by Marc Turner
Perhaps sensing her thoughts, Noon looked toward where Caval and Karmel were practicing with their blowpipes. “You trust them to get this done?”
“Mazana Creed must have had some reason for picking them.”
“That Caval’s an oscura addict—you see how gray his eyes were? When the time comes for him to fire his blowpipe, it’d be nice if his hands weren’t shaking.”
“I’m sure his sister will keep him in line.” From what Amerel had seen, it was Karmel who called the shots between them.
Noon picked at his boots—the boots he’d taken from one of the dead stone-skin warriors at the house. “There’s bad blood there. The way they tiptoe around each other.”
“What do you expect? They’re family.”
Karmel crossed to a tree to retrieve the darts she’d been peppering it with. She’d been steadily increasing the distance to her target, yet still hitting it with near-perfect accuracy.
“How much do you think they’re not telling us about all this?” Noon asked.
“The Chameleons? Very little. Mokinda, on the other hand…”
“You reckon he’s holding a crossbow to the Chameleons’ heads?”
Amerel’s smile was tight. “That’s usually how it works.”
If Noon noticed her tone, he gave no indication. “Stupid, isn’t it. We’ve got every reason to work together, so why do I feel like I’m just waiting for a knife in my back?”
“No doubt the Chameleons think the same.” Amerel had caught some of the looks Karmel had cast her way. It made her wonder what Senar Sol had said about her, and how he fit into all this. Was he some part of the emperor’s master plan that Avallon hadn’t seen fit to share with her? It was possible. Still, there was no denying the Chameleons had good reason to be suspicious of Amerel’s intentions. “When they’ve finished marking the stone-skin ships,” she said to Noon, “how much dragon blood do you think they’ll have left in that flask of theirs?”
The Breaker stared at her blankly.
“Enough to mark another fleet, maybe? Or two. How valuable do you think that might be to the empire?”
Now he got it. Judging by his frown, he didn’t like what she was implying, but he wasn’t arguing against it either. “Maybe it won’t come to that. Maybe they’ll hand the blood over if we ask.”
“Maybe,” Amerel said. “I can be very persuasive when I have to be, after all.”
* * *
Romany thumped shut the cover of Avallon’s book. No more! She hadn’t seen writing this dull since she’d peeked inside Abologog’s Fourth Treatise on Reverence. Information was conveyed without wit or insight, and in such a condescending tone she could almost hear the author’s withered voice droning in her ear. And yet there was no clarity to the work. Some sections she had to read over and over to tease out the meaning, and she understood how Mayot Mencada must have felt trying to decipher the Book of Lost Souls.
She rubbed a hand across her eyes. Half a bell she’d been reading, and she was still only a handful of pages in. Mazana and Avallon hadn’t set a time for the renewal of their hostilities tomorrow, but both would doubtless expect her to have finished the book by then. Thus far the stone-skins had barely set foot outside their borders in their first campaign against their northern neighbor. The only detail of interest was a hint that the Augerans had been a peaceful people before the war. As to what had precipitated their transformation into brutal empire-builders, though … the book was frustratingly silent.
Romany opened the cover again. The lamp on her desk flickered in the breeze coming through her room’s solitary window. Then a distant clang sounded, and she tested the strands of her web for its cause.
This should prove entertaining.
She rose and exited through the door.
A hundred heartbeats later she found herself in a corridor next to an overgrown torchlit courtyard. A motley collection of Gray Cloaks and Erin Elalese soldiers were looking into the yard through the archways and windows surrounding it. In the yard itself was a circular paved area bounded by knee-high grasses and beds of wilting flowers. On the paving stones battled the Revenant subcommander, Twist, and the emperor’s white-clad bodyguard, Strike.
Twist and Strike. It sounded like a move in some intricate fighting sequence.
Instead of the flails with which Twist had fought Kiapa, the mercenary wielded two shortswords with curved tips that Romany recognized as khindals. His opponent was armed with a longsword. Evidently the blade was imbued with earth-magic, for it cut through the air with preternatural speed. Its owner, too, showed freakish swiftness as he stepped back from a thrust to his chest before springing onto a bench to evade a low cut. There was something absurdly effortless about that leap—as if, had Strike wanted to, he could just as easily have jumped onto the roof instead. Romany realized with a start that he was animal-aspected. A flintcat, perhaps, judging by the tawny sheen to his eyes.
A disciple of the Beast God.
The watchers about the courtyard were hushed, perhaps because of the lateness of the hour, perhaps in recognition of the skill of the duelists. A Gray Cloak with a goatee beard moved along the corridor across from Romany, calling out odds in a low voice. It seemed that he had Twist down as the marginal favorite, though the priestess suspected that might be out of misplaced loyalty to his subcommander, for Strike had the edge in both speed and reach. The bodyguard’s kinsmen must have shared that assessment, for the bearded bookmaker was finding no shortage of takers as he worked his way along a line of Erin Elalese soldiers. Romany wouldn’t put it past the Gray Cloaks, though, to have arranged some sting on the foreigners. Twist pretends himself hard-pressed to bring in the bets before breaking out his “A” game? It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.
For a while the men fought back and forth across the courtyard, feet swishing through the grass, the initiative shifting between them with each sweep of a shadowy blade. Strike’s sword made a whining sound with each stroke. As in the duel between Kiapa and Twist, Romany found herself contemplating how she would fare if she ever crossed blades with one of these swordsmen, and she was forced to concede she would be outclassed.
As an assassin, though, she would kill them before they even drew a weapon.
She watched Strike deliver a backhand blow that almost pierced Twist’s defenses. His sword wailed as he drove his opponent past the archway on the opposite wall. In the shadows beyond the arch, a small red-haired figure observed the duel.…
Romany did a double take.
Uriel?
She tutted in disapproval. What in the Spider’s name was the boy doing up at this hour? He wore his bedclothes, and his hair stood up at all angles as if he’d been roused from his sleep. Surely, though, there would have been someone stationed outside his room to stop him wandering off. There was no sign of Mazana Creed.
Whatever the explanation, this was no place for a boy of seven.
Romany stomped around the corridors, annoyed that she’d have to miss the duel to assume Mazana’s mothering duties. At her temple in Mercerie, she had always left the care of the youngest acolytes to her juniors, but there was no one else here who could take the boy under their wing. Besides, how difficult could it be to handle a seven-year-old when she’d faced down tyrants and emperors in her time?
As she approached Uriel, she saw the Everlord, Kiapa, standing a short distance beyond him. Could he have been the one guarding the boy’s room? If so, he would no doubt have welcomed the chance to bring his charge to watch the fight. That didn’t absolve Romany of her duty, though. She drew up next to Uriel. He blinked over and over as if he was struggling to keep his eyes open, and the priestess noticed for the first time that he was missing one of his lower front teeth. Who knew, maybe Twist had challenged him to a duel earlier as well.
“Did your mother say you could be here?” Romany asked. Because that didn’t make her sound old at all.
Uriel looked her way before returning his attention to the fight. “Sh
e’s not my mother; she’s my sister.”
Of course she was, where was the priestess’s head tonight? “Did your sister say you could be here?”
“No. But she wasn’t in her room when I woke up. I came to look for her.”
“She’s probably looking for you right now. She’s probably afraid you’re—”
“No, she isn’t,” Uriel cut in fiercely. “Mazana’s not afraid of anything!”
Except duty and decorum, perhaps. “Come with me,” Romany said.
He made no move to comply.
In the courtyard, Twist had sought respite from his foe by retreating behind a bench, but Strike simply hurdled it and set about him again. The crash of the two men’s blades came so rapidly the sounds merged to form one long metallic note.
“Why are they fighting?” Uriel said.
“They’re warriors. What else would they do?”
“It’s not fair. Why can that man”—he nodded at Twist—“have two swords when that man”—Strike—“only has one?”
To the contrary, it seemed to Romany that, of the combatants, it was Strike who had the unfair advantage with his sorcerously imbued speed and his invested weapon. “That one”—Strike—“could use two swords if he wanted.”
“So why doesn’t he?”
“You would have to ask him.”
“But … he’s from Erin Elal, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Mazana told me not to speak to anyone from Erin Elal.”
“Then we had best return to your room straightaway. Some of these other people watching”—the priestess gestured to either side—“are Erin Elalese too.”
The boy considered this, then yawned and gave a reluctant nod.
Romany steered him down the corridor with a hand on his shoulder before letting the hand fall to her side—only to flinch as something touched it. It turned out to be just Uriel putting his hand in hers. The priestess’s reaction, though, had been entirely understandable considering the last child to hold her hand had been a Mercerien urchin trying to part her from her rings. Uriel’s hand felt warm and uncommonly small in hers. They walked past a line of Gray Cloaks, and Romany was grateful the warriors’ attention was fixed on the duel. Then she reached the end of the line and saw Mili and Tali watching her. They gave her amused looks as she passed.
Oh, the indignity.
A grunt sounded from the courtyard, and there was a collective intake of breath from the spectators. Alas, Romany had moved out of sight of the duelists, and thus had no idea what the gasp signified. As she and Uriel rounded a corner, she sensed the boy’s gaze on her, but when she glanced down he looked away. Then he looked back at her again, his expression showing puzzlement and earnestness in equal measure. The resemblance to his half sister was quite striking in that instant. He opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it. Probably working up the courage to ask her for a story. Romany would have to go back to her room for that book on Augera, that was sure to send him to sleep.
Uriel looked at her again.
Here it comes.
“Why do you wear that mask?” he said at last. “Is it because you’re very ugly?”
* * *
“Here he comes,” Noon said.
Amerel looked up to see Caval making his way toward them along the alley leading to the harbor. Dressed in midnight blue, and with his power engaged, he was little more than a tremor in the darkness. He’d been gone for a quarter-bell, and Karmel’s relief at his return was evident in her slowly released breath.
Caval’s voice was a whisper over the gurgle of water entering the pool from the underwater aqueduct. “There’s no doubt about it, the stone-skins are preparing to pull out. The waterfront is crawling with them.”
Amerel swore. She’d feared as much on the journey through the city when they had only to evade a dozen patrols. She wiped sweat from her brow. “Any ships leaving now?”
“No, they’re still making preparations. Though I did see one ship come in to dock before immediately casting off again.”
Meaning this withdrawal was not in the stone-skins’ original script. Meaning something, somewhere, had happened to make the Augerans change their plans. And Amerel was willing to bet that that “something” spelled trouble for Erin Elal. “Jambar never warned you of this?”
Caval looked at Karmel, then said, “No. He told us we’d have days, if not weeks, before the fleet moved.”
Noon spoke. “Could it be the Rubyholters? Could the stone-skins have got wind of an attack?”
Amerel shook her head. Even if the Islanders had teamed up for a retaliatory strike, how big a force could they assemble at such short notice? Big enough to set the stone-skins running with their tails between their legs? The Guardian doubted it.
A cloud of needleflies swarmed about her, and she waved a hand at them. “What’s the story with this blayfire oil we can smell?” she asked Caval. It had been burning her nostrils for the last half-bell. “Are the stone-skins getting ready to fire the Rubyholt ships?”
“If they are, they’re not going to do it while their own ships are here.”
Noon said, “So what’s to stop us striking the flint now?”
“Nothing,” Caval replied. “But if you did so, there’s no guarantee you’d send the stone-skin ships up in flames with the Rubyholt ones. The Augerans have got water-mages, remember? Difficult to make a fire spread when there are water-mages about.”
Karmel said, “So what now?”
Amerel’s voice was iron. “We go through with the original plan.”
The priestess stared at her. “You’re serious? Did you miss the part where Caval said the waterfront is crawling with stone-skins?”
“So we do this carefully. But we do it now. In a bell’s time, the chance will have gone.”
“If we do it carefully, we’ll be lucky to mark a couple of ships before they leave.”
“But a couple might still lure the dragons. And when they come, with luck they’ll take down not just the marked ships but the rest of the fleet too.”
Karmel looked unconvinced. “What about the plan B we discussed at the boneyard? Why don’t we tip the blood in the harbor—”
“No,” Amerel cut her off. “You said it yourself, if we do that the dragons will come here rather than to wherever the Augeran fleet is.”
“Maybe to start with. But they’ll get round to the stone-skins eventually.” Then Karmel’s eyes widened in understanding. “Except you’re worried about where the fleet is heading now, aren’t you? You think it’s going for Erin Elal, not the League.”
Before Amerel could respond, Caval said, “Even if we mark the ships, it’ll be days before the blood draws the dragons. It’s nearly two weeks since Dragon Day, so most of the creatures will be back in the Southern Wastes. There’s no way they’re going to get here before the stone-skins reach wherever it is they’re heading.”
“Maybe,” Amerel said. “But maybe it’ll take the Augerans longer than we expect to sail through the Isles. Or maybe there’s a dragon nearby that hasn’t made the trip south yet.”
“That’s a long ‘maybe’ to risk getting caught over.”
Amerel couldn’t disagree. And if the roles were reversed, there was no way she would have been persuaded to gamble her life. But then the Chameleons didn’t have the Will to help with the persuading. She gathered it now and turned it on Karmel.
“We knew what we were getting into from the start,” she said to the priestess. “We knew how many stone-skins would be here. So what if they’re all at the harbor? That just means we had an easy ride getting through the city. Got to take the rough with the smooth.” She lowered the pitch of her voice, gave it that rhythm she used when she lulled Lyssa to sleep. “The stone-skins are busy pulling out. They won’t be expecting trouble. And as for hitting the ships without someone noticing, it’s just a matter of picking the right targets. I saw close to twenty stone-skin ships dock. There must be some that aren’t as well
guarded as the others.”
It wasn’t working. Karmel looked about as convinced by Amerel’s words as the Guardian was herself. Amerel needed to try something else—keep changing the point of her attack until she found what would work as a hook.
“We have to do this,” she said. “We have to. Maybe the stone-skins are going to hit my people, maybe they’re going to hit yours, it doesn’t matter. Either way it’ll be a bloodbath.” Her voice was smooth as honey. “They’ve got Rubyholt guides now. They can strike anywhere they like on the Ribbon Sea coast, or along Erin Elal’s eastern seaboard. Even at Arkarbour. The people there aren’t ready. They don’t have bells to warn them what’s coming. If you think the slaughter’s bad now, wait until the stone-skins sack Arkarbour. It’s ten times the size of Bezzle. We’ll be able to watch the bodies pile up from here.”
Still no give in Karmel. The priestess seemed to be looking through Amerel rather than at her. Karmel opened her mouth to speak, but the Guardian plunged on. If appealing to the woman’s reason wasn’t getting her anywhere, she’d have to up the ante. “Please,” she said, stepping closer. “I have a niece in Arkarbour. Her name’s Lyssa. She’s only six. Her mother—my sister—died a year ago. She’s all I have left.” Another step. “Please. She’s the only reason I’m here. I can’t lose her now. Maybe it’s already too late for her, but I have to try. This is the only way. This could be her only chance.”
Karmel said nothing. She held Amerel’s gaze before looking at Caval. Her expression hadn’t changed, but there was a vulnerability in her eyes. Caval stared back at her. The Guardian counted herself good at reading people, but she had no idea what their shared look meant. Maybe the Chameleons didn’t know themselves. As the heartbeats dragged out, Amerel took a breath. Damn this heat! Sweat poured off her, making her spider bites itch. It seemed madness that they should be standing here arguing, when the stone-skins could stumble on them at any instant. Amerel forced herself to remain still, though, sensing the Chameleons’ decision wavered on a knife-edge.
When Karmel at last turned toward the Guardian, Amerel still couldn’t guess what her decision would be. If the answer was no, Amerel would kill the Chameleons, take the blood, and carry on alone. She wanted to signal Noon to be ready, but she dared not take her gaze from Karmel. Her hand drifted toward her sword hilt.