” a guard demanded.
Sartes thought about running, but running would only prove that he was doing something wrong. He thought about the knife strapped to the small of his back, but that was a last resort. Sartes looked up at the guard, looking for any spark of recognition. That would have him reaching for the knife, because at that point, it would be the only way he lived.
“I… I’m sorry,” Sartes said, thinking quickly. “I just thought if I could get close to the walls, I might be able to see the army. My friend Julin said that there were horsemen as far as the eye could see, and I wanted to look for myself, because I think he’s lying.”
The guard shook his head. “He’s not lying.”
“Could I… could I get up on the wall and see them?” Sartes said. It would let him see more of the defenses, and perhaps pick out the right spot to attack.
“No, you can’t,” the guard snapped back. “Do you think I’m running some kind of tour here, boy?”
“I’m just—” Sartes didn’t have to fake his fear, although the guard probably wouldn’t guess the reason for it. “We’re going to be safe, aren’t we? I mean, they aren’t going to get in and kill us all, are they?”
“Don’t be stupid, boy,” the guard said. “Our walls are high, they aren’t equipped for a siege, and the gates are strong. Why, the dockside gate is so well defended that half a dozen men can defend it, firing bolts through the murder holes until reinforcements arrive.”
It seemed that Sartes had his gate, but he needed to be sure. He’d have to see it for himself.
“You should run along. A boy like you probably has chores to get to.”
“Yes, sir,” Sartes said, and ran, exactly as the soldier had commanded.
Perhaps it was because he was moving so fast that he got the sense that someone was following him. He was moving far faster than the crowds now, running from hiding place to hiding place because there was no time to waste. But there was someone else moving as fast. Sartes caught glimpses of them, or at least of the disturbances in the crowd behind him. He saw people moving out of the way of someone moving too quickly. He heard the beginnings of an argument, quickly cut off. On a stretch of cobbles, he thought he heard the slap of a pair of hobnailed boots.
Sartes headed for a deeper patch of crowd, householders and servants out looking for bread and meat even before it got fully light. He followed the flow of the crowd, forcing himself to wait even though there wasn’t much more time for his scouting mission to continue. He thought he caught sight of a dark cloak as someone slipped through the crowd, obviously looking for him.
Sartes moved away carefully, waiting until he was well clear of the crowd before he started running again. He couldn’t afford to waste time now. He had to check the gate and get back to the others. They were relying on him. Ceres was relying on him.
He sprinted to the dock district, sticking to the back streets and keeping his ears pricked for any continued pursuit. When he got to the dock gate, he looked around for a hiding spot and settled in on the fringes of a group of porters, obviously waiting for a ship that needed loading. They didn’t seem to care about him. Possibly they thought he was waiting for the chance of easy coin like the rest of them.
Sartes watched the dockside gate. The guard he’d met had been right: there were almost no soldiers there. There didn’t need to be, because the gates there were massive, solidly built with a portcullis behind them. There were stone towers above, crenulated on top, with a small catapult set there where it could do damage to anyone attacking. There was an alarm bell too, and Sartes guessed that it would summon soldiers from all across the district.
But there were ways to deal with it. What had once been clear routes to let the guards see threats coming were now cluttered with crates and sacks, ropes and barrels ready for loading or moving to warehouses. All of it would provide cover for the rebellion as its people moved closer. If they disguised themselves as dock workers, they might even be able to sneak right up to the guards before they attacked. They might be able to take the gate without losing anyone.
And then they would be able to let the army in. Sartes was a little nervous about that in spite of everything Ceres had said. He’d seen what armies were like when he’d been a conscript. Possibly Lord West’s men would be more disciplined, and he knew that Ceres would never allow the kind of wanton destruction the Empire sanctioned, but even so, there would be violence. People would get hurt.
“It will be worth it,” Sartes told himself. When they took the castle and brought down the king, it would be worth it. “Think of all the fighting it will stop.”
Potentially, it could stop a wider war. The Empire’s army attacked because the royals told it to. Take away the king and his cronies, and the army had no one to command it. From what Sartes had seen, half the men in it would desert at once, while the others would be cautious about fighting on for a lost cause. At a stroke, they could end this.
This was the gate. Sartes could feel it, just as he could feel the excitement building in him at the thought of what was going to happen next. They could do this. They could really do this.
First, though, he had to get back to the others, and he had to hurry, because dawn was coming far too fast.
Sartes ran back through the city’s streets, over cobbles and dirt, gravel surfaces and evenly laid stone. Hardly anyone gave him a second glance. He saw a gang of slaves in the street, repairing a patch of broken cobbles under the supervision of armed guards. It was enough to remind him that no matter what happened in the attack, people would be better off. This was the only way to really change things in the Empire.
Sartes tried to imagine what it would be like once the Empire was gone. It was hard to think that far ahead. They’d all spent so long now working for it, but Sartes almost hadn’t dared to think past the rebellion to what might lie beyond it. He’d been thinking perhaps that there would be time with his father, time for a normal life. Now, with Ceres back, he was already thinking of how much better things might be.
Ahead, he could see the entryway to the rebellion’s tunnels, disguised as a half-forgotten stairway, hidden behind an overgrown arch. He crouched there, making sure that the coast was clear.
The others would be as excited to hear about the gate as he was to have found it. Anka would be pleased that she’d sent him, and grateful to know that she could trust him. The others would gain hope from it, because he’d given them the ideas that had worked in the burial grounds, and the Stade. His father would be proud of him, and Ceres—
Sartes caught a flicker of movement and half turned, but he was too slow. He just had time to see the cloaked figure running toward him before it slammed into him, sending the two of them tumbling to the ground in a scrambling sprawl of limbs.
Sartes twisted, reaching down to the small of his back for the knife he’d hidden there. Nothing was going to stop him from getting back to the rebellion now. His hand closed around the hilt and he drew it, but it seemed that his attacker had been expecting the move, because Sartes found the weight of a shin bearing down on his forearm, hard enough to make him cry out. A brutal twist of his wrist later, and the knife was skittering off across the cobbles.
Sartes hit out with his free hand but the figure grabbed his free wrist, using it to lever him over onto his belly, where Sartes quickly found his wrists bound with loops of cord. He tried to cry out, and tasted cloth as a rag was stuffed into his mouth.
“Lady Stephania sends her regards.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
From the top of the tenement building, Anka watched the rising sun, tracking its progress with growing trepidation. Across from her, she could see Berin, his fingers tightening on the forge hammer he held. Anka could understand it far too easily.
“Sartes should have been back by now,” she said, although she said it so
ftly. She didn’t want the others there to see how nervous she was right then. Far too many of them were new recruits, who needed to believe that their leader knew what was going on if they were going to do this.
“He should,” Berin agreed. “But Sartes is resourceful. He survived the worst the army could throw at him.”
To Anka, it sounded like a man trying to convince himself, and Anka wasn’t going to puncture it with too much reality if she didn’t have to. For one thing, she hoped that the old smith was right. She didn’t want to think about the possibility of Sartes being lost to them.
“We helped him then,” she said, “and we’ll help him now if he needs it. But probably, he doesn’t. He’s probably just holed up somewhere because he can’t get back. Or he’s still looking for the right opportunity.”
Or he was dead or captured, having been caught by the soldiers Anka had sent him to spy on. If that proved to be the case, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to forgive herself. Sartes was so eager to help sometimes that it was easy to forget that he was just a boy.
“He wants to do this,” Berin said, as if guessing Anka’s thoughts. “You didn’t make him do it, and you know he’s the best choice for it.”
Anka guessed that was his way of saying that he didn’t blame her. Anka would rather that Sartes was safe, though, and that there was nothing to blame her for.
“What do we do now?” Berin asked.
Anka shrugged. “We wait as long as we can for Sartes to come back. After that… I don’t know. We think of something.”
“Ceres is relying on us,” Berin said.
Anka nodded. “And we’re relying on her. A lot of things have to go right today.”
And already, they were starting to go wrong. Sartes really should have been back by now with details of the best gate to target and the best way to go about their attack. He’d proven so effective in the past, providing them with the idea to take the Stade and the one to free the conscripts. Anka had come to rely on him as much as anyone.