Fern gave no answer and, though his face was in shadow, Carnelian sensed his gaze was on Osidian. ‘Has he revealed how we might win the battle?’
‘We’ve not yet been able to wake him,’ Carnelian said.
‘He has the worms in him?’
‘He does.’
Silence.
‘Will he wake in time?’ Fern asked at last.
Carnelian was only too aware of what Osidian had done the last time he had awoken from such a sleep. ‘I don’t know.’ He peered into Fern’s shadow face, yearning to see him clearly. ‘Tell us what you’ve seen.’
The shadowy figure shifted. ‘Mid afternoon we saw dragons approaching from the north. After sending you word, we rode south to the next tower. We climbed it and waited there until nightfall. When I was certain they’d formed a camp around the forward tower, we returned here.’
‘So it’ll be tomorrow?’
‘If we choose to fight.’
Carnelian’s chin sank into his chest as he contemplated what the next day might bring. Perhaps a battle. Perhaps the Lepers would take Aurum and leave. Whatever was to come, there would be losses.
As Fern began turning away, Carnelian could not suppress panic that he might leave tomorrow, that he might go for ever. ‘Please, Fern
… please, stay here with us.’
The man became inanimate shadow. Then the shadow approached so that the light from within the tower found the contours of his form. Poppy moved aside, exposing a space beside Carnelian. ‘I’ll fetch you a blanket,’ she said and darted into the tower.
Carnelian sensed Fern standing there, but did not want to look up in case their eyes should meet. Poppy was soon back. Fern accepted the blanket from her, wrapped it about his shoulders, then sank down beside Carnelian with his back against the monolith. Intensely aware of the warm pressure against his shoulder, Carnelian regarded the sky. The ribs of the watch-tower black against the stars seemed the branches of some massive baobab. His heart remembered the time so long ago when he and Fern had shared a blanket in the Upper Reach. He turned his head enough to see Fern’s profile. He was gazing up at the night sky. Carnelian wondered if Fern too was remembering that night.
Carnelian jerked awake and saw an ice face pulled into a silent scream. Its eyes, fixed on something beyond, communicated their terror to him. Osidian, releasing a stuttering gasp, raised the gleaming bony shard of an arm to point at the sky. Carnelian gazed up, expecting some horror to fall on them. For a moment he saw only the black arms of the watch-tower ribs, but then he saw the moon. A diamond scythe so sharp it felt as if it might slice through his eyes. He looked back to Osidian, who had subsided, mumbling. Closed, his eyes seemed to have sunk back into the silver mask of his face. Carnelian became aware Poppy and Fern were staring at Osidian too.
Just then a hail of tiny flutters on his face made Carnelian throw up his hands in alarm. Masked by his fingers, he could feel the pinpricks on his skin. It was not, as he had feared, an assault of flies. With a delicate hiss, something blowing on the breeze was striking him. He was disturbed by the memory of the sporestorm he and Fern and Poppy had endured on their way to the Koppie. This was only blown dust. Squinting against the delicate hail, he saw his friends had covered their heads with their blankets. Osidian seemed dead again. Carnelian hunched his blanket up, pulled it over his head, then settled back to sleep.
Waking once more, Carnelian sat up. Osidian was standing there with the camp pouring its undulating dark reflection over his mask.
‘It is an omen,’ Osidian said, his Quya a whisper.
Carnelian glanced around; not only the leftway, but everything below was in strange shadow. On both sides of the monolith, the leftway was dusted red, the colour collecting in the cracks between the cobbles like dried blood. More of this rustiness clung to the folds of Poppy’s blanket. He shook his own blanket and filled the air with it. ‘The dust?’
Osidian turned his mirror face slowly towards Carnelian. ‘The breeze,’ he sighed.
Carnelian moved to stand beside him, squinting against the dusty air.
‘It is my Father’s breath urging me to Osrakum.’
Carnelian was lost for a moment, contemplating the pale tendons, the corded veins in the arm and hand with which Osidian was holding his mask before his face. He wondered at where Osidian was getting the strength to stand. He focused on what Osidian had said and understood. ‘The rain wind.’ It was true. The wind had shifted. It was coming from the south-west. He should have realized that when he had woken during the night.
‘Why did you wake me?’
Carnelian regarded him. ‘Jaspar is here.’
He expected some kind of agitation, but instead Osidian gave a languid nod as if his mask were too heavy for him. ‘I saw him in my dreams.’
Carnelian indicated the dusty mass of the Lepers stirring below. ‘I gave them control of this tower. I have put you, my Lord Aurum and myself in their power. If you cannot convince them we will be victorious…’
Osidian gave another, slow nod. ‘Your precautions, Carnelian, were unnecessary.’ He shifted into Vulgate. ‘Today we’ll annihilate our enemies.’
Carnelian was uneasy at his certainty. He glanced round and saw Fern was awake, angry and disbelieving. ‘How will we do that, my Lord?’
‘Summon the Lord Aurum and I shall tell you.’
Calculating that it could do no harm, Carnelian asked Fern if he would fetch the old Master. Unease was bright in Fern’s eyes, but he went. Carnelian looked round for Poppy, but she was gone. He could not be sure how much she had heard, but he could hope she had gone to urge Lily and the Lepers to wait just a little longer.
Slaves struggled to help their master across the brassman up onto the leftway. As Aurum straightened, his slaves cowered away. He approached, hobbling. Watching him, Carnelian wondered again at his condition. Osidian sketched a gesture of concern. ‘Is my Lord strong enough to command today?’
‘Imago has come?’
‘We shall engage him before midday.’
The old Master seemed to grow more massive in his black cloak. ‘My will shall provide me with the strength my body lacks, Celestial.’
Carnelian thought that both his allies looked frail.
Gingerly, Osidian crouched and ran a thin finger through the red dust. ‘This is Imago’s line.’ Facing its mid-point, he traced what seemed a smile and from its centre dragged two fingers back to make a double line. ‘This is how we shall destroy the Ichorian.’
As he explained, Carnelian was noticing how the crescent matched the moon Osidian had pointed to during the night. Though the tactics were fascinating, he wondered whence they really had come.
Aurum’s mask regarded them. ‘And you are convinced, Celestial, this novel tactic will break Imago’s line?’
Osidian gave a slight shrug. ‘If it does not, then it is we who will be destroyed.’
Carnelian saw another objection. ‘Will Jaspar not realize what we are preparing for him?’
Osidian made a smiling gesture with his hand and turned towards the camp. Dust blowing against his mask collected its red powder upon lip and brows. ‘Behold my Father’s breath.’
Carnelian nodded, understanding. ‘You intend that we should come at him with the wind at our backs?’
‘We shall raise a red twilight that shall conceal our storm from him until it is too late.’
Carnelian pondered the appearance of the rain wind that very morning, wondering if he dare believe it really was an omen. Ultimately it was not he but the Lepers who must believe. ‘What about those who will fight upon the ground?’
Osidian winnowed the dusty air with a dismissive gesture. ‘They merely have to withstand the Ichorian aquar until we have broken through.’
Aurum was nodding. ‘If their huimur fail, the rest of the Ichorian will break.’
Osidian’s ‘merely’ was making Carnelian fret, but he knew that quizzing him further would not help gauge the threat to the Lepers. Osid
ian’s plan was akin to hazarding all on the flight of a single arrow.
‘My huimur tower is not equipped for such a battle, Celestial.’
‘That is why, my Lord Aurum, you shall be commanding your legion from my tower.’
Carnelian waited for Aurum to object to this. When he did not, Carnelian realized that, of course, the Master really had no choice. Though commands would be issued to his legion in his name, it was Osidian who would in truth command them. ‘And you would have me command the Qunoth huimur, my Lord?’
Osidian turned to Carnelian. ‘If my Lord would deign to do so?’
Carnelian considered that it was Lily and her Lepers who ultimately would have to make that decision. ‘I shall go, my Lord, to begin the marshalling of our forces.’
Osidian’s hand made a crisp affirmation. ‘I shall remain here long enough to determine with my Lord Aurum how best we might communicate our tactics to his commanders.’
‘Celestial,’ Carnelian said and, bowing, turned towards the monolith.
When he entered the cistern chamber the Lepers rose to face him. He came to a halt between the first two pillars, wondering if it was because they knew him that they did not bow or kneel or whether they had come to a point where they would dare show such defiance to any Master. Lily was there, Poppy beside her and Fern. Knowing there was not much time, Carnelian launched immediately into an explanation of Osidian’s proposed tactics. When he was done their shrouds did not allow him to see the reactions of the Lepers. Fern’s eyes, however, seemed flint. Lily turned her hooded head to scan her peers as if she was hearing them speak. She turned back. ‘And the Master believes this to be a revelation from his god?’
Carnelian felt uncomfortable discussing the source of Osidian’s tactics, but he could tell from Lily’s tone that what for him seemed a point of weakness seemed to her a source of strength.
‘Do you believe truly his god speaks to him?’
Carnelian squirmed, then remembered. ‘He claims it was his god who told him how to lead us out of the swamps that the waters in your valleys feed.’
This information produced a muttering among the Lepers.
‘I was there too,’ said Fern, his mouth twisting with disgust. ‘He led us, but who is to say we would not have found the way ourselves? Unless you’re claiming that his filthy god has always led him infallibly.’
Carnelian withered. Osidian had claimed it was the Darkness-under-the-Trees that had led him to massacre the Tribe.
Fern shook his head as if trying to dislodge his anger. ‘Talk not to me of gods. Instead tell me if you believe this tactic can bring us victory against the Bloodguard.’
Carnelian stood frozen, unhappy to have his opinion influence the decision upon which these people would risk their blood. His mask was casting glimmers over them. If he was going to tell them what he believed he did not want to do so wearing the imperious majesty conferred by that false face. They flinched as he reached to release it. Fern frowned as Carnelian exposed his face. Poppy was the only one to smile. ‘Look into my eyes and see for yourselves what it is I feel about this. I don’t know if this will work. I wouldn’t have you believe that I do. What I do believe is that the Master has a genius for battle; that if any plan could work, his might. More than that, I will not say.’
He gazed round at them, enduring their scrutiny. ‘Even if it works, it’ll depend on you holding the mounted cohorts of the Bloodguard. Perhaps you know their reputation?’
He looked at Fern, whose father an Ichorian had wounded fatally, whose brother and uncle the same Ichorian had killed. ‘I’m not the only one here who has seen them kill.’
He felt their doubt and saw it on Poppy’s face; it was there too beneath Fern’s coldness. A sound behind him made him jerk his mask up. He paused before it had wholly covered his face, feeling the heavy footfalls of Masters approaching, hearing the scrape of Aurum’s staff. He let his hand fall, the mask hanging from his fingers, and turned.
‘Horns and fire,’ cried Aurum. Carnelian sensed his Quya making the Lepers falter. ‘Is it possible, boy, that you have not yet learned the lesson of the baran?’
Carnelian watched the old Master half turning, his hands rising to give the commands. He remembered how on the baran they had chopped gestures and how, in obedience to those, his guardsmen had massacred the crew.
‘We’re no longer on the ship,’ Carnelian said, deliberately, in Vulgate. ‘And you’re here with none who’ll heed your murderous commands.’ Defiance was sweet.
Aurum turned to Osidian. ‘Celestial, these creatures must all be put to death.’
Osidian’s mask turned to Carnelian, who could see a glitter of eyes moving behind its slits. His hand rose, making a smile gesture that, though it carried appeasement, was also shaded by a dismissive amusement. ‘It would seem, my Lord Aurum, impolitic for me to destroy the commanders of my auxiliaries.’ He rolled an elegant hand. ‘Let us say that these creatures are become members of House Suth.’
Confident his gambit had paid off, Carnelian glanced round. Fern was considering what he had said to them and, Carnelian was sure, Lily and the Lepers were too. The decision was theirs to make. Their enemy was there unarmed among them. They could take him now and return to their valleys and flee the coming battle. Fearing either outcome, he waited, not willing them to decide one way or the other.
It was Lily who first gave him a nod. Others followed. He turned last of all to Fern. As their eyes met, his heart gave a lurch. He dared not name what had passed between them lest he should destroy it. Fern broke the contact with a nod.
Carnelian turned back to the Masters. Their gold faces seemed to float disembodied above their black cloaks. ‘My Lords had best go now down to the camp. It will take my Lord Aurum a while to negotiate the ramps and we must make haste lest our enemy be upon us before we have had time to prepare our battleline.’
Osidian gave him a nod, then advanced on the Lepers, who moved from his path. Aurum was forced to follow him, each punt of his staff gouging the floor. Carnelian watched them until they had disappeared down into the darkness of the stables. He wondered how Aurum, already discomfited, would react to the Oracles and their sacrament.
Lily speaking made him turn to her. ‘Our enemy seems weakened.’
Carnelian was still savouring his victory over Aurum. ‘Don’t worry; he won’t die before we give him to you. We Masters maintain a fierce grip on life.’ Almost he added: and we are made of finer clay. That made him smile and ignited in him a fierce desire to destroy Jaspar. At that moment he felt he had the power to tear down the Commonwealth. Then he saw the people standing before him and his ardour cooled. A large part of the price for victory would most likely be the spilling of their blood. ‘You will fight then?’
They answered him with a cry of assent that made the portcullis counterweights shiver. He felt moved and covered this by going over again the part they would play in the coming battle. When he was sure they understood, he told them they must go and make their people ready. ‘While I’ll do the same for my dragon commanders.’
‘I’ll go with Fern,’ said Poppy.
‘What do you mean?’ Carnelian said, suspicious.
‘I can’t let Krow go into battle without saying goodbye to him.’
The frown Fern gave her showed he was sharing Carnelian’s misgivings. ‘You’re not going to fight in the battle.’ Carnelian pointed up into the tower. ‘You can watch it from up there.’
Poppy’s face hardened. ‘What if Krow should die?’
Fern gripped her shoulder. ‘I’ll take care of him for you.’
Poppy wriggled free and glared at them both. ‘I’m not going to stay here when you’re all out there. Besides, what makes you both think this tower’s safe?’
Carnelian and Fern glanced at each other. She had a point. Carnelian thought about it. He hung his head. ‘You can come with me.’
Poppy beamed. ‘In the dragon?’
Carnelian looked to make sure Fern
approved and then nodded heavily. The Lepers were already descending the ramp. Fern gave Carnelian a look he could not read. ‘Take care.’
‘Don’t forget you promised to look after Krow,’ Poppy said.
‘I won’t,’ said Fern. He looked at Carnelian. ‘Make sure we win.’
Carnelian gave a nod, his heart aching. As he and Poppy watched Fern disappear into the darkness, a nausea crept over him that he feared was a premonition of Fern’s death. Poppy took hold of two of his fingers and squeezed them. ‘Don’t worry. While Fern’s taking care of Krow, Krow will be taking care of Fern.’
Sitting in his command chair, Carnelian saw in front of him a long file of dragons trampling their shadows as they lumbered into the west. A cohort of his own Qunoth dragons was immediately in front. Beyond them Aurum’s with the old Master and Osidian on Heart-of-Thunder at their head. Carnelian was confident the rest of his dragons were following him in single file. All along the starboard edge of their march the dragons were unfurling a vast red banner of dust that was drifting away into the north-east. Not only was it hiding the road, but everything that lay in that direction. More disconcertingly, it was proclaiming their position to Jaspar. Earlier, Carnelian had bidden his Lefthand to get their lookout to relate what he could see of the road. Word had returned that, even perched aloft, he could see nothing at all through the dust. This was exactly what Osidian had hoped for. If their lookouts could not see the road, then Jaspar should not be able to see their banner masts. Nevertheless, none of this stopped Carnelian feeling nervous that, at that very moment, the Ichorian could be bearing down upon their flank unseen. He fretted again over whether his commanders had fully understood his explanation of Osidian’s tactics. He was also beset by doubt whether, when it came to it, they would follow him into a battle against the feared double legion of the Bloodguard.
He glanced round. Poppy was there sitting against the bone wall. The homunculus was hunched beside her, his head sunk between his knees so that he appeared to be nothing more than a boy. It was Poppy who had asked to have the little man along. Red dust in the folds of her Leper shrouds looked like dried blood. More carpeted the deck and formed drifts in the angles of the cabin. Had he been foolish to let Poppy come with him? Was she really safer here than back in the watch-tower?
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