Carnelian regarded the trophy. Without the skills the Wise jealously guarded there was but one way it could have been removed from its wearer’s neck.
As he followed Osidian and Aurum into the watch-tower, Carnelian glanced towards the stables ramp. It was the way back to his people and poor Lily. He yearned to be with them, but knew he was too conflicted. His confidence that the victory justified the blood price was ebbing. They would look after each other.
‘Why do you linger, my Lord?’
Carnelian gazed at Osidian with Aurum beside him and wondered how it was he had come to have these two as allies.
‘Has the Grand Sapient already been fed his elixir?’
It took a moment for Carnelian to make sense of the question. Then alarm sparked in him as he realized he had forgotten all about it. ‘The homunculus is down in the camp.’
Osidian nodded. ‘Good. I want him to wake.’
Carnelian was thrown further off-balance. ‘The Grand Sapient? Will that not be dangerous?’
Osidian made a smiling gesture that seemed somehow too soft in his hand to be convincing. ‘Have we not just broken the power of the Wise? I think we can handle one blind, old man.’
Carnelian regarded him. Could the maggots or the victory have made Osidian lose his awe of Legions? More likely this bravado was for Aurum’s sake. ‘Why do you want him awake?’
Osidian made another vague gesture. ‘During the negotiations it might prove useful to have direct access to one of the Twelve.’
Weariness overcame any further attempt at opposition Carnelian might feel he ought to make. There were already enough battles to fight. Besides, in the morning things might appear clearer.
Roaring, the vast wave sweeps in. Hunched halfway out of his dream, he stands in the deepening shadow of the rising dark wall of water bracing for the unbearable weight of its impact.
Carnelian opened his eyes, desperate to escape. The familiar ceiling beam of the cell was an anchor against dread, but the roaring sound was still in his ears, reaching him from the nightmare’s churning depths. He sat up, realizing the sound must be real. He peered out through a slit. Down on the road the Lepers were pouring north. At the margin of their tide, the mounted auxiliaries were herding them. Fear clutched him. It was but a matter of moments before he had put on his mask and pulled his cloak around him, then he left the cell.
Emerging from behind the monolith onto the road, he paused, blinded by the morning, feeling the din as if it were his nightmare wave rearing up before him. Regaining his sight, he saw a torrent of Lepers climbing the ramp onto the road, pouring along it and swirling through the gap in the leftway wall into the land beyond, but it was a gathering of the more than twenty Lesser Chosen commanders that compelled his attention. Forbidding beings, they stood at the centre of concentric rings of prostrate Marula, marumaga legionaries and, further out, auxiliaries. As he approached, an odour of fear wafted up from the abased as they crawled from his path. It gave him the impression he was approaching a pack of predators in possession of something they had brought down. The contrast of their stillness against the Lepers’ storm of motion chilled him most.
Two of the Masters turned. Their gold faces glinting darkly in the shadow of their cowls made them seem to be peering into the world of the living from some remote, infernal realm. As the circle opened for him, he saw a mound of legionary collars piled in their midst.
‘My Lord Suth,’ said one, his deep voice Aurum’s. ‘Behold the evidence of our victory.’
Carnelian glanced at the service collars, the fire of their gold dulled and clotted with gore. He looked up, searching for Osidian. There was a slight inclination in the heads of those Lords that led his eye round to the one inspiring their deference. ‘And Imago?’
‘There are only fifty-two collars here and his body was not found,’ said Osidian.
Carnelian knew there should be fifty-four.
‘If he still lives, he will come to me.’
Carnelian tried to deduce the basis of this certainty. Jaspar had failed not only Ykoriana, but also the Great. He could hardly expect to find succour among the Wise. Thus, all he could hope for now was that he might come to some accommodation with Osidian.
Aurum gazed north. ‘He will be in a nearby watch-tower. The only leverage left to him is controlling communications between ourselves and Osrakum.’ The Master’s tone of contempt was edged with glee.
Osidian shifted and all there turned to see him indicating the collars. ‘My Lord Aurum, oversee the loading of these onto a beast and escort it to the nearest tower. There make arrangements for them to be couriered to the Clave.’
‘Under whose seal, Celestial?’
Osidian removed Legions’ ring from his finger and gave it to Aurum. Carnelian could not see how this could work. ‘Will Jaspar let them pass?’
Osidian made a smile gesture. ‘We have to leave him something to bargain with. I expect we will, quite soon, manage to persuade him to send them along the road under the seal of He-who-goes-before. I shall now climb to the heliograph and attempt to open communications with him.’
‘May I accompany you, Celestial?’ Carnelian asked.
Osidian lifted his hand in assent. The other Lords bowed low as they let them through.
‘What are you doing with the Lepers?’
In the shadow of the monolith, Osidian’s mask had a sinister cast. ‘I have no further need of them.’
Chilled by his tone, Carnelian, glancing out, saw some Leper stragglers moving off along the road and wondered if Lily was once more among them. He denied his dread its hold on him and mustered his strength for a fight. He turned back. ‘You are going to honour the oath you swore to them?’
Disdain was frozen into the gold of Osidian’s mask. ‘The situation has changed. As soon as the supplies I have sent for arrive from Makar, we shall march upon Osrakum. Even if I wished it, there is no time to train Aurum’s crews to replace their Chosen commanders.’
Carnelian understood then from where Aurum’s renewed vigour had come. ‘What have you promised him?’
Osidian made a gesture of dismissal. ‘What is pertinent is that my imminent triumph in Osrakum has made him unconflicted in his support. With him come those he commands.’
‘I did not think you would so easily betray your honour.’
Osidian’s fingers began to curl, but then quickly straightened. ‘There will be time enough to send him back once I have no further use for him.’
Carnelian felt icy fear at where his next question would lead, but he knew he had no choice but to ask it. ‘And what if the Lepers do not accept this?’
‘Do you imagine they are in any position to defy me?’ Osidian turned into the shadows of the stables. ‘Persuade them to leave while they still can.’
Carnelian was left frozen where he stood, watching Osidian become one with the darkness. He could not rid himself of the conviction that the Master who had massacred the Ochre had returned. Were things sliding towards the abyss as they had done before? Osidian had had no further use for the Tribe; they had been in his power too. Lily and her Lepers had become at least as much of an affront to his vision of himself as had been the Ochre. Carnelian felt his fear fraying into panic. How much had this to do with him letting the Lepers take Osidian prisoner? Even without the maggots gnawing at his flesh, this was not the kind of humiliation Osidian left unrepaid. Suspicion arose in him. Had Osidian really lost control in the battle? Had he really been unable to steer Jaspar’s rout away from their left wing? The wing commanded by the woman to whom he had sworn his oath.
Carnelian centred himself. Osidian had not yet moved against the Lepers, though he could have done so easily. There was some hope in that. It seemed his oath still bound him to some extent, but for how long? The Lepers must leave immediately.