Bars stood eyeing the man, a crooked, almost fey grin on his lips. Corlo’s breath caught. Gods, no — don’t do it! The Chosen stepped away, gestured him in with his blade. Bars’ glacier-blue eyes shifted to Corlo and the mage winced to see seething rage, yes, and a bright fevered tinge of madness, but no despair. No flat resignation. He made his decision then.
Bars entered and the door was pushed shut behind him.
Corlo would wait for despair.
As he and Captain Peles rode through Unta’s yawning north gate, Rillish had to admit that the capital’s rebuilding was coming along well. One had to give this new Emperor his due. In the wake of the emergencies and chaos of the Insurrection — as it had come to be known — the plenipotentiary authorities the man so generously granted himself had allowed him to brush aside any resistance to his plans. He probably now had more personal authority than the old Emperor ever did.
And the capital’s old attitude of arrogant superiority was, if anything, even greater now. Captain Peles and he at the van of their troop had to press their way forward through an indifferent — even dismissive — mass of foot traffic and general cartage. It was an experience of the capital new to Rillish, who most recently had been a member of the Wickan delegation to the throne. Then, he had travelled with an honour guard of the Clans. Then, much scowling and moustache-brushing from his escort had met the harsh stares and glowers of the citizens. The veterans assigned as his bodyguard had savoured it. But Rillish had been disheartened. Was there to be no accord between these mistrusting neighbours?
Now, he couldn’t even urge aside a runny-nosed youth yanking a bow-legged donkey. He hunched forward to rest his leather and bronze vambraces on the pommel of his saddle and cast an ironic glance to Captain Peles. The woman held her helm under one arm, her long snow-white hair pulled back in a single tight braid. Sweat shone on her neck and she was scanning the crowd, her pale eyes narrowed. A large silver earring caught Rillish’s eye, a wolf, rampant, paws outstretched, loping, tongue lolling. He recalled the twin silver wolfheads, jaws interlocking, that was the clip of her weapon belt.
‘You are an adherent of the Wolves of War, Captain?’
Her head snapped around, startled, then she smiled shyly. ‘Yes, sir. “The Wolves of Winter”, we name them. I am sworn.’
Rillish waved aside a bundle of scented sticks a spice hawker thrust at him. ‘Sworn, Captain?’
The smile faltered and the woman looked away. ‘Our local faith.’
Much more there, of course — but any business of his?
‘Fist Rillish?’ a voice called from the press. ‘Rillish Jal Keth?’
He scanned the crowd, caught a face upturned, arm raised, straining. ‘Yes?’
It was a young woman, a servant. She offered a folded slip of paper. ‘For you, sir.’
‘My thanks.’ He opened the missive and found himself confronting runes — the written glyphs of the Wickan tongue. Dear Mowri spare him! Hours spent cracking his skull over these as a member of the Wickan delegation returned to him. He frowned over the symbols.
Come. Su.
Ah. One did not refuse the imperative form issued by the shaman Su. Especially when that elder was so respected — or feared — that she ordered about the most potent and famed Wickan witch and warlock, the twins Nil and Nether, as if they were her own children. A relationship not too far from the truth, Rillish mused, in a culture that named all elders ‘father’ and ‘mother’.
And that message conveyed in a manner assuring secrecy as well. He imagined no one else in the entire Imperial capital, other than a Wickan, could parse their runes. He tucked the slip into his glove, regarded Captain Peles. ‘We part ways here, Captain. I have an errand.’
She frowned, disapproving.
A worrier this one, always earnest.
‘My orders…’
‘Were to convey me to the capital. You have done so. Now I have business to attend to.’
A cool inclination of the head: ‘Very good, Fist.’
Rillish reined his mount aside. Not happy, this one, that I should wander off on my own. Perhaps to some tryst… He stopped, turned back on his saddle. ‘Captain, perhaps you would like to accompany me. Have an officer lead the troop to the garrison.’
The woman saluted, the surprise and confusion obvious on her broad open face.
Always wrong-foot them — keeps them on their toes.
Rillish led the captain to the east quarter of the city, a rich estate district. Just last year during the days of the Insurrection the mercenary army the Crimson Guard, an old enemy of the Empire, had attempted to destroy the capital by blowing up the Imperial arsenal. The firestorms that arose after that great blast had raged for days through several of the great family holdings: D’Arl, Isuneth, Harad ’Ul, Paran, and his own, Jal Keth. The devastation had been so widespread because, frankly, the general populace had not been particularly motivated to help out.
And so we reap what we sow.
He hooked a leg around the high pommel of his saddle, easing into a Wickan sitting style — though with a twinge as an old wound cramped his thigh. ‘My family is from here, you know, Captain.’
‘Is that so, Fist.’
‘Yes.’ Not too loquacious this one, either. ‘And what of you? Where are your people from?’
The broad jaws clenched, bunching. Then, reluctantly, ‘A land west of the region you name Seven Cities. A mountainous land of steep coasts.’
‘And does this land have a name?’
The woman actually appeared to blush. Or was it the heat beneath all that armour? ‘Perish, Fist.’
Perish? Don’t know it — though, somehow familiar. ‘Not an Imperial holding, then.’
Now a confident, amused smile curled the lips, almost wolfish.
‘No. And I would counsel against the Empire ever making the attempt.’
‘It seems we may get along well after all, Captain. The Wickans feel the same way — Imperial claims to the contrary.’ Rillish pulled up before the remains of a fire-eaten gateway. ‘And here we are.’
The woman wrinkled her nose at the lingering stink of old fire damage. ‘Are you sure, sir?’
Two figures straightened from the waist-tall weeds choking the gateway: two old veteran Wickans. One was missing an arm, the other an eye. Both offered Rillish savage grins and waved him in. He urged his mount up the bricked approach.
‘They seemed to know you well, sir,’ Peles noted.
‘We shared a long difficult ride once.’
Ahead, the fire-gutted stone walls of a manor house loomed in the deepening afternoon light. Already vines had climbed some galleries. In his mind’s eye Rillish saw those empty gaping windows glowing lantern-lit, carriages arriving up this very approach bearing guests for evening fetes. He could almost hear the clack of wooden swords in the countless wars he and his cousins had fought through these once manicured grounds. He shook his head to clear it of all the old echoes. Now weeds tangled the blackened brick. Fountains stood silent, the water scummed. Outbuildings, guesthouses, stables, stood as empty stone hulks. And in the midst of it all, smoke rising from cook fires, like conquerors amid the ruins, lay an encampment of Wickan yurts.
Rillish swung a leg over his saddle to slide easily down. The captain struggled with her mount, which seemed disgusted by her inexperience and just as determined to let her know it. Wickan youths ran up to yank its bit. ‘What is this?’ she asked, amazed.
‘Welcome to the Wickan delegation. This estate is now the property of the throne. I suggested that perhaps they could be housed here.’ Not that anyone else would take them. ‘Wan ma Su?’ he asked a girl.
She pointed. ‘Othre.’
‘This way, Captain.’ He led Peles across the grounds to the base of a towering ironwood tree, the only survivor of the firestorm that had raged through the district. The Wickan Elder and shaman, Su, seemed to live here, tucked in amid its exposed roots. The giant had been a favourite of his youth, though its limbs stood too tall for climbing. Rillish wondered whether the tree owed its continuing survival to her presence, or, judging from the woman’s extraordinary age, perhaps it was the other way round.