“I swore my troops to Prophetess, not to some Darkness-infested princeling,” Lago growled.
“And I’m the commander of the Darkness Radiant now,” Roshel added. “It goes where I tell it.”
Dee smiled. “So let’s simply say the issue of right is complex. Then as it so often does, it comes down to a question of might. How much of the army can we control?”
“My troops answer to me, to Judge Minos, to Prophetess, and to God,” Lago declared. “Never to Stephen.”
Dee raised a finger. “Very good. Four thousand in our column. Only, what, twenty five thousand yet to account for?”
Roshel said, “The ones that were in the field with me at Darkness Falling will be loyal. The others… I couldn’t say yet. If it were a contest between Yoshana and Stephen, they’d almost all follow her. But I’m not Yoshana.”
“So. Eleven thousand in total are ours. Some eighteen thousand of unknown allegiance. The easiest course would be to withdraw to Our Lady with our eleven thousand and let any others who choose follow us.”
I shook my head. “Leaving eighteen thousand men under the control of a lunatic infected with the Darkness doesn’t appeal much. Tess is right - he didn’t look sane. I’ve had that stuff in me, and it works on your head. Not in good ways. God knows what he might do with that in him and without Yoshana controlling him.”
Dee raised his eyebrows. “The alternative may be civil war. Inside a city, the bloodshed would be… considerable. I believe Father Roric specifically cautioned you on that point?”
Our Lady’s Advocate for Justice had lectured me on the principles of just war. The cause had to be righteous, but the conduct of operations also had to minimize casualties.
Fortunately, Roric was with us in Stephensburg. Or perhaps unfortunately, since I still found the priest intimidating. “I can ask for his views,” I said.
Roshel shook her head. “Let me take the temperature of the unit commanders in the city. I’ll see which way they’re going to jump, and see who I can influence. Just buy me some time tomorrow.”
I didn’t know exactly what Stephen expected. There wasn’t room for twenty nine thousand men to assemble and pledge their allegiance to him outside the gate to the administrative district. And it would have looked like a prelude to invasion. I opted for a single battalion… consisting entirely of Lago’s Monolith troops, who had no allegiance at all to Stephen. I was hoping that point would be lost on him.
There was a small chance that, with the night to sleep on it, he’d repented and decided to forego Yoshana’s dubious “blessing.” Tess could purge the Darkness from him. I didn’t think it was likely, but I didn’t have any brilliant ideas, so I prepared to stall for time while Roshel assessed divided loyalties. And we all hoped for the best.
The early morning was cool, even at the beginning of summer. A light rain had in fact fallen during the night, and mist rose off the puddles in the cobblestone streets. Nonetheless, the monarch appeared atop the wall as he had the day before, shirt open to reveal the appearance of tanned muscle. I had seen the Darkness melt the fat out of his body, liquid rivulets of it running like wax out of his pores. I fought down a wave of nausea at the memory.
Once again he was flanked by a small contingent of soldiers and the tall woman. Her angular face was composed and she regarded us with no more concern than she would have given an equal number of ants. Stephen smiled as he saw me watching her.
“This is Melaret, my consort. Another of the fine things one can have with the power you idiotically set aside. Have you come to deliver my troops to me, Select?”
I cleared my throat. My knee hurt. “Lord Stephen, you will appreciate that a transfer of power is not accomplished instantly. There is confusion among the men after the death of Yoshana. They were accustomed to answering to her.”
“They answer to me!”
Even Stephen’s guard recoiled fractionally at the shrill scream. Only Melaret remained unmoved.
He steadied his voice to a venomous hiss. “I am the lord of the Source. This city, these men, all the lands beyond, including your little prophet’s church, they are all mine by right. And let’s not play games, Select. They’re mine by main force as well. Who will deny me that? You’re no Yoshana. I don’t share power with the likes of you, or peasant prophets, or Overlord whores who’ve set aside the source of their strength. Who else is fit to rule here but me? I didn’t summon you to make excuses. I summoned you to deliver me my army.”
I winced. “Lord Stephen, the issue is that your army may not be entirely ready to be delivered. A substantial part of it is pledged to the elimination of the Darkness. We need a bit more time -”
“Time?” Stephen roared. A black cloud began to form around him. “Time for treachery? Time for disloyalty? Bring the traitors to me and I will strike them down! I will purge the ranks until -”
His body went rigid as Melaret buried a knife in his back. When Cat stabbed someone from behind, the blade slid up under the ribs through the kidneys. Stephen’s consort had driven her stiletto down from above in a clumsy overhand blow. It was amazing the knife hadn’t caught on bone.
The Darkness seethed in the air. Face twisted into a mask of disgust, rage, and terror, the woman plunged the thin blade into him again and again.
It wouldn’t have been possible to kill Yoshana that way. She would have healed as fast as the damage was done and swatted the attacker like a bug. Stephen wasn’t Yoshana. The skin sagged on his bones as the Darkness left him. His body toppled from the wall and smashed onto the ground at our feet with a sickening crunch. I was pretty sure he was dead before he hit.
The Darkness continued to ooze out of the corpse, a pathetic mist that reminded me more of cockroaches fleeing the light than the gigantic, lethal mass that had streamed from Yoshana on her death.
The gray-uniformed guards on the wall were very still.
“Stephen is dead,” Melaret announced. “Long live Stephen.”
Tess and I sat at a huge table of elaborately carved mahogany and moved food around on our plates. Melaret picked daintily at an egg, exactly like a refined lady who hadn’t just stabbed a man to death. Light streamed into the dining room through diamond-paned windows of exceptional clarity.
My plate was heaped with sausages, potatoes, eggs, and slices of a variety of fruit. It was the finest meal I’d ever been served. I had no appetite.
“Stephen was a monster,” Melaret said calmly. “And a danger to the realm. It was obvious he was leading us to a senseless war.”
Tess shot me a look I couldn’t read. I met Melaret’s eyes and nodded.
The tall woman continued. “I carry Stephen’s child. Stephen, Twenty Eighth of His Name.”
“If it’s a boy,” Tess said softly.
“Oh, he is.”
I didn’t ask how she could be so sure. I fought down a shudder. I didn’t want to know.
“I will be regent until his majority. With the blessing of the Universal Church, the transition will be peaceful and free from any unpleasantness. And of course, the Church will have my full support in its holy crusade against the Darkness.”
“That’s very… civilized,” I said.
“Just so.” She smiled thinly. “You don’t seem hungry. I apologize, I didn’t ask if you’d already eaten. Please, don’t let me detain you.”
“Stay not on the order of your going, but go. So what do we do about Lady Macbeth?” Railes asked when we were safely back at our headquarters outside the city. The spot between my shoulder blades had finally stopped tingling in anticipation of an arrow.
“Not an entirely accurate epithet,” Dee objected. “Lady Macbeth was quite loyal to her husband and didn’t actually kill anyone.”
I was impressed my adjutant knew ancient literature like Shakespeare at all. The tattooed killer didn’t give the impression of being classically educated. Although the snarl he showed the occultist certainly looked medieval.
“Not really the point, Dee,” I
said. “The question’s a good one. She’s a murderer and I’d say slightly more cold-blooded than the average snake. She’s looking to make a deal with us, but I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her.”
“She’s looking for us to legitimize her,” Tess corrected. “She needs the blessing of the Church.”
“She is a regicide,” Lago growled. “We cannot endorse that.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” Dee interjected. “She would owe her legitimacy entirely to us, making her a more secure ally than any other we might imagine on the throne of the Source. And after all, she was acting against the Darkness.”
“She was acting for her own ambition,” Lago snarled. “It was her chance to seize power and rid herself of a man she hated.”
Dee shrugged and smiled. “Different interests do coincide. Motives are rarely pure.”
Lago snorted and looked away.
I sighed. “The fact is, this avoids a civil war. And there’s going to be blood if we don’t support her. Those guards of Stephen’s didn’t even flinch when she killed him. If she had them in her pocket, she’ll have others. If we try to get rid of her, she won’t go easily.”
“Not overthrowing her doesn’t mean we have to endorse her,” Tess snapped.
“And then she’s an enemy, and we’re back to an army with divided loyalties.”
“And you think she’ll lead it against us?”
“No, but -”
“Then why exactly do you need thirty thousand men with undivided loyalties?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. I felt like I’d been clobbered with a two-by-four from behind while focusing on the enemy in front of me. Probably a lot like Yoshana had felt when Tess beaned her in the back of the head with a rock.
“It’s not my army,” I said softly. “It’s yours.”
“Did I ask for it?”
“You went looking for an army to defeat Yoshana. I got you one. You put me in charge of it. What am I missing?”
“Apparently you’re missing the fact that we defeated Yoshana. I’m very grateful, Minos. You did better than anyone could have expected. But the mission is over.”
I looked around the pavilion for help. Railes shrugged. Lago wouldn’t meet my eye. Cat and Furat decided it was a good time to look around everywhere else, in case an assassin was sneaking up on us in the midst of our own troops. Even Dee had nothing to offer. Sam wagged her tail at me, but that wasn’t very helpful.
“You weren’t in any hurry to turn our men over to Stephen,” I objected.
“He was crazy. And infected with the Darkness.”
“And Melaret is a murderer.”
“Exactly. And you want us to give her the Universal Church’s blessing?”
Backed into a rhetorical corner again. I loved the woman but, prophet or not, someone who’d grown up on a farm at the edge of a garbage dump had no business being able to argue circles around a Select.
“Tess, Yoshana may be dead, but there are still enemies out there. The Darkness is building in the Sorrows. Yoshana delayed the Hellguard’s invasion when she killed Yashuath, but I doubt they’ve given up on the idea. This war isn’t over. That’s why we need an army with undivided loyalties. If our support for Melaret is the price of that, I think it’s one we have to pay.”
Her face set in lines of mulish stubbornness that weren’t attractive at all. “I’m not giving the Church’s blessing to that woman.”
“You don’t speak - huh.” I held up a finger as I thought. “You’re a prophet, but you’re not the Church’s envoy in the matter of coronations, now are you? So it really wouldn’t be appropriate in the first place for you to formally recognize Melaret, would it?”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“Damn right I am. Better hairs than heads. I had enough of that these past two years.”
It was an ugly compromise that pleased no one, and we all plastered bright, false smiles over it and pretended to be thrilled.
There was a formal leave-taking at the bridge leading to Stephensburg’s outer walls. Below, the river that defined the city’s outer boundary rolled along sluggishly, unimpressed by coronations and machinations. Four thousand of Lago’s men in white tabards blazoned with the roses and spines of the Order of Thorns stood at attention outside the city. Seven thousand of Roshel’s troops in white tabards blazoned with the golden double crescent halberd of the Darkness Radiant stood with them.
A few hundred of Melaret’s gray-clad household guard looked pretty lonely standing in the huge gateway on the other side of the bridge. The fact that there were thousands more troops behind them wearing the same white and gold as Roshel’s men couldn’t be lost on anybody.
Horns sounded, and Stephensburg’s new ruler strode out onto the bridge with slow, measured steps. A herald with lungs like a bellows boomed out, “The Regent Melaret, Mother of Stephen Twenty Eighth of His Name, Liberator from Darkness, Servant of the Light.”
The great and good of Stephensburg were gathered behind the gray troops. The wealthiest and most powerful of all had prime viewing positions on the wall, which was also conveniently removed from the line of fire if something went wrong. They cheered and applauded noisily. It would probably have been unwise and indeed unhealthy not to.
Trumpets sounded, drums rolled, and I stepped forward to the music of one of the Canticles of Holy Mary, which seemed to be the only piece that Roshel’s military band knew. The song was beautiful but, having been subjected to it for an entire night when I was at war with the Darkness Radiant, I would have preferred just about anything else.
“Judge Minos, Supreme Commander of the Armies of Our Lady, Knight of the Order of Thorns,” intoned my own herald. I wasn’t sure he had quite the volume of Melaret’s, but since he was shouting in my ear it was plenty loud enough. I also realized I had one less title than the new regent, but we hadn’t come up with anything else that didn’t sound ridiculous.
We stopped just short of each other, bowed slightly at the waist, and clasped hands. Each of us wore a smile of frightening insincerity.
“Judge Minos, you have driven the Darkness from the Source. We are grateful. Stephensburg is and remains at the disposal of the Holy Church.”
More applause.
“Lady Melaret, you have driven the Darkness from Stephensburg.” With a knife in its ruler’s back. “The armies of Our Lady stand with the lawful ruler of the Source.” Whose identity might be implied but was carefully unspecified.
And still more applause, and cheering, and another exchange of bows, and even bigger, falser smiles.
As Melaret and her men withdrew into the city, Roshel’s troops followed in a magnificent procession. Lago’s soldiers executed a precise about face and, in perfect unison, began the long march to Our Lady.
“You are so full of crap,” Tess said.
2. The Mission
Word of the Battle of Darkness Falling had reached Our Lady long before we did, of course. The townspeople and the troops we’d left behind in garrison treated us to a heroes’ welcome.
I couldn’t say I minded. Being pelted with flowers was a nice change from being pelted with bullets and arrows. The contrast was that much greater because these were Rockwall troops cheering men from the Monolith - two groups that not long ago actually had been pelting each other with bullets and arrows.
“Get up and wave,” Tess commanded. We were back to riding in a wagon. She stood and gave me a hand up. I waved, tentatively at first, then enthusiastically as the cheers grew louder.
“Don’t get a swelled head,” Tess muttered.
“But - you -” I glanced over and saw her grinning at me.
It was a long, slow ride through the winding streets of the surrounding town to the massive walls of Our Lady proper. I was tired and sweaty and my leg hurt by the time we got there.
Still. “Nice to be appreciated,” I said.
We were met at the gate by an official delegation. The Metropolitan, the mayor, General Hake, and
a swarm of functionaries waited for us. As the wagon rattled to a halt, Tolf burst from their ranks and ran to Prophetess in what must have been a huge breach of protocol.
“Thank God you’re all right!”
Cat glared at him over the edge of the wagon. “With her, me.”
“Like I said, thank God she’s all right.” Tolf had proclaimed himself head of Tess’ personal guard long before the paleo had entered the picture. There was a fierce rivalry between them that was somewhat in good fun but mostly not. Tolf had half-jokingly suggested Cat might murder him to get him out of the way. It wasn’t especially funny, considering I’d met her when she was sneaking up on me in the middle of the night to slit my throat and eat me. I’d only lived because at the time I’d been something far darker and more dangerous than her.
Mayor Arnage cleared his throat and interrupted, which was probably a good thing. I regarded him as a pompous windbag, but he might have been useful a week earlier dealing with Stephen and Melaret. Hopefully he’d be useful now keeping Tess’ bodyguards from each other’s throats.
“Judge Minos,” he rumbled in full, rounded tones. “We are gratified at your victory. A sign of God’s favor and the righteousness of our cause. Though there was never any doubt in the Lord’s justice and mercy, still this is a time for celebration and thanksgiving.”
Never any doubt. This from a man whose chief contribution to the undertaking had been the suggestion that we surrender.
The ability to squeeze a lie the size of a melon through a human throat without apparent discomfort was the main reason he would have been useful in Stephensburg. I plastered on the same false smile I’d worn with Melaret and said, “We are grateful for your unwavering support, Mayor Arnage.”
He nodded happily and burbled on at length. I couldn’t have recalled a syllable of what he said five seconds after it came out of his mouth. Eventually the flow of words dried up. My mind had wandered back to the battlefield, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to know if I was supposed to say something. I smiled and nodded. It seemed to be enough.
Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle Page 74