by Steven Poore
“No, in all frankness,” the prince replied. It sounded as if he couldn’t even be bothered to conceal his amusement. “Not until you deign to tell me the rest of this wondrous plan.”
Cassia sighed and returned to the tavern’s steps. She could hear the errand-boy fussing in the stables. Doubtless he was listening to their conversation while he ran a perfunctory brush over the mules the traders and pilgrims had brought with them. And the shutters on the walls of the surrounding buildings were all wide open, framing casements like pairs of ears. She switched to the Galliarcan tongue and lowered her voice.
“Be careful with your words, sir,” she warned. “As you said yourself—”
Rais nodded. “Hellea is not fond of my people. No, Cassia, it is not. But I can disguise myself as one of Saihri’s adherents easily enough. There are those in Galliarca who believe that she was Peleanna’s daughter.” He indicated a small pewter brooch pinned to the breast of his shirt. Cassia had not noticed it before. “I purchased this earlier, while you slept. The tradesman overcharged me scandalously.”
She blinked, struggling to draw her mind around the change of subject.
“But,” Rais sighed, “this little charm will not see us into the presence of your Emperor. Nor will my sword.”
“He is not my Emperor,” Cassia said defensively.
“No, but you will need his help as well as mine if you think you can stand against a risen King of the North.”
“You still don’t believe me.” Cassia scraped short, jagged lines into the ground with the end of her staff, following no conscious design.
“I can hardly doubt you: not since you brought me to Hellea on the back of a dragon.”
She glared up at him, but Rais did not appear to be mocking her. Cassia thought of telling him how she intended to use the stories against themselves, but only for a moment – it would be too easy for him to laugh. And, if she was absolutely honest, she still did not quite believe it herself.
“Baum was a soldier,” she said at last. Rais’s expression did not alter. “He employed other soldiers in his scheme. I think they can help us too.”
The prince tilted his head and considered that. “The tavern-keeper.”
“And his friend.”
Cassia looked down again. The design she had scratched into the surface of the yard had become a range of mountains; a panorama she felt she recognised. Caenthell. The North was drawing her to itself. The forces that had been pent up behind Malessar’s curse wards grew stronger with each passing day.
Rais shifted at last, but only to free the sword at his hip. He hefted its weight thoughtfully and then sighted along the blade. His mood had switched again, and the pampered fourth son was once more a Prince of the Watch.
“Your footwork is not as skilful as it should be. If you stand in one place for too long your opponent will pin you down and overwhelm you.”
Cassia frowned. “I wasn’t practicing my footwork.”
“Then you should,” Rais said. “Bring out your sword.”
She bridled, but bit down on her reply. Rais was not Meredith – he could never be Meredith. What right did he have to order her back into practice? She had nothing to prove to him. But still she found herself back inside the tavern before she even realised it, unwrapping the bundle that contained the two swords she now possessed. Two swords – and she could still remember a time when she could only dream of owning one. Her hand fell to the hilt of Meredith’s greatsword and she had to make a conscious effort to take up Pelicos’s blade instead. If Rais wished to test her, she would rise to the challenge.
Cassia took up her place opposite him. Rais, she saw, did not intend to bind his blade. “I thought this was just practice,” she said uncertainly. “We could hurt each other like this.”
Rais shrugged. “You have faced bare steel before, Cassia. You will never learn anything against a blunted edge.”
“Were you taught this way?” She shifted her stance and edged to her left to provoke him into moving. Armed with a sword rather than with her staff, she felt a little of her old confidence returning. It was as though the staff tied her to her past, to the girl she had been, while Pelicos’s sword – ironically, given its age – was more a symbol of her new self.
Rais stepped forward and his blade flicked out. Cassia moved reflexively to tap it away. The two weapons rasped, stinging Cassia’s wrist. She continued left, pulling her sword down to cover her thigh. The metal sang again, as anticipated. She spun and countered, attacking high while Rais was committed.
The prince’s reactions were swift. He jerked away, dropping to one knee, using his free hand to propel himself upright immediately.
Cassia had already hopped backwards two steps, threatening from his other flank, but content to let him make the first move again.
“I thought you didn’t want to hurt me,” Rais said. He flexed the fingers of his free hand – clearly he had landed hard.
“I didn’t say that.”
The prince gave her a thin smile and returned to the attack, this time slashing at her midriff more forcefully. It was like having to defend against both ends of Meredith’s staff at once. And then, when she found an opportunity of her own, he was fought through his guard and seized her opportunity, he was gone and her blade whipped through the air where he had been.
Like mist. And who could fight against mists?
She had done that. In all likelihood, she would have to do it again. The drums of the North taunted her, reminded her of the power they had over her – the power she would have to stand against. If she did not wilt and flee first.
That will not happen, she shouted silently, willing her words to reach the grim force that awaited her. I will defeat you.
The weight of the blade seemed to disappear, the weapon becoming a part of her arm, and suddenly she felt the balance of the fight shift in her favour. Rais’s expression was one of flat, hard concentration. The humour he had assumed was banished as he tried to contain her attack. The yard echoed with the clash of steel.
She caught fleeting glimpses of faces – pale and unclear – leaning from the upper windows of the tenements that surrounded the yard, and dimly she heard shouts of alarm. Ultess’s bulky frame hovered in the doorway of the tavern. None of it mattered. There was a will pushing at the back of her mind, urging her on to wider strokes, to thrusts and parries she had never thought of before. She had to win – win at all costs – so she could claim her kingdom. It was only a matter of time before Rais’s defences were breached . . .
Cassia whirled and jumped straight at the prince, knocking him clean to the ground. She landed hard upon his chest and pinned him down. Rais stared back up at her, incredulous and full of fear.
“Yield,” Cassia suggested. Saying even that caused a wave of intense pain across the back of her head. The pain could be assuaged with blood, she knew. And it need not be her blood . . .
Rais nodded weakly. He did not say a word.
Because her sword was at his throat.
Realisation dawned slowly. The blade was pressed against his skin, the edge pricking the muscles of his neck. A bead of blood welled up there. Even the smallest amount of added pressure would see him dead. And that would not help her at all. It was not what she wanted.
Was it?
She lifted her hands carefully – very carefully – and then when the blade was clear, she threw it out of reach. She felt Rais take in a slow, measured breath.
“I would like to stand up, please.”
Numb and silent, Cassia levered herself off his chest and retreated to a shaded part of the yard near the stables, snatching up her sword as she stumbled past it. There was a sick energy in the air; something expectant and unspent. Brooding, burgeoning . . . and spoiled. Like the mists of Caenthell, it seeped from and into everything, stilling the air into a deathly silence. Ultess stood motionless in the tavern’s door, and there was no sound from the audience above.
I almost killed him. That admittan
ce sent a chill plunging deep after the feeling that she had somehow been soiled. It would have been so easy . . .
Rais crouched, dusting the shoulders of his shirt. Surprise had turned to anger, the emotion clear and unpleasant upon his darkened features. Anger at having been beaten by a girl, she guessed.
“You dare put a sword to my throat? If you had done this in my Court you would already be back in irons – you would never see daylight again! What in the name of all that is holy came over you? Are you mad?”
It was a good question. Cassia shrugged. She did not want to explain herself to him. She saw no need to make such an explanation. And, added a kernel of honesty deep within her, the implications of her behaviour were too frightening to admit even to herself.
I am the Heir to the North.
What if it were not merely a title? What if the dark power of Caenthell could influence her over great distances, growing within her like some unearthly child? Would it consume her from within? Could she prevent that from happening?
I will go mad.
“You wanted to fight with bare blades,” she said.
Rais glowered at her. “That’s not the point, and you know it.”
“It is not my fault that you expected to beat me so easily.” Cassia felt drained, as though she had been running hard for a whole day. She leaned back against the wall and hoped Rais would not spot her weakness. She had felt like this after the battle at Karakhel, although the flood of anger had not been so overwhelming then.
Rais laughed, though it was a bitter bark, short and mirthless. “You are full of surprises, girl. I am hung with my own words. We were both Malessar’s students, but now I am forced to learn from you as well.” He sheathed his sword, shaking his head dismissively, but Cassia could see it was a thin mask he wore.
As thin as my own, she thought.
By the time she had secured her own sword and ducked her head into the pail of water Ultess kept inside the door, Rais had visibly composed himself. Once more the carefree prince, treating the common room of the Old Soak as an extension of his royal Court. He had commandeered the bench nearest the fire, while Ultess’s few remaining customers attempted to pretend they had chosen to move out of his way. Ultess himself stayed near his barrels, and the look he threw at Cassia was one she had not seen directed at herself before. Uncertainty. Trepidation. Fear.
And, on a bench in the far corner of the room, a hunched shape lay beneath a ragged and discoloured blanket. Cassia’s gaze flicked to the beam above that bench, where the soldier’s sword was still secure. It was possible, she thought, that the sleeping man weighed less now than the sword he had once wielded.
“Don’t wake him,” Ultess said. “Not today, please.”
She ignored him. “Rais, this will be a private conversation.”
She heard Rais come to his feet as she threaded her way between the tables, her gaze fixed upon the sleeping form. Ultess’s customers needed no persuasion: they hurried from the tavern on unsteady legs. Rais fastened the latch and leaned against the door with his arms folded.
The rank smell of Arca’s clothing and hair spoke of the way in which he had spent Saihra’s festival. Cassia laid her hand on a shoulder that seemed to have no flesh upon it, and shook him as firmly as she dared until he stirred and muttered something inaudible.
“Arca. Arca – Guhl is waiting for you. Guhl. It’s time, Arca.”
The old man raised bone-thin fingers to his head and groaned. “Time . . .” he repeated.
Cassia felt him stiffen as he came awake at last. She waited for him to turn slowly on the bench, as if he was in pain. His eyes were gummed, even more sunken than she remembered, and the skin that clung to his skull was so thin it was translucent. This, she knew, was how her father would end his days, if he was not killed by an enraged audience first.
Arca blinked, unfocused, as he looked around – first at Ultess, then across to Rais. Finally, his attention turned to Cassia again and there was a spark of recognition in his eyes.
“Arca the Brave,” she said to him. This time her voice was hard and emotionless. “A hero of Cape Magister, who held the line at the Usurper’s Fields, who went with Guhl’s Company to Kebria – and who faced Malessar himself in the palace there. You lied to me, Arca.”
8
We sealed a promise,” Ultess said. “All those years ago. We stood in a circle, at dawn, on the very edge of the disputed Berdellan lands, and Baum’s sorcery cast a spell that sealed us all to his cause. That’s what he told us,” he added more uncertainly, glancing across at Arca for confirmation. But the old soldier was still hunched in his corner, staring down at the grain of the table as though he expected it to move.
“You, and Arca,” Cassia said. She counted the names on the fingers of one hand. “And Fodrakh, and Attis, and the priest, Dorias.”
Each name seemed as potent as a fist. Again Ultess looked to Arca for support. “You told her?”
Cassia shook her head. “No, he didn’t. Not that much. But I am right – so tell me the rest.”
The fight had gone from him. Ultess raised his cup and drank heavily before he said anything more.
Rais still guarded the door, though he had wheeled one of the tavern-keeper’s full barrels over to keep it firmly closed. The door into the yard was also closed and bolted, and the curtain that partitioned the two areas was hauled back so the whole room was open to scrutiny. Cassia did not believe she was in any danger of being overheard from outside, but she did not want this conversation interrupted. Ultess and Arca would take any opportunity to avoid explaining themselves, and she would not give them any such opportunity.
“We came back from Kebria,” Arca said into the silence. His voice was thin and weak. “The Glorious Fourth. The Emperor made his deals, and so he moved us on. Paid us off. Stood down the legion. There was a festival.”
Cassia waited, but there was no more. She turned back to Ultess, and the tavern-keeper shook his head. “I was a boy then. This place was my father’s. The soldiers brought jewels and gold coins from Kebria, and spent them on every entertainment they could find. It was their due, of course. And my father gladly took the payments they offered. We celebrated the legion’s return until there was no more coin to be had.”
Ultess tilted his head to the frail form in the corner. “Arca had a room here, then. Guhl too. Guhl had intended to use his share of the spoils to form his own company, but he could not attract the commissions, and the soldiers who had followed him from the Fourth were clamouring for pay and a job. I was dazzled by their stories, by the magic of war and plunder, and so I left my father behind and joined up with Guhl. The soldiers laughed at me at first: an innkeeper’s son waving wooden swords on the practice fields. But the company needed a quartermaster – any fool could see that from a mile distant. And when he saw that I could find him supplies at far more reasonable rates than he was paying before, Guhl was the first to stop laughing.”
“And the relevance?” Rais asked.
Ultess glared across at him. “I have not finished, sir.” He turned back to Cassia. “Of them all, I understood Guhl the least. He was remote, sometimes unapproachable. It was far easier to talk to Arca, to relay my requests through him. We became fast friends. So when the Emperor set his sights on Berdella at last, we all rejoined and went there under Hellean banners. Guhl contracted us as a reconnaissance company.”
“Oceans of grasses,” Arca put in.
Cassia folded her arms on the table surface. “And here is where you lied to me. You said you were never in Berdella. I remember that. You sat there on the temple steps and said it clearly.”
Arca did not look up. “I had to.”
“Why? Did Baum force you somehow? Was that the spell he cast?”
Arca hesitated, then shook his head slowly. “No.”
Cassia waited until he shifted uncomfortably and shook his head again.
“He bought me with ale. And wine. And coin.”
And he would not ha
ve needed much of any of them, Cassia thought sourly.
“Guhl always looked for the main chance,” Ultess continued. It was a clear attempt to draw her attention again, to take the pressure from his old companion. For the moment Cassia decided she would let it pass. “Everybody knew the tales of riches hidden in the barrows there, of the towns and gilded shrines hidden in plain sight. We wanted to take our own share of it all, before it ended up in the Emperor’s chests.”
“The greed of Hellea,” Rais muttered.
“This from a damned Galliarcan.” Ultess spat onto the rushes.
Cassia thumped the table with one fist. “Enough. There’s no time for bickering. I want to know where Baum enters the story.”
“Here,” Ultess said. “He sought us out, I think. He gathered men to him as we marched, and Guhl and Attis became his half-captains. By the time we descended from the Daedalians it was Guhl’s Company in name only. He shared our aims, we thought. The spoils of war.”
Rais coughed loudly, but did not say anything this time.
The tale rang true so far, Cassia thought, and she had heard Baum’s own version of part of it already. From what she now knew of the man, she could guess much of the rest. “He must have been looking for something in particular. He used you to secure it for him.”
Ultess nodded and Arca echoed his agreement. “There was something he took from Gyre Carnus’s fort – other than the gold and gems, that is. But I never knew what it was.”
“And after that he swore you to his service,” Cassia said.
Arca’s jaw worked for a moment. “He did. Promised us our dreams. Said we were watched over by the gods. Favoured, even. We’d be heroes and immortals. Like him.”
There was a brief silence and then Ultess grunted. “Damned idiots we were, to believe that. We came home believing it would all be different. But Dorias was hearing voices even then, and he went fully mad before we saw the other side of the mountains again. And when we came back to Hellea nothing had changed. We frittered away the money and the gems. Guhl grubbed in the dirt for jobs. And then he died. Stupidly. The company foundered, and we were nothing. Just memories.”