Despite everything, the urge to touch the fire in Molly stirred in her, and she had to tear herself from it—to physically turn herself from the Phyros—before Rag could sense it and doubt her all over. Sending her mind back to Rag, she concentrated on sharing senses with her, and coaxing her to trust.
You see, I am here. I am not with Molly.
“It’s done, gods take you,” Willard snarled. “Get this out of my hand before I drink it unbound!”
Caris hurried to him, and she had to lay her hands on his wrists to keep him from gulping it before should could take away. A small amount spilled as they struggled, and he hissed with fury.
“I’ll give it right back,” she said, not daring to meet his eyes. But she did dare to reach out with her senses and smooth any of the anger, lest the Blood further taint her. “I’ll hold it for you. That’s all.”
Willard uncurled his fingers from the cup as if each finger had frozen and he fought iron stiffness. When it was safe in her hands, he stalked to the tree, where he sat and reached his arms behind him. “You’d better bloody make it quick.”
*
The muffled roars of Willard-Krato dwindled behind Caris as she rode Rag toward a smooth dome of rock they’d passed on their way up the run. After tying Rag at the base, she climbed to its summit and gained a view between trees of a narrow slice of the sky and river valley. She sat against a small tree and let out a long sigh, which the north wind echoed in the trees. A few stars winked through the haze of smoke still smothering the valley, and some reflected off the surface of the river, like a line of fireflies.
Her brow furrowed at that, for the river here was swift and frothy, too rough to reflect starlight. She stared hard at the line of lights, trying in vain to make sense of them with respect to the river and the valley, but the moonlight was dull and indirect, smothered behind a cloud.
As if answering her need, the Bright Mother peeked out for a moment and gave enough light for her to finally see the rapids of the river and to reveal that the fireflies lay above the line of the river, and therefore beyond it, in the distance. The lights winked in and out, colored yellow-orange by the haze from the wildfires until she recognized them for what they were, and her blood froze.
Torches, not fireflies.
Bannus’s men, riding with torches up the other side of the river, to intercept them.
“Her Majesty will never marry, for now she is both king and queen, and if she marries, she will be but queen.”
—The Queen’s Lady Anna to the Duke Arcenon upon his third and final courtship visit
54
Preparations
As Harric hurried down the last unexplored corridor, he passed numerous intersections with smaller passages. He’d passed a half-dozen of these before he began to hear the sounds of life echoing from some of them: Kwendi voices, thumping doors, muffled laughter.
Unwilling to make any turns that would be hard to remember later, he passed these and kept on until the main corridor made a sharp turn to the right. He had just paused at the corner when he heard something approaching from the other side, and a moment later pressed himself against the wall as a Kwendi swooped past them on the lowest branches of the trellis. The Kwendi blazed with streaming green strands as he moved easily from rung to rung, his feet holding tight to the handles of a basket smelling of berries.
“Mother of moons,” Fink said, when the passage stood vacant again. “These things give me chills. I’ll keep an eye out, and if one sneaks up from behind, I’ll rap the back of your head.”
“Good plan. You rap, I duck.”
Around the corner, the corridor grew wider and louder as Kwendi appeared in the trellis from doors high on the wall, many wearing long, many-pocketed vests and bizarre hats like wooly cones. A welter of bright green soul strands filled the air as the Kwendi barked and grinned and blinked at each other, and swooped away on the upper swing-ways with satchels of belongings beside them or clutched in feet. Harric couldn’t be certain, but it appeared that these Kwendi were men and children, and that he hadn’t seen a Kwendi woman since the reservoir.
Navigating the floor of the passage was relatively easy despite the crowds, because very few Kwendi moved on the ground. A few pushed carts full of baskets or boxes too heavy to carry, but those were slow-moving and easy to avoid, and once he saw a gray-haired Kwendi knuckle-walking between doors, but these elders were neither numerous nor swift-moving.
Soon the corridor fed into an open-air square like the one in the ghost town, only the trellises here were well maintained and full of roosting Kwendi men and children. Even the ground beneath the trellises was packed with them, so that their soul strands filled the space like a brilliant green sea. If he’d seen such a crowd at Gallows Ferry, it would be for the hanging of a witch or a horse thief, but these Kwendi appeared to be listening to a speaker somewhere in their midst in the trellises, for they all faced the center, from which a lone voice rose.
“Look at all these Kwendi,” Harric whispered. “Their clothes look nothing like Brolli’s.”
“Did you expect them to look like Arkendians?”
“Well…yeah. Brolli wore Arkendian clothes.” It bothered Harric that he hadn’t questioned why Brolli’s clothes had borne all the marks of an Arkendian tailor, down to the style of buttons and fabrics and the range of colors muted by the dictates of blood rank.
These Kwendi—the real Kwendi—stood out in stark contrast, favoring bushy fur vests over loose, brightly colored breeches or wraps, with exotic-colored sashes. Aside from bare feet, the only thing Brolli had retained from his people’s style was the long, braided locks, which appeared to be universal among Kwendi men.
But even there Brolli had muted the expression of Kwendi tastes, for most of these Kwendi had stones or witch-silver worked into their braids with colored ribbons, and just as many tied them up in huge piles atop their crowns or wrapped them in cloths. Brolli had also worn no jewelry, whereas loops of witch-silver festooned these men, piercing their ears and dangling on forearms. Similarly, ink or colored paint adorned their skin.
Brolli had clearly adopted Arkendian mannerisms and fashion to portray a very Arkendian-seeming image of his people, and from it Harric had foolishly imagined a whole culture of Kwendi who were more or less like Arkendians.
“There’s one trying to look Arkendian,” Fink said. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
He pointed to a young Kwendi in the nearest trellis, dressed in the scarlet tones of what had surely once been the doublet of an Arkendian of umber blood rank. The sleeves had been removed to create a passable vest, but to Harric’s eye, its velvet and cut looked out of place with its new owner’s beaded braids and sashes.
But now that he knew to look for it, he saw these bits of Arkendian fashion on younger Kwendi throughout the crowd. One wore the high hat of a spitfire tooler, and among the children he spotted page caps in all colors of the blood rank. But whether they’d been taken as trophies from dead Arkendian settlers, or won in trade, he couldn’t tell.
The speaker in the middle of the crowd shouted something, and the crowd exploded, hooting and waving their long arms above their heads and slapping feet against trellises. Since the hooting reminded Harric of the way Brolli laughed, he judged the crowd must approve of the speaker, but he could not interpret their animated grimaces and blinks.
“Hey, Fink,” Harric said. “Can you get down for a while? My shoulders are killing me.”
When Fink said nothing in response, Harric turned his head to look back.
The imp blinked his pupil-less eyes and then stretched his lipless mouth in hideous imitation of a Kwendi. “What’s wrong, kid? You don’t speak Kwendi Face Spasm?”
Harric smiled. “That’s the Fink I know. Welcome back.”
“Seriously, what’s wrong with their faces? Think they ate bad clams?”
“I’m sure that’s it exactly.” Harric nodded to the ground beside them. “Climb down?”
Fink hes
itated, apparently anxious despite the return of his humor, but ultimately climbed down and hooked a talon in Harric’s belt, as if he feared Harric might abandon him again.
“This way,” Harric said. Sidestepping along the outer edge of the square, he found a gap in the crowd through which he could see the speaker at the center. “Brolli!” he whispered to Fink. “We found him.”
As Harric watched, Brolli barked something in Kwendi, and the crowd reacted in the same boisterous way.
In the trellis below Brolli stood Rurgich and a half-dozen sharply dressed warriors in bright red uniforms and oddly shaped felt hats. The musculature of these Kwendi was nothing short of astounding, rippling with corded muscle, as if some drunk god had taken Willard’s top half and attached it to the legs of a prentice. Heavy bandoliers of hurling globes and cudgels hung from their shoulders.
After the final burst of clamor, the crowd dispersed and Brolli descended the trellis to stand beside a central fountain with his escort. One of the warriors handed him several sheets of parchment. He perused them and issued several crisp orders, then the warriors climbed up the trellises and swooped away in various directions.
Harric frowned. “How do you account for our friendly ambassador?”
“How do you mean?”
“Rousing speeches, orders to warriors. More than your basic ambassador’s authority, don’t you think? I think maybe he’s more than just that.”
Fink made a noncommittal noise. A glance down confirmed the imp had gone back to scanning the roofs at the edges of the square.
“Just keep those Web Strands away,” said Harric, “and that will keep the Aerie away.”
“Easy for you to say. Barely holding myself together.”
“You’re doing great. Sense of humor back and everything.”
“Gallows humor.”
Rurgich had disappeared in the hubbub of the square, which Harric saw was a market of sorts. He now emerged from the scrum with steaming skewers of meat for himself and Brolli, and the sight made Harric’s stomach rumble. He’d have to snag some food when he had a chance, but the square was too busy and chaotic to risk navigating in the Unseen.
Brolli and Rurgich wolfed their meat sticks and ascended the trellises, and before Harric could lean away from the wall, they swooped away into a passage between buildings on the opposite side of the square.
“Get on,” Harric whispered, and as soon as Fink climbed aboard, Harric dove into the market, dodging Kwendi and weaving through stacks of baskets and handcarts until he made it to the passage Brolli had taken.
High in the trellis and far down the passage, he spotted Brolli and Rurgich and followed at a lumbering jog. For a long minute, he barely kept them in sight until a soldier in red armor stopped them at an intersection.
Just as Harric caught up to them, they resumed swinging in their original direction, but they were halted so often by messengers who appeared to be seeking them that Harric was able to reclaim some of his breath.
Everywhere Brolli went, the respect and love and command he held over the soldiers and servants was evident. Despite the strange grimaces Harric couldn’t interpret, he thought he recognized a few signs. Small dips of their heads to Brolli, like little bows, coupled with wider grins and a slightly higher pitch to their voices when speaking with him. And he seemed calmer, less demonstrative, like a well-liked leader who knew his station but didn’t flaunt it.
Ambassador, my filthy socks. More like a general.
When Brolli halted at a pair of huge double doors, Harric staggered to a halt and hung back, so the Kwendi wouldn’t hear him panting. Two of the red-clad guards in the oddly shaped hats flanked the doors, their lower lips thrust out in a deliberate and sustained pout. Was that supposed be intimidating? Welcoming? When Brolli whirled down a ladder beside them, the warriors’ pouts vanished, and they bared their teeth in something like a grimace of pain.
“Before we leave,” Fink whispered, “I want a hat that looks like a constipated toad.”
The guards opened the great doors for Brolli, admitting cool outdoor air into the corridor along with the sounds of battle and brilliant daylight.
Daylight?
Brolli and Rurgich flipped their daylids down and stepped out onto what appeared to be a broad, trellised balcony crowded with Kwendi. Just as strange as daylight at night, the brilliant glare came from below the balcony, not from above, where Harric saw the night sky of the Unseen, with the swirling strands of the web.
Harric dodged the few Kwendi on the floor of the balcony and pressed against the back wall. Cool air laden with smells of earth and forest brought blessed relief to his sweating body.
Brolli and Rurgich joined a huge figure in crimson armor who stood at the edge of the balcony below numerous Kwendi who sat in the trellis to watch something in the daylight below. This Kwendi’s hair was silvered and his face aged and deeply cratered with pox scars. When he saw Brolli, the two embraced.
“You wear your armor,” said the elder, in perfect Arkendian. “That is good.”
Brolli shook his head. “I have lost my breath for it, uncle.”
“What do you think of the new machine?”
Brolli looked down into the bright light. “Yes. It’s good, that one. It simulates well. Are there others?”
“Another will be complete soon. This one is used without stopping, night and day.”
“Good.”
The elder turned his pocked face to Brolli. “We are strong enough for war,” he said, with a grim change in tone. “There is no treaty.”
Brolli nodded as if he already knew this. As the two stared at the bright scene below, the sounds of battle redoubled, and Harric felt his heart shrinking like a punctured wineskin.
No treaty. War.
Though he’d suspected this to the point of believing it, confirmation hurt. His mind drifted back over the last weeks with Brolli and Willard, trying to make sense of Brolli’s game. If there was to be no treaty, what was the point of stringing Willard along? The only reason Harric could imagine was for Brolli to continue to milk Willard of his understanding of Arkendian war craft. Indeed, what better source than Sir Willard? Battle tactics, strategy—these were the constant subjects of discussion between them during all those nights in Abellia’s tower. Brolli had been fascinated with the coordination of mounted lances and archer squads, of spitfire teams and foot brigades and the use of signal banners and trumpets. He’d scribbled it all in his journal. And hadn’t he recently asked how to kill an immortal?
As the scale of the Kwendi’s betrayal became clear, Harric felt his throat tightening, his chest squeezing his breath. And if this were so, then surely Brolli never intended to remove the rings from Caris.
Fists trembling, Harric barely restrained himself from shoving Brolli over the railing.
You gutless, mother-cobbing liar. You stinking traitor. Caris is suffering, and you lie and give her false hope. I’ll make you pay for this. I will find a way.
Harric took several deep breaths to calm himself and then crept to the edge of the balcony to look down. The light shone up from large white balls suspended on poles. In a garden of shrubs and small trees below were a dozen goggled Kwendi in the heavy tar-bag armor, bearing even heavier-looking tar-bag shields and helms. They formed two ranks: the first rank was a shield wall with cudgels in hand; the second rank had shields on their backs and hurling globes in their hands. Together the two ranks moved against a very strange opponent, which Harric recognized immediately.
It was a bulky wooden contraption mounted on wheels and powered by giant springs of twisted rope like those that powered Arkendian catapults. The machine was clearly meant to resemble an oversized war-horse with a long, blunted lance mounted on its head. The “charge” was a strike of incredible speed in which the beast lunged forward and knocked a soldier in the shield wall spinning. Two Kwendi on the machine guided the lance strikes and reset the mechanisms, while others manipulated its orientation by pushing and pulling ag
ainst long levers.
The Kwendi were preparing to fight against mounted lances.
The Kwendi warriors’ tactic was simple. Their tactic consisted of waiting for the knight to charge them with a lance, at which time the first rank aimed cudgel blows and the second rank lobbed heavy hurling globes at the beast’s head.
Even more horrifying to Harric, however, was that there was no mistaking the design of the contraption as Arkendian. The rope-wheels, the levers, the gears—the sheer ingenuity of it—was the purest example of Arkendian toolery. The Kwendi had enslaved some captured knight, Harric guessed—or more likely a knight’s squire, as it wasn’t a gentleman’s pastime—and that Arkendian was still here, in captivity, building for the Kwendi.
Could such knights have turned traitor out of spite for their banishment?
Harric chewed the inside of his cheek. More likely they had been forced to make it, or they had been lied to. It wasn’t a master tooler’s work, in any case: though it simulated the moment of impact and force of a mounted lance, it in no way reproduced the follow-through of a charging war-horse. Harric could see this flaw immediately, though the Kwendi did not seem to notice it. The contraption also moved from side to side around the slow-moving shield wall—a loss of momentum no lancer would allow. Nor would a knight fight alone like that unless separated from the others.
It was strange to Harric that Brolli had seen the charge of a cavalry line in action, yet seemed content with this flawed mechanism.
Harric studied the training, furious that Brolli would talk peace out of one side of his mouth and yet prepare for war out of the other. He counted heads in the first and second ranks, and noted how a leader in rear rank shouted commands to the front, the way the two ranks moved together and how the warriors in each rank moved, and every detail of intelligence he might gather for Willard.
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