by Kate Elliott
“I’ll keep my promise to you. You’ll see.”
“That I will.”
Kal nods and walks away to make his farewell to Khamu.
In Efean, Ro says, “Jessamy. You don’t have to go with him. Their fight isn’t your fight.”
“Of course it’s my fight. It’s Efea’s fight.”
“If he dies, you’ll be taken down with him. If he wins, you’ll lose him anyway.” His deep voice snaps with emotions too complex to untangle. “You don’t belong to them, Jessamy. You belong with us.”
He touches my shoulder as if he wants to embrace me, then winces and pulls his clenched hand to his chest. Whether by accident or design, he has just copied the fist-to-heart theatrical gesture of a person heart-stricken by a hopeless love.
My tongue has turned to brick.
Kal waits beside Agas and Klidas. He sees us talking but does not interfere.
I meet the poet’s gaze with all the clarity I can muster. “We can’t risk being conquered by the East Saroese with Nikonos as their puppet king. You don’t have an army or weapons, Ro-emnu.”
“I have the truth, Spider. I just hope it’s not too late for you when you finally realize it.”
I don’t bid him farewell; I’m too angry.
Yet as I walk away he says, “If you are ever in trouble, I pledge on my five souls that I will aid you.”
I don’t look back.
7
We set out at a brisk walk along a wide path rutted with wagon tracks.
“What promise did you make to Ro?” I ask Kal.
“That it’s time to allow Efeans back into the army, as my grandfather did. For one thing, men like Inarsis don’t take well to proving their worth and then having it stripped from them. For another, we are warring against kingdoms who have bigger armies than we do. There are far more Commoners than Patrons in Efea. We could easily double or triple our army in size if we allowed Efeans to become soldiers.”
This is exactly what I’ve hoped for, the bridge between one part of my life and the other.
He adds, “Working together, can you and I convince your father that it’s a feasible idea?”
“Oh! So that’s why you wanted me to accompany you on this journey.”
He’s such a flirt with his eyes. “Yes, that’s the only reason.”
“I knew it.”
Mis coughs, and I look around to see Agas and Klidas watching us with frowns that skate close to hostility.
I say to them, “Any chance we can move faster, or do we need to stay walking for you soldiers to keep up with us?”
My crisp, fluent Saroese and blunt manner confuse them.
“We can run!” they protest, forgetting to be angry that I’ve challenged them.
I settle into an easy jog, the best we can manage in our exhausted state. A crow passes over us, winging its way south. I’m sure it’s the same one. We pass several more hollows of stinking, tarry ground, then climb a slope to a low rise. Ahead lies the sea. The high embankment of the Royal Road runs parallel to the shore. King Kliatemnos the Second had the road built to ease the way for Efea’s army when he began fighting border skirmishes on the Eastern Reach against his cousin kings of East Saro, Saro-Urok, and West Saro. The wars among the four kingdoms have never ended, only paused and started up again in a cycle that goes around and around.
Now a huge line of soldiers and wagons rumbles west along the road and out of my sight. Every unit flies the sea-phoenix banner: this is the Royal Army in retreat, marching toward what they believe is the safety of Saryenia’s walls. The silhouettes of spider scouts flash as the light of the setting sun glints off their brass carapaces.
The baggage train moves slowest and thus at the rear. The wagons are almost past us, and if we don’t hurry they’ll leave us behind. Far to the east movement trembles on the road, difficult to discern as the light fades: there marches the enemy, hard on Father’s heels.
“Let’s go!” I say impatiently.
“Mules don’t give orders.” Klidas slaps me.
The blow really hurts. Tears stream.
A staff slams Klidas in the chest and whirls around to catch him behind the knees and flip him to the ground. Kal steps in, bracing the tip of his staff on the soldier’s chest.
“No honorable man uses that word. Nor does he strike women. Do you understand me?”
“Y-yes, my lord.” He’s heaving, sides shaking from pain. Agas stares wide-eyed.
Kal removes the staff and nods at me.
“Let’s go,” I repeat. We head out with no further protests.
Outriders wave us through. We climb the embankment up onto the road and race after the last group of wagons grinding along, three heavy catapults being pulled by eight mules apiece. The road crosses a steep-sided gully, where water flows in the rainy season. Efeans wielding pickaxes and shovels are digging a trench through the road here so the enemy won’t be able to cross without time-consuming repair work. The noise of iron hammering rock rings a cacophony around us.
Mis shrieks, “It’s Dusty!”
She bolts. I run after her, losing Kal in the confusion. The laborers swing their pickaxes with zeal, as if they are imagining the surface of the road as the faces of men they hate. Dusty is barefoot, clad only in a grimy keldi. Whip scars run cruel tracks across his back.
A Saroese sergeant holding a spear blocks our path.
“Girls! If you’re here to work, haul rock and pile it on the road as a barrier. Otherwise get out of the way.”
For once Mis does not obediently step back but charges forward.
“Dusty. Dusty!”
His back still to her, he brings the pickax down with a blow that cracks the surface. He hasn’t heard her.
“Dusty!” she shouts.
He hesitates, then turns.
I wince, and Mis presses a hand over her mouth.
His right eye is seamed shut with a mass of fresh scar tissue, like a clumsy seamstress tried to sew shut his eye socket. His good eye passes right over us, then tracks back. He shakes his head, tapping his right ear as if to clear it.
“You’re dead. I’m seeing things.” He shifts the pickax to ready it for another blow.
Mis grasps his arm. “No, we’re alive, Dusty. How did you get here?”
Dusty’s thinness makes him look fragile but an intensity burns in his ruined face that scares me. “The doctor and those mercenaries gave me to the East Saroese as a slave. At the battle by Port Selene, General Esladas sent skirmishers to burn the enemy baggage train. A bunch of us prisoners took the chance to run after them when they returned to the Royal Army, and they took us on as laborers. I don’t know how you survived but I thank the Mother of All that you both did. You have to get out of here. If the enemy captures you…” He touches his ruined eye, then pushes Mis roughly away. “Go! We’re trenching the road to slow them down.”
A horn blasts, calling the alert.
The wagons keep rolling but the rearguard infantry turns to face back the way they’ve come. A rumbling sound resolves into skirmishers wearing the hawk tabards of East Saro, racing out of the gloom to attack the laborers working on the trench. The shadows make their numbers seem enormous, like swarming locusts.
I’m too stunned to run.
“Brace! Pull!”
A loud racheting noise clacks behind me.
“Fly!”
With thumps, the three catapults let fly. Pots spin overhead. A few arc harmlessly to the side of the road but the rest slam down amid the enemy. Ceramic shatters.
Shouts of laughter spread among the East Saroese soldiers at this ineffective blow.
Then a scream. Followed by an outbreak of cries and shrieks.
Dusty heaves up his pickax and slams it down. “Scorpions,” he shouts with a wild laugh as he and the other laborers really start pounding.
The catapults are being ratcheted back with a clank clank clank for another volley. Arrows fly as our soldiers shoot at will into the confused and frantic
enemy.
Mis shakes me. “Go on, Jes! I’m not leaving without Dusty.”
“I can’t leave you here, Mis! You heard what he said. You saw what the enemy did to him.”
“Do you think Efeans don’t risk that every day, where the Saroese rule? Maybe your father treated his servants fairly, but there’s no law to protect us against abuse. Can’t you understand? Your father’s rank and Kal’s attention don’t make you Saroese, Jes. In their eyes you’ll always be Efean, like me.”
“No. I reject that. I’m not one or the other—”
She cuts me off by hugging me, hard. “I know you have to make your own journey. And I have to make mine. Be safe, Jes.”
With a kiss to my cheek, she pushes me away and runs back to the laborers, where she starts hauling rock.
“Mis!” I shout after her, but the catapults thump, drowning out my voice. Scorpion-laden ceramic bombs fly to scatter amid the enemy.
“Jes!” It’s Kal, looking for me. I’ve imperiled him by hanging behind.
It makes me sick to leave, knowing I may never see them again, but I do.
Kal commandeers horses from a passing cavalry regiment. As we gallop forward, weary soldiers glance up.
“Lord Captain Kalliarkos! The hero of Pellucidar Lake has returned to us!”
A ragged cheer flows down the impossibly long column of soldiers.
When I was younger, the Royal Army at full strength marched out of Saryenia to fight a war in a foreign land. The king and queen declared it a festival day. We girls with Mother were allowed to wait amid the crowds on the Avenue of the Soldier to watch them go, since Father marched with them in his first campaign as a captain. It took all morning and into the afternoon for the army to pass through West Gate, a long, hungry, hot day for four young girls and their anxious mother. Amaya started crying because her favorite doll got stepped on, Bettany threw up from the dust, and Maraya blithely named off all the regimental banners as they passed, which made me jealous because I had secretly been trying to learn them so Father would praise me when he got home.
It’s the same mass of numbers here. For all that the Royal Army is understrength and weakened, the ranks seem endless, moving relentlessly and in silence but for necessary commands and the sounds of feet, hooves, and wheels in constant motion. As twilight descends, lamps get lit until the road becomes like a stream of spark-bugs. We ride forward and forward as in a dream that won’t end.
But at last a cluster of banners marks the command company, a mix of infantry and cavalry guarding the general’s carriage. A company of spider scouts clanks along on either side, a gleaming wall of brass and articulated limbs.
A captain cuts across our path. He’s wearing the firebird badge that marks him as an adjutant under Father’s direct command.
“Halt! We are under orders to observe strict order-of-march discipline.…” In any other circumstances I would laugh at his double take. “Lord Captain Kalliarkos! My lord, I did not expect to see you.” He hesitates, then acknowledges me with a nod.
“Captain Helias, I must see General Esladas at once.”
“Did you not arrive with your cousin, my lord? We just received a messenger from Prince General Nikonos that he and you have made a forced march from Saryenia with new troops and arms with which to defeat our enemy.”
It’s no victory to know I was right about Nikonos’s plan. What if we’re too late? As impatient as I am, I have to remain silent as Kal speaks.
“Captain! This is an ambush, not an alliance. Nikonos has murdered his brother and nephew and proclaimed himself king beside Queen Serenissima. He has done so with the assistance of our enemies from East Saro. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”
The captain’s eyes widen, but he immediately salutes with a tap to his shoulder. “What is your command, my lord?”
“Send messengers to every unit. We must be ready to fight because we are out of room to run on either side. Hand out weapons to all Efean drivers, grooms, and laborers.”
“To Efeans? Only the general can give such a command.”
“I am a royal prince, Captain. Do it.”
“Yes, my lord.” But he frowns and glances at me.
I ignore him. I’ve already looked ahead to a group of horsemen with a familiar figure among them, not in the general’s carriage as we thought he would be. My father has a stiff seat on his horse, nothing like Kal’s effortless grace or the easy seats of the officers accompanying him, highborn men who grew up learning how to ride.
“Father!” I shout, because I can’t restrain my fear any longer, spurring my horse to reach him.
Father’s expression becomes a mask made cold and grim by our arrival.
“My lord, this is an unexpected meeting,” he says to Kalliarkos. His gaze flicks to me and he gives a dip of his chin to show he will speak to me later. “I just received word from one of the crow priests that a man fitting your description was sighted moving this way. Given that the message we just received from Prince Nikonos claims you are with him, your presence here cannot signal good news.”
“You are riding into an ambush,” I blurt out.
“Explain.”
Kal describes the situation in crisp strokes. All emotion vanishes from Father’s face except an uncanny twist of brightness I can’t explain, like a banked fire compressed until its glow becomes the fiercest light of all. He’s absorbing, he’s thinking, he’s calculating.
Yet we keep riding forward toward disaster.
We reach the very front of the army, the vanguard with its proud sea-phoenix banner parting the night like a ship’s prow. Here march Father’s most decorated veterans, the men he brought with him from his old command, the only soldiers allowed to wear a firebird badge. Spider scouts stump along, split into a squad on either side of the infantry. By their markings, I recognize them as the company Kal commanded in the desert.
Flashes of light reveal lanterns in the distance, a large group approaching from the west.
“Nikonos is almost on us,” I whisper harshly. “Father, we have to turn back.”
“No. We are now caught between two enemy forces that are working together.” Father lays open the problem in the same analytical manner that I chart a path through Rings in my head before I throw myself into the obstacle. He speaks loud enough so all can hear. “Nikonos will come himself out of fear I won’t believe a surrogate. He knows it’s possible Lord Gargaron will have sent someone to warn me, so he’ll have tried to move quickly without a full army. I’m going to gamble that Nikonos has a smaller force than ours. That makes him weaker than the army behind us.”
His pause falls like the silence after a bolt of lightning, waiting for the thunder to crash. Every man there hangs on his next utterance, as if he is the only lamp in a room where darkness kills. They all know that without Father’s brilliance the Royal Army would already have been destroyed.
“So we will punch.”
“Punch?” I mutter.
A few of the captains exchange surprised glances, but no one interrupts as he goes on.
“I am the bait. I will meet Prince Nikonos in the formal way, with only four adjutants, as if I did not suspect.”
“Father, he’ll kill you!”
He gives no sign he’s heard me. “My presence will lull him into a false sense of security. A squad of spider scouts will accompany me, which is my privilege as general. Meanwhile, Lord Captain Kalliarkos will command a troop of cavalry to swing around and attack their force from the rear. My lord, if you can capture or kill Nikonos, all the better.”
“What about me?” I demand.
“Jessamy, you will stay with the command unit under the supervision of Steward Haredas.”
No! I want to shout as Father continues to give orders. All I can see in my mind’s eye is Prince Temnos awash in his own blood, dead on the floor by Nikonos’s sword because I ignorantly led him to his death. I will not stand aside while my beloved father walks into range of the man who slaughtere
d a child with as little emotion as that with which he might have swatted a fly.
So I make my own plan.
8
My plan is simplicity itself: as Haredas escorts me toward the command company, I allow a column of advancing cavalry to split me away from him.
“I will meet you there!” I shout as the inexorable flow separates us.
My mind teases apart noises and sights and smells to pinpoint the information I need: the location of the nearest spider scouts. At the edge of the road I dismount and shove the reins into the hands of a surprised infantryman. Then, with Inarsis’s long knife bumping against my thigh, I set off at a run.
The last scout in line is always the lowest in rank. I cut in front of its heavy legs. With a thunk, the scout slams the spider to a halt and tilts the carapace forward. He’s shielded front and back, only his eyes and nose visible, making him seem like a monstrous blend of spider and man, a creature out of legend.
“Get out of my way!” he shouts.
“By order of General Esladas and Lord Captain Kalliarkos, I order you to relinquish your spider to me. You’re to report to Steward Haredas in the command unit for a new assignment.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the general’s valiant daughter. Spider. I’m part of the plan.”
Names and reputation work a potent magic. He doesn’t dare risk defying the connections I have invoked, so he obeys.
I climb into the straps and tighten my hands on the levers that control the huge brass creature. Energy buzzes against my palms, the presence of the spark that gives the spider a kind of life.
“Walk with me, comrade,” I whisper to the dead man whose essence powers this spider. Acknowledging him matters, even though he is long past being able to hear me.
My arms and legs fall back into the flow of handling the eight limbs and the pivoting carapace. Spider scouts can outpace a running man, and although a galloping horse will pass a spider in a short race, in the end a spider’s uncanny endurance will leave a blown horse in the dust. I quicken my steps to catch up to the end of the line. My legs thud down like deadly hammers. Men calm their horses as I pass.