The Price of Valor (63 page)

How much worse could the Spike be, really?
She closed her eyes, and tried not to think about it.

*   *   *

Sometime later, she was roused from her solitary contemplation by a rapping at her window.

The Patriot Guard had been busy, rushing up and down the corridors and shouting at one another. The walls muffled the sound too much for Raesinia to
understand what they were saying, but it was clear that
something
was happening, and she guessed it wasn't good. She took this as a hopeful sign—anything that worried the Patriots was a positive step.

The sound at the window surprised her, because when she'd stood on tiptoes to look out of the tiny glass panel, she'd discovered the room was at least five stories up, near the top of the hotel.
Sothe might have climbed it, though.
Heart suddenly pounding, Raesinia rolled off the bed and went over to the window, pushing a small trunk underneath it so she could see out.

Nothing unusual was visible. It was late afternoon, the sun already sliding toward the end of the short autumn day. The window faced northwest, so she had a view of the North Bank and the Fairy Castles, where everything was dark and shuttered.

There was another rap, and a flicker, as though someone had thrown a pebble at the glass. It came again, and Raesinia frowned, then gave a shrug.
No harm in a little fresh air, at any rate.

She pulled the latch and swung the pane outward. It was tiny, perhaps four inches by six, so there was no question of squeezing through it. But the sound of the city flooded in, and Raesinia was surprised to find she could hear the guns, flat
thuds
carrying across the river from who knew where. It was oddly comforting.
Janus is still fighting. It's not over yet.

Something stung her cheek, then scraped across her nose. She put a hand up, and came away with a few grains of colorful sand nestled in her palm. At the same time, she felt a familiar pain bloom in her head.
Oh.

Raesinia jumped down from the box and backed away from the window, and sand rushed into the room in a torrent, rattling against the glass and swirling over the carpet to form a miniature whirlwind. In the center of the maelstrom, the sand mounded up to form a man-sized shape; then the wind died away and the sand fell to the floor, revealing the masked figure who'd rescued her, Feor, and Marcus from the giant Penitent Damned.

“I was wondering what had happened to you,” Raesinia said. “I thought you were keeping me safe from Ionkovo?”

“I did not expect you to run into his arms,” the man said, then tilted his head, expressionless mask gleaming dully in the lamplight. “Also, over water my power is . . . limited.”

“That makes sense. You'd turn to mud.” Raesinia sat back down on the bed. “Won't Ionkovo know you're here?”

“He is otherwise engaged at the moment. Janus appears to have thwarted his trap, and the Army of the East is pushing into the city.”

Something tight in Raesinia's chest relaxed, just a fraction. “Marcus and the others did it, then.”

The man shrugged, sand cascading from the creases of his clothes. “I thought I would take the opportunity to speak to you.”

“All right. Do you have a name?”

“Once I was called Jaffa-dan-Iln. Now I am Malik-dan-Belial. The Steel Ghost, in your tongue.”

“I think Marcus may have mentioned that. You're Khandarai, I take it? What are you doing here?”

The Ghost paused, as though considering. Eventually, he said, “I was part of a . . . religious order, of sorts. A very old tradition, who guarded the knowledge of
naath
—you would say, sorcery—against the day when it might be needed. Safeguarding the Thousand Names was one of our primary responsibilities.”

“Until Janus turned up?” Raesinia guessed.

“Vhalnich only took advantage of our weakness,” the Ghost said. “We had grown . . . complacent. Safe, hidden on the sacred hill among the other religious traditions. When the Redeemers turned the city against us, most of our order was lost in the carnage. We knew—our leader knew—that weakened as we were, our enemies would come sooner or later to take the treasure they had always coveted.”

“Your enemies. The Priests of the Black?”

“Yes. The
abh-naathem
, those who pervert the
naath
. The Penitent Damned, as they call themselves. We expected their agents, but we did not expect Vhalnich, who sought the archive for himself.”

“Not for himself.” Janus had explained his reasons to her. “He was working for my father. I have a . . . a
naath
, a demon, and my father wanted a way to free me from it. He asked Janus to find one, and Janus thought the Thousand Names might have a clue.”

“No,” the Ghost said, the word ringing oddly through his steel mask. “That is not the whole of the truth. Vhalnich has some other purpose, I am certain.”

“Then why are you helping us?”

The Ghost sighed, an oddly human gesture. It would be easy to forget, Raesinia thought, that there was a man under the implacable mask.

“I am the last of my order,” he said. “Our leader, who bore the
naath
I now carry, passed it down to me, along with as much of her knowledge as she was
able to. She was too weak to do what was required. So I have come here alone, and I must walk a knife's edge. If the Thousand Names is taken by the
abh-naathem
, it may mean the end of the world.”

Raesinia gave a startled laugh. “The end of the
world
? I mean, I'm sure the Church would love to get its hands on more spells, but . . .” She trailed off, under the implacable blank stare. “You're serious?”

“Yes.”

“How is that possible?”

“I cannot speak further.”

“Because your religion forbids it?”

“Because I do not trust you,” the Ghost said bluntly. “The
abh-naathem
cannot be permitted to have the Names. But Vhalnich has some purpose of his own that I do not understand, and you are his ally. Revealing too much may create an equal catastrophe.”

“I
am
the queen, you know.” She gestured around the tiny room, as though to acknowledge the irony of this claim under the circumstances. “Janus works for me, not the other way around.”

The blank mask tipped inquisitively to one side. “Are you certain?”

There was the sound of heavy boots in the corridor outside.

“Ionkovo has returned,” the Ghost said. “Or his allies have sensed me. I regret that I cannot assist you to escape.”

“I'll survive. I haven't got much of a choice.”

Sand whirled around the Ghost again, rising into a miniature maelstrom. Over the sound, he said, “Be wary of Vhalnich. He plans deep.”

The wind rose, sand cascading into the air and flowing out through the window like a tub draining. Raesinia got up and stood on the little trunk as the last of it whirled away and the door opened to admit a burly Patriot Guard.

“What are you doing?” he said, looking around the room suspiciously.

Raesinia gave him her best innocent smile. “Just getting some fresh air.”

In the distance, she could still hear the sound of guns.

*   *   *

WINTER

“The cutter says Marcus is awake,” Cyte said.

Winter had to stop herself from looking up at the sun for the hundredth time. It was nearly touching the horizon, and the light was changing to the liquid gold
of late afternoon.
Another hour or so, and it'll be dark.
A night battle in the city streets could be catastrophic, with no way to guard against sudden ambushes or accidental encounters with friendly troops. Once darkness fell, she would have little choice but to order her troops into a defensive position and wait for morning.
Giving them that much longer to dig in.

“How is he?” she said.

“He's lost some blood, and he won't be on his feet anytime soon. But they say the wound should heal clean if it doesn't fester.” Cyte hesitated. “He was asking for you. Pretty urgently, I understand.”

Winter turned north, where the Grand Span stretched across to the looming bulk of the Island. There were no soldiers on the bridge itself—the Patriots had put it under howitzer fire as soon as the Girls' Own captured the near end, and in spite of Captain Archer's efforts, shells still rose every few minutes to burst on the bridge in gouts of smoke and flame or crash hissing into the river. The Royals had crossed an hour earlier, sprinting in groups after each thundering blast, and the artillery had followed them, cannoneers whipping their teams into a frenzy. Archer's howitzers, still on the near side of the river, had pounded the opposite foot of the bridge in preparation for their arrival.

So far, things were going well. The Royals had assaulted the enemy at the base of the bridge and sent them running, though they'd paid a fearful cost in lives advancing across the open ground. Archer's guns had blunted an attempted counterattack, and Winter had fed troops from the first regiment of Janus' promised reinforcements across as quickly as possible to bolster the bridgehead. Before long, Sevran was advancing again, but his pace was maddening slow. On the Green Road, the Patriots had given way easily under pressure, but now they dug in their heels tenaciously, defending barricaded positions with artillery in support.

Rather than waste men in costly assaults, Sevran brought up his own guns to blast the defenders out before advancing. Winter approved, but the strategy was burning daylight fast. The Girls' Own, recovering from their earlier exertions on the Green Road, would be next over the bridge, and once they were there Winter would have to either order an all-out assault and accept the losses or face the reality of a night strung out in the streets of Vordan City under fire. Neither prospect was appealing.

“What was the last word from Sevran?” Winter said.

“Still attacking the barricade a block south of Farus' Triumph. He said he's nearly through, but that there's guns covering the Triumph on all sides. We're going to need more artillery, or else we'll have to work our way around.”

Either would take more time than they had left.
Damn.
Winter grimaced. “I can spare a few minutes for Marcus while we're waiting.”

The wounded were being cared for in a building that bore the sign of the Silver Eagle, which had been apparently been a nest of paper pushers. Winter's soldiers had cleared the desks out of the way and laid bedrolls on the floor, where the cutters worked with scalpels and bone saws amid the usual mix of screams, moans, and prayer. Very few of the patients were from the Girls' Own, who had so far gotten off lightly; the majority were Patriots or militia, along with some Royals who'd staggered back from the bridgehead under their own power. There were also some civilians, who'd been discovered alongside the wounded militia. Both groups had a great many burn victims, including some corpses that had been reduced to charred skeletons, but since none of the buildings had caught fire, the cutters were at a loss to explain why.
Perhaps Marcus can shed some light on the subject.

A row of offices had been mostly appropriated for surgeries, but Cyte led her to one on the end, where Marcus was lying on a bedroll. The desk that had been in the center of the room had been pushed to one side, and a teenage girl in a blue army jacket sat on it, looking worried. Beside Marcus, sitting cross-legged, was an older woman in tight-fitting black, speckled with blood and ashes. Bobby, waiting at the door, saluted Winter and stepped aside to let her in.

Marcus still wore his uniform, but one leg of his trousers had been cut away and his thigh was swathed in bandages. He was propped up on a pillow, looking a bit gray but undoubtedly conscious.

Seeing him again, especially like this, was strange. Throughout the Khandarai campaign, and even during the fighting around the revolution, Marcus had been Janus' right hand, far above Winter in authority. In her ranker days, she'd thought of the senior officers in the same way the Khandarai thought about their gods, as inexplicable, capricious beings whose notice was to be avoided if at all possible.

Now, though, the eagles on her shoulders matched his, though he was still nominally her superior by seniority. But he had no troops under his command, and his wounded, exhausted state made Winter look at him with new eyes. He was just a man, tired and in pain.
He always was.
That was the secret that the officers conspired to keep the rankers; you gave orders, because it was your
job
to give orders, but it didn't actually mean you knew any better.
We're all just doing the best we can, under the circumstances.

He looked back at her, and she wondered if the change in their relative
status had given him any matching revelations. If it had, he didn't voice them. Instead he glanced at the open door and coughed.

“It's good to see you, Colonel Ihernglass.”

“Likewise, Colonel d'Ivoire.”

“I need to speak to you privately, if possible.” He raised one eyebrow slightly, in what was probably an attempt at subtlety. “It concerns . . . the matter of the Desoltai temple.”

Magic, in other words.
The Thousand Names.
Winter nodded at Bobby, who shut the door.

“I think you know Lieutenant Forester, from the Colonials,” she said. “This is Lieutenant Cytomandiclea. They were both involved in an attempt on my life by the Penitent Damned several weeks ago, and I brought them up to speed on . . . related matters.” Winter looked at the two women beside Marcus. “I assume the same is true of your companions—wait.” The girl's face had finally clicked. “Andy?”

Andy stared at Winter uncomprehending for a moment, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh.
Oh!
You're—” She cut off, uncertain. “You're
Winter
.”