ALISTAIR DIED BADLY
As Ms. Richter crumpled the sheet, Old Tom’s bell began to toll in deafening peals that shook the very hall. The Enemy had been sighted.
~ 17 ~
Trench Nineteen
When Old Tom’s ringing ceased, Ms. Richter strode to the head of Founder’s Hall and raised her arms for silence. Her voice was admirably calm.
“The Enemy is here,” she announced, surveying the room. “Rowan needs us and I know she will not be disappointed. Each face I see fills me with that confidence. There is no time for long speeches or debate. I will say only this. Rowan is not merely our home; it is a haven for all humanity. Prusias is strong, but I remind you that Rowan has stood for nearly four hundred years and has never been more prepared to meet such a foe. He has underestimated our strength and our resolve, and he will pay dearly for it. Do your duty and may God be with you. Sol Invictus.”
Everyone present responded in kind before setting out for his or her assignments. A surreal energy permeated the hall—brisk professionalism tempered by fear and excitement. There was no wasted discussion, no cries of anguish or despair, and no evident panic. Striding to her table to retrieve her most critical papers, Ms. Richter glanced at David.
“I’ll send who I can, but don’t wait for them,” she said sharply. “Can you look to see if ships are landing? We may need you to do what you can there.”
Clutching the pinlegs, David nodded and hurried out, joining the rapid exodus of Agents and Mystics.
Ms. Richter’s eyes snapped to Max. “You are the Hound of Rowan,” she said. “You are our champion, and Prusias fears you like nothing else upon this earth. Do not forget that.”
Before Max could even respond, the Director was already engaged in other matters. He hurried out of Founder’s Hall as Old Tom sounded the alarm anew.
It was pandemonium in the Manse’s corridors, a crush of people hurrying out to their stations or rushing to the dormitories to retrieve some needed item or weapon. Max also needed to retrieve something, but it was not in his room. Squeezing past a cluster of anxious-looking students, he crossed the foyer and spilled out with the others into the clear, cold night.
YaYa was already waiting by the fountain, humans streaming past her like floodwaters parting at a great rock. The ki-rin’s eyes were glowing, her breath pluming from her nostrils in white billows. Hurrying down the steps, Max slid a foot into a stirrup and swung high up into the saddle.
“We have to go to the smithy!” he shouted, straining to be heard over Old Tom’s clanging and the incredible din as thousands hurried across the quad. At the slightest pressure from Max’s knee, YaYa wheeled and lumbered heavily toward the township.
The ki-rin could do no more than walk as they swam against a tide of people. It was fifteen minutes of impatient agonizing until they could get through the Sanctuary tunnel and YaYa could manage a lumbering trot. A great heat was coming off the ki-rin, and periodically she shivered as though growing feverish.
At last they arrived at the smithing shop owned by the brothers Aurvangr and Ginnarr. The upper windows were dark and shuttered, but Max saw a gleam of light peeping from beneath the door. Swinging out of his saddle, he ran up the front steps and knocked urgently. Something crashed within and he heard someone curse before another angry voice cried out, “Closed!”
“It’s Max McDaniels!”
The door opened and Max looked down to see the dvergar—a dusky, dwarflike creature with pale eyes and beard—half dressed in armor of overlapping scales.
“It’s in the workroom,” muttered Aurvangr, waving Max toward the back. “By the quenching tubs. Not pretty yet, but it works. There’s something else on the table. We decided your need is greater. Close the door behind you. We’re due at Westgate.”
Ducking inside, Max hurried into the back room where the dvergar kept their forge and anvil. Max found what he was looking for propped against the wall next to a trio of water barrels. It was a spear shaft some seven feet long, fashioned of roughened steel and devised so that Max could use it with the gae bolga. He’d commissioned it from the brothers after his first day supervising the battalion from atop YaYa. The gae bolga’s limited reach was poorly suited for mounted combat and was impractical to wield on a horse, much less a ki-rin standing eight feet at her shoulder.
Keeping the blade sheathed, Max pressed its pommel to the top of the spear shaft. Like a ravenous snake, the shaft swallowed up the hilt, clamping tight at the cross-guard so that the short sword was transformed into a long-bladed spear. Hefting it, Max tested its weight and balance before turning to the object folded neatly on the neighboring table. It was an exquisite corselet of fine gray mail, the very armor Max had bartered to the dvergar in exchange for the Ormenheid. The shirt had once belonged to Antonio de Lorca, Max’s predecessor in the Red Branch, and no ordinary weapon could pierce it. Quickly, Max stripped off his tunic and hauberk, swapping the heavy, cumbersome rings for a garment more supple than linen. Pulling the tunic back over his head, Max checked that Lugh’s brooch was in place, took up the gae bolga, and hurried out of the shop.
As YaYa picked her way through the winding lanes back to the main avenue, Max witnessed the very best and worst of humanity. Many companies of troops and militia were hurrying to their posts, but there also were brawls, untold looters, and some who chose to greet Prusias’s arrival with doomed, drunken revelry. Rounding a corner, Max stopped as he saw a half-dozen Trench Rats carousing with a group that had broken into the Pot and Kettle and were rolling its wine barrels up the cellar ramp to break them open in the street. Upon seeing their commander, one promptly retched while the others snapped to some semblance of bleary, blinking attention.
Max glared down at them. “It’s a thirty-minute march to Trench Nineteen from here. If you’re not there in twenty, I’m going to find each and every one of you.”
“We were on leave,” said the one, sullenly wiping his mouth. “You got no right to judge!”
“When does leave give you the right to loot and steal?” Max growled. “Stay and sit in your filth. You’re discharged. Rip off his patch.”
The man’s companions did so, tearing the patch off his shoulder while he swore and protested. Seconds later, the other five were running as fast as they could toward the Sanctuary tunnel and their distant post.
“Bravo, bravo!” called a voice from the restaurant’s elevated porch.
Madam Petra was lounging between the industrialist and Katarina. She was sipping a glass of wine without an apparent care in the world. Around her neck, she wore the coppery torque made from Nick’s quills.
“Oh, don’t worry about us,” she said, swirling her wine. “We’re not looters. We paid for our drinks. You look very dashing, by the way.”
“Going to sit things out here?” said Max, gazing at the smuggler with unfeigned disgust.
“Yes, I am,” she said, smiling sweetly. “That’s the nice thing about having friends on both sides. You don’t really care who wins.”
“You think Prusias will just leave you be?”
“I don’t see why not.” She shrugged, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I’ve been invited to many parties at the royal palace. Why should he be angry with a Rowan hostage? In any case, I hope the Zenuvian iron serves you well. You certainly paid for the privilege.”
Max stared hard at the woman. “You had better pray that we win,” he said quietly. “Because if Rowan falls, there will be no one left to forgive you. And if that happens, you’ll have to live with this shame forever.”