Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (10 page)

It was a mindboggling, treasonous thought.

So how welcome would we survivors of Shaliyah be in Vida?
he asked himself.

His suspicions about Shaliyah weren’t the only dangerous notions he had: on their trek in and out of eastern Kesh they’d seen the Inquisition and the Kirkegarde, the military arms of the Church of Kore, engaged in slave-taking on a massive scale, using unprecedented and utterly illegal methods. He’d found them rounding up native Ahmedhassans and not just enslaving them or killing them, but something far worse: forcing their souls into animals and construct-creatures to be used by Kaltus Korion’s army. And they’d been using captive Souldrinkers wielding strange crystals to do the deed – when Souldrinkers were supposed to be abhorred by the Church and killed on sight. It was heresy on a grand scale, a crime that ought to be shouted from the rooftops . . . except that it was clearly sanctioned at the very highest levels.

So now Ramon tried to work out if sending Baltus Prenton, currently their only pilot-mage with Severine still in her birthing-bed, to talk to the commander at Vida was sensible or stupid. The commander of the Vida garrison might have been under instructions to destroy the bridge anyway, but far more likely he’d had orders from the Inquisition to trap Seth’s force on the eastern shore, with the sultan’s army only days behind them.

‘I don’t think Prenton would be permitted to come back,’ he told Seth gloomily. ‘Where’s your father’s army?’

‘How would I know?’ Seth replied bitterly. ‘I last talked to my father almost two years ago. As far as I know, the Northern Army were marching on Hall’ikut, then retreating through Istabad. The Moontide ends in nine months so they should be beginning to pull back. Armies can march about ten miles a day, but in this heat they can’t sustain that pace, so he’ll move early. They’ll have to be at Southpoint by the end of Maicin for the crossing, so I’d say they’d be near Istabad by now. I don’t think he’ll help us, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘If he found out someone had deliberately cut you off, he’d—’

‘He’d what?’ Seth interrupted sourly. ‘Does he care? I don’t know. He put me in Echor’s army . . .’

. . . knowing it was marching into disaster
 . . . Ramon grimaced. ‘Have you sent scouts looking for other crossings?’

‘Of course, north and south. The river widens as it goes south, while to the north it’s narrower but still impassable. The land is flat as a table, except for a few low ridges at a place Coll found two days north of here.’

‘Defensible?’

‘Marginally – but there are no fords, so we’d still be better off going south.’

‘The men are exhausted, Seth. We were pushing hard to get here, and Salim isn’t far behind us.’

‘Perhaps we can parley with them?’ Seth ventured.

Ramon frowned; he didn’t trust Seth’s judgement where the Keshi threat was concerned, not since Seth’s friendship with the Salim impersonator they’d held as hostage for a time. ‘No, we’ve played that card: Salim told us we had until the end of Septinon to cross the Tigrates or he’d have no choice but to attack, and that’s two days away – and we’ve got no way to cross the river.’

‘Yes, but when we agreed those terms . . .’

‘
Rukka mio
, they’re
Keshi
, Seth! They aren’t our friends!’

‘But Salim—’

‘That
wasn’t
Salim! That was Latif, who spends his life pretending to be someone else!’

‘So he said. I think it really was Salim,’ Seth said mulishly.

‘Well, how would we
know
? You never let us probe him.’

‘That would have been wrong, Sensini! It could have broken him.’

‘He was an enemy!’ Ramon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you have any idea what it looked like, you and him spending every waking hour together? To the men, you were fraternising with an enemy.’

Seth waved a dismissive hand towards the tents. ‘We’ve got two thousand Khotri and Dhassan women in our baggage train – all
I
did was talk! Latif was better company than anyone in this army!’ He looked away, and changed the subject. ‘If we can’t cross by the end of Septinon we need to find a defensible position.’

‘Well, at least we agree on that. It probably is too late to find a crossing. We need to think about defence. It’ll take days to dig in, wherever we go.’

‘But we’re magi. Surely we can cross a river—?’

‘Sure,
we
can! But our men? Think about it, Seth: the Tigrates is a mile wide, deeper than a three-storey building and flowing fast and hard as a mountain stream. And there are Inquisitors on the other side!’

Seth fretted quietly, then made up his mind. ‘Then we’ll march north to the place Coll found and dig in.’

‘That’s our only real option right now. Chin up, Lesser Son!’ He regretted using the old jibe even as he spoke it. One old philosopher had written, ‘Great men breed lesser sons’, and Ramon had gleefully picked up on it at college. He and his best friend Alaron Mercer had used the term to denigrate Seth Korion whenever they could, as revenge for the physical and mental bullying they’d endured from him and his cronies. But he knew Seth better now. ‘Truly,’ he added, ‘the rankers respect you, and so do I.’

Seth accepted that. ‘You get some sleep. I’m going to see if I can at least ask the commander in Vida what’s going on. And . . . Sensini, thank you for coming. I know you’d rather be with Severine and your daughter.’

They both started yawning; the sun would be rising soon and the men would be looking to their commanders to extricate them from this latest predicament, but Ramon had spent the previous day waiting to see if Sevvie would deliver and live, whether the child would come out bawling, or silent and cold. Right now, everything was just a little bit too much to deal with. So he stumbled back to his horse, Lu, who was being rubbed down by a groom, found his bedroll and looked for a quiet place on the far side of the corral, wrapped himself in a blanket and closed his eyes.

When he woke next it was noon, the air was hot, past breathing comfortably, and someone was shaking his shoulder. ‘Wake up, sir. We’re on the move.’

*

Seth Korion wandered away from the river, seeking his fellow magi. This close to the river, the air was sultry, and half the rankers hadn’t even erected tents, sleeping instead beneath the stars. Here and there dark-skinned women slept among them, dusky creatures with pinched faces and bony limbs, some shockingly young, all refugees from their own kind, gambling their lives on the affections of an enemy soldier far from his own home. He wondered what it would be like to be that desperate. Did they love the man beside them, or was he just the last toss of a weighted dice?

Despite being a pure-blood mage, his whole life had been ruled by fear – not of death or destruction, but more existential dreads: fear of failure, of falling short in his father’s eyes. Fear that his House’s fortunes would falter under his aegis. The name of Korion ranked high in the empire. The price of failing to consolidate and enhance that legacy would be subtle but terrible, and he’d never felt worthy of that burden.

Winding his way through the churned sandy ruts that were the paths between the tents, he passed drowsy sentries and men stumbling to the trenches to piss, some saluting, others too tired to realise or care that they had just bumped into their commander. The air was thick with sweat and damp bodies, a sweat-sour miasma that was unpleasant to inhale. He found Baltus Prenton’s tent, shoved the flap open as he bent over and pushed in. ‘Baltus! Wake up! I need you to— Oh—’

He flushed scarlet as a white blob in the semi-darkness resolved itself into buttocks with a pair of skinny legs, just as white, wrapped about them. The tangle of sheets and bodies fell still and two faces turned toward him: Baltus Prenton, the Brevian Air-mage, and Jelaska Lyndrethuse, the Argundian Necromancer, who was probably twice his age.

‘Sorry! Sorry! I’ll wait outside!’

‘We won’t be long,’ Prenton stammered.

‘We’ll be as long as we like,’ Jelaska disagreed. ‘Rukk off, General.’

Seth stumbled back out, tripped on a tent-peg and ended up on his arse. A sentry peered over at the commotion, then looked away as Seth stood, dusted himself off and went looking for fresh air.

Ten minutes later, Prenton and Jelaska found him at the riverbank. Both were still flushed from their exertions, and maybe a little embarrassment. They were both wearing Dhassan long-shirts and leggings.

‘Morning sir,’ Prenton grinned sheepishly, saluting. He was a career battle-mage and liked to keep things at least a little military.

Not so Jelaska, who regarded all this saluting and the like as nothing more than men stoking each other’s egos. ‘What’s so important you just barge into someone’s tent?’ she demanded.

Most considered Prenton a brave man when he’d started what Seth euphemistically termed ‘seeing’ Jelaska – for Jelaska’s partners had an unfortunate tendency to die, so much so that she considered herself cursed, even though curses didn’t actually exist; the gnosis didn’t work that way. But belief in curses was as old as belief in gods, and Jelaska didn’t get many suitors, though she was not unattractive, despite being gaunt and severe-looking; her world-weary face was shrouded in a tangle of softly ruffled grey hair. Her voice was husky, with a sultry timbre and for all her age, she had an enviable lust for life and living, which was ironic, considering she was a renowned Necromancer. Baltus Prenton, though, had a blithe confidence in himself, and he too enjoyed life to the full. If anyone was going to disprove the curse . . .

‘We need to open up negotiations with the commander of the Vida garrison,’ Seth told them. ‘They’re ignoring gnostic communication, so it’ll have to be face to face.’

‘Sure,’ Prenton said brightly. ‘Who’s going to talk to them?’

‘I am,’ Seth replied firmly.

‘Why you?’ Jelaska asked bluntly. She was a pure-blood too, and regarded herself as matriarch of the army.

‘Because I’m the one person we can send who the garrison commander won’t dare to arrest.’

Prenton scowled. ‘Unless Siburnius has got to him. That rukking Inquisitor . . .’ His voice trailed off and Seth tried to hide his shudder at the thought of Ullyn Siburnius, Commandant of the Twenty-Third Fist of the Inquisition, and his tame Souldrinker Delta; what they’d been doing to the Keshi and Dhassans they’d captured was both astounding and disturbing. And Siburnius had fled directly to Vida.

‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take,’ he acknowledged. ‘We need to find out what’s happening – we’ve had no news for nine months, not since Shaliyah.’

‘I’d like to know where your father is in all this,’ Jelaska agreed.

‘Exactly.’

‘I’ll come too.’

‘No – you’re our strongest battle-mage. I want you here, with Ramon. I’m leaving him in charge.’

Jelaska grunted in a most unladylike way. ‘Has Severine pushed out the baby yet?’

Seth grinned. ‘A girl: Julietta.’

‘Good. Hopefully that’ll help keep him focused on getting us all home.’ She laid a proprietary hand on Prenton’s shoulder. ‘Make sure you bring my man back, General. Or you’ll have me to answer to.’

*

Wind rushed through Seth’s hair as the skiff banked a hundred feet above the river and the walls of Vida. It was an hour past dawn, the best time of the day, and the walls were bathed in golden light. He sat in the fore-deck of the skiff, concentrating on the nearest tower where he could see a small cluster of men, mostly clad in red or black-and-white; legion or Church. Seth focused his sending on a tall man in the purple of senior Imperial service.

They circled again, Prenton using Air-gnosis to keep wind in his sails.

Finally the aether crackled.

the voice responded, pointedly ignoring his claimed rank.

Imperial Revenue? What are they doing here?
An arch-legate was someone even his father would be wary of. They only got to such lofty ranks through purity of blood and absolute loyalty to the emperor.

But by belittling Seth, Milius was belittling Seth’s men.

he replied, marvelling at his own daring.

There was a vexed pause, then Milius replied tersely
,

This seemed as much aimed at those with him as Seth himself.
I bet Siburnius is down there, urging him to have me locked up.

Prenton took the windcraft down with practised ease, clearing the walls and dropping into a slate-stone courtyard. Seth climbed briskly from the hull and faced the trio who came to meet him. Introductions were made: Ullyn Siburnius was indeed present, together with the garrison commander, a half-blood noble named Bann Herbreux, who was promptly ignored. Here, only Arch-Legate Milius mattered.

Milius was a tall and impressive-looking man with a flowing grey beard and shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair. He was clearly cultivating a look of eternal wisdom. ‘General Seth Korion, a pleasure to make your acquaintance,’ he boomed, striding forward and offering his hand: a conciliatory gesture as if among equals, even if Seth’s claim to general’s rank was flimsy – ‘by acclamation’ was still legal, but it hadn’t happened since the First Argundian War.

‘Arch-Legate,’ Seth replied evenly, reminding himself that he had twelve thousand men and three thousand camp followers relying on him. ‘You’re far from Pallas.’

‘The needs of the empire are many,’ Milius replied. ‘I’m told you’ve led your men out of Shaliyah? A great feat, worthy of your illustrious name.’

So, flattery first . . .
‘It was a team effort, Arch-Legate. We all pulled together. But we aren’t safe yet.’ He indicated the river, invisible beyond the buttress walls behind him. ‘We had thought to cross here, but we find the bridges down.’