Moontide 04 - Ascendant's Rite Read online

  He broke the connection with a savage burst of energy, vindictively burning out Gyle’s relay-stave. I hope I seared your fingers, you arsehole.

  He re-ran the conversation in his head, then shrugged. I’m not going to jump at his behest. He doubted there was any windship; more likely it was some trick. Gyle was right about their relative strength, though, and that troubled him. He needed more men. Perhaps I need to woo that damned Tolidi bint in Hytel after all . . .

  He waved offhandedly at Wilfort. ‘Finish this,’ he growled, gesturing to the line of men still waiting to be executed. He surveyed the crowds below: skinny, unwashed Jhafi, staring up at the scaffolding bearing the broken prisoners, their faces sickly and frightened. Look and learn, mudskins.

  He waved his personal aide forward. Mikals, a portly Hollenian, shared his taste for young flesh. ‘Let’s go and see about the afternoon’s entertainment. Have you had her washed?’

  ‘She’s had her Noorie stink rinsed off, my lord. I left Pendris to oil her.’ Mikals rubbed his hands together. ‘A feisty bint, this one. She should be entertaining.’

  They strode together through the palace, past the Kirkegarde sentries at each door, reaching the inner bailey just as a skinny Jhafi boy wearing the Betillon livery skittered out. He glanced after the boy, a little puzzled to see a native in his livery, but Mikals was talking, describing a furnace he’d found, perfect for disposing of the girl’s body after they’d done with her.

  ‘Pendris better not have done more than oiled her,’ he growled, clapping Mikals on the shoulder. ‘I want first flower – she is a virgin, I trust?’

  ‘Not this one, Lord,’ Mikals replied. ‘Well used, I deem – everyone knows Noorie women can’t keep their legs together. But even so, she is young and nubile enough to please you.’

  His anticipation soured a little. ‘I suppose a virgin was too much to hope for,’ he acknowledged. This one had caught his eye during the capture of Mustaq al’Madhi – she’d put up quite a fight, and that would make her conquest all the sweeter. They climbed the stairs to the royal suite, to the room he’d set aside for his pleasure. He paused at the door, grinned at Mikals and pushed open the door.

  A river of blood flowed down the middle of the floor. Its wellspring was young Pendris’ throat, which had been laid open ear to ear. The young man was lying on his back in the blood, naked and paling as he bled out. Untied ropes were turning scarlet, soaking up the blood. The girl was gone.

  Betillon clenched his fists, suppressing the urge to immediately immolate this whole tableau. Mikals blanched and fell against the wall: the unlucky Pendris was his only son. Slowly his hand raised, pointing at something scrawled in blood on the wall.

  ALHANI.

  Betillon growled. ‘What is that word? Is it her name?’

  Mikals shook his head. ‘No. Her name was Tarita.’

  ‘Then what does “Alhani” mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything . . .’ He paused, his face almost as white as his son’s. ‘Well, except . . . I’ve heard that the Jhafi called Elena Anborn “Alhana”, so maybe “Alhani” would be like a plural of that? Or a collective noun, maybe?’

  Betillon stared. Fuck! Has Elena Anborn been here?

  Then he remembered the skinny boy in his own livery, going the other way unchecked, because of course the guards only questioned those entering. He hammered his fist into the wall.

  Alhani . . .

  ‘Bring the rest of the women from al’Madhi’s house,’ he ordered. ‘And the chief torturer. I want to know all there is to know about this Tarita.’

  4

  Broken Bridges

  The Leviathan Bridge

  Symbols are powerful things. They inspire us all, which is another reason why we must build this bridge: not just to facilitate trade and understanding and improve the lives of millions, though those benefits are clear. This bridge will become a symbol, a link between East and West, tangible proof that two continents which once were joined may be so again, to the benefit of all. This Bridge will be a sign of hope, of better days to come. Bridges link us, allowing us to bypass obstacles and reach places we otherwise could not go. Let this one be the greatest of all.

  ANTONIN MEIROS, CONSTRUCTION PROPOSAL IV, PONTUS, 702

  Near Vida, Southern Kesh, on the continent of Antiopia

  Rami (Septinon) 929

  15th month of the Moontide

  Getting out of Shaliyah had been a desperate situation, and so too breaking into Ardijah. But this camp could be the worst of all, because getting out might require fighting their own people, and Ramon Sensini wasn’t sure the Lost Legions were ready for that.

  They’d marched into the East for many reasons, these rankers from Noros and Argundy and the other provinces of the Rondian Empire: some because they truly believed that Kore had commanded them to fight the infidel; some for loyalty to the empire, or to their liege-lord. But for most, the motivations were more prosaic. Unless you were a mage or a merchant, life in Yuros offered little more than a plough or a pick, scratching a living from the earth, with nothing to look forward to but a mug of ale at the end of the day. The Crusades offered a chance to get out of the endless cycle of poverty. And no one cared much about the rights and wrongs; they just wanted to return to their farms and villages alive and with as much coin as they could scrounge.

  Ramon’s own motives were more complex: he’d been born to a serving girl who’d been raped by a Rondian mage. His mother, barely thirteen when she gave birth, had been taken in by the head of the Retia familioso in Silacia – not that there’d been any kindness in the deed, only Pater-Retiari’s desire to secure control of a mage-child. As Ramon grew older and harder to manage, the threat of violence against his mother had kept him in line. Revenge was what motivated Ramon, against both true and adopted fathers, and freedom for his mother: these needs underpinned everything he did.

  He’d entered this Crusade with a plan. Trying to get twelve thousand legionaries safely home had never been part of that, and yet here he was – along with thirty wagon-loads of gold he’d acquired along the way. All carefully concealed, of course.

  How in Hel can I get us all across that damned river?

  ‘Any ideas?’ Seth Korion muttered quietly as they surveyed the Tigrates. The river was one of the main arteries of northern Antiopia, and over a mile wide. On the opposite bank, shimmering like a mirage, was a dark mass of stone: the fortress-town of Vida, which presided over the one bridge for hundreds of miles – except there was no bridge now, only the stumps of the support pillars, blackened by fire. The rainy season was a month past but the waters were still in spate, making the Tigrates an impassable barrier to a force without boats or windships.

  Ramon had left the birthing bed of his first child and ridden four hours through the desert to be here, on the banks of the river. It was pre-dawn, the eastern glow behind him heralding another scorching day to come.

  ‘I just got here,’ he grumped at Korion. Try thinking for yourself, he didn’t add. Seth was no strategist or tactician, and it was Ramon himself who’d practically forced him into being the titular head of their small force. He could hardly complain about the tool he’d chosen to use.

  At least the Korion name still had power. Ramon was amazed at the sanguine reaction of the soldiers to this latest setback. They’d escaped Shaliyah and been penned in Ardijah and still they held together, with calm belief that those in charge would find a way back. At least part of that was the power of that magical word Korion. Since Shaliyah, Seth had added his own deeds to the lustre of his father’s illustrious career: the rankers believed in him too, now.

  This could break their hearts, though.

  ‘Have we any word from the other side?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing – it’s like they don’t want to acknowledge we’re even here.’ Seth was blond and handsome enough, in a weak-chinned way, though his face was hardening, starting to slough away its youth. Ramon had known him for years – th
ey’d both been educated at Turm Zauberin, the Norostein Arcanum. They’d loathed each other then, but a better person was emerging from the sulky, uncertain boy Seth had been.

  War surely does change people . . . Hel, look at me: I’m a father now . . .

  As if sensing the drift of his thoughts, Seth said, ‘By the way, Sensini, congratulations. I’m told it’s a girl?’

  ‘Julietta,’ Ramon replied. ‘It’s a Rimoni name, but it’s common in Rondelmar too.’

  ‘A good compromise,’ Seth approved. ‘Severine is well?’

  ‘She’s complaining about everything, and wants her mother.’

  Severine Tiseme: the last person Ramon would have thought would be his lover, let alone have a child with. Severine was a highborn Rondian of Pallas, and as preening, self-absorbed, prissy and arrogant as that background implied. Even her rebellious spirit had manifested itself in ways typical of such circles: culminating in disgrace for penning snide poetry against the Sacrecours. But though that was the limit of her rebelliousness, her loathing for injustice and slavery was honest and passionate. Such idealism was odd to Ramon, a pragmatist of shifting morality, but he liked it in her; he felt like a better person when he was with her. Well, some of the time anyway. She was no saint, and neither was he; daughter or no, he had no idea if their relationship would survive the Moontide.

  ‘It sounds like she’s recovering fast, then,’ Seth remarked, smiling. But he sobered as he stared across the dark waters. ‘I’m thinking of sending Prenton across in the skiff at dawn to find out what’s going on.’

  Ramon considered that. He was convinced that the massacre of the Second Army at Shaliyah had not been a fluke but a carefully planned sacrifice by Emperor Constant: to the emperor, Duke Echor of Argundy, the commander of the Southern Army, had been a bigger threat than the Sultan of Kesh. There was too much evidence that the Keshi had been lying in wait at Shaliyah for months preparing their defences, and that suggested collusion to him: Shaliyah had been a victory for both Emperor Constant and Sultan Salim.

  It was a mindboggling, treasonous thought.

  So how welcome would we survivors of Shaliyah be in Vida? he asked himself.

  His suspicions about Shaliyah weren’t the only dangerous notions he had: on their trek in and out of eastern Kesh they’d seen the Inquisition and the Kirkegarde, the military arms of the Church of Kore, engaged in slave-taking on a massive scale, using unprecedented and utterly illegal methods. He’d found them rounding up native Ahmedhassans and not just enslaving them or killing them, but something far worse: forcing their souls into animals and construct-creatures to be used by Kaltus Korion’s army. And they’d been using captive Souldrinkers wielding strange crystals to do the deed – when Souldrinkers were supposed to be abhorred by the Church and killed on sight. It was heresy on a grand scale, a crime that ought to be shouted from the rooftops . . . except that it was clearly sanctioned at the very highest levels.

  So now Ramon tried to work out if sending Baltus Prenton, currently their only pilot-mage with Severine still in her birthing-bed, to talk to the commander at Vida was sensible or stupid. The commander of the Vida garrison might have been under instructions to destroy the bridge anyway, but far more likely he’d had orders from the Inquisition to trap Seth’s force on the eastern shore, with the sultan’s army only days behind them.

  ‘I don’t think Prenton would be permitted to come back,’ he told Seth gloomily. ‘Where’s your father’s army?’

  ‘How would I know?’ Seth replied bitterly. ‘I last talked to my father almost two years ago. As far as I know, the Northern Army were marching on Hall’ikut, then retreating through Istabad. The Moontide ends in nine months so they should be beginning to pull back. Armies can march about ten miles a day, but in this heat they can’t sustain that pace, so he’ll move early. They’ll have to be at Southpoint by the end of Maicin for the crossing, so I’d say they’d be near Istabad by now. I don’t think he’ll help us, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘If he found out someone had deliberately cut you off, he’d—’

  ‘He’d what?’ Seth interrupted sourly. ‘Does he care? I don’t know. He put me in Echor’s army . . .’

  . . . knowing it was marching into disaster . . . Ramon grimaced. ‘Have you sent scouts looking for other crossings?’

  ‘Of course, north and south. The river widens as it goes south, while to the north it’s narrower but still impassable. The land is flat as a table, except for a few low ridges at a place Coll found two days north of here.’

  ‘Defensible?’

  ‘Marginally – but there are no fords, so we’d still be better off going south.’

  ‘The men are exhausted, Seth. We were pushing hard to get here, and Salim isn’t far behind us.’

  ‘Perhaps we can parley with them?’ Seth ventured.

  Ramon frowned; he didn’t trust Seth’s judgement where the Keshi threat was concerned, not since Seth’s friendship with the Salim impersonator they’d held as hostage for a time. ‘No, we’ve played that card: Salim told us we had until the end of Septinon to cross the Tigrates or he’d have no choice but to attack, and that’s two days away – and we’ve got no way to cross the river.’

  ‘Yes, but when we agreed those terms . . .’

  ‘Rukka mio, they’re Keshi, Seth! They aren’t our friends!’

  ‘But Salim—’

  ‘That wasn’t Salim! That was Latif, who spends his life pretending to be someone else!’

  ‘So he said. I think it really was Salim,’ Seth said mulishly.

  ‘Well, how would we know? You never let us probe him.’

  ‘That would have been wrong, Sensini! It could have broken him.’

  ‘He was an enemy!’ Ramon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you have any idea what it looked like, you and him spending every waking hour together? To the men, you were fraternising with an enemy.’

  Seth waved a dismissive hand towards the tents. ‘We’ve got two thousand Khotri and Dhassan women in our baggage train – all I did was talk! Latif was better company than anyone in this army!’ He looked away, and changed the subject. ‘If we can’t cross by the end of Septinon we need to find a defensible position.’

  ‘Well, at least we agree on that. It probably is too late to find a crossing. We need to think about defence. It’ll take days to dig in, wherever we go.’

  ‘But we’re magi. Surely we can cross a river—?’

  ‘Sure, we can! But our men? Think about it, Seth: the Tigrates is a mile wide, deeper than a three-storey building and flowing fast and hard as a mountain stream. And there are Inquisitors on the other side!’

  Seth fretted quietly, then made up his mind. ‘Then we’ll march north to the place Coll found and dig in.’

  ‘That’s our only real option right now. Chin up, Lesser Son!’ He regretted using the old jibe even as he spoke it. One old philosopher had written, ‘Great men breed lesser sons’, and Ramon had gleefully picked up on it at college. He and his best friend Alaron Mercer had used the term to denigrate Seth Korion whenever they could, as revenge for the physical and mental bullying they’d endured from him and his cronies. But he knew Seth better now. ‘Truly,’ he added, ‘the rankers respect you, and so do I.’

  Seth accepted that. ‘You get some sleep. I’m going to see if I can at least ask the commander in Vida what’s going on. And . . . Sensini, thank you for coming. I know you’d rather be with Severine and your daughter.’

  They both started yawning; the sun would be rising soon and the men would be looking to their commanders to extricate them from this latest predicament, but Ramon had spent the previous day waiting to see if Sevvie would deliver and live, whether the child would come out bawling, or silent and cold. Right now, everything was just a little bit too much to deal with. So he stumbled back to his horse, Lu, who was being rubbed down by a groom, found his bedroll and looked for a quiet place on the far side of the corral, wrapped himself in a blanket and closed his eyes.<
br />
  When he woke next it was noon, the air was hot, past breathing comfortably, and someone was shaking his shoulder. ‘Wake up, sir. We’re on the move.’

  *

  Seth Korion wandered away from the river, seeking his fellow magi. This close to the river, the air was sultry, and half the rankers hadn’t even erected tents, sleeping instead beneath the stars. Here and there dark-skinned women slept among them, dusky creatures with pinched faces and bony limbs, some shockingly young, all refugees from their own kind, gambling their lives on the affections of an enemy soldier far from his own home. He wondered what it would be like to be that desperate. Did they love the man beside them, or was he just the last toss of a weighted dice?

  Despite being a pure-blood mage, his whole life had been ruled by fear – not of death or destruction, but more existential dreads: fear of failure, of falling short in his father’s eyes. Fear that his House’s fortunes would falter under his aegis. The name of Korion ranked high in the empire. The price of failing to consolidate and enhance that legacy would be subtle but terrible, and he’d never felt worthy of that burden.

  Winding his way through the churned sandy ruts that were the paths between the tents, he passed drowsy sentries and men stumbling to the trenches to piss, some saluting, others too tired to realise or care that they had just bumped into their commander. The air was thick with sweat and damp bodies, a sweat-sour miasma that was unpleasant to inhale. He found Baltus Prenton’s tent, shoved the flap open as he bent over and pushed in. ‘Baltus! Wake up! I need you to— Oh—’

  He flushed scarlet as a white blob in the semi-darkness resolved itself into buttocks with a pair of skinny legs, just as white, wrapped about them. The tangle of sheets and bodies fell still and two faces turned toward him: Baltus Prenton, the Brevian Air-mage, and Jelaska Lyndrethuse, the Argundian Necromancer, who was probably twice his age.

  ‘Sorry! Sorry! I’ll wait outside!’

  ‘We won’t be long,’ Prenton stammered.