His fifty-first son looked up. “The boat bears the markings of the Kinshark.” Lying in the bottom of it, Vlad saw a vague shape that took form as the longboat approached with its lantern, and found himself gasping with surprise as well.
What have you brought us, my love? He blinked at the shape, uncertain of his eyes.
There, stretched out cruciform, lay a broken metal man in Androfrancine robes.
Rudolfo
A light snow fell in the northern reaches of the Ninefold Forest, and Rudolfo shrugged the flakes from where they gathered in his cloak. The morning air was still and heavy with the smell of wood smoke and pine. It was cold, too, carrying his breath away in clouds as he walked his woods in the quietest hour between night and dawn.
Behind him, the camp stirred to life as Lysias’s sergeants moved among the recruits with their pine switches, slapping buttocks and thighs as they went about motivating the men to a more eager wakefulness. Already, the Gypsy Scouts were up and loaded-as was Rudolfo-and this morning they would ride ahead of the battalion so that Rudolfo could see their discovery for himself.
Just days on the heels of Jin Li Tam and Jakob’s departure, his second captain, Philemus, had brought word of what his scouts had found after days of chasing the metal men. He’d been sipping a pear wine that was nearly too sweet for his palate and pushing his fork through a rice-and-venison dish that seemed flavorless when the officer was ushered into Rudolfo’s private dining room.
“We’ve found where they were running,” he’d said. And even in that moment, Rudolfo could see on the man’s face that he would be packing and riding out himself. The next day, under the cover of a training exercise with Lysias’s army, he and an elite squad had set out for the far northern reaches of his territories.
Normally, Rudolfo relished those times he spent away from the manor. He’d always equated it with freedom, but lately he’d found himself counting security as a higher value than liberty. More and more, his guarded manor and his Gypsy Scouts felt safer to him than the wide open expanse of the forest his forefathers had claimed for their people two millennia ago. And everywhere he went, he carried a knot in his stomach and the dull ache of tension behind his eyes.
Picking his way carefully across the new-fallen snow, he tried to find solace in the morning but found worry instead. True to her word, Ria had welcomed his family into her lands-her entire people had welcomed them, it seemed. And she’d also sent what fruit they’d harvested in their investigation. Scraps of intelligence, cut no doubt from the prisoner they’d taken, that pointed south to the coastal nations. The War for Windwir had begun that strain, and then the events last winter-the assassinations and the resulting Council of Kin-Clave-had further eroded their relationship with those nations. The Delta continued a kin-clave on paper, largely forced by Esarov and his compatriots there in the Governor’s Council. But it was becoming clear that the attack upon his family and his library was a well-orchestrated operation by allies now become enemies in the madness of these dark times. And he could see why these friends had become enemies. His family and people were the only ones to have profited from the desolation of Windwir, and the rise of the Machtvolk and their demonstrated kin-clave with the Gypsies surely pointed toward collusion. The clear evidence that it was all the product of a carefully crafted Tam intrigue, right down to the Y’Zirite resurgence with its gospels, shrines and evangelists, was not enough.
Closing his borders and raising the army would not be enough, he realized, and that truth frightened him.
He heard a low whistle behind him and turned. Philemus slipped from a darker patch of the forest. “The scouts are ready, General.”
Rudolfo sighed and forced his mind back to their present dilemma. Mechoservitors passing through his lands. and what his scouts had uncovered far to the north, at the foot of the Dragon’s Spine. “Very well,” he said, turning back to the camp. “Let’s ride.”
They rode out before the sun rose, their horses magicked for speed and strength, hooves muffled by the River Woman’s powders. His arm ached with each passing league, and the air grew colder as they climbed the wooded foothills at the base of those impenetrable mountains.
By the time they arrived, the sun was a white disk veiled in gray and the snow had let up. They left their horses behind with a handful of scouts and slipped into a narrow canyon only marginally hidden by drifts of fallen pines and displaced rock.
The lieutenant whose men had pursued the mechoservitors to this place led the way, with Philemus and Rudolfo close behind. The uneven ground and the patches of ice made it slow going, especially with only one hand to steady himself. Rudolfo noted that the officer was careful to match his pace to that of his king. He smiled at this.
As they made their way deeper into the canyon, the walls narrowed, blocking out the white sky above. The ground sloped downward as they went, and the temperature dropped until Rudolfo saw crystals of ice forming and his feet found slick patches. The narrowing corridor twisted and turned until it finally spilled out into a large cave lost in shadow. One of the scouts lit a watch lantern and unshuttered its light.
Rudolfo didn’t realize he held his breath until he released it and saw it clouding the cold air. In the center of the cave, he saw something out of place, and it took a moment for him to place it.
It was a large, round steel door set into the floor and propped open. Shattered fragments of granite lay around it, and it was obvious to Rudolfo that the hatch had been closed and hidden away beneath the rock floor of this place until recently.
Moving forward on careful feet, he leaned in and let his eyes follow the limited reach of the lantern’s illumination. Stretching below, lost in shadows, a steel-lined well penetrated the cave’s floor. Rudolfo squinted at strange shadows, realizing suddenly that they were rungs set into the side of it, vanishing down into shadows.
“Gods,” he whispered. And the well swallowed his words, the echo of them drifting back to his ears.
He’d wandered these hills since early childhood and had probably stood on this very spot.
Philemus looked from Rudolfo to the scout who had led them in. “You tracked the mechoservitors here?”
The lieutenant nodded, and in the lantern light, Rudolfo noted the blush rising to the man’s cheeks. “We did.” His eyes darted to his king, then looked away. “We could not keep up with them. They were gone by the time we reached the cave.”
Rudolfo nodded, then stooped to pick up a loose chunk of granite. Stretching his hand out over the well, he released the rock and leaned in again, cocking his ear.
Silently he counted the seconds until far below he heard the muffled clatter. Then, he crouched and looked at the rungs set into the side of the shaft.
Philemus crouched beside him. “Does it lead where I think it leads?”
Rudolfo turned to his second captain. “I suspect it does.”
An underground route to the Marshlands. He knew that the Dragon’s Spine was laced with caves, but this was different. Someone had built this passage. Someone had hidden it here beneath the stone long ago. The metalwork of the hatch and walls was of a kind he’d not seen before, and he stretched out to touch it. Warm to the touch and pitted from time.
“This,” Rudolfo said to Philemus, “may be an unexpected gift.”
“It could be,” Philemus agreed. “If they really were bound for the Marshlands.”
But Rudolfo doubted they would lie about that. Even the book they’d given Isaak pointed to the Marshlands. Tertius was the renegade Androfrancine scholar who had educated Winters.
“I’m certain they were.” Rudolfo touched the metal surface once again, surprised that it was so warm despite the cold of the day.