Heroes' Reward (25 page)

It was good that
the Commissioner didn’t let emotion overrule his mind. Really. Even if it was
disturbing to watch.

Browne drew
herself under control. “I’ll arrange it.”

“We need to
follow Green, and we can’t afford to be slowed carrying the wounded. What is
your recommendation?”

After a short
hesitation, Browne said, “They can be transported to Olab.”

Olab was the
closest settlement that had more than a couple hundred residents. It would be
difficult for them to manage the influx of so many wounded.

“Once you’ve
made the arrangements, hand your responsibilities to another healer,” the
Commissioner ordered. “You’re coming with us.”

Browne frowned,
clearly unhappy, but she nodded.

“Deputy
Commissioner Khouri, see that everyone receives a portion of whiskey before
supper. We’ll stand a few moments. He was weak and dark, but he was still the
Emperor. That should be honoured.”

For a few
moments.

Then, finally,
the Commissioner turned to Taro. “You might want to inform Lady Aryne she’s one
step closer to the throne.”

With the speed
that news travelled in the camp, I was sure she already knew. Poor girl.

Chapter Thirty

The mayor of
Patlach showed the Commissioner a clunky, ugly necklace of gold. I had seen the
Emperor wear something like it, but the jewels had been stripped off of it.
“Lady Green gave this to us,” he said. “As a sign of good faith. As an apology
for what the Emperor did to us, and a promise that we would have all that was
taken from us returned.”

The mayor was
cool in manner and had made it clear that he had little interest in speaking
with the Commissioner or anyone else connected with the Triple S.

“Gold is
worthless if there’s nothing to buy,” said the Commissioner. “They’ve stripped
everything bare. There’s nothing left to return.”

“She’ll find a
way.”

“How can you
believe she’ll consider your needs after everything she’s done?”

“None of the
troubles were her doing. She swore fealty to the Emperor and couldn’t
honourably oppose him, even when he was ill and irrational. She did try to
restrain him. Everyone knows that.”

Looking back
over the interactions between Gifford and Green, I could see how such rumours
could start, rumours claiming Green had done her best to protect those around
her. Her manner of touching his arm when he was particularly unreasonable. Her
near constant serenity in the face of his wandering sense and emotion. The
scout she had saved from the ordered flogging was no doubt telling everyone of
Green’s kindness.

Unfortunately,
the average person was probably unaware of the motives behind Green’s actions,
which were to protect her interests, not anyone else’s.

Our entire force
had followed her all the way back across the continent, never quite managing to
catch up with her. She had given herself a head start by leaving behind all of
the dead and injured from our last clash, and Browne and her healers just
couldn’t bear to leave them untended. Thereafter, her forces had been steadily
sinking. Anyone else who fell ill along the way was also discarded. Scouts
reported that deserters were leaving by the hundreds, their numbers jumping up
drastically after Green chose the best members of her cavalry and raced off
ahead to Erstwhile, leaving the bulk of her forces to follow after.

She had made
stops along the way, visiting some of the settlements that had been razed by
Gifford. At each stop, she apologised for the Emperor, admitted that he had
egregiously violated law and custom, promised things would be better in the
future, and left behind a jewel or a small sack of coins to buy forgiveness and
trust.

Many she had spoken
with seemed to have been won over by her. I found it baffling. People had short
memories. Or they were so desperate to believe things would get better that
their faith could be easily bought.

“I see.” The
Commissioner no longer spent much time trying to convince people that Green was
dangerous. We’d have to prove it some other way. “Thank you for your time.”

We left the
mayor’s house.

“We might as
well move on,” the Commissioner said to Sato.

Sato nodded.

Our people had
settled just west of Patlach’s city limits. We made our way around it and
continued on to Erstwhile.

We hadn’t gone
far, though, when Browne came up to me. “We’ve come across another one,” she
announced grimly.

I knew what she
meant, and I wasn’t surprised. These “finds” had been turning up all along our
march after Green. We no longer bothered to ask the Commissioner to halt the
troops. We just took a look, handled it ourselves, and caught up with everyone
else.

Taro and I
followed Browne to the corpse of the latest caster to be left behind by Green,
right out in the open on the grass and impossible to miss. Murdoch was kneeling
beside it. “It’s the same as the others,” he told us.

The stench was
overpowering and the body was covered with flies, the skin gray and starting to
disintegrate. The twisted limbs and torso and the multitude deep cuts all over
the body, right through the clothing, made it clear the man was a victim of a
black cloud.

“It’s Caster
Laing,” I said.

We had no idea
what was going on with Green’s casters. According to our scouts, Green’s people
thought the casters were deserting. Why would Green have her own casters
executed? Wasn’t she afraid of running out? And why was she lying about it?
Wouldn’t it be better for morale if the troops believed the casters were being
punished for a violation, rather than just running away?

Weirder still,
the casters were being left for us to find. Deliberately. What kind of message
was that meant to convey? Was it a warning to our own casters, that if they
continued to support us they faced the same end?

Again and again,
I thought of that instant in the battle when it seemed Dench had intentionally
killed another of Green’s casters. Had my impression been correct? And if it
had been, had he been acting under Green’s orders? Surely he wouldn’t dare do
it without her permission.

But it didn’t
make sense.

Six soldiers ran
up to us, bearing shovels. Browne would have told someone that there was a body
to bury. The soldiers dug the hole while Browne, Murdoch, Taro, and I watched.
I had objected to that at first, leaving all of the work for the soldiers to
do, as though the rest of us were too important to participate, but the
soldiers didn’t seem to find it odd and expressed no resentment over it. Taro
pointed out that the soldiers had been the ones to bury all of the dead after
the clashes, and why should this be any different?

Because we were
right there. We weren’t occupied with other tasks. But the soldiers certainly
seemed efficient with the chore, and I’d probably just get in their way.

We didn’t have
time for a proper funeral. The body was laid in the hole, the hole was filled
in, and we all rejoined the others.

The march from
our last battle had seemed endless, had felt to me even longer than my march
with Gifford and Green. Perhaps it was merely a matter of being tired of it:
the longer we marched the worse it felt. Our stops along the way didn’t breach
the sensation of somehow living in a bubble, in an existence apart from the
rest of the world, with our different rules and our different schedules.

When we were a
day away from Erstwhile, it felt like an abrupt disruption of the pattern that
my life had become.

We settled for
the night, having decided our assault on the wall would take place just before
the following dawn. I barely slept, afraid Green’s people might attack in the
dark. There was no doubt Green knew we were coming. But no attack came.

I gave up on
sleep long before dawn. I dressed in my uncomfortable uniform and left our tent
so I could have some room to pace. I exchanged greetings with other folk who
couldn’t sleep, but really, no one spoke much. We were all too tense.

It was still
dark when the whistles were blown. People left their tents and, knowing what
was expected, we all approached Erstwhile on foot. Many of us split into groups
and surrounded the city, standing far enough from the wall that no one was
likely to hit us if they tried throwing anything at us. Each group had a Pair,
two casters, and sixteen soldiers. The soldiers were there to protect the Pairs
and the casters, but they were not the ones responsible for this part of the
plan.

We were going to
destroy the wall and render the city vulnerable, to leave the residents
thinking their last defence had been stripped away, to prove Green couldn’t
even take care of our most important city, never mind the entire continent.

Browne and I
hadn’t been idle during our journey. I had told the other Shields how I had
killed Segal. There was no way to practise that action, though, and no way of
knowing whether any of our Shields could perform it. Browne had devised a way
to destroy objects with a black cloud cast while avoiding sending dangerous
debris flying all over the place. Unfortunately, not all casters could pick a
single section out of a larger item and blow that section away. They found it
impossible to slice out the portion they wanted and separate it from the
material around it.

I had been able
to learn how to do it since rejoining the Triple S forces. Eventually.

Perhaps the fact
that the wall had been so badly built would make it easier for everyone.

Our casters
knelt and spread their ingredients on the ground. I could hear the clink of
buckles as people shifted with impatience and unease. I could hear the
occasional snorts from the horses.

“I can’t see
anything,” one of the soldiers complained.

“Because it’s
dark,” another pointed out sardonically.

“They have to
know we’re here. They have to be doing something in the city to fight back.”

“All they can do
right now is stand on the wall. We’re blowing up the wall. End of.”

I hoped it would
be that simple. It was why we’d picked the moments just before dawn to attack.
We could see the wall. Against the darkness of the grass, our opponents would
have a hard time seeing us.

Finally, the
lanterns were lit and shutters were opened and closed.

On the wall
before me, a layer of black cloud appeared, from top to bottom, about five feet
wide, illuminated by the flashes of light it carried. I could see the wall
vibrating, the lightning digging out chunks. Moments later, the stones blew
apart, the explosion held in by the cloud itself. The cloud didn’t muffle the
sound, though, and I imagined the cracking boom reached the ears of many of the
residents of Erstwhile. The soldiers tensed for a moment in reaction to the
sight and the noise, but they held formation and seemed to trust that they were
safe.

Several feet
away, another section of the wall was blown out.

“Ready?” Taro
asked me.

“Of course,” I
answered.

He sank the
portion of the wall between the two breaches while our casters threw more
clouds.

Pairs fought him
from behind the wall, but not well enough. His mind just ploughed through
theirs. Really, they shouldn’t have bothered.

And then, I felt
Ogawa trying to rearrange my Shields.

So, they
had
figured out how to kill a Source. Had they used real Sources to practise with?

I couldn’t
handle thinking about it right then. “Ogawa is going after my Shields.”

Taro pulled his
attention from the wall. “Shall I stop?”

That was the
best way to protect him, just have him stop channelling. Ogawa couldn’t use my
Shields against him if I wasn’t Shielding him in the first place. However,
“She’ll just attack again when you resume channelling. We might as well deal
with her now. I’m going to follow her back to Tenneson.”

We both knew
that I meant I was going to kill Tenneson. I hated the idea. I felt badly for
him. I believed he’d been sucked into a dark place against his will. Ogawa had
failed to Shield him High Scape, and he had been called back to Shidonee’s Gap
to share her shame. And then he learned he’d never be given another post. It
hadn’t been his fault, but he’d been punished.

And now I was
going to kill him.

Taro didn’t
hesitate. “Ready when you are.”

So I did more
than hold Ogawa off. I followed her to Tenneson. I filled the breaks in her
Shields.

She created new
breaks, sensing my every move and reacting against it.

Damn it, I
hadn’t expected her to be that good.

She pushed back
at me, trying to get at Taro again. I imagined digging my heels in. I actually
put my hands up, palms out, as though pushing against a door. I didn’t normally
react with physical movement when I was Shielding. The regulars around me must
have been wondering what I was doing.

Then, I felt
Tenneson disengage, and Ogawa’s Shields faded away with him.

Three of the
soldiers in our group were attacked by a single black cloud, all at once. I
could see some of Green’s casters peeking around the edges of the breaches in
the wall. Our casters, mid-spell, couldn’t fight back. Even if they could,
they’d probably have a hard time seeing their opponents, who could duck back
behind the stone.

But some of our
casters farther down the line must have had a clear view, because the attacking
casters were enveloped in black clouds of their own. As they died, our soldiers
were released.

They were in
pain, but they were alive. We had to leave them there to destroy another
portion of the wall.

Other Shields
tried to attack Taro, but they weren’t strong enough to fight through me.
Ogawa, however, did not make another attempt.

I could hear
screaming all around me, ringing with pain and fear. It sent shivers down my
spine, it brought tears to my eyes, but I couldn’t let it distract me.

The section of
the wall that had been the responsibility of our group was almost completely
destroyed, small stacks of stones leaning here and there. I could see the
Erstwhile residents running in the streets.