The Price of Valor

by Django Wexler

  Marcus, also looking a bit awkward, let courtesy come to the fore and bowed. “Miss Sothe. Last time I saw you, you were fighting a half dozen Noreldrai Grays with admirable efficiency. I regret I was unable to render more effective assistance.”

  “I believe the last time you saw me, I was lying bleeding on the floor,” Sothe said. “But thank you. You have my gratitude for keeping Raesinia safe.”

  “We need to talk,” Raesinia said. “All of us. But—”

  “Not here,” Sothe said, looking at the teeming refugees. “And not now. I’ve been three days on the road without sleep, so my contributions would likely be . . . minimal.”

  “Oh!” Raesinia silently cursed Sothe’s stoicism. She’d probably keep chatting until she dropped from exhaustion. She pointed across the room. “Use my bed. Or would you rather eat first?”

  “Sleep,” Sothe said. “Thank you. If you’ll excuse me?”

  Raesinia nodded, and Sothe slipped into the crowd, moving like a ghost in spite of the tight quarters and her injuries. Marcus looked after her and shook his head, his expression thoughtful.

  “‘Head of household’?” He looked quizzically at Raesinia. “Someday you’re going to have to explain to me where you found her.”

  “You’ll have to ask her yourself,” Raesinia said. “It’s not my story to tell.”

  * * *

  MARCUS

  Marcus had not been sleeping well.

  He was one of a few in Mrs. Felda’s with the privilege of an actual bed, rather than a bit of cloth spread over the stone floor, but he was still obliged to share it with two others in shifts. As another nod to his standing, he’d been assigned the night shift, which let him try to sleep during the approximate hours of darkness, but he still had to vacate promptly in the morning to let some other poor soul collapse.

  The combination of the ever-noisy church and the enforced schedule meant that Marcus spent quite a lot of time lying down, hoping that exhaustion would finally triumph over the shouting of night-owl children or the clink and scrape of cutlery and carry him off to sleep. I never thought being on the run from the law would be so loud. Or, he had to admit, smell quite so bad. The church was developing an odor to rival an army camp.

  It gave him plenty of time to think, which was not particularly welcome. The truth was that he felt lost. Ever since he’d first saluted the young colonel at Fort Valor in Khandar, Marcus had found himself swept along in Janus’ wake, acting in his name. That was simple enough in battle—executing orders was what an officer was for—and even command of the Armsmen had made sense, of a sort. But it bothered him more than he’d realized at the time that Janus had left him behind to go off and fight his war.

  Now he had, in any reasonable regard, failed in his mission. The Thousand Names, which he had been assigned to protect, had been taken by the enemy; Raesinia, who had been added to his responsibilities, would have been taken as well if not for the intervention of a Khandarai phantom. He had nothing left—one Mierantai lieutenant, recovering only slowly from a nasty wound, and one girl ranker with little respect for his authority.

  More important, he didn’t know what to do. On the battlefield, if you couldn’t accomplish your goals when you’d done all you could, you fell back and asked your superior for further orders. Without the flik-flik line, though, he was out of contact with Janus, and the situation had changed radically.

  In the event of my death . . . That last set of orders was still chilling. Rumor had Janus still very much alive, but how good was rumor? Marcus felt himself instinctively reaching out for reassurance and not finding it.

  And then there was Raesinia, with her insistence that they do something. She’s probably right, damn it. But what if I do the wrong thing? The last time Marcus had been without a commanding officer had been after Colonel Warus’ death, just before the Redeemer rebellion. All I managed to do was run away.

  The time was approaching when he’d have to turn over his bed. He resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to get any more sleep and opened his eyes. The omnipresent buzz of life in the church went on all around him, laundry and cooking, cleaning and mucking out. Someone had even started a little group to sing prayers in the pulpit, the first time that sacred space had been put to its intended use in centuries.

  Marcus stretched and sniffed himself surreptitiously—he hadn’t washed his uniform in three days, but given the general state of the place, it would probably be okay for one more. One small corner of the kitchen was reserved for “baths,” which consisted of a bucket of cold water dumped over the head and a tag end of soap. There was privacy only for those who could persuade a friend to hold a sheet in front of them; at this point, most of the refugees had stopped bothering, in spite of Mrs. Felda’s scandalized looks.

  At least there was still food. Daily passing of a collection plate among the refugees secured some coin, and those who’d arrived with extra possessions were eventually convinced to offer them up for sale. Marcus was surprised that this hadn’t caused more than a bit of grumbling, but shared trouble had created a bond of solidarity, even across nationalities, and only a few Vordanai had complained at their treasured goods being sold off to help feed Borelgai women and children. Cora, given Mrs. Felda’s blessing to organize things, had deputized a troop of young women, older children, and fit old men to go out and purchase necessaries, in addition to dividing up the various cooking and cleaning duties.

  It all worked, even though the closest thing to people in charge were a forgetful old woman, her slightly thickheaded son, and a teenage financial genius with a tendency to lose herself in books for hours at a time. Marcus had been prepared at first to get things organized on a proper military footing—he’d put camps together before, after all—but he’d quickly realized his assistance wasn’t going to be necessary.

  But it only works as long as there’s food coming in, and nobody asks too many questions. They were relying on finite resources and goodwill, and both would run out eventually. He doubted the camaraderie of the last few weeks would last when rations started to shrink. Raesinia’s right. We have to do something, or this is going to turn into a nightmare.

  He stood in the queue for a bowl of soup and a bit of bread, dunked the one in the other, and ate without thinking hard about what precisely had gone into either. When he’d finished—handing the bowl off to be quickly washed and given to the next hungry party—he climbed the staircase up to the balcony. Raesinia was already waiting by the ladder leading up to the attic, with Sothe beside her. So, to Marcus’ surprise, was Feor, looking paler than usual and with dark circles under her eyes but definitely upright.

  “Good morning,” Marcus said in Khandarai. “Are you feeling better?”

  Feor nodded. “I am, thank you.”

  “She asked to be involved,” Raesinia said quietly. “You don’t mind?”

  “I think,” Marcus said, looking around to make sure no one was listening too closely, “that anyone who knows anything about magic is going to have something to add.”

  That was what this amounted to, Marcus realized. The “council of people who know magic is real.” Andy, who had actually seen one of the Penitent Damned, seemed to have convinced herself that it had been some kind of chemical trick, and Marcus wasn’t yet sure if he should force her to confront the fact that most of what she knew about the world was a lie. That left himself, Raesinia, Sothe, and Feor.

  All women, Marcus realized with a sinking feeling as he climbed the ladder. He wished Janus and Ihernglass were here, to even the odds a little. The others were sitting in the small clear space in the attic, dust dancing in the light of the candles they’d brought up, and Marcus closed the trapdoor and sat between Raesinia and Feor. Sothe, having traded her beggar’s garb for more comfortable linens, stared at him for a long moment before looking away.

  “All right,” Raesinia said. “We have to decide wha
t to do next.”

  Just by coming here, Marcus realized, he’d made the decision that Raesinia was right. They had to do something. In the end, he couldn’t stand by and watch the people of the Docks suffer, any more than he’d been able to fire on the crowd at the Vendre. Whatever Janus’ orders might or might not have been was no longer the issue.

  In a way, he was once again under a commanding officer. That it was a woman a decade younger than him, and a civilian to boot, was taking some getting used to.

  “We know Maurisk is digging in,” Raesinia said. “He can read a map as well as we can. He’ll defend all the approaches, but this is the hardest one to block, so he has to assume this is where Janus will make his main effort.”

  Marcus nodded. “The bridge itself is wide-open. Even with the guns we saw, the Army of the East will probably have superior artillery, so if Janus gets to the riverfront, he can blast a crossing. Maurisk’s best chance is to fight it out along the Green Road. If he fortifies the buildings, assaulting them would be too bloody to risk. Janus would have to wait until his guns reduced each position, then move up, block by block. That could take weeks.”

  “Not to mention reduce half the Docks to rubble,” Raesinia said. “That’s point one. Point two is that Maurisk is working with the Priests of the Black, and has a number of Penitent Damned on his side. Do we know how many?”

  Marcus ticked them off on his fingers. “Ionkovo. That giant who attacked Willowbrook. The old woman who can throw flames.”

  “The one who attacked me was . . . strange,” Sothe volunteered. “Not fast, exactly, but he could predict my movements.”

  “That’s at least four,” Marcus said. “Feor, do you have anything that might help us stop them?”

  “With the Names . . .” Feor shook her head, then paused. “I can sense them, if they’re close enough. Her Majesty ought to be able to as well.”

  Raesinia nodded. “It took me a while to recognize it, but yes. I don’t know how close they have to be, though.”

  “Janus has a few tricks,” Marcus said, feeling guilty for keeping secrets even from this inner circle. He’d seen Ihernglass’ power in action, when he defeated his lover/would-be-murderer Jen Alhundt. But that was Ihernglass’ secret to tell, or at least Janus’. “Until he gets here, we’re going to have to try to avoid fighting the Penitent Damned if we possibly can.” He thought of Hayver, screaming as he was engulfed in flames. “And we’ll keep a twenty-four-hour watch, so we’ll at least have a little warning if Ionkovo decides to pop out of the closet.”

  “What about the Steel Ghost?” Raesinia said. “He helped us once.”

  She looked at Feor, who gave an awkward shrug.

  “I cannot answer for him,” the Khandarai girl said. “That he has helped without coming forward to join us openly is probably a fair statement of his intentions.”

  “Agreed,” Marcus said. “We can’t rely on him.”

  “That’s point two,” Raesinia said. “Point three is the refugees. We can’t keep them here.” She sighed. “I wish we could bring Cora up here.”

  “Fill her in later,” Sothe said.

  “We need more space and more food,” Raesinia said. “Without drawing too much attention. We’ll need to work through the locals.”

  Marcus nodded. “They seem willing, and Andy will help.”

  “Lastly—” Raesinia said.

  “The Thousand Names,” Feor said.

  “Right.” Raesinia rubbed her eyes. “Maurisk captured them at Willowbrook nearly a week ago. We have to assume he’s moved them by now.”

  “Probably not out of the city, though,” Marcus said. “Too much risk of running into one of Janus’ cavalry patrols.”

  “If I may ask a potentially obvious question,” Sothe said, “are these Names that important at this stage?”

  “Yes,” Feor said. “They cannot be allowed to be taken to Elysium.”

  “Why?”

  “The abh-naathem, the Penitent Damned, already have a great store of naath at their disposal. The Thousand Names represents the only archive outside their control. If we lose them, we lose any chance of opposing them.”

  “Having seen what the Penitent Damned can do, I’m inclined to believe that,” Marcus said.

  “If Janus takes the city,” Raesinia said, “then we may get the Names back in any case.”

  Sothe shook her head. “If they’re as important to the Priests of the Black as you say they are, they would try to get them out before the city falls.”

  “I agree,” Feor said. “They will abandon Maurisk, if it comes to that. Cities and armies are not their concern.”

  “So we have to get them back,” Marcus said. “Eight solid steel plates, taller than I am, that each take at least four strong men to carry. That’s not going to be easy.”

  “Wait until they’re in transit,” Sothe said. “Then hijack them.”

  Marcus had had much the same idea at Willowbrook, but since then he’d thought a little harder about the difficulties. “That relies on knowing when they’re in transit.”

  “I can find that out,” Sothe said.

  There was a moment of silence. The queen nodded, decisively, and looked at Sothe. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “Not badly enough to slow me down much,” Sothe said.

  “You’re in charge of intelligence, then. We need to know where the Names are now, when they’ll be moved. Knowing where the Penitent Damned are would be a big help, too.”

  “That’s a bit of a tall order,” Marcus said.

  “I can handle it,” Sothe said, looking at him coolly. “I still have contacts.”

  Marcus looked questioningly at Raesinia, who shrugged. Sothe raised an eyebrow.

  “I used to work for Orlanko,” she said. “Any other questions?”

  Another, more strained silence.

  Raesinia cleared her throat. “All right. I’m going to work with Cora to help with the refugees. Cora had some ideas on where we can house people, but it’s going to take delicate negotiation. Everybody’s closed up tight right now, and we can’t afford to fight the seedies in the open. Feor, until we find the Names, you can help us.”

  “I would be pleased to,” Feor said, dipping her head.

  “Marcus,” Raesinia said, “you’re on the military side. Andy should be able to get you some eyes and ears, and you know what to look for. We’ll prepare maps and notes, and when Janus’ army gets close we can send riders to meet him. Or Giforte might get back in touch, in which case we’ll want to be able to pass along as much as possible.”

  Marcus barely bit back an instinctive Yes, sir! He grinned and nodded, fighting the urge to salute.

  It’s always good to have a proper commander in charge.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  WINTER

  The Army of the East debouched from the passes of the Kell Mountains, descending in a long, winding column along a road that switchbacked between the steepest hills before leveling out into lush, gentle country. This was the Duchy of Orlanko, the ancestral lands of the Last Duke, and Winter had half expected the whole place to look sinister. Orlanko had been a mostly absentee landlord, though, spending much of his life in the capital, and his realm was a sleepy, well-ordered place of broad pastures and quaint medieval towns.

  As a result of the Last Duke’s ancestor’s good sense in choosing the cause of Farus IV over his noble opponents, the Duchy of Orlanko had never suffered the horrors of the civil war and the Great Purge that had followed. The victorious king had left his greatest ally’s lands alone while he reordered the rest of the kingdom, and as a result traveling through Orlanko was in some ways like walking in Vordan’s history. The previous hundred years might as well not have happened; riding at the head of her regiment, Winter passed through villages of half-timbered houses with tiny, mottled glass windows and vast fiel
ds given over to pasturage for cows. The animals stood by the fences, staring dumbly and lowing now and then as the army trooped past.

  The people were another matter. The folk of Deslandai hinterland had been positively pleased to see the Vordanai army, and had been willing to sell to anyone with coin in their pockets. Here, back in Vordan at last, the locals were much less friendly. Winter wasn’t certain if they were loyal to Orlanko, to the Directory, or simply scared by the stories that had been spreading ahead of the army, but every building they came to was locked up tight.

  Even outriders ranging far from the column found only a few suspicious peasants willing to sell food or fodder, and more often came upon farmsteads whose inhabitants had fled or hidden in the cellar as though they were facing murderous Murnskai hordes. At Janus’ express direction, in such cases the scouts were to take only what they thought the peasants could spare, and to leave fair value in coin behind. There was no shortage of money, at least—the Hamveltai baggage train they’d captured at Antova had been a rich haul, both in military supplies and more conventional loot.

  Soon after descending from the mountains, the road to Vordan had shifted to parallel a river called the Haggon, which was a tributary to the Ost. The Ost, in turn, joined with the Vor just short of Vordan City itself, so Janus had ordered a day’s pause to shift much of the army’s heavy baggage to river transport. Once this was accomplished, they made good time down the River Road, with the heavily guarded supply barges keeping pace beside them. It meant longer marches but light packs, and the men and women of Winter’s regiment seemed to regard the tradeoff as on the whole a good one.

  Janus had given Winter’s troops the vanguard, marching at the front of the army while he rode with the Colonials at the tail of the column. It was Winter, therefore, who was the senior officer on the scene when scouts on lathered horses rode in, reporting heavy columns of infantry in Vordanai blue advancing eastward on the road, led by a party of mounted officers under a flag of truce.