“Taking the capital will not be easy,” I said. “The wisest course would be to wait here, gathering strength until the spring.”
“Wisdom and war are rare bedfellows, my lord. And you’re right, the Ally will most likely see it all.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“We cannot simply linger here and wait for the next blow to fall. Any more than your Emperor can expect to remain immune from the Ally’s attentions.”
“I am fully aware of what message to deliver to the Emperor.” The leather satchel bearing the sealed scroll was heavy about my neck, heavier even than my bag of books, though only a fraction of its weight. Just ink, paper and wax, I thought. Yet it could send millions to war.
We halted as we came to the ship, a broad-beamed Meldenean trader, her planking still scorched from the Battle of the Teeth, rails bearing the scars of blades and arrowheads, patches on the sails furled to the rigging. My eyes were also drawn to the serpentine figurehead which, despite having lost much of its lower jaw, retained a certain familiarity. My gaze found the captain at the head of the gangplank, thick arms crossed, his face set in a glower, a face I recalled all too well.
“Did you, perhaps, have a hand in choosing this vessel, my lord?” I asked Al Sorna.
There was a faint glimmer of amusement in his gaze as he shrugged. “Merely a coincidence, I assure you.”
I sighed, finding I had scant room in my heart for yet more resentment, turning to Fornella and extending a hand to the ship. “Honoured Citizen. I’ll join you in a moment.”
I saw Al Sorna’s eyes track her as she walked the plank to the ship, moving with her customary grace born of centuries-long practice. “Despite what the truth-teller said,” he told me, “I caution you, don’t trust her.”
“I was her slave long enough to learn that lesson myself.” I hefted my bag once again and nodded a farewell. “By your leave, my lord. I look forward to hearing the tale of your campaign . . .”
“You were right,” he broke in, his wary smile returned once more. “The story I told you. There were some . . . omissions.”
“I think you mean lies.”
“Yes.” His smile faded. “But I believe you have earned the truth. I have scant notion of how this war will end, or even if either of us will live to see its end. But if we do, find me again and I promise you’ll have nothing but truth from me.”
I should have been grateful, I know. For what scholar does not hunger for truth from one such as he? But there was no gratitude as I looked into his gaze, no thought save a name. Seliesen.
“I used to wonder,” I said, “how a man who had taken so many lives could walk the earth unburdened by guilt. How does a killer bear the weight of killing and still call himself human? But we are both killers now, and I find it burdens my soul not at all. But then, I killed an evil man, and you a good one.”
I turned away and strode up the gangplank without a backward glance.
CHAPTER ONE
Lyrna
She was woken by the snow. Soft, icy caresses on her skin, tingling and not unpleasant, calling her from the darkness. It took a moment for memory to return and when it did she found it a fractured thing, fear and confusion reigning amidst a welter of image and sensation. Iltis roaring as he charged, sword bared . . . The ring of steel . . . A hard fist across her mouth . . . And the man . . . The man who burned her.
She opened her mouth to scream but could issue no more than a whimper, her subsequent gasp dragging chilled air into her lungs. It seemed as if she would freeze from the inside out and she felt it strange she should die from cold after being burned so fiercely.
Iltis! The name was a sudden shout in her mind. Iltis is wounded! Perhaps dead!
She willed herself to move, to get up, call for a healer with all the power her queen’s voice could muster. Instead she barely managed to groan and flutter her hands a little as the snow continued its frosty caress. Rage burned in her, banishing the chill from her lungs. I need to move! I will not die in the snow like a forgotten dog! Drawing jagged air into her lungs again she screamed, putting every ounce of strength and rage into the sound. A fierce scream, a queen’s scream . . . but no more than a rattle of air through teeth when it reached her ears, along with something else.
“. . . better be a good reason for this, Sergeant,” a hard voice was saying, strong, clipped and precise. A soldier’s voice, accompanied by the crunch of boots in snow.
“Tower Lord said he was to be minded well, Captain,” another voice, coloured by a Nilsaelin accent, older and not quite so strong. “Treated with respect, he said. Like the other folk from the Point. And he seems fairly insistent, much as I can gather from a fellow that don’t talk above two words at a time.”