“Yes, we know,” said Spelter, nodding once.
“Well, then? Is she coming? Will your mistress stand beside us as she all but promised?”
For a brief moment Vansen glimpsed the unhappiness that had been hidden in Spelter’s dark eyes, perhaps even the twist of a frown in the drow’s beard, and his heart went cold.
“No, Captain,” said Spelter. “She is not.”
“What?” Cinnabar stumbled forward, his vambraces dragging on the floor. “Not coming? But we gave your mistress sanctuary in our own tunnels—we gave you all sanctuary when the autarch came! And this is how she pays us back? Leaving us to fight alone?”
“I am sorry, Magister.” Spelter turned to Vansen and nodded a salute. “Captain.” He kept his back rigid and his eyes staring ahead, even when there was nothing before him to stare at; a soldier was a soldier, it seemed, even among the Qar. “I regret bearing this news. You are brave allies. I can say no more. Good luck.”
Vansen watched the drow walk back across the chaos of the breaking camp. A few of the Funderlings watched him with superstitious fear. Only half a year ago the drows and the Qar had been stories to excite and frighten young children. Now they were real.
Real, but cowardly, Vansen thought in sudden rage. He should have known that Lady Porcupine was too proud and spiteful to be able to overcome her hatred of mortals—he should have known! Now it was he who had betrayed his allies by promising them help that would not come....
“Balls of the Brothers!” he spat, full of fury and shame. “Cinnabar, I’ve failed. I’m prepared to hand the command to Copper right now if you’ll let me.”
“You’ll do nothing like it,” said a startled Malachite Copper, coughing up some of the water he’d been drinking.
“He’s right,” said Cinnabar. “You’ll do nothing like, Captain. We hung you on the marshal’s hoist because you’re the best for the task.” He reached out blindly to take another piece of armor from his son Calomel, but his hands were shaking. “You’ve done nothing to show otherwise. By the Elders, Captain Vansen, do you blame yourself for the Qar not coming? If you had not risked your life to make treaty with them, we’d still be fighting them as well as the filthy, fracturing autarch!” Cinnabar looked upset. “Sorry, lad. Don’t tell your mother I said that in front of you.”
Young Calomel brightened considerably.
Vansen shook his head. “Do not be so quick to exonerate me, Magister. Perhaps the Qar and the autarch would now be fighting each other if I hadn’t interfered.”
“Still and all,” said Copper, “don’t be foolish. No one else would have done differently, but you were the only one who could do it, in any case.”
“Once more our old friend Copper speaks the truth,” Cinnabar agreed, waving his hand. “Enough. Except to say that not only won’t we let you out of your responsibilities, Captain Vansen, my people will long remember what you did for us.” A moment later, he added, “If the Elders decree that my people survive, that is.”
Vansen, who had already been mulling his own version of this, nodded. “A wise soldier never presumes that the gods will reward good intentions.” He felt about to drown in his own misery. “Well, if the fairies aren’t coming, I suppose we need wait no longer. Anything else left to finish here?”
“Me.” Cinnabar, tongue between his teeth, was busy with his high-collared chest plate.
Calomel reached up and helped his father tie the knots. “He’s almost ready, Captain.”
“And he looks very handsome, our Cinnabar,” Malachite Copper said almost cheerfully, as if they had not just been told they were fighting alone. “Not in the least like a fat townsman who has forgotten everything he learned in the warders.”
“Yes, I’m sure one sight of me and the autarch’s men will all run,” said Cinnabar, but no one had the heart to laugh.
He had become an animal, a thing of rough, matted hair and sharp teeth. He could smell her. He knew that the soldiers had taken her across the water—he had her scent and it told him everything. He could even smell the warm blood that would gush forth when he caught her and began to bite and tear…
Daikonas Vo shuddered and blinked. No. He was not an animal. He was a man, even if it was getting harder to remember that sometimes. He looked at the crowd of people around him. Some of them were staring. He could only guess what he looked like. But what was he trying to remember… ?
It came back. The girl. The girl from the Seclusion. He didn’t smell her, that was only his madness speaking, but he had seen the soldiers take her and march her onto a boat headed back across the bay toward Southmarch. He knew where she was going—to the autarch, the wonderful, powerful, treacherous, murderous autarch…
It was important to remember the truth and defend against madness. If Vo lost control, he knew he would become an animal in truth—a dead one, as forgotten as any cur left to rot by the roadside. But there were moments he did feel he could smell the girl, no matter how far away she was—he could almost picture her scent wafting behind her as she ran, trailing in the air like a broken spiderweb, dissolving slowly but lingering just long enough to coil about him like mist, leading him on…
He stopped himself just before he began howling. The sun was bright, and his head felt as though it had been split by a stoneworker’s chisel. The people around him had drawn back, and many were staring at him in apprehension—he must be talking to himself again.
Vo put his head down and began to walk.
She had tried to kill him. That memory helped to keep him going when the pain almost became too much. It was not the worst thing she had done, of course—in fact it was scarcely important at all except as a reminder of how slack he had been. But in trying to murder him she had poured all his sweet black medicine away, the one thing that had quieted the gnawing monstrosity the autarch had left in Vo’s guts. Now the agony grew in him by the hour. Vo had tried other remedies since he had lost his boat, wild simples he had picked in the forest and eaten, and later, when he had reached villages and small towns again, things he could get from apothecaries and healers, simply stealing when he could, killing without hesitation when he had to. But even the most learned of these country healers knew little more than the name of Malamenas Kimir’s healing liquid—they certainly did not have any. If he had not been certain beyond doubt he would be dead before he reached Agamid and Kimir’s shop he would have started back there already; instead he had only one chance to end the burning pain in his guts: he might still be able to convince Sulepis of his usefulness and be released from this endless torture.
So Daikonas Vo walked across the waterfront of Onir Beccan toward the place the ships docked, ignoring the local apothecaries because he could not afford the time or distraction. Every hour it seemed to become harder to think. Sometimes his mind was nothing but a black cave of screeching bats. Sometimes his legs cramped so badly that he dropped helplessly to the ground, but he always got up again.
Somebody was making strange noises. Growling and wheezing, mumbled words.
It was Vo himself, of course. He laughed a little through the pain. It was strange being mad, but he had been through worse.
Vo had been trying to ignore the pain that burned in his gut like a blazing coal while he watched the small ship he planned to board. A crane swung barrels of supplies up onto the deck as half-naked men pulled the ropes and shouted at each other. Could he manage? It seemed unlikely: to judge by the number of Xixian soldiers on the deck the autarch’s army had commandeered the Blueshore cog outright, which would make it hard for Vo to slip aboard unnoticed, especially in his present condition.