Except that wasn’t the worst case. The worst case was more like this, all the time, forever.
The Timzinae counterattack came. The column parted, and riders poured out, streaming toward Jorey’s force. The boy barely had to sound the retreat that they’d all known was coming. Marcus and the Anteans spun their horses and rode away, loosing arrows back over their horses’ rumps as they fled. The Timzinae followed them almost half a mile this time before turning back to their own column, careful not to be drawn so far out that they left a vulnerable flank.
Jorey and his force regrouped. It would take the Timzinae something like an hour to put themselves in order and be ready for the march north. So in something just more than half that, another group of riders would appear on the top of another hillside, renew their threat on the supply wagons, and they’d do the same dance again, over and over and over until one side or the other went so mad with impatience that it made a mistake—waited too long to retreat or pursued too far and exposed a weakness. If it was Dannien’s mistake, Jorey would pick off a few supply wagons. If it was Jorey’s, Dannien would slaughter as many of the Antean men as he could and leave fewer to slow his progress toward the butchery to come.
The previous day the army hadn’t made it farther than a mile and a half from breaking camp in the morning to building its cookfires at night. That had been a very good day for Jorey. The chances were thin that they’d manage to slow the army that badly for long.
“We can’t win,” Jorey said.
Marcus swung down from the saddle and gave the poor, exhausted nag he’d been burdening a cup of water. “We’re not trying to.”
“I don’t know if I can stand this.” He almost made it a joke.
“Well, I think of it this way. Every hour they spend moving their defenses around or chasing us through the grass or playing stare-down on us is one more that the people north of here get to watch their kids grow older. Every day is another morning they have the privilege of waking up next to their husbands and wives. Feeding their dogs. Living in the houses they were born in. The ones their parents died in. Because when Dannien’s men get to them, all that ends.”
“But there’s no victory for us. There’s no ending to it. It just goes on.”
“There will be an end,” Marcus said. “Chances are it won’t be one we like, but this doesn’t last forever.”
Jorey let that sink in. When he looked out toward the horizon, it was like he was seeing all the way back to Kiaria, Suddapal, Inentai. All the way back to the beginning of the war, whenever that had been. “This is what we did to them, isn’t it?”
“And what you’ll do to them again, if you get the upper hand,” Marcus said.
“Never again. Not if I can help it.”
“No? Well, good luck with that, but we’ll have to visit the question when we’re not down a well and drowning. Everyone loves peace when they’re losing the battle.”
Canl Daskellin’s scout arrived an hour later, just as Jorey was preparing to lead his men back out to harass the Timzinae column again. The scout didn’t come alone. Marcus would have recognized the Tralgu riding high in the saddle beside him if there’d been a blanket thrown over him. He spat, turned his mount out of the formation, and trotted over.
“Captain,” Yardem said when they drew alongside.
“Can’t help noticing you’re here, Yardem.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This isn’t Carse.”
“Isn’t.”
“I left you in Carse with Cithrin.”
“Did.”
“This won’t make me happy, will it?”
“No, sir.”
“All right. Report?”
“Magistra’s put together a scheme against the priests. She’s in Camnipol, and she needs Master Kit to make her argument.”
“You let her do that?”
“Stopping her wouldn’t have worked,” Yardem said. “And the situation’s desperate.”
Marcus twisted to look over his shoulder. Cithrin was in Camnipol working another of her mad plots. Of course she was. And when the city fell, she’d be in it. “How is it we’ve managed to be on both losing sides of this war?”
“It’s a talent, sir.”
“You might as well take Kit. Karol Dannien knows the trick of him, and Kit’s all but confessed to the men that it’s all hairwash anyway.”
“Be good if you came as well, sir.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Marcus said. “The Kalliam boy’s good enough, but he’s still green as grass. I’ll hold these bastards off as long as I can, but when it fails, get Cithrin away safe. If she’ll let you.”
Yardem flicked his ear, the rings jingling. “If you say so, sir.”
“It’s how it has to be,” Marcus said.
The poisoned sword across his back felt heavier. Or as heavy as always, only he was more aware of it. The sun slanted down from the afternoon sky, baking his skin and narrowing his eyes. The world all around him had a sense of being only half-real that came from having been too long on campaign. Depending on how he counted it, it was either since the march from Birancour or the caravan contract out of Vanai. Or since Merian and Alys died. It was hard to say when exactly one fight stopped and the next one began. That wasn’t just him, either. It stretched from the nursery to the history books.
“Should I ask who she’s trying to convince that they’re better off standing against the Lord Regent?” Marcus asked. “Or will it only make me anxious?”
“She’s approaching the Lord Regent.”
A hot breeze snaked off the wastes, carrying a breath of dust and salt. Far above, a hawk circled, hardly more than a dot against the pale-blue sky.
“Geder Palliako?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s talking Geder Palliako into fighting on our side? Against the priests?”
Yardem didn’t answer.
Marcus cleared his throat. “All right,” he said. “You get Kit, then. I’ll need a minute to tell Kalliam he’s on his own.”
The promontory on the south of Camnipol made it seem like the bones of the earth itself had lifted up the city wall. The land sloping out to the east and west almost glowed with springtime green, and an orchard they passed at sunset caught the orange light on millions of pale petals—the promise of a good harvest in autumn if the people tending them still lived. If the orchard hadn’t burned. Oxen worked the fields, digging furrows in rich valleys. They passed a slave master driving a line of Timzinae men linked neck to neck to neck with a dull iron chain. The slaver was Firstblood with a wide, friendly smile, bright, shallow eyes, and red cheeks. He looked confused when Yardem drew his blade and held the man down as Marcus and Kit undid the chain. Likely, they’d all run off to Dannien and join the march, so Marcus made certain they all remembered the names of the men who’d freed them. At least he could give Dannien a moment’s confusion.
Apart from that distraction, they rode hard enough that there wasn’t much opportunity to talk during the day, and at the simple camp they put up at night, Marcus fell into a torpid sleep, like a man recovering from a fever or else still in its grip. He slept to the sound of Kit and Yardem talking at their little fire about love and war and the spiritual consequences of violence, so probably it was better. Kit’s worn, gaunt look softened a little on the journey. The role of army priest hadn’t suited him anyway. Hearing his genuine laugh again was like seeing a friend who had been traveling a long time and only just returned.
They reached the base of the promontory in the late afternoon of the second day’s travel and began moving up the weird, looping path of dragon’s jade as it made its way up the cliff face. If there was any hope of keeping Camnipol whole, it was likely this. A company of slingers and archers could hold the dragon’s road and force Dannien’s army to go around to the east or west and find some other path up. Camnipol might be taken, but not from the south.