The Last Mortal Bond (96 page)

Newt pursed his lips. “No man can stand against the tide. So what do you want to do?”

To Valyn's surprise, the Flea laughed. “What I
want
to do is to take off these 'Shael-spawned boots, dig up a barrel of ale, sit down somewhere with a view of the river, drink 'til I'm numb, then fall asleep for a week.”

The admission seemed uncharacteristic, but Newt chortled, and even Sigrid's lips twitched incrementally upward. It was more spasm than smile, gone before it began.

“Wrong question,” Newt agreed, still grinning. “What I meant was, ‘What are we
going
to do?'”

“Ah,” the Flea said, scrubbing his face with a hand. “That. That's less pleasant.”

Sigrid licked her chapped lips, then hacked out a series of mangled syllables.

“My lovely and talented companion,” the Aphorist began, “points out that this is as good as any other place to die.”

The Flea shook his head slowly. “I disagree. For one thing, it's dark and cold and we're out of food. More importantly, we can still do some good if we survive.”

Valyn stared. “You want to abandon them.”

“As I said,” the Wing leader replied, meeting his gaze, “what I want doesn't really come into it.”

“When?” Newt asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Tonight is better,” the Aphorist pointed out. He seemed to have no qualms about leaving behind the men beside whom they had fought so desperately and for so long. “A lot more hours to get out, get clear.”

The Flea nodded. “I thought about that. I'm still hoping, though, that Balendin shows himself one final time. We stay until the last moment, and then we bolt.”

Sigrid laughed, then shook her head.

“As the lady points out,” Newt said, “we are well past our best running.”

“We're not running,” the Flea said. He nodded west, toward where the river's roar echoed between the banks. “We stay here, we fight, we hope for one more shot at Balendin. If we don't get it, we swim.”

The Aphorist raised his bushy brows. “With that current? I believe the word you're searching for isn't
swim
. It is
drown
.”

The Flea shrugged. “Maybe. I scouted it last night. I give us even odds.” He turned to Valyn. “That's why you're here.”

Valyn shook his head slowly. “I haven't swam in better than a year.”

“Doesn't matter. You're half our age, almost uninjured, and stronger than anyone I've seen. I might ride out the current and get free. You definitely will.”

Unbidden, the thought of Huutsuu filled Valyn's mind. She was probably asleep atop the wall somewhere, or curled up in the lee of the wall.
The Annurian way of war,
she would call it. Escaping just when the struggle peaked.

“I won't go,” he said.

The Flea just watched him for a long time. “You think it's bravery to die here on this wall.”

“I think we owe it to the men.”

“What about them?” the Flea asked, jerking a thumb to the south.

Valyn narrowed his eyes. “Who?”

“Everyone else. The kids. The farmers in their fields. The grandfathers sitting on porches. What do you owe them?”

Valyn gritted his teeth.

“Dying is easy,” the Flea said. The words were hard, but his voice was gentle. “When the time comes, we'll do it. It's just not time.”

“It is for those poor bastards standing on the wall tomorrow.”

The Flea nodded. “Yes. For those poor bastards, it is almost time.”

*   *   *

Chilten, a sword.

Jal, an ax.

Yemmer, who fought with two swords, another sword.

Sander, a spear.

Fent, an arrow to the throat.

Dumb Tom, an arrow to the gut.

Ho Chan, who killed the rats, a spear in the eye.

Belton, four arrows before he dropped.

Brynt, a spear, and Ariq, a spear.

Kel, a fall from the wall's top, then hooves.

Gruin the Brick, who knew so many poems by heart, a slender Urghul knife.

These were the ways they would die the next day while Valyn and the others slipped silently away, making for the river while there was still time.

 

51

Adare had just risen to descend from the Unhewn Throne when the soldiers marched into the Hall of a Thousand Trees. There were dozens of them, then scores, then hundreds, so many that they forced back the assembled bureaucrats and courtiers, herding them into the empty space beside the throne through the sheer weight and volume of their presence. Their uniforms were clean but threadbare, ripped and restitched a dozen times over, their armor dented from blows no amount of polish could ever scrub away. Most carried spears; every twentieth man held the insignia of the Annurian legions on a long staff.

None of the men brandished their weapons. They entered in silence, assembled in neat ranks, and then just stood there, spear butts planted on the stone floor, all eyes fixed rigidly forward. There was no shouting. There were no threats. There was no violence or spilled blood. The whole display was so orderly that they might have come at Adare's own command. There was just one problem: she had issued no such command.

The last Adare had heard, the Army of the North was still in Aergad. That was the report from Ulli and Jia Chem. According to the messengers, the legions were supposed to be holed up in the old stone city, holding a ruined bridge while the Urghul rode south unopposed. To find them here, now, in Annur itself, should have been as much a relief as it was a shock. More than anything, Adare needed bodies for the walls, experienced soldiers rather than Kegellen's loose knots of killers and thieves. An army of trained legions, veterans blooded in the furious northern battles, men who understood the Urghul and how to fight them—it was something close to the miracle for which she had prayed each night. And yet, when she stared out over those rigidly assembled ranks, she felt her heart go cold.

This is wrong,
a small voice whispered.
Dangerous
.

She half reached up to pat the lacquered wooden pins holding up her hair—gifts from Kegellen—then forced her hand back down. The hairpins were poisoned, but Adare wasn't about to kill an entire Annurian legion with a pair of hairpins. Slowly, warily, she settled back into her seat atop the throne.

She'd been sitting atop the 'Kent-kissing thing all morning, trying to hold together the fundamental governance of the city while other people—Lehav, Nira, and Kegellen, mostly—made final preparations for the coming battle. It was amazing how even in the face of invasion the most basic functions of Annur still needed tending. There was trash to clear out and grain to distribute, docking disputes to resolve, and foreign emissaries to placate. Most of it was handled by an army of ministers, bureaucrats, and scribes, of course, but all of those men—and they were mostly men—turned to Adare to solve the difficult questions, and so, as the city readied for war, she had spent half the morning adjudicating idiotic disputes. It didn't feel heroic. It didn't even feel
useful,
but any one of the small crises, untended, could erupt into its own conflagration, and they already had plenty of conflagrations.

And this unexpected army,
Adare wondered, studying the troops below.
Is it water to stop the burning, or another fire?

At the base of the throne, the crowded ministers shifted nervously, then began to whisper. The fact that the legions had entered the palace unannounced, with no forewarning, suggested that they had marched straight into, then through the city. The fact that they had entered the palace at
all
meant that the guards on the gates had been sufficiently impressed or cowed to allow their passage. Meant that someone had cowed them.

“Who commands here?” Adare asked, heart thundering against her ribs. She ran her eyes along the line of soldiers, searching for the
kenarang,
for il Tornja, for the man who had taken her son. It was the only answer: he hadn't disappeared, he had been leading his legions south, sneaking past the Urghul, arriving in Annur just in time to reinforce the walls. “Where is il Tornja?” she demanded.

Instead of il Tornja, however, another soldier stepped forward. “The
kenarang
is fighting on another front, Your Radiance,” he said. “The command is mine. I am General Van.” He saluted. Saluted, but did not kneel.

Adare narrowed her eyes, studying this unknown commander. He was middle-aged and weather worn, tall, taller than her, though he seemed to slouch strangely to one side.
His leg,
she realized after a moment. Instead of a boot, instead of a foot, his right leg ended in a bright steel point. Whether he lost the foot in the northern campaign or much earlier, she had no way to tell. It seemed impossible he should have marched all the way from Aergad on that steel spike, but then, it seemed impossible that
any
of them could have made the trek on foot faster than the mounted Urghul.

“Where did you come from, General?” Adare asked carefully. “We were led to believe that the Army of the North had taken up the defense of Aergad.”

He shook his head. “A ruse, Your Radiance. We were moving south almost as soon as we had crossed the Haag.”

“Still, to cover so much ground so quickly…” She shook her head. “The legionary messengers arrived only days ago, and they were on horseback nearly the whole time.”

“Horses need rest, Your Radiance. Ships do not. For months, the
kenarang
has been assembling a fleet near the headwaters of the Haag, as far north as the river remains navigable. We took those ships directly to the west coast of the Neck. From there, it is a short march overland.”

Adare only half listened to the end of the account. Like fabric snagged on a nail, her mind was caught on those two words:
for months
. They meant that il Tornja had been assembling his fleet even when Adare herself was still in Aergad, assembling it without telling her, planning, once again, for contingencies she could neither understand nor foresee. Had he known, back at the winter's end, that he would need these soldiers in Annur two seasons later? When he looked at the madness of all the vast world, what pattern did he see?

“You say the
kenarang
is fighting on another front,” Adare said. “Where?”

Van shook his head. “I don't know, Your Radiance, nor do I need to know. My own orders were clear.”

Once again, Adare considered the assembled soldiers. Not a man had moved. If they were so much as breathing, she couldn't hear it. The whole thing could have been no more than a measure of martial respect, and yet, they could have paid their respects
outside
the Hall of a Thousand Trees. There was no need for them to have entered the throne room itself.

“And those orders,” Adare asked slowly, “were what, exactly.”

“To return to Annur,” Van replied. “To fortify the walls…”

A breath of relief swept through the ministers and bureaucrats at the throne's foot. A few started cheering. For the first time in days, it seemed possible that they might all actually survive the coming month. Adare, however, kept her eyes fixed on the general. He had fallen silent in the face of the commotion, but she could see in his hard eyes that there was more.

“And?” she asked, when her own ministers had finally fallen silent.

“And to secure the Dawn Palace and the Spear.”

It seemed so innocuous, an obvious part of the overall defense. And yet, the Dawn Palace had its own guards. Guards that Adare herself had reinforced with the Sons of Flame.

“I'm grateful for your arrival, General,” Adare replied carefully. “By all accounts, the Urghul are not far off, and your presence here may well save this city.” She shook her head. “But there is no need for legions in the Dawn Palace. They would be better deployed on the outer wall.”

Van nodded. “Most of my force will be concentrated there, Your Radiance.”

Most
. It was the gentlest defiance, like a warm feather pillow held over a face in the dead of night.

“The Dawn Palace has its own complement of guards,” Adare said. “I could not allow the city itself to go undefended only to strengthen my own fortress.”

“We will secure the city, Your Radiance. You may be assured of it. We are speaking only of five hundred men here in the palace, five hundred men pulled from an army of thousands.”

Dread's cold, dark well opened inside Adare. They were dancing around the issue, testing, probing, and yet, there should have been no need to dance. She was the Emperor, seated in her throne room atop her throne. The fact the conversation had gone on so long already was almost treason.

“Five hundred men could well turn the tide.” She took a deep breath, straightened her spine. “Put them on the outer wall.”

For several heartbeats, the general just watched her, his eyes unreadable beneath that weathered brow.

“It is with great regret, Your Radiance, that I must decline. I have my orders.…”

You are not
declining, Adare wanted to scream at him.
An invitation to dinner is something one declines. One can decline an offer to spend the hot months at a summer estate. It is not
declining
when you refuse the clearly stated order of your emperor. It is a 'Shael-spawned
rebellion.

She wanted to hurl the words in the bastard's face, felt them aching inside her. Instead, she kept her mouth clamped shut.

History was filled with accounts of military coups. The greatest threat to any head of state was rarely another state. War was slow, expensive, exhausting work, a matter of endless logistics and marching, disease and lines of supply. Most emperors and kings were actually toppled from inside, by their own armies, by the very soldiers on whose strength they had relied.