by Stephen Hunt
‘Except that it isn’t your war,’ said a familiar-sounding voice entering the hangar. ‘This conflict belongs to all of the free people of Weyland.’
Prince Owen. Jacob bridled. ‘What the hell are you doing up here? I ordered your royal neck kept safe in Hadra-Hareer!’
‘Our people are battling for their existence in Rodal. This is my place as much as it is yours,’ said Prince Owen. ‘If this raid failed, there wouldn’t be a parliament left to fight on inside of a month.’
On that point at least, the young aristocrat was correct. ‘You can take that new-found pragmatism and apply it to these bandits, Your Highness. We need their carriers to bring down your uncle’s regime. We don’t need prison camps filled with skels, sell-swords and bandits to feed when we can barely supply our own refugees. Executing slavers is only applying the kingdom’s law.’
‘The law can’t save us from ourselves,’ said Prince Owen. ‘I’ve broken my nation for the cause of liberty. I will not shatter it further with a massacre on such an atrocious scale.’
Jacob drew both pistols. ‘I shot you before in Midsburg. You think I won’t do it again?’
‘Then do it!’ shouted Prince Owen. ‘Put a bullet in my head this time and declare yourself the absolute leader of the north. You can select an agreeable warlord’s title for yourself like one of those pocket-sized kingdoms of the Burn where you bloodied your hands. Lord Protector of the National Assembly. Supreme General of the north. Grand God-Duke of Havenharl. Call yourself all of them if you wish, but I am not and will never be a royal puppet for you or anyone else. Kill me or let me live to guide parliament as I see fit. That’s your only choice today. And you will face it tomorrow and the day after. You may as well make your bloody decision now!’
Jacob’s pistols held steady in his hands, not a trace of a tremble. He was tempted, by the saints he was. How many good people could I save by getting this done quick and right? Those radicals in the old assembly, they had a point, didn’t they? Keeping a hereditary monarch makes as much sense as employing a hereditary surgeon or hereditary architect. Jacob could end that debate right here for the cost of a single round. And what then? The country will end up with Bad Marcus on a throne in the south and Lord Quicksilver sitting on a throne in the north. Battlefield after battlefield. Corpse upon corpse. With a Weyland that will never run short of new enemies who need killing. Jacob grunted in frustration and reluctantly holstered his guns. A boy too weak to be king but too strong to be ruled. And the fates are punishing me by needing him alive to finish this. ‘I know what I am. And I know what you are, too. You’re a hell-damned young fool who hasn’t learnt a thing during this war.’
Prince Owen stepped back and gazed down the line of kneeling skels. If the boy knew how close he’d just come to dying, he masked his nerves well. Anna Kurtain slipped her own pistol slowly back behind her belt. There’s gratitude for you. Maybe she’d been foolish enough to think Jacob hadn’t noticed when she’d drawn on him. Or stupid enough to believe Jacob wasn’t swift enough to shoot her with his second gun while dropping the man she loved so deeply.
‘Then I’m a hell-damned young fool with an answer to our problem, General Carnehan,’ said Prince Owen. ‘Here are my orders concerning the prisoners’ fate . . .’
TWELVE
A BOX FOR TEMMELL
A hot wind blew across the hills when Temmell called a halt to the small nomad convoy. Carter climbed down off his supply-laden wagon, joined by Sariel, Kerge and Sheplar Lesh. Rodal’s mountains were visible in the south, swirled with mist from the temperature differential between the icy heights and warm steppes. Perhaps a day’s ride away, now.
‘This is the place?’ asked Sariel.
Temmell pointed to the series of jagged peaks in the distance. He glanced up at the sun, checked his pocket watch and smiled in satisfaction. ‘Their silhouettes are my map.’ The young sorcerer took a rusty iron shovel that had seen better days and started to dig, not trusting any of the Nijumeti to such delicate work. After ten minutes, he uncovered a case about half the size of a coffin. It was made of a material Carter didn’t recognize, dark and shining like an insect’s carapace.
‘You have more than a soul-sphere inside there,’ observed Sariel. ‘I didn’t need the gift of precognition to warn me our party was never going to be resupplied or reinforced again,’ said Temmell. He waved to a couple of their Nijumeti escort to drag the case from the dirt. ‘This was my insurance policy.’
‘Contraband?’ asked Sariel.
‘Let’s just say I wasn’t going to go down for want of a nail,’ said Temmell.
The nomads dragged the case out of the soil and on to the grass. They stepped back uneasily, as though they had been made to touch the flesh of a recently deceased family member.
‘Do you want to open it?’ asked Temmell in a teasing tone.
Sariel shook his head ruefully. ‘How big an explosion?’
Temmell knelt by the case and laid his hand on its surface. ‘Our reconstitution would take centuries. Let’s hope the canister still recognizes its creator.’
Carter hoped much the same.
Sheplar watched by Carter’s side. ‘It would be a sad end to have survived so much only to die from triggering an ancient tripwire.’
‘It is strange,’ noted Kerge, ‘but what I have recovered of my golden mean is lost in the presence of this case. Disrupted.’
‘Perhaps it means the future is not yet decided?’ said Carter.
‘It never is,’ said the gask, darkly.
The casket’s obsidian surface started to flow as though melting, lines of light emanating from Temmell’s hand. Its lid vanished in the glow, revealing an interior filled with objects that were probably devices, but nothing Carter recognized. Rods joined with crystals and strange bulbous shapes melded together like a metalworker’s offcuts soldered at random. Temmell gingerly lifted out a sphere, cloudy white glass the size of a fist. ‘How many of my lost memories are inside, I wonder?’
‘You need to find out,’ said Sariel.
Temmell wrapped both hands around the sphere and pushed inward, the glass responding by turning a cold blue colour. As he pushed into the globe it seemed to vibrate, cupped inside the man’s hands. Sariel’s young colleague sighed as though drinking deep and quenching a long, dry thirst.
‘Do you know where Eremee went?’ asked Sariel.
‘Oh, poor Eremee. Such a fool. Of course, she would head there.’
‘Where?’ demanded Sariel, sounding uncharacteristically desperate.
‘Wait,’ said Temmell. ‘I need to be certain about this. So, that is why.’
‘Why what?’ asked Carter.
Temmell swivelled on Carter and his three companions, flourishing a strange-looking rod-like instrument he had slipped out of the canister. ‘Why I sent the stealers the gate coordinates needed to ambush our party!’ Temmell lashed out with the rod, a fierce green spark leaping from its head and striking Sariel, knocking the old bard off his feet and sending him barrelling across the grass. Sariel sobbed, twisting on the ground as though tormented by a pack of invisible demons.
Carter’s hand dipped for his pistol holster, but their Nijumeti escorts seized his arms, a third nomad shoving a blade up to his throat; Sheplar and Kerge were practically bowled to the ground as their supposed protectors jumped them.
They were primed in advance for this, realized Carter. ‘What in the saints’ name are you doing? I healed you, Temmell. You owe me your restored self !’
‘A debt between us?’ growled the sorcerer. ‘Only in your mind, turnip. I asked for none of this. I was content in my position. I am content in my position.’ Temmell grabbed a silver torc from the case, passing it to his warriors with a brusque command to seal it around Sariel’s neck. ‘A gift, my brothers, to tame the weirdling’s more troublesome impulses.’
‘I don’t understand!’ cried Carter. ‘Is one of those tools inside the case the great weapon? Do you want to steal it for yours
elf ?’
‘Oh, turnip, your brain is too limited to grasp anything more than your brute existence,’ smiled Temmell. He indicated Sariel twisting in agony on the ground. As the torc was fitted around Sariel’s neck, it seemed to act as a balm of sorts, the old vagrant’s palsy-like shakes slowing. Temmell nodded in satisfaction. ‘My intentions are far purer than his. I want the great weapon left well alone. Used by no one; in neither side’s hands.’
‘Where is it, then?’ said Carter. Sariel was dragged to his feet by the warriors.
Temmell tapped the side of his head. ‘Where it has always been. When our party set out, we each carried a segment of the great weapon . . . it is a spell which gives the lower ethreaal such power that even the higher-gods would hesitate to use it. Each member’s portion was encrypted as a cypher and stored within our minds. If we collectively reached the conclusion the threat the stealers posed was so serious that we must act, our expedition was to combine the segments and deploy the great weapon. Sariel didn’t come looking for an old friend, he came searching for my share of the great weapon.’
‘You are wrong, Temmell, I came for you and it both,’ croaked Sariel, feeling the restraining device around his neck. ‘Why, man? Why did you betray us to the stealers?’
‘I just want the war to end,’ said Temmell. ‘I am tired of it. Eternal conflict, shadow and light, light and shadow. The balance is finally tipping in the stealers’ favour. Let them have their victory. At least the war will finally be over. The philosophical difference between both sides is paper-thin at best. Life will out in the end, we have to believe that.’
‘I will not allow the stealers to defeat us!’ gasped Sariel.
‘Ever a true believer, even after all these years. But you have very little choice in the matter. Events have overtaken us. We were doomed from the start.’
‘How can you still support the stealers? They betrayed you! They attacked you and Eremee at the gate.’
‘Of course they attacked me. I foresaw their double-cross, for all the good the knowledge did me. It allowed myself and Eremee to survive a few days longer than the rest of you. The stealers required the threat against them neutralized,’ said Temmell. ‘Even our own side didn’t dare to trust a sole lower ethreaal with such power. We were never meant to be gods, however much we act like them. If our own side couldn’t trust a single individual with the ultimate power, why should the stealers? Needless to say, the stealers treated us as plague carriers and cleansed us all. Giving up myself and losing my memories was a blessing.’
‘And Eremee, did she support you in your treachery?’
‘Which of us ever knew what she believed?’ said Temmell, not directly answering the question.
A droning started to sound across the steppes, low at first, barely perceptible, and then swelling to the dark hum of a locust swarm. Carter gazed up into the sky, blinking towards the sun. An aerial invasion force heading south. Kani Yargul’s new skyguard being sent into operation, plane after plane, flying wings towing gull-winged gliders behind them. Carter imagined the packed holds of those flimsy wooden engine-less craft. Horses and men eager for plunder.
Temmell has betrayed us twice. The bastard never had any intention of dispatching the horde against Persdad at the far end of the steppes.
‘What have you done?’ roared Sheplar Lesh.
Temmell indicated the aerial armada passing overhead. ‘I have set my people free . . . I have given them Rodal. The much-vaunted walls of the league. Well, a rampart faces in both directions; it all depends on who walks it.’
‘Our winds will claw you out of the sky,’ swore Sheplar.
‘No, my little aviator serf, not this time,’ said Temmell. ‘I procured a copy of your high temple’s holy Deb-rlung’rta. My pilots know precisely where the safe winds are, every secret, shielded route your people take to flit around Rodal while you’re taming storms and hurling them at your enemies. The priests inside your precious wind temples can do nothing to stop my invasion. Your skyguard now shares exactly the same air as my warriors. It would hardly be fair combat otherwise, would it?’
‘No, you can’t unleash the horde against Rodal,’ pleaded Sariel. ‘What are you playing at here, Temmell Longgate?’
‘Aren’t we both playing at being human?’ sighed Temmell. ‘You have your pawns and I have mine.’
‘None of this will matter,’ said Sariel, half begging, half accusing. ‘Not the horde’s invasion, not your intervention for the clans.’
‘But none of it ever did,’ said Temmell. ‘When you realize that, you stop asking why and start asking why not instead. The Nijumeti are my children after a fashion. I set them off riding to Arak-natikh once upon a time. I intend to free them across the board and see what game is left to me.’
‘There will be nothing left to you!’
‘How many thousands of years have you hungered for a true death? That’s the trouble with living so long. Nobody ever warned us what it would really be like. I’m curious, frankly. Will a true death be the same as forgetting?’ Temmell stared up at the sky with satisfaction, the blue heavens filled with his aerial invasion force. ‘Rodal belongs to the Nijumeti now. You restored me, turnip. I shall repay you with two gifts: your worthless existence as a free man and the memory of being witness to the end of the Lancean League. Nation after nation falling to the horde. We will ride forever.’
‘Willow!’ croaked Carter. My father.
‘My people,’ said Sheplar, his voice shorn of all emotion.
‘History makes dust of it all in the end,’ said Temmell, triumphantly. ‘Sariel, I must retain you as my clan-guest. In your current state, you are a danger to Pellas. Perhaps I will incinerate you anew and keep what reforms half-insane for a thrall. The rest of you shall be freed tomorrow morning. Climb the mountains if you will. Every inch of soil you touch now belongs to the clans, perhaps every foot you will ever cross again.’
Willow sorted her possessions spread across the room. The lodgings inside this Northhaven boarding house hadn’t come cheap, but then, being the recently widowed inheritor of the Wallingbeck estate carried a few advantages. Her slow, waddling gait, looking down flushed over her swollen belly, wasn’t one of them. How much food will I need to carry to make the journey into Rodal? How much silver to pay smugglers to help me across the front line? There were rumours circulating through Northhaven that Bad Marcus was surveying his re-conquered prefectures on a victory progress. When the usurper arrived, the number of soldiers in the town and surrounding territory would treble at least. Willow wanted to be well out of here before the capricious monarch showed up and decided that a retrial would be due justice for her. And how much of my wanting to flee is guilt? She had tried to visit Duncan in the army surgical tents, only to be refused access by the guards. Her brother was dying. A surgeon she had bribed had told her he thought the blade was poisoned. Willow had realized too late what the real plan had been. The same plan it had always been.
There was scraping at the door and it opened, revealing Leyla Holten. The woman was accompanied by the landlord, the key to Willow’s room still in his hand. Leyla passed him a handful of metal coins and he left, not meeting Willow’s indignant gaze.
Think about the devil and the devil appears. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Get out, Holten!’
‘So, you still believe you’ve beaten me?’ said Leyla. ‘Freed by trial. But free to do what?’
Willow ignored the question. The answer should be evident from the supplies she had purchased, scattered about the room. ‘You shouldn’t have given me so much time languishing inside a cell, Holten. Time to realize who would benefit most if Duncan died during the trial. One less warm body in your way to claiming the Landor estate. Two less, after the executioner strung me up at the gallows.’
‘Always such a clever girl,’ smiled Leyla, coldly. ‘But there’s more to succeeding in life than a sharp mind. Sometimes you have to apply a little brute force to the situation.’ She stepped aside and N
ocks entered the room grinning. Willow sprinted to the side of the chamber and threw open the window, looking to leap out, but the ugly squat little brute dragged her back, punching her once hard in the spine. She nearly fell, grasping a candlestick from the sideboard and tried to smash it into his scarred face.
‘You don’t want to exert yourself,’ leered Nocks as he ducked the blow and grabbed her. ‘Not a woman in your delicate condition.’
Willow cursed her slow, tired body. I need to be strong. To be quick. ‘What did you promise your cur Wallingbeck, Holten?’
Leyla laughed. ‘Not so much what I promised him as what I gave him. Such a waste. William was always so amusing between the sheets. I can only trust the royal army will yield up a few suitable distractions, now the rebellion is crushed and Rodal close to collapse. All the southern gentlemen seem to be up here, playing at soldier.’
‘What’s to do?’ growled Nocks.
‘Take her deep into the wilds,’ commanded Leyla. ‘You may take your gratification with the brat, but the body must never be discovered. Not in Northhaven or anywhere else. Let everyone think she ran away to re-join the Carnehans. Hadra-Hareer will be ashes soon enough. Nobody will poke the ashes very hard searching for remains.’
Willow stamped her boot hard against Nocks’ foot and he cursed her while she struggled against his tight grip. ‘Holten! You can’t! I’m carrying Wallingbeck’s child. He was your friend.’
‘Then you should have been more gracious about the fine lovematch I arranged between you two,’ said Leyla. ‘Perhaps it’s by the saints’ blessing that Duncan filleted William during the trial-bycombat. The shame of being cuckolded by some callow bandit of a boy. So very hard to bear.’
‘This will not stand!’ boomed a voice from the doorway. Benner Landor filled the frame; an angry bear goaded to violence in his blue artillery officer’s uniform. At first Willow thought her father must be party to his wife’s scheme of revenge, but Willow quickly realized otherwise as she saw how he gaped in anger at Nocks.