The Mad Lancers left the Hock—and the remnants of their dragoon rivals—and soon reached the coast. They skirted the city-fortress of New Starlight late in the evening, using a sunken road to slip by undetected. It wasn’t until they were well past that Styke allowed himself to circle around the end of his army and gaze back upon the city, squinting through the fading light at Dynize flags flying from the turrets that had once flown the flag of the Fatrastan Army.
The city-fortress was not like anything else in Fatrasta. It was built on a wedge of land jutting off the northwest edge of the Hammer and guarded by a sloped curtain wall that cut the entire wedge off from the mainland and housed a small city—enough space for around ten thousand people. Inside that was the fortress itself, a towering knife of white stone, freckled with red, surrounded by seven mighty turrets, the largest of which was topped with an enormous lighthouse to warn incoming ships of the rocks below.
“Is that a castle?”
Styke turned to find Celine beside him, gently patting Margo on the neck. He sized up New Starlight, realizing that it looked far more like a storybook castle than it did the palisades or star-forts that dotted Fatrasta. “I suppose it is,” he said. It wasn’t a pretty castle, not by a long shot, but it had all the trappings of one.
“Who built it?”
“A Starlish duke,” he told Celine. “He was one of the first serious explorers to cross through the heart of Fatrasta, and when he reached here, he enslaved the local Palo and made them build him this fortress. I think that was, eh, three hundred years ago?”
Celine’s eyes widened. “It’s stood that long?”
“There are older castles in the Nine, but it’s a decent enough fortress.” He pointed to the turrets. “Those are big enough to hold modern cannons, and the wall is sloped slightly, which helps take a pounding from straight-shot.”
“Then why do the Dynize hold it?” she asked. “There’s no sign of a battle.”
Styke frowned at the fortress. She was right; there were no signs of a battle. The walls were undamaged, all of the turrets standing. “Sharp eyes.” He pondered the question for a few moments. “The garrison must have abandoned it at the first sight of the enemy. Maybe when they heard about Landfall. Damned cowards.” He resisted the urge to take a closer look. Even a poor garrison could have held New Starlight against an enemy siege—those towers would make short work of just about any fleet attempting a blockade.
But New Starlight wasn’t his problem.
As they watched, a small, mounted force exited the curtain wall and rode east. Definitely Dynize soldiers. Styke remained until the sun was almost gone, searching the horizon for any signs of those dragonmen before turning Amrec to catch up with the Mad Lancers. Celine followed in his wake.
Their camp was a few miles south of New Starlight in a gentle valley large enough to hold most of their army but small enough for a scout to miss until they were right on top of it. As Styke and Celine rode in, the men were just beginning to set up their tents, and Styke proceeded to the other side of the camp, where he found Ibana, Ka-poel, Gustar, and a dozen Mad Lancers gathered around an opening in the hillside.
The opening had, until a few minutes ago, been hidden behind a boulder. The entrance was squat—no more than three feet by three feet—and held together by thick-cut timbers. It looked like the entrance to a tiny mine.
Styke handed Amrec off to a nearby soldier and joined Ibana. “Is it still intact?” he asked.
“We’re finding out,” she answered without looking away from the entrance.
Gustar knelt by the timbers, squinting into the dark hole, a half smile on his face. “A Blackhat cache, buried under a hill in the middle of nowhere.” He shook his head. “How many people even know about this?”
“Five or ten,” Styke said, kneeling next to Gustar and peering into the darkness. He could see a light, somewhere in the depths, bobbing around. “Lindet uses forced labor for this kind of thing so that word won’t get out to the general public.”
“What’s it for?” Gustar asked.
“This,” Styke grunted with a gesture toward their camp. “Lindet is a firm believer in being ready for anything. In addition to regular supply depots, she’s got these caches hidden away all over the country—mostly in the less-populated areas. They’re specifically meant to resupply an army. If this one is untouched, it’ll provide us with canned food, wine, ammunition, and spare weapons to last weeks.”
As if to answer the next unspoken question, the bobbing of the light suddenly came toward them, growing until the lantern was set aside and Jackal’s head and shoulders emerged from the pit. Jackal grinned up at them. “Everything is there,” he reported.
Ibana clapped her hands together. Styke couldn’t blame her. They needed a bit of good luck after the last couple weeks of hard riding and fighting.
“Check the tins and barrels,” Ibana ordered. “If the rats haven’t gotten to any of it, give everyone a double ration of food and wine tonight.”
“No drunks,” Styke added.
“No drunks,” Ibana agreed.
Styke got out of the way to let them work, and soon Jackal was overseeing a chain of men rolling out barrels and handing up crates to empty the deep cache. He watched them work for a few minutes, feeling suddenly tired from the events of the last few weeks. His body reminded him that he was no longer the Mad Ben Styke who could go a week without sleep and still fight a battle.
Looking around, his eyes fell on Ka-poel sitting on the hillside above the entrance to the cache. He was surprised to find her watching him, and when their eyes met, she got to her feet and walked away into the darkness.
Styke snorted. He still couldn’t decide what he thought about what had happened last night. Walking into the Dynize cavalry camp unopposed, seeing all of those soldiers sitting cross-legged like they were waiting for a mummers’ show in the park, unable to move or speak. The officer whom Ka-poel used as a mouthpiece. The memory floated in the back of his head like a bad dream, fuzzy on details, and he briefly wondered if he had dreamt it.
He continued to watch his lancers as they unloaded the cache for several minutes before confiscating one of their lanterns. He found Celine brushing down Margo with Sunin’s help. “Finish that and come with me,” he told her.
They walked into the darkness, lantern held high above Styke’s head. Styke followed the coppery smell of blood sorcery, sniffing at the air every few moments until they found Ka-poel at the top of the valley, sitting on the ground with the contents of her satchel spread out across a rock. There was wax, bits of hair, tiny figurines, and sticks, dirt, and even some fingernails. It reminded him of the sort of non sequitur items his little sister used to collect as a child.
Styke set the lantern on the rock and sat down across from her, watching her face. She lifted her eyes to him for a brief second and squinted before returning her attention to a half-made wax figurine in her lap.
Styke patted his knee, letting Celine sit, then addressed Ka-poel. “What did you do with the Dynize cavalry yesterday?”
Ka-poel continued her work, finishing the figurine and gently pressing a dirty toenail into the soft wax, before brushing off her hands and lifting her gaze once more to him and Celine. She drew her thumb across her neck, then flashed several more signs.
“I killed them,” Celine translated. “Just like you asked.”
“Why did you keep them as long as you did? Why didn’t you finish them sooner?”
“I told you. I needed answers.” Ka-poel raised her chin, as if daring him to continue that line of questioning.
So he did. “And?” He drummed his fingers on the rock, looking over her assortment of disgusting knickknacks.