“Half of the Southwest Quarter is on fire,” I say. “That’s all the briefing I need. Why are we not fighting back? Night won’t fall for hours. We need to use the light that remains.”
Janus and a few of the other Paters mutter their agreement. But the rest shake their heads, a few raising their voices in dispute. Admiral Argus and Vice Admiral Vissellius exchange a look of disgust that I make note of. I won’t find an ally in either of them.
“Blood Shrike.” The Commandant has finished with the runners, and her cool voice silences the room. Despite the hatred that rises in me at her patronizing tone, I admire the way she wields her power. Though the men in this room are lords of their own Gens, not a single one will defy her. “We expected you days ago. I—we”—she glances at the Paters and navy officers—“are yours to command.”
This woman trained all expression from my face, but it is difficult not to show my surprise. As Blood Shrike, I am a superior officer, and the Emperor sent me to take command of Navium’s defense. But I did not expect the Commandant to give it up so easily. I did not expect her to give it up at all.
Harper gives me a warning look. Don’t act the part she’s written for you.
“Keris.” I hide my wariness. “Why do we not have boats in the water?”
“The weather is treacherous, Shrike. For the past few weeks storms have moved in swiftly.” She walks to the tall windows that look south. From here, I can see the whole coast, along with the distant masts of a massive Karkaun fleet. “That cloud bank”—she nods to it—“has been there for three days. The last time we took the fleet out, the weather was similar.”
“Lenidas knew sea weather better than anyone.”
“Lenidas ignored the orders of a superior officer simply because she commands an army instead of a navy.” Admiral Argus leads one of the more powerful Mercator Gens, and his rage at his lost ships is clear. “General Veturia ordered him not to take out the fleet, and he didn’t listen. We all”—he gives the room a glower—“supported Lenidas’s execution.”
“Not all,” Janus Atrius says stiffly.
“Lenidas is not the point,” I say. The old man is dead, and while he didn’t deserve to die in disgrace, this is not a battle I can win. “Keris, have you been in the Southwest Quarter since the attack began?”
Argus pushes forward, planting himself in front of me like a squat, belligerent toad. “The Commandant has—”
Beside me, Dex half draws a scim. “Interrupt me one more time, Argus,” I say, “and I’ll have Captain Atrius make me a necklace of your entrails.”
The Paters fall silent, and I let them consider the threat before I speak.
“Paters,” I say, “I won’t launch the fleet without your approval. But consider our losses. More than a thousand killed already and dozens dying by the hour. I’ve seen children with their limbs blasted off, women trapped beneath rubble dying slowly. Grímarr the Karkaun is a vicious foe. Will we let him take our city?”
“Most of the city is safe,” Vissellius argues. “It is only the Southwest Quarter that has—”
“Just because they’re not Mercators or Illustrians doesn’t make their lives any less valuable. We have to do something.”
Keris holds up a hand to silence her allies. “The watchtower ballistae—”
“Are too far from the ships to do any real damage,” I cut her off. “What in the skies was your plan? To sit here and just let them destroy us?”
“Our plan was to allow them to believe they could storm the city,” the Commandant says. “When they made the mistake of landing their troops, we would wipe them out. We would launch an attack on their ships”—she points this out on the map—“from a nearby cove, where we would move the fleet at night. We would stop the Karkaun ground forces while still capturing their ships, which would replace those the Mercators lost in the attack on the harbor.”
The bleeding weather has nothing to do with this after all. She wants the Barbarian ships. She wants them so she can get Navium’s Paters in her pocket—all the better to secure their support when she tries to take down Marcus again.
“And you were planning to do this when, exactly?”
“We expected three more weeks of siege. We’ve been choking off their supplies. Grímarr and his men will run out of food eventually.”
“Once they finish with the Southwest Quarter,” I say, “they’ll move to the Southeast. You’re willing to allow dozens of neighborhoods—thousands of homes—to be besieged for nearly a month. There are more than a hundred thousand people living—”
“We are evacuating the southern parts of the city, Shrike.”
“Not fast enough.” I consider. We must protect Navium, of course. But I smell a trap. Harper taps a thumb on his scim hilt. He senses it too.
And yet I cannot let Grímarr murder my people at will. “Admiral Argus, how long to prepare the fleet?”
“We could launch by second bell, but the weather—”
“We will engage the Karkauns at sea,” I say, and though I promised I’d get the Paters’ permission, I have no time for it. Not when every minute brings more Martial deaths. “And we will do it now.”
“I’m with you, Shrike.” Janus Atrius steps forward, as do a half dozen other Paters and officers. Most, however, are clearly opposed.
“Consider,” Keris says, “that the fleet is our only defense, Shrike. If a storm comes in—”
“You and I both know,” I say quietly, “that this has nothing to do with the weather.”
I glance at Dex, who nods, and Harper, who watches the Commandant fixedly. His expression is unreadable. Don’t act the part she’s written for you.
In the end, I might be playing into her hands. But I’ll just have to concoct a way out of whatever trap she’s laid for me. These are the lives of my people, and come what may, I cannot leave them to die.
“Admiral Argus.” My tone brooks no disapproval, and though his eyes are rebellious, one look from me quells it. “Launch the fleet.”
* * *
After an hour, the men are mustered, and the laborious process of dropping the sea chains begins. After two hours, the fleet sails from the circular war port and into the merchant harbor. After three, our men are locked in combat with the Karkauns.
But after four hours, the sky, thick with clouds and rain, deepens from a threatening gray to an eerie dark purple, and I know we are in trouble. Lightning cracks across the water, striking mast after mast. Flames leap high, distant bursts of light that tell me the battle is turning—and not in our favor.
The storm comes suddenly, roiling toward Navium from the south as if whipped forth by a wrathful wind. By the time it hits, it is far too late to turn the fleet back.
“Admiral Argus has sailed these seas for two decades,” Dex says quietly as the storm intensifies. “He might be Keris’s dog, but he’ll bring the fleet home. He’ll have no wish to die.”
I should have gone with them. But the Commandant and Harper and Dex all protested—the one thing the three of them agreed on.
I seek out Keris, who speaks quietly with one of the drum-tower runners.
“No reports yet, Shrike,” she says. “The drum towers cannot hear anything over the storm. We must wait.”
The runner steps away, and we are, for a moment, alone.
“Who is this Grímarr?” I ask her. “Why do we know nothing about him?”
“He’s a zealot, a warlock priest who worships the dead. He believes it is his spiritual duty to convert all those who are unenlightened. That includes the Martials.”
“By killing us.”
“Apparently,” Keris says softly. “He’s a relatively young man, a dozen or so years older than you. His father traded furs, so Grímarr traveled the Empire extensively as a boy—to learn our ways, no doubt. He returned to his people a decade ago, just as a famine hit. The clans were starving, weak—and malleable.” The Commandant shrugs. “So he molded them.”
I’m surprised at the depth of her knowledge, and she must see it on my face. “What is the first rule of war, Blood Shrike?”