“As you say. But you are their commander.”
“Karol Dannien. Lately in the employ of the fivefold city of Suddapal. We pried the last of you little shits out of it a month ago.” Karol’s smile could have cut meat. “So tell me how it is, Lord Marshal, you’re saying how you’re the one in charge when you’ve got Marcus twice-damned Wester standing behind you?”
Jorey glanced back at him, and Marcus sighed. “Karol. Been a while. How’s Sarrith?”
“She quit a few years back,” Karol said. “Went to Herez. Last I heard she was raising up two nephews and a niece her brother left behind when a fever took him. Cep Bailan took her place.” Marcus hoisted an eyebrow, and Dannien sighed. “I know. He’s a good man in a fight, though.”
“Your force, your decision,” Marcus said.
“Damned right. So what in all hell happened to you? Last I heard, you were on our side.”
“Still am,” Marcus said. “Just which side’s ours got complicated.”
“This ragtag bunch out on the road looking to join up, go burn some Antean farms on our way to sack Camnipol?”
“No,” Jorey said. “We won’t let that happen.”
“Well, Marcus,” Dannien said. “The puppy here’s saying we’re not on the same side after all.”
Marcus sighed. “You know these poor bastards weren’t behind any of what happened. They’re doing what they’re told because they’re loyal. Or because it seemed easier to strap on a sword than die in prison for defying their lords. We can march out onto a field and see who can kill how many of the other side if you want. Then if you win, you can go make sword-shaped holes in a bunch of farmers and tradesmen who couldn’t have stopped any of this either. That’s going make things better?”
“If the war’s not the soldiers, then who? The lords? All right, then. Hand over everyone you have there with noble blood or title. We’ll just kill them, and only put the rest in chains.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Marcus said.
“Had a hint. How about these priests? Got any of those?”
“I’ve got the same one who went to Suddapal and helped get the word out what we’re really fighting against. And no, you can’t have him either. Don’t be an ass about it.”
“And what should I be?”
“You know damned well that Cithrin and her bank stood against all of this from the start. Well, turns out they weren’t the only ones. There are good people in Antea who’ve been working against Palliako and his priests. We’re on our way up to rein this in. Only I can’t do it if I’ve got to crack your ass the other way before I go.”
“Rein it in how, exactly?”
“Not going to talk about that,” Marcus said. Mostly because I haven’t worked it out, he didn’t add.
Karol Dannien leaned back in his chair. His eyes were so cold they would have put a skin on water. “You hear about the children?”
“What children?” Jorey asked, but Marcus could hear in his voice the boy already knew.
“Suddapal rose, yeah? We popped out of Kiaria, sent Fallon Broot and his bunch swimming south for Lyoneia without a boat. Took back what was ours to start with. Palliako threw the hostages into the Division. Right now, while we’re being polite to one another, there’s hundreds of children who… how’d you call it? Weren’t behind any of what happened? Hundreds of kids that weren’t behind any of it either, rotting and feeding worms at the bottom of the biggest ditch in Antea.”
Jorey closed his eyes, pressed his knuckle to his lip. Funny how close horror and exasperation could run together. Marcus felt it too. Of course Geder had done the thing. Anything to make it all worse.
“Hadn’t heard that,” Marcus said. “Not much pleased now that I have.”
“Well that’s big of you,” Dannien said. “So let’s review, yeah? You’re marching the same Antean soldiers, some of them, that pulled these children away from their families and shoved them up north to die. You’ve got one of these mind-breaking spider priests in your pocket who you won’t hear of handing over. And what you want of me is I go back and tell these men and the ghosts of their babies that we ought to stand aside and let you pass by. Did I get that right?”
One of the Timzinae guards shifted his weight. Marcus paused a long moment to see if an attack would follow, but the man thought better of it.
“It sounded more convincing before you said it that way, I’ll give you that,” Marcus said. “But let’s say your side too. We pick a place and fight. Some of your men die. Some of Kalliam’s men die. Maybe you and I live through it, maybe we don’t. Whoever wins… what? Gets to brag about it? No dead child comes back. No wrong thing that’s happened gets undone. A bunch of angry, confused assholes hack each other to death in a field or else they don’t. Now tell me why my way’s worse?”
“We’ll make Antea an example to anyone else who pretends to empire,” Dannien said, biting each word as it passed his lips. “And there will be justice for their atrocities.”
“There’ll be more atrocities, at least. And it’ll be you doing them this time. So that’s a change,” Marcus said. “Not sure you’re made better than Palliako by going second.”
God smiled, he thought. I’m sounding like Cithrin now.
“There has to be a reckoning, Wester,” Dannien said.
“You’re right. There does,” Marcus said. “But this ain’t it.”
In the silence, the breeze made the leather tent sides thrum in their frames. A bird called out three sharp and rising notes, like a trumpet calling the charge. Marcus felt his weight centered between his feet, his hands soft but ready. He hadn’t been aware of preparing for violence, but here he was. Prepared. The odd thing was, his mind felt clearer and more his own than it had in months. Some things resisted being forgotten.
“You don’t stand a chance,” Dannien said.
“That’s what they said in Northcoast,” Marcus replied.
“No other way?”
Marcus felt his plans slipping into place already. How many men he had, and what supplies. Where Karol stood on the plain and the mountain above it. The dragon’s roads and the merely human dirt tracks and the deer trails and streams. He saw what he’d need to do later, and it shaped what he had to do now. Hopefully Jorey Kalliam wouldn’t take offense.
“No other way,” Marcus said. “If it’s a fight you need, Karol, I’ll hand it to you. And then I’ll beat you fair. Afterward, we can talk about justice and reckonings while we wait for Suddapal to pay your ransom.”
Karol Dannien stood. The rage made his face darker. His neck was almost purple with it. “You always were a prick.”
He left, the Timzinae guards trotting to keep up. Marcus leaned against the table, glanced at Jorey Kalliam, then away. The boy had the shocked look of someone who’d just taken an unexpected blow. “Sorry about that. Overstepped myself.”
“Not sure I’d have done better,” Jorey said.
“Still. It wasn’t mine to decide, and… well, I may have decided.”
Vincen spoke for the first time since they’d come. His voice was steady and deep. “What are our chances of winning through?”
Marcus shifted, looking through the seams of the frame where the daylight glinted through. He wanted to be sure none of Dannien’s soldiers were near enough to hear, and even then, he spoke low. “They’ve got more men, and better rested. They’ve got position on us, and given all we had to leave behind, we can assume they’re better armed. They know about what the spiders can do, though I don’t think Kit would be willing to use that power to help kill people. It’s a problem for him.”
“What do we have?” Jorey asked, and his voice was solid as stone. He had some promise.