Vendurro paused as if braced for the next mocking interruption, but when none came he finished. “In the middle there, somehow growing in the ash, was the most beautiful flower I ever laid eyes on, and like nothing else I’d ever seen. Weird almost square-shaped leaves, reddish coiled petals with flecks of gold everywhere, like the shavings from a fine illumination or something.”
Azmorgon laughed and said, “So, you’re saying we ought to let Thumaar burn hisself out so we can pluck ourselves a right pretty flower?”
Braylar cut off Vendurro as he started to respond. “Thumaar is not a hermit or speckled wild flower or anything but what he is: the deposed emperor we have pledged ourselves to bring back to the throne. It does not matter what has been burnt out or what, if anything, has grown in its place.”
Soffjian replied, “I swore to assist you. And that is what I will do. I have no alternative at this point,” she said, clearly hating the admission as it passed her lips. “But I must point out, your Commander gave you these orders without having seen the deposed ruler these last few years. Do you imagine he would hold you to it if he were here now, had he witnessed Thumaar’s . . . zealotry?”
Mulldoos said, “Aye. Ayyup. We got our orders. Wouldn’t be the first time soldiers carried out orders that didn’t make any plaguing sense. But, Cap, your witch sister here might have the right of it. I’m guessing Commander Darzaak might be rethinking his strategy a bit if he saw the old wolf in that rotten barn, more suspicious than a sick cat, threatening the only bastards who might be able to help him on account of him suddenly getting serious about worshipping gods that ain’t gods at all.”
Braylar was staring at the flail heads in his palm, gently rolling them back and forth, listening to the spikes clink together. “He is not the only man to still secretly worship the old gods, the ones who allegedly deserted us, believing that if we can only prove worthy enough, perhaps they will one day return.”
“But,” Mulldoos said, “and this is kind of an important plaguing point— those gods ain’t real. We know that. Seen it with our eyes, have the scars to prove it.”
“The Deserters are not gods,” Braylar replied. “Whatever else they may be, it is true. We know that. And we will need to be especially careful who we profess that to. Not everyone is going to want to learn that everything we have ever believed was erected on a foundation of sand and silt.”
“It’s more than that,” I said, before realizing I’d actually spoken the words aloud as everyone looked at me. “For Thumaar, I mean. Whatever gods Thumaar prayed to before have turned a deaf ear—he has been cast out, lost everything.”
“Still has swords and gold,” Azmorgon said.
I shook my head. “Which do him no good, as Cynead has more, and now the mightiest power in the empire at his fingertips. Thumaar has no power, no legitimacy and, until recently, no hope of achieving it. He has schemed and wasted away, with something burnt out, as you say. Flames fanned by desperation and fury at the injustice of it all. So to him, the Deserters probably aren’t deserters at all, but exiles. Exiles who simply required the right opportunity to return to their rightful home and assume their sovereignty of all things.”
“And when Darzaak sent his message,” Vendurro said, “and we arrived—”
“When we arrived, it was as if his prayers were being rewarded, the gods beyond the Veil had heard him and delivered us into his hands. That was, until you tried telling him they weren’t gods at all.”
Mulldoos said, “So, what, we follow the man even if he’s loonier than a plaguing flower hermit?”
Braylar let the Deserter heads fall to his side. “We follow our orders. Commander Darzaak is not here to countermand them, and without Memoridons or a rookery, we have no way to communicate with him, so our only choice is to follow the orders we do have.”
Azmorgon sat up and threw a large stone into the brush. “Don’t like it, Cap. Not one bit. Don’t. Like. It.”
“What’s that, Lieutenant, following orders? Because if that is the case—”
“Darzaak ordered us to do this, sure enough. But he also promoted every plaguing one of you—well, excepting Squirrel here, Cap here done that—because you got grit and initiative. Maybe, when we head back into Sunwrack, we break the witch binds Cynead got, only instead of rebinding them to this man, maybe we seize it for ourselves. How about that?”
Vendurro corrected him. “Our Tower, you mean?”
The large man said, “Ayyup, of course. The Jackals. Commander Darzaak.”
Braylar’s dark eyes were slits, and his hand was still on Bloodsounder. “There is a keen distinction between initiative and treason.” He said this quietly, without heat or inflection, but there was no mistaking that something slithered in the hidden depths.
Soffjian chuckled. “Says the man who ignored an imperial mandate when it was convenient to do so, who nearly convinced Cynead to enact the Fifth Man, who betrayed his own flesh and blood.”
The serpent broke the surface briefly, as Braylar rasped, “For Tower. All we do is for Tower, sweet sister. Something you could not possibly begin to understand.”
Azmorgon slapped a massive thigh. “Exactly what I’m saying! We do it for Jackals, seize the Memoridons, the throne, for ourselves!”
Mulldoos gave him a hard look that one slightly droopy eye didn’t undermine. “Forgetting one real big thing there, Ogre. Darzaak was the one who ordered us to assist Thumaar. Commander Darzaak.”
Vendurro added, “Forgetting something else, too. If the Jackals could have seized the throne for themselves, would have done it years ago instead of pledging fealty to Thumaar. We don’t got the men to hold it, even if we grabbed it, which we ain’t, as it violates a direct order.”
Azmorgon jerked a thick thumb at Soffjian. “Things change. That was before there was a way to leash all of them in one hand. Things change.”
Braylar stood up slowly, and the serpent was gliding along the surface now, sinewy, dangerous, very much a threat. “Just now, we need to discuss how we intend to sneak into the greatest fortified city in the known world, bypass thousands of Imperials and a multitude of Memoridons without being captured or killed, and put my sister in place to rebind them to Thumaar. As ordered. If, in the middle of our daring and likely suicidal raid, you happen to bump into Darzaak and mention that perhaps the mantle should be his instead, by all means, do let me know. Until such time, we will follow the orders we have in front of us. I do hope that is unambiguous enough for you all.”
He looked around at his assembled officers and his sister, clearly no longer in the mood to tolerate any more rebuttals, but giving anyone a fair chance to earn his wrath. When no one offered any, he said, “Very good. I wish we had ale or wine. A great quantity of ale and wine. But we will simply have to plan while dining on dried meat and brackish water. So. Let me hear some suggestions. As Azmorgon adroitly pointed out, you occupy your current positions because you are cunning and clever. Let us be cunning and clever together, yes?”
There was some silence as each of them considered the problem.
Vendurro went first. “Maybe we could slip a few of us through the gates, disguised, like. Reassemble in the city proper, make our way to the Citadel?”
Soffjian wasted no time striking that down. “Maybe any other time, but they will be looking for me, tuned to me. Cynead takes risks, but calculated risks. He is not wildly impulsive, and not prone to letting his guard down. We cannot simply walk through the gates. No.”
Azmorgon said, “Can’t go knocking the gates down and fighting our way though. Dead within ten steps.”
“Or dropping into the Trench like our brothers,” Mulldoos replied. I shivered as I remembered the Jackals falling to their deaths in the great yawning chasm that encircled the entire fortified city of Sunwrack as the Imperials ordered the bridges pulled out from under their feet.
Azmorgon stroked his thick beard the way some men gave an animal affection. “So what, then? Can’t sneak in through the
gates, can’t fight through them. And no matter what army Thumaar has, won’t be enough to storm the city. Kind of plaguing stuck good, ain’t we?”
Mulldoos said, “Hate to agree with the big bastard, but we covered this already. Pretty horseshit proposition we got here, Cap. Can’t take Sunwrack. Just ain’t happening. You said it yourself, if we were laying siege to the place, the only chance, and it would be slimmer than a suroka, is maybe a coordinated attack on the water supply from inside. Plaguers who built that place made it near impossible to take.”
Braylar had his elbows on his knees, hands steepled together in front of his face, but when he heard “water,” he unfolded them, sat up straighter, and looked at me. “You are absolutely right. But then again, we are not attempting to take the city. We merely need to get a small party inside, yes? And I now recall one such suggestion that could work.”
Everyone looked around, having heard no suggestions that could work. But then I smiled, thinking back on the discussion Mulldoos and Hewspear had as I entered Sunwrack for the first time with the company, crossing one of the great bridges spanning the Trench. “Mulldoos hit on it just now, with the water. The aqueduct. It carries water down from the hills, right over the walls and into the city. We could sneak in through the aqueduct.”
Mulldoos said, “Uh-huh. And as I recall, I shot that idea full of holes, because even if we survived the aqueducts and killed the guards—which is plaguing tougher than it sounds—still have to kill a bunch more in the gatehouses, lower the bridges, and hold them against that big Imperial army inside the city, plus a few hundred witches as well. Ain’t happening.”
I replied, “That’s not happening, no. But as the captain said, our objective is to get inside, not invade, correct? We’d only have to take out the guards by the aqueduct itself and make our way through the city.”
Soffjian gave me an appreciative smile that still unnerved me a bit, as if she were perusing weapons and found the one she was looking for. “That could work.”
Mulldoos shook his head. “And what about our holy liege out there? The objective isn’t just to creep into the city somehow—and I still say we’d be more likely to fall and go splat than make it across the Trench alive, you whoresons—but let’s say that works, we still got to get Thumaar’s army into the city somehow.”
Vendurro asked, “Why?”
“What do you plaguing mean why? Even if we rebind the witches to him, he’s still going to have to take the plaguing city to oust Cynead.”
Vendurro replied, “What I mean to say is, we got to get him close enough for the rebind to work, right? In the city with us, or just outside maybe, but he doesn’t have to get his army in just then. Doesn’t have to take it at the same time.”
Mulldoos glowered, still effective with one lousy eye. “What the plaguing hells are you talking about?”
Braylar said, “Let’s hear him out, Mulldoos.”
Mulldoos looked at the captain as if he was daft too and then back to Vendurro. “Yeah. Sure. Love to hear how we’re going to take the city without taking the city. Go on, then.”
Vendurro said, “Our job is to get inside, get to the frame, and reverse what Cynead done, right? Be real helpful if there was some kind of distraction though, wouldn’t it? Because just getting into the city is going to be plaguing tough enough, but breaking into Cynead’s lair, well, that will be all kinds of impossible. Unless there’s something big that’s got his attention. Like an army marching towards the gates.”
“An army,” Mulldoos said flatly. “Outside the gates. Okay then. This must be where it gets good.”
Vendurro replied, “Let’s say Thumaar arrives at the gates, camps outside, just outside of range of trebuchets and Memoridons. Maybe even just gets sighted marching towards the city, assembled nearby, even. That’ll get Cynead’s attention won’t it? He’ll figure Thumaar has cracked, and is making one final big move to take him on.”
Smiling, Rudgi jumped in. “Only now, Cynead’s got more power than ever. He’s an arrogant prick, he probably won’t just sit behind his walls and wait it out, will he?”
“Nope,” Vendurro said. “Even though that would be the plaguing smart play. He’ll want to wipe his enemy out, parade out a show of force. It’s a chance to try out his shiny new toys, show the world what all those memory witches can do under one hand.”
Soffjian nodded once. “I think they’re both right. Cynead won’t be able to resist the opportunity, even if his generals and captains urge prudence.”
Vendurro said, “But while he’s deliberating, arguing with his council and whatnot, all his attention on Thumaar, trying to figure out the best way to smash him, we’re making our way right to the frame, getting in position.”
Azmorgon stopped stroking his pelt beard. “Then what?”
Braylar replied, lips just barely curving into a smile, “Then, we wait for Cynead to march his Memoridons out of the Citadel, at the very least as a show of force, but more likely to take out his threat, eliminate Thumaar once and for all with the greatest audience possible.” He gave an appreciative nod to Vendurro. “It has promise, I’ll grant you.”
“Promise?” Mulldoos asked. “You think Thumaar is going to risk his whole army on plaguing potential?”
“Yes,” Braylar said, as he gave in to a proper smile. “Yes, I do. You see, he has the smaller force—no matter who he has bought or won over, they cannot possibly exceed what Cynead has. And with the Memoridons in Cynead’s hand? No, Thumaar recognizes that we might utterly fail inside the city and risk being wiped out for good. But he is hungry, starving even. And he was never cautious, even when he was emperor. He will venture anything and everything on this.”
I couldn’t help saying, “But what if Cynead’s advisors convince him to hold, wait out Thumaar rather than risking huge losses simply to drive him from the field? Even with his Memoridons and a larger army, he certainly isn’t invincible.”
Braylar said, “A less arrogant man would recognize that. But Cynead is lesser in no things, arrogance chief among them, so he will see this as a glorious opportunity to demonstrate his superiority. What’s more, Thumaar’s forces will have been bloodied already as he dispatches smaller battalions on his way to the capital, and Cynead knows he’ll appear fraudulent and weak if he does not utterly destroy his foe. But, as ever, we will prepare for all contingencies. Cunning and clever, yes?”
And so we talked as the color fled the sky and the stars winked on, arguing over a dozen strategies for getting us into the Citadel, discussing the merits and failure points of each.
I spent most of the next two days hunched over my writing case, going through the remainder of the texts I had left, scribbling and translating, ink-stained fingers moving as quickly as I could manage as I hoped to stumble across any scrap of information that would confirm what I had already pieced together. Braylar and his officers considered and discarded a dozen various plans, and I caught snippets here and there, but the captain made sure I understood that my priority was to make it through the final pages if possible. What we had already might be enough. Probably was, even. But it was also a tremendous gamble. No matter what they came up with as a final plan to infiltrate, it was going to be exceptionally dangerous. But doubly so if we risked it all on one account with no corroboration.
So I read and wrote, the pain in my head flaring back up like embers you assumed had gone out but only needed the right breeze to produce flame and heat again. But still, there was nothing—endless writs, larder accounts, cartularies, transactions, tariffs, and every mundane thing one person could use ink to record for posterity, despite the fact that no one would ever want to read them again, most especially me.
Vendurro came over as I slipped a ribbon over another scroll I finished with and stared at the small pile of pages left. I knew the question was coming before he opened his mouth. “No luck?”
“No luck,” I said, trying to keep the frustration at bay. Though I must have failed.
�
��You can only do what you can do. It’s in there, it’s in there, and if not . . .”
If not, a great many men and women might go to their deaths because they had inaccurate or incomplete information.
I’d seen Soffjian huddled together with Nustenzia on a number of occasions, discussing, arguing, questioning, no doubt preparing to go forward with what I had provided in the event that nothing else showed up in the pages. Which seemed likely.
Vendurro handed me a flask, and I put it to my lips, taking a huge swallow as it suddenly struck me just how thirsty I was, and the dark wine caused me to choke. “What . . . I thought . . .” I sputtered and wiped my chin.
“We needed some provisions. Rudgi led a party out to get some. Wine might not be a necessity, but . . . oh, who are we kidding. Of course it plaguing is.”
He took the flask back for another few swallows and then handed it back to me.
I said, “I probably don’t want to know, do I?”
Vendurro watched me drink more competently this time. “Can’t say for certain what you do or don’t want. But yeah, I’m thinking you don’t. Wine doesn’t grow on a bush, does it? Well, a canteen or bottle of it, anyway. Grapes do. Grow, I mean.” He reached for the flask. “Easy there. Ink stains Cap can handle, but you hand him a bunch of translations with wine stains, thinking it might not go well for you.”
Chains of the Heretic Page 38