* * *
Riding with her commander, the Marquis Jhardin, and her Sentry of a hundred horse, Ghelel had her first good look at Heng since the attack. They travelled the trader road north-east to the old stone bridge over the Idryn. To the west, the orange morning light coloured the distant walls ochre. Smoke rose from fires still burning throughout the city. She couldn't see the north wall where a horrific firestorm had incinerated so many of her men but she'd heard stories of that amoral, almost petulant, act. How destructively childish! They'd lost the battle and so they should have shown the proper grace and simply bowed out. What were they going to do, burn down the entire city out of plain spite? It was – she searched for the right word – uncivilized,
‘So, a rendezvous?’ she said to the Marquis, who rode beside her.
He gave an assent, drawing on his pipe. ‘Yes, Prevost. Reinforcements.’
‘From the east, sir?’
‘Yes. Landings at Cawn. Recruits from Falar and abroad. Commanded by no less than Urko Crust himself.’
‘Urko? I thought he was dead.’
The Marquis showed stained teeth in a broad smile. ‘He's been reported drowned more times than a cat.’
Ghelel thought about all the names now assembled against Laseen in this ‘Talian League’. So many old lieutenants and companions. How must it feel to be so betrayed? So alone? But then, she'd brought it all upon herself, hadn't she? Yet that was the question – hadn't she? Ghelel also thought of herself as alone. How much more might the two of them have in common? Anything at all? Perhaps only this condition of isolation. It seemed to her that while she was the leader-in-waiting of the Talian League, in truth she controlled nothing. And, she wondered, how much alike might the two of them truly be in this regard as well?
A plume of dust ahead announced another party on the road. An outrider stormed up, pulled her mount to a halt, saluted the Marquis and Ghelel. ‘A religious procession,’ she reported to Ghelel.
‘Oh?’
‘Common here,’ the Marquis said. ‘This road passes over the bridge to meet the east-west trader road. A major monastery sits at the crossroads—’
‘The Great Sanctuary of Burn!’ Ghelel said in wonder.
‘Yes.’ If the Marquis was offended by the interruption he did not show it. ‘You've heard of it, then.’
‘Of course. But wasn't it ruined long ago?’
‘Yes. Struck by an earthquake.’ A wry smile. ‘Make of that what you will. Yet the devout still gather. They squat among its fallen walls. Persistent in their faith they are. This road was lain over the old pilgrim trail. The first bridge was built ages ago to accommodate the traffic’
As the Marquis spoke they came abreast of the procession: old men and women on foot, some carrying long banners proclaiming their status under the protection of Burn. All bowed as the Sentry rode past, even the ones already on their hands and knees genuflecting in the dust every foot of their pilgrimage, all to the great increase of their merit. As she passed, Ghelel had an impression of brown and grey unkempt dusty hair, tattered rags, emaciated limbs showing bruising and sores. From their darker complexion they looked to have originated from the Kan Confederacy, though it may just have been the grime.
They descended the southern flank of a broad shallow valley, the old flood plain of the Idryn. Upriver, intermittent copses of trees thickened to a solid line screening the river. Ahead in the distance the old stone bridge lay like the grey blade of a sword, long and low over the water. A great number of dark birds circled over the river and harried the shores. A gust of warm air greeted Ghelel, a current drawn up the valley. It carried the aroma of wood smoke from Heng, plus the stink of things not normally burned. As they neared the muddy shores a much worse, nauseating reek assaulted Ghelel and she flinched, covering her nose. ‘Gods, what is that?’
The Marquis turned to her, pipe firmly clenched between teeth, his broad face unreadable. He exchanged a glance with Sergeant Shepherd riding behind, and took the pipe from his mouth. ‘Heng uses the Idryn as a sewer, of course. So there's always that downriver from any city. But now, with the siege, it's much worse …’ Riding closer, Ghelel saw that the garbage and broken wreckage of war littered the shore. Among the shattered wood and flotsam lay tangled bodies: a stiff arm upraised like a macabre greeting; a pale bloated torso, obscene. And roving from corpse to corpse went contented dogs, stomachs distended. They flushed clouds of angry crows and kites with their bounding. ‘Because, you see, in the city, there's no room to bury the dead – it's just easiest to …’
‘It's criminal!’ Ghelel exploded. ‘What of the proper observances?’ ‘Who knows? Perhaps some basic gestures were made …’ Ghelel was in no mood to share the Marquis's forbearance. For her this was the final outrage from these Loyalist forces, the convincing proof that whoever these men or women were, they truly deserved to be wiped from the face of the earth. They had no common decency such as any reasonable man or woman. They seemed no better than animals.
The horses’ hooves clattered on the worn granite stones of the bridge. The Marquis raised his chin to indicate the far shore. ‘See there – the caves?’
Past the north shore, the ascent from the valley was much steeper; the road switched back and forth up cliffs of some soft layered sedimentary rock. Dark mouths of caves crowded the cliffs, forming a sort of abject settlement.
‘Hermits and ascetics squat in them. Purifying themselves for better communion with Burn, I suppose, or Soliel, or Oponn, or whoever.’
Figures that seemed no more than sticks wrapped in rags squatted in some of the dark openings. Beards and ragged clothes wafted with the wind. Children played in the dust with frisky grinning dogs. Beside the road an old man wearing only a loincloth despite the chill air leaned on a dead branch torn from a tree. As they passed he shouted, ‘Why struggle against our universal fate, brothers and sisters? Every step you take brings you closer to the oblivion that awaits us all. Repent this life that is a delusion for the blind!’
Ghelel twisted in her saddle. ‘That is blasphemy!’
‘Ignore him—’ the Marquis began.
‘May the Gods forgive you,’ she shouted.
‘The Gods forgive nothing,’ came the man's dark answer.
She stared back at the tall lean figure until a twist in the road took him from sight. ‘As I said,’ the Marquis began again, ‘hermits and mad ascetics infest these hills. Here you'll find all kinds of profanation and heterodoxies. Like the babbling of a thousand voices. You might as well yell for the wind to stop.’
‘Still, I wonder what he meant …’
‘Perhaps he meant that what we name as Gods have no concern for us.’
Ghelel and the Marquis turned to face Molk, who rode behind. He shifted in his saddle, shrugging. ‘Perhaps.’
Both turned away. Ghelel did not know what the Marquis made of the pronouncements, but they crawled on her like some sort of contagion. She felt an irresistible urge to wash. Just words, she told herself. Nothing more than words.
After climbing the slope they reached the north plains. Dark clouds bruised the far north-east where the Ergesh mountain range caught the prairie winds. North, the road would bring them past an isolated sedimentary butte, or remains of an ancient plateau. Here, climbing its steep slopes and jumbled atop, rested the crumpled fallen remains of the Great Sanctuary of Burn. Entire wings of its boxy, squat architecture had slid down the cliff on massive landslides and faults while other quarters appeared untouched. From this distance, its canted maze of walls appeared to Ghelel as if a God had tossed down a handful of cards. Traces of grey smoke rose amid the ruins. ‘It must have been enormous.’
‘Yes. Largest on the continent. It housed thousands of monks. Now the cries of prairie lions sound instead of the drone of prayer.’
Ghelel glanced to the heavyset man; his pale eyes, hidden in a thick nest of wrinkles, studied the far-off remains. ‘You sound like a poet, Marquis.’
His thick brows rose. ‘I had hoped to be, but circumstances have made of me a soldier – Prevost.’
‘Yet the sanctuary does not seem entirely abandoned.’
‘Yes. As I said. The devout still gather. They slouch amid the wreckage, forlorn.’ He glanced to her. ‘Perhaps they dream of the glory that once was …’
Ghelel shied her gaze away to the ruins. ‘I see no scaffolding, no efforts at rebuilding.’
‘Perhaps their dreams are too seductive.’
‘Or they are too poor.’
Grinning, the Marquis nodded thoughtfully. After a time he cleared his throat. ‘I am reminded of some lines from Thenys Bule. Are you familiar with him?’
‘I have heard of him. “Sayings of the Fool”?’
‘Yes. It goes something like – “While travelling I met a man dressed in rags, his feet and shoulders bare. Take this coin, I offered him, yet he refused my hand. You see me poor, hungry, and cold, he said – yet I am rich in dreams.”’
Ghelel eyed the man narrowly. ‘I am not sure what to take from that, Marquis …’
‘Yes, well. The man was a fool after all.’
Past noon they reached the crossroads, Here the road south to Kan and Dal Hon met the major east-west trade route. The freshly burned remains of wayside inns, hostels and horse corrals lined the way. Ghelel knew this to be the work of the Seti and she bridled at the destruction wrought in what some might come to construe as her name. Trampled and now neglected garden plots stretched back on all sides. All was not abandoned, however; a tent encampment stood on a north hillside overlooking the crossroads. What looked to Ghelel like several hundred men and horses rested. A contingent was on its way, walking its mounts leisurely down the gentle slope.
‘Urko's men?’
‘Yes.’
‘They are to join us in the south?’
The Marquis fished his pipe from a pouch at his side. ‘That is the question, Prevost. They were to deploy against the South Rounds. But things have changed. Now we must discuss strategy – and much will rest on our decisions. As it always does, I suppose, in matters of war.’
The contingent did little to strengthen Ghelel's confidence. Among their numbers she saw the robes over mail of Seven Cities, the embossed boiled leather of Genabackis and the bronze scaled armour of Falar. No order or effort at regimentation seemed to have been made save for pennants and flags of Falaran green. The soldiers seemed to treat the rendezvous as some sort of outing; they joked and talked amongst themselves while kicking their mounts on to the road in complete disorder. Ghelel glanced sidelong to the Marquis – the man's heavyset face revealed nothing of any anger or disgust at what, after all, could be interpreted as an insult. The foremost one, a ginger-bearded fat fellow in a leather hauberk set with bronze scales, inclined his head in greeting. ‘Captain Tonley, at your service, sir,’ he said in strongly accented Talian.
‘Marquis Jhardin, Commander of the Marchland Sentries. Prevost Alil, and Sergeant Shepherd.’
‘Greetings.’
‘Is Commander Urko with you?’
‘Yes, he is. But he's unavailable just now.’
‘Unavailable?’
‘Yes. He's …’ The man searched for words.
‘Reconnoitring,’ one of his troops suggested.
Captain Tonley brightened, his mouth quirking up. ‘Yes, that's it! Reconnoiting. Come, join us,’ and he reined his mount around.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ the Marquis said. ‘I hope we will see him later.’
‘Oh, yes.’ The captain waved such concerns aside. ‘He will be back tonight. For now, join us. Rest your mounts. Tell us about this attack we are hearing of.’
The Marquis nodded to Sergeant Shepherd who raised his arm in a ‘forward’.
With the gathering of dusk the bivouac came to resemble less and less a military encampment and more a gathering of brigands. From under the awning raised on poles that served as the command tent, Ghelel watched drunken fights break out around campfires, betting and wrestling over what meagre loot had been gathered so far, and a virtual army of camp followers picked up at Ipras and Idryb who circulated among the men and women. Captain Tonley entertained them with stories of the crossing while the Marquis sat calmly on a camp stool and smoked his pipe. Molk, Ghelel noted, had disappeared the moment they entered camp. Gloriously drunk by now, no doubt.
Almost no one noticed when an old man bearing two leather buckets of stones stooped under the awning. He dropped the buckets then pulled off his oversized wool cloak revealing a wrestler's broad shoulders and knotted, savagely scarred arms that reminded Ghelel of oak roots. Captain Tonley sprang from his stool to offer the man a tankard. The fellow drank while eyeing them over its rim. The Marquis stood and bowed. Ghelel followed suit. Finishing the tankard he thrust it at the captain who staggered back.
‘Another. It's dusty work in the hills.’
The man extended a hand to the Marquis who took it. ‘Marquis Jhardin, Commander of the Marchland Sentries.’ He indicated Ghelel. ‘Our new Prevost, Alil.’
The man grunted, turned to her. She extended her hand, which disappeared into his massive paw. Ghelel had an impression of a brutal blunt Napan-blue face with small guarded eyes under a ledge of bone, brush-cut hair white with dust, but what overwhelmed everything was the pain in her hand. It felt as if it had been cracked between stones. ‘So this is our new Prevost,’ he said, eyeing her, and she knew that, somehow, this man also knew. ‘Commander Urko Crust.’
‘Commander,’ she managed, her teeth clenched against the pain.
Sighing his ease, Urko sat on a stool. Captain Tonley set another tankard next to him. ‘Captain Tonley. Just because I'm away for the day doesn't mean that the entire camp has to go to the Abyss.’
The captain flinched. ‘No, sir.’ Saluting, he ducked from the awning.
Urko dragged the buckets close, nodded for the Marquis to sit. Ghelel sat next to him. ‘What word from Choss?’ In the distance, the sharp commands of Captain Tonley filled the dusk.
The Marquis set to repacking his pipe. ‘She's on her way. Is right behind you, in fact.’
Startled, Ghelel stared at Jhardin. She? The Empress? Coming here? Gods! Then, this could be it. The battle to decide everything.
But Urko merely nodded at the news, as if he'd half-expected it. He selected a stone from a bucket and studied it, turning it this way and that. He spat on it, rubbed it with a thumb. ‘So, deploying to the south is out of the question. Can't have the river between our divisions.’
‘No. Choss requests that you take the north-east flank.’
He grunted, set the stone on a table. ‘And the south?’
‘We'll keep an eye on the south. They haven't the men in Heng for a sortie in any strength.’
Urko selected the next stone, frowned at it, threw it into the darkening night. ‘So. I will hold the north-east, Choss the centre, Heng will block the south flank, and the Seti will harass and skirmish.’ He let out a long growling breath. ‘Probably the best we can arrange for her.’
Gathering herself, Ghelel cleared her throat. ‘With all due respect, she marches to relieve Heng, doesn't she? Shouldn't we stop her before she reaches it?’
Urko's grizzled brows clenched together. He lowered his gaze to retrieve another stone. The Marquis took a mug from the table and filled it from an earthenware carafe of red wine. ‘Ostensibly, she marches to relieve Heng, yes. But she should know enough not to trap herself in it. No, the best way for her to relieve the siege would be to take the field.’
‘Do we have any intelligence on the size of her force?’ Ghelel asked. Urko cocked a thick brow at the question, peered up from his inspection of the stone.
‘Amaron has his sources,’ Jhardin answered. ‘I have been informed that, at best, she can field no more than fifty thousand – and that is assuming she conscripts all down the coast at Carasin, Vor, Marl and Halas.’
‘Then we well outnumber her.’
‘Yes. But numbers count for less than you would think. The emperor was almost always outnumbered. Wasn't that so, Urko?’
The old general grunted his assent while buffing the stone in a cloth. ‘She has other assets … the Claw. The mage cadre. And there is always the possibility that Tayschrenn may choose to dirty his hands.’
Ghelel sat back on her stool. Great Togg forefend! She hadn't considered that. But the High Mage had yet to act in any of this. Why should he now? Clearly everyone was assuming he would not. To think otherwise was to invite paralysis.
‘So,’ Urko said, taking a long draught from the tankard. ‘We'll wait here for the rest of the force to catch up. Then we will deploy to the north-east.’ He handed a stone to Ghelel. ‘Take a look at that.’
One side of the oblong stone was coarse rock but the other revealed a smooth curved surface that glistened multicoloured, reminding her of pearl. After a moment the likeness of a shell resolved itself, spiralled, curving ever inward with extraordinary delicacy. ‘Beautiful …’ she breathed.
One edge of the general's mouth crooked up. ‘You like it?’
‘Yes! It's wonderful.’
‘Good!’ He sat back and watched her turn the stone in her hands. ‘I'm glad you like it.’