Iron Town had already endured one siege. How long could these people survive another? A thought that rose out of the haze of my mind moments before Burning Dog’s soldiers threw me into a cramped, emptied hovel and slammed the door.
Night was falling, and without a lamp or a candle the room around me was dark and impenetrable. At first, I dared to hope that they had taken me to wherever they were keeping Oriole, but it quickly became clear that I was alone.
So much for clever Alder, who had talked his way past the suspicions of Hand Usher and Voice Golden-Finch. Burning Dog had seen through me in half a heartbeat. Conflicts unknown to the Empire--or, at least, to me--divided the witches of Nayen, it seemed. Enough for Burning Dog to see the arrival of an unexpected witch not as a boon, but with suspicion.
I managed to roll over and lever myself into a sitting position against the wall, where I sat, fretting, as the night wore on. In my haste, Hand Usher and I had not agreed on a firm timeline, and I wondered how long he would wait for me before attacking. Worse, Oriole had already been in rebel hands for an entire day. How much longer did he have, before he either succumbed to their tortures or they grew tired of prying at him and slit his throat?
Two courses presented themselves. I had sorcery and witchcraft at my disposal. It would be a simple thing to free myself. Less simple to fight my way through Iron Town, knowing neither where Oriole was kept nor how many witches I might face. And as soon as I reached for battle-sorcery within the walls, Frothing Wolf would panic and retreat, likely ordering her prisoners killed as she fled.
The second option was to wait. To, as Burning Dog had instructed, come up with a better story. Try to talk my way into an audience with Frothing Wolf. Or, at the very least, find out where Oriole was being kept and tortured.
All night I tried to devise a convincing and compelling lie. A reason for Burning Dog to bring me--a stranger, claiming to be a witch and therefore dangerous--into her mother’s presence. But I was exhausted, and terrified, and worried for my friend. Every falsehood I began to spin fell apart the moment I considered it with any scrutiny. When I had talked my way past Hand Usher’s suspicions after my examinations, I had done so with a version of the truth, with a story supported by facts that could be pointed to. My scars. Kora Ha’s lessons in ambidexterity. The flawed first article of my pedigree.
I needed that kind of lie. A bending of the truth.
I heard voices on the other side of the door, one of them Burning Dog’s. I was out of time. A key turned in the lock, and the door swung open, letting in the cool light of early morning.
“Sleep well?” Burning Dog asked, looming above me. “Or did you spend all night weaving another flimsy lie?”
The best lies anchor themselves to irrefutable facts. They draw their strength from that which cannot be denied, lending all that is false about them the façade of truth. And what is more undeniable than magic?
I moved into the second channel of the canon. Lightning flashed from my fingertips. Only for a moment, the spell so slight and the wake so thin that I doubted anyone but Burning Dog and I had felt it. Only enough to cut my bonds. I stood while smoking cords sloughed from my wrists and pooled on the ground behind me. Burning Dog backpedaled, conjuring fire, staring wide eyed as I stepped toward her with my palms up in a gesture of surrender. I offered my most disarming smile, and conjured a breath of flame, to show that I was, indeed, a witch.
“My name is Foolish Cur, grandson of Broken Limb, nephew of Harrow Fox, known to the Sienese as Wen Alder,” I said. “You may have heard of me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Frothing Wolf
Burning Dog led me to the modest city hall near Iron Town’s central square, a fire always burning at her fingertips, ready to turn me to ash the moment she felt the first stirrings of battle-sorcery. More guards stood beside columns which once had born the tetragram of the minor magistrate who ruled in Iron Town. Someone had scored away the magistrate’s tetragram, leaving only a few glimmers of gold paint between deep gouges in the wood. Instead, a black banner stitched with a red wolf hung above the lintel.
With a frantic hope, I wondered whether this place also served as Iron Town’s jail, as many city halls did in rural places. We passed through the gate and along the winding path through a meager garden. While I followed Burning Dog, I swept my gaze between stands of bamboo and low artificial hills, seeking guards, iron bars, manacles--any sign of prisoners--but saw nothing of the sort.
The path ended in a short staircase which led up to a wide, open room, like a modest imitation of Voice Golden-Finch’s reception hall. A set of lacquer panels lay on the floor, cracked and scored by fire. Landscape paintings had been torn from the walls and fed to the lone brazier. What remained of the velvet upholstery on the magistrate’s chair, which lay hacked and gouged on the floor, was stained dark with blood. Where it ought to have stood, a simple table had been set out and arrayed with maps of Iron Town. Around the table, in modest chairs, sat three Nayeni. Foremost among them was an iron-haired woman with a face as harshly angled as Burning Dog’s and a red wolf stitched to the collar of her shirt.
Their conversation stuttered to a halt at our approach. Frothing Wolf looked up. Her eyes seemed to flay me open like knives, as though with a look she could unravel my every attempt at deception. After a dozen heartbeats, she looked away, and toward her daughter.
“Did Frigid Cub relieve you?” Frothing Wolf said.
“She’s with the prisoner,” Burning Dog answered. “Who’s proven a resilient bastard, despite the softness of wealth and noble breeding.”
Who else could that describe but Oriole? How badly had he been injured when the Nayeni attacked? What had they done to him that he should prove resilient? Most importantly, where were they keeping him?
“If Frigid Cub is with the prisoner, and you are here, then what witch guards the tunnel?” Frothing Wolf said, her voice harsh as an icy wind.
“No one, but--”
“But nothing, daughter,” Frothing Wolf snarled. “Do you think those boys with their bows and arrows could so much as delay a Hand of the Emperor tearing through that tunnel with a flick of his finger and a bolt of lightning?”
An itch worked its way up my left arm. All I had to do was reach for the pulsing geyser of power that had been with me since I became Hand of the Emperor, move into the second channel of the canon, and point my finger. I did not know the full limits of Frothing Wolf’s power--I had learned so little of witchcraft before my grandmother left--but I doubted she could veer and flee before lightning tore her apart.
If I killed her, every witch in Iron Town would feel the wake of my sorcery, as would Hand Usher. He would assault the gates. Chaos would erupt. I yet had no idea where to find Oriole and knew only that he was being tortured.
I might be able to find him in time to defend him while the battle raged around us. I might not. The witch Frigid Cub might kill him the moment I struck her mother down and Hand Usher tore through the gates.
Fear of that possibility stayed my hand.
“Then send a runner with orders for Frigid Cub to guard the tunnel,” Burning Dog said. “I’ve brought you something more interesting--and more dangerous--than a Sienese princeling playing soldier.”
Silence held between the three of us while Frothing Wolf searched my face.
“You look like him,” she finally said. A cruel, cutting smile played at the corners of her lips. “Your uncle, Harrow Fox. Do not look so surprised. We fought side-by-side, once, before ambition rooted in his skull and turned him against me. I’d heard the rumor that Broken Limb made a witch of her mongrel grandson, and that he had in turn betrayed us to serve the Empire. I’d hoped it wasn’t true.”
An impulse to hurl lightning and fire and burn her out of the world surged through me. To be done with the siege of Iron Town along with this treacherous conversation.
She gestured for me to approach her. “Show me the tetragram.”
My fingers were
steady, to my great surprise, as I unwound the bandage that covered my left hand. Frothing Wolf leaned over the table. When the first glimmers of silver-lined flesh showed through, I heard her take a single, sharp breath.
“You see, mother?” Burning Dog said.
“Quiet, child,” Frothing Wolf snapped—but she did not tell Burning Dog to leave. Two witches together stood a chance of overcoming a Hand of the Emperor. Again, she searched my face, this time looking not for my uncle’s features, but for answers. “The only reason I have not killed you is because you are Broken Limb’s grandson. Much as I would like to believe her shamed by your treason, she is a canny woman. I think it no accident that she spent so much time in hiding with your mother, and that you have now appeared wearing both witch-marks and the tetragram.”
“My grandmother took a lesson from the Emperor’s grand strategy,” I said. “He steals the magics of those he conquers and gives them to his Hands. She saw in my father’s ambition for me a chance to steal from the Emperor in turn. To have a sorcerer of her own.”
I hoped she did not know that without the Emperor’s transmission to his Voices, and thence to his Hands, I would have no access to the canon of sorcery. Her ignorance would hold the seams of my deception.
“I have been apprenticed to Hand Usher these last two years,” I went on. “We were sent to put down your rebellion, and I saw a chance to defect. I had hoped my grandmother might be with you.”
“Yet you hid yourself, at first,” Frothing Wolf said.
“War can fracture even those with common goals,” I said. “You and my uncle both aspire to the Sun King's throne, but only one of you can unite Nayen as he did. I was unsure that I could trust you, or your daughter. Until she gave me little choice.”
Burning Dog snarled at that. I ignored her and pressed on. I could see sparks of belief in Frothing Wolf’s eyes--I only needed to stoke them to flame.
“Nayen is my home,” I said, and felt a strange pain welling in my chest, reaching for my throat. “The Nayeni are my people. Better to fight alongside you--even if you and my grandmother are rivals--than against you on behalf of the Empire, which murdered my grandfather, hunts my uncle, and reduced my mother to a mewling coward.”
The best lies are strengthened by a foundation of truth, I told myself. That was all. I was no traitor, though I might have been. I served the Empire.
A flimsy thought. Scrawled hastily on paper, where what I had said to Frothing Wolf felt carved in stone. Did some part of me, long suppressed, wish for my grandmother's path? Or was this only panic, my mind sealing the lie with false conviction, trying to give Frothing Wolf as little cause as possible for doubt?
She weighed my lie, her mouth twisting while she chewed her lip. By revealing myself I had made myself at once dangerous to her and enticing. After all, if I served the Empire why would I invent this convoluted lie rather than strike her down at the first opportunity? And what could be more worth risk than to steal her enemy’s greatest weapon?
Could she sense the uncertainty within me? Would she call out the lie, or see it for truth?
The sound of bootheels on the stairs, and the creaking hinges of the gate tore her gaze away from me. I followed her eyes to see a woman I at first took for Burning Dog. She had the same face, but her hair was cropped shorter, and a hooked scar cut a pale line through her left cheek.
The sister. Frigid Cub. The one who had been torturing their prisoner. At the sight of her, my swirling thoughts settled into clear purpose. Whatever I might say, whoever my family might be, I was here to rescue Oriole.
“Who’s this?” Frigid Cub said, eyeing me. Her eyes found my tetragram. They widened in shock, then flicked to her mother.
“Broken Limb’s grandson,” Frothing Wolf said. “He is defecting, he claims. The product of one of his grandmother’s many schemes. How fares the prisoner?”
“He’s lost consciousness, again,” Frigid Cub said. “And I’ve not been able to revive him.”
Burning Dog spat a curse. “You enjoy that work too much.”
“Your sister is right,” Frothing Wolf said. “We need him to speak, not only bleed.”
Frigid Cub shrugged. I bit down outrage and fear. Here was a chance to find Oriole, but if I showed too much interest in his wellbeing, I only risked giving myself away.
“When the Empire sees fit to dig information from a prisoner, a Hand is always present,” I said. “Their healing magic permits for much more devious tortures, without exhausting the subject too quickly.”
“Are you offering to help?” Frigid Cub said. “You were with the imperials. You might know the man.”
I shrugged. “He is my enemy, now, whatever he was to me before.”
The moment he was safe, I would burn them both to ash.
Frothing Wolf waved a hand dismissively. “What could he know that you do not. Hand of the Emperor. You must be privy to their plans.”
“I am.” My stomach churned. “The broader strategy, at least. I can tell you that their objective is not to take Iron Town, but only to kill you and your daughters. They think this fomenting rebellion will die without you. I can tell you that there might be assassins slinking past your walls at night. That Hand Usher will not attack until he is sure to corner you, or sure that you are already dead. But I am not privy to every tactical decision. And, to be honest, I think Hand Usher has always suspected me. I doubt he has told me all of his plans.”
“We caught the prisoner creeping in the tunnels,” Burning Dog said. “He and his men were dressed like scouts, but they might have been assassins. Or spies.”
“Perhaps,” Frothing Wolf said, considering. I dared not press the issue.
“I am no expert in torture,” I said, turning to Frigid Cub. “But, should you need my help, it is offered.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Frigid Cub said, and turned to leave. “By the way, shouldn’t you be guarding that pit, sister?”
Burning Dog glowered at her back.
“What of him?” Burning Dog said, gesturing toward me when Frigid Cub had gone.
“Go to your task, daughter,” Frothing Wolf said. “I will see to our new ally.”
* * *
Frothing Wolf claimed that I was now her guest--had even given me a room in a wing of the city hall and a meal of thin gruel--but wherever I went, a cadre of guards were always close behind, their weapons all but prodding at my back. She bade me accompany her on a round of the city while she surveyed its defenses. I thought that a strange showing of trust but took it as a sign that my gamble had worked, and she had accepted my lie.
I had already seen the desperate state of Iron Town’s people. Now that I was not gasping for breath and given time to really study the scene around me, it became clear that, whatever Frothing Wolf’s original intent in attacking Iron Town, she would never hold the city through the winter. Or, if she did, it would be by starving the populace to feed her soldiers. The armed men and women, too, were haggard and hungry. Frothing Wolf’s own angular face had been thinned and tightened for want of food.
I had hoped her rounds would include the prison where Oriole was being kept, giving me a chance to kill her and free him all at once. Instead, she donned a helmet, handed me one of my own, and led me onto the battlements. Nayeni archers harassed the Sienese forces below, lobbing arrows that either buried themselves in trees or palisades or fell to the earth long before reaching their targets. The Sienese made no effort to return fire--even their iron-banded crossbows lacked the range to strike the top of Iron Town’s walls at such a distance. Frothing Wolf studied the palisades and patrol lines which I had overseen only the day before.
“What do you think of our chances, Foolish Cur?” she asked. “You know the status of our enemy, and what weight of men and resources the Empire has brought against us. How long can they maintain their siege?”
“Longer than we can defend against it,” I said. “They will starve us out long before winter ends, and eat well, so long as th
eir supply lines hold.”
She spat over the wall, then turned her back on the Sienese and pointed toward the city. “Look there. Do you see those towers, near the garrison yard?”
I followed the line of her arm. Two mounds of earth rose near the northern wall of the city. Grain silos, which should have held enough millet to feed Iron Town’s population through the winter. My eye drifted past them, to the garrison itself. The walls around its yard were two thirds as high as those that defended Iron Town. From above, I could see into the yard, and what I saw were prisoners, bound to stakes. The survivors of the Sienese garrison.
And Oriole. I could not see him, but where else would he be held?
“Do you know what the Sienese did, the moment we emerged from our tunnel?” Frothing Wolf went on. “They opened their silos, doused their grain with lamp oil, and put it to the torch. Do you know what we did, the moment we had control of the city?”
I shook my head, unable to tear my gaze from the garrison yard, hoping for any evidence that I would find Oriole there. If so, I could kill Frothing Wolf now, run to the yard, and protect him while Hand Usher stormed the city.
I had to be certain.
“What did you do?” I said, realizing that Frothing Wolf was waiting for me to speak, and that my silence and fascination with the garrison yard might be cause for suspicion. I forced myself to look away.
“We gave a ration from our own supplies to every family in Iron Town,” she said.
“That was kind of you,” I said. “But stupid, if your aim is to win this battle.”
“You think we should have let the people starve?” she said. “Or, what, that we should have fled the moment this Sienese army appeared, knowing that we could never hold the city against them?” She shook her head and grinned. “Some battles are not meant to be won, Foolish Cur. Some battles we fight only to remind the enemy that we still exist, and that we can still hurt them.”
The Hand of the Sun King Page 16