Assassin's Gambit: The Hearts and Thrones Series (26 page)

30

A
horn blast startled Vitala from sleep.

Lucien leapt out of bed and began throwing on his clothes.

Vitala sat up and looked around the dark bedroom. She didn’t feel too groggy; it was probably around dawn. “What’s going on? What does the horn mean?”

“It means our scouts have sighted the enemy,” said Lucien.

Vitala’s stomach fluttered. The weeks of waiting were over. Later that afternoon, as the enemy drew closer, Lucien took Vitala up one of the towers near the southern pass for a look. The entire horizon was orange, as if she viewed a dazzling sunset, but the effect was no trick of the light. It was the uniforms of Cassian’s men. Her throat tightened as she finally grasped the enemy’s numbers. “Are they attacking us only here, not at Stonemaw Pass?” Lucien had stationed half his army here at Ashfeld and half at Stonemaw. The walls and fortifications were complete at both sites.

“He’s split his army. See? Count the battle standards,” said Lucien. “I’m sure the other half is on its way to Stonemaw.”

She stared at him. “That, on the horizon, is only
half
his army?”

•   •   •

The fighting began at sunset. A pair of bodyguards escorted Vitala to her tent, while Lucien remained near the front lines to command his troops. Vitala lay awake all night, terrified by each blast of the cannons.

When she stepped outside the tent and stared toward the horizon where the battle was taking place, the distant flashes of muskets and artillery told her nothing at all of how the battle progressed, only that the armies were fully engaged. Twice she heard the thundering of a rockfall released onto the enemy, and many times she thought she heard screams. But who was doing the screaming?

After dawn, the sounds of fighting died down, and Lucien arrived at the tent, exhausted and reeking of gunpowder. “The walls held,” he told her shortly, and collapsed in his bed without undressing.

Later, after they’d both rested, he explained further. The fighting had been bloody on both sides, but the rockfalls claimed many casualties, and the usurper, not expecting fortifications, had not brought enough artillery to break through the walls. “He has withdrawn,” Lucien said, “no doubt to regroup and bring in more cannons. This time of quiet shall not last long.”

He was right. The fighting began anew that evening.

•   •   •

Your role is not to do, but to inspire.

Vitala wandered among the wounded in the Healers’ tent, wondering how anyone could provide inspiration in a place like this.

The south side of the tent was by far the worst. Here the men whom the Healers hadn’t yet treated lay moaning on makeshift cots, grimy and reeking of blood. Healing magic took time to work, and the battalion’s few Healers were overwhelmed. Aides rushed about, bandaging wounds, trying to keep the men alive long enough to be saved by the Healer. But many of the men on the cots lay all too still. Last night a man burned along his left side had expired before Vitala’s eyes while she held his hand.

She stroked foreheads, wrapped bandages, and sat at bedsides. When she couldn’t bear the stench of death any longer, she moved to the northern side of the tent, which held recuperating patients whom the Healers had already attended. Some soldiers, after treatment by a Healer, could get up and return to the front. Others could not. A Healer’s magic could mend almost anything, but it couldn’t re-create a shattered arm or restore lost blood. Some of these men were merely weak and would recover in time; others were missing a leg, an eye, half a hand. Still, there was no blood here and no wound fever. These men weren’t in pain, but in some cases they had to adjust to a new reality.

She spent half an hour sitting by the bedside and stroking the arm of a man who appeared intact but couldn’t stop weeping. She wasn’t sure why, and he wouldn’t say.

“Empress,” called someone behind her.

She gave the weeping man a final pat and turned. The man addressing her lay in a cot; the bottom half of his left leg had been amputated.
Like Lucien,
Vitala thought with a wave of pity. She sat down beside him. “How are you feeling?”

“Do you remember me?” he asked.

All at once she recognized him. “Kryspin!” He was the man who’d shown her around the White Eagle encampment. Gods, that seemed so long ago. She stiffened as she remembered how chilly Kryspin’s demeanor had become when he’d learned she was Riorcan.

“Look,” he said, pointing to his leg. “I’m like the emperor now.”

“I’m so sorry. How did it happen?”

Kryspin shook his head. “Don’t remember.”

Vitala nodded. She got that answer a lot.

“But if the emperor can get by . . .” He smiled weakly. “I figure I can too.”

“Of course you can.” She considered taking his hand. Most men seemed to welcome it, but Kryspin . . . well, he’d been pretty obvious in his dislike of Riorcans. There was a longing look in his eye, though, and she could hardly treat him differently than the others. She took his hand, which was clammy. “You’re cold.” She grabbed the blanket at the foot of the cot and pulled it over him.

“Thank you, Empress.” He closed his eyes.

Vitala couldn’t help herself. “You don’t mind anymore that I’m Riorcan?”

He cracked an eye half-open. “You’re not Riorcan. You’re White Eagle.”

She smiled and smoothed the hair back from his brow. What was she really—Kjallan, Riorcan, Obsidian Circle, White Eagle? She was all of those and none of them. “I know a fellow who makes wonderful wooden legs. He made the emperor’s. When the war’s over, come and see me, and I’ll have him make one for you.”

“I’d like that,” said Kryspin. “Then I’d be just like the emperor.”

•   •   •

The war became a siege. While Vitala spent most of her days in the Healer’s tent, Lucien split his time between Ashfeld and Stonemaw passes, riding between them as needed. He was a hands-on commander, always involved in something, whether it was to set up an ambush or rockfall, exploit some weakness in the enemy’s line, or deploy a new tactic. Most evenings he came home to Vitala, but sometimes that was not possible.

“They’ve brought in more artillery, but the walls still hold,” he said on the eleventh day of the assault, yanking off his boot and turning it upside down. A collection of pebbles spilled onto the floor. Blackscar Gulch had once been the center of Riorca’s mining industry. Maws of long-abandoned caves gaped from the cliff walls, and flat shards of rock, the detritus of the old mines, were everywhere. They got into one’s clothes, one’s boots, one’s blankets. “We inflicted heavy losses on them today.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Vitala pushed Lucien into a chair, brushed the dust from his syrtos, and massaged his shoulders.

He turned and gave her a lopsided grin.

Gods, that was all it took now. He smiled, and all her blood flowed south. It was delicious, a promise of pleasure soon to come. After all, why shouldn’t they enjoy each other while they still could? The usurper could break through at any time.

“Have you heard anything from the Circle?” she asked.

“No,” he said, reaching for the belt of her syrtos.

“Nothing about the assassination? What about poisoning the enemy’s water? They said they would do that.”

“No. Nothing at all.” He reached up and kissed her, long and slow.

“Nothing about—”

“Shh,” he said, kissing her again. “I don’t want to talk about the Circle right now.”

31

T
he cliffside shelter had walls, shielding them from incoming arrows, but no roof. The rain fell in sheets, plastering Vitala’s hair to her face, dripping off her cloak, swirling about her feet, and carrying off the little rock shards by the hundreds. She squinted at Lucien, who, in the company of his fellow soldiers, was effortlessly drawing back a longbow. He loosed the arrow, and she tried to follow its progress as it plummeted toward the enemy forces in the gorge. She lost it in the driving rain, along with the other arrows in the volley.

“Do your arrows always strike their targets?” she asked as he nocked another arrow. “Because of your war magic?”

“I wish, but no.” He drew back the bow, aimed, and loosed. “It doesn’t operate at this range. I can’t even
see
individual targets. So much for never missing.”

She stared down at the gorge, narrowing her eyes to try to pick out detail. The visibility was awful. From their shelter on the cliff, the enemy forces were no more distinct than swarming ants. The rain, which had punished them for days, had not deterred the usurper’s forces from attacking. Today the enemy forces were bashing the walls with cannons and harquebuses. Lucien’s bowmen were targeting the cannoneers. They could not damage the cannons themselves, but picking off the men who operated them was nearly as effective.

Lucien shook his head, spraying raindrops everywhere, then mopped his face in exasperation. “Gods curse this weather! It will be the death of us all.”

•   •   •

Two days later, Lucien returned to the command tent in the early afternoon, pale and shivering and bedraggled, like a cat who’d fallen into a lake.

“Are you all right?” Vitala took his hand to draw him inside, where it was warm and dry.

He stayed put, refusing to be pulled out of the entryway. Perhaps he feared that if he had even a taste of comfort, he wouldn’t be able to resist it. “I’m not coming in. I have a mission for you.”

She stared at him. “What mission? Have you heard from the Circle?” She grabbed her oilskin cloak off a peg and flung it over her syrtos. Flavia, stir-crazy and eager for an outing, ran to her side.

“No. I want you to deliver a letter. Leave Flavia here.”

“A letter?” That sounded odd. “Has something happened?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said, and pulled her outdoors.

He led her down to the river, which was muddy and bloated to twice its usual size. Four soldiers were sitting in a boat, bailing it and looking rather like drowned rats themselves.

“Here.” He handed her an oilskin pouch. “There was a flood in Stonemaw Pass. It destroyed two of our walls—”

“Three gods, Lucien! Our walls are down?”

“I want you to take this letter to my cousin Rhianne and apprise her of these events,” continued Lucien. “The details are in the letter.”

“But what can Rhianne possibly do about it? What can anyone do? Are our troops holding steady?”

His voice was flat. “I want Rhianne to know, and you’re the only person I trust to get this letter to her.”

“Wait a minute. Is this about delivering a letter, or is it about removing me from danger?”

“You have orders, Vitala,” he said firmly.

“Gods curse those orders. Deliver it yourself!” Furious, she grabbed him by the front of his syrtos and shoved the oilskin pouch into it. “You get on that boat, and
you
take it.”

“I can’t,” he said softly.

“You’re the emperor. You can do whatever you want.”

“No, I can’t. Vitala, please just do this.”

“I will not!” she cried. “If you’re going to stay here and die with your men, then I’m staying too. I’m their empress.”

“I’m not planning on dying. We’re fighting back, but it’s imperative you get to safety,” said Lucien. “You could be carrying the heir to the throne.”

“I’m not carrying any heir, and you know it!”

Lucien turned his head and gestured, but the gesture wasn’t aimed at her. She followed his gaze, and four soldiers materialized from behind the trees. Gods curse him, he’d set up an ambush.

Vitala drew her pistol, but one of the soldiers knocked it away so quickly she could barely see his hand moving.
War mage,
she realized. With a touch of her mind, she released a Shard and grasped it in her fingertips. One of the men seized her arm. She whipped her hand around, ready to stab him, and saw his face.
“Quincius?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, Empress. I have orders.”

She couldn’t kill Quincius. She couldn’t kill any of these men. She dropped the Shard, and the soldiers grabbed her. Two of them bound her hands behind her back.

Lucien stepped forward and tucked the oilskin pouch into her syrtos. “I love you, Vitala.”

“Gods curse you!” she called back as the men led her to the boat and seated her in the bow. Lucien watched from shore, his head bowed.

Quincius released the mooring line. He and the other officers stayed on shore, while the four soldiers in the boat rowed to speed their progress downstream. As Vitala floated down the swollen river, Lucien’s form dwindled, but he never took his eyes off her. It was only when he’d disappeared from view entirely that she wished her final words to him had been something else.

•   •   •

The following morning, the rain finally stopped and the boatmen untied her wrists. There was nowhere she could run to, not with the boat in the middle of the frigid river. She curled up in the bottom of the hull, feigning sleep, and pulled out the oilskin pouch. If Lucien thought she wasn’t going to look at the letter, he didn’t know her very well. Besides, after tricking her like that, he deserved whatever he got. She pulled the letter out of the pouch, slipped a fingernail under the wax seal, and opened it.

Dear Vitala,
the opening read.

She almost laughed out loud. All right, he
did
know her well. Though the letter appeared short, there was a second page underneath the first. She flipped up the first page to see the second, which opened,
Dear Rhianne
. Vitala went back to the first.

Dear Vitala,

Shame on you! I knew you would not be able to resist reading this. By now you will know that a flash flood tumbled down the canyon in Stonemaw Pass and destroyed everything in its path—soldiers from both sides, and, most devastatingly, two of our walls. I’ve reinforced our troops at Stonemaw, but you are too much the Caturanga player not to realize that this is a bad turn of events. I shall have no peace of mind until I am certain you are out of danger. I’d have sent Flavia with you, but given her extraordinary swimming ability, I couldn’t be certain she would stay in the boat. You will see in the other letter that I have asked Rhianne to take you on board her ship. If the war is lost, she will evacuate you to Mosar. I know this plan does not please you, but if you love me at all, you will comply. If the usurper’s forces break through and death awaits me, I shall face my fate bravely, knowing that the woman I love survives. Please grant me this small measure of peace.

Yours now and forever,

Lucien

Vitala stared at the letter until the loops and whorls swam before her eyes. Then she read the one addressed to Rhianne. There were no surprises; it explained the situation and requested that Vitala be evacuated.

She lay quiet for a long time, thinking and occasionally wiping away tears. Then she refolded both letters and slipped them into her pocket.

•   •   •

When they arrived at Tovar, Vitala spotted several Mosari ships slipping up and down the coast, patrolling the river mouth. Three other ships remained in the harbor, and as her boat approached them, Vitala saw they were damaged. Sailors were up on the yards, replacing torn sails and splintered spars. One ship had lost its mainmast.

She’d expected to be taken to one of the ships, but it turned out Rhianne and Jan-Torres were on land, still in the town hall. The soldiers handed her off to the Mosari guards, who led her inside. Her arrival had interrupted Rhianne’s and Jan-Torres’s lunch.

“Empress!” Rhianne’s eyes lit with sudden pleasure, then turned worried. “Is Lucien all right? How goes the war? For over a week, we have heard nothing.”

Vitala took a deep breath. “Lucien is fine, but the storm dealt us a nasty blow, same as it did to your ships.”

“A Kjallan fleet happened to those ships,” said Jan-Torres. “But never mind. What’s happened in the gorge?”

“We had walled off the Stonemaw and Ashfeld passes and were holding the enemy soldiers at bay, but a flood knocked down part of the wall, and now the enemies will be coming through.”

Rhianne and Jan-Torres exchanged stricken glances. “Did he send you here so we could evacuate you?” asked Rhianne.

“No, Your Majesty. He needs me to carry an urgent message to the Obsidian Circle. I’ve come to request a horse, supplies, and some local currency.”

“Why you?” asked Jan-Torres. “Anyone could deliver that message. Why send the empress?”

“On the contrary, Your Majesty, the Circle is famously difficult to locate. I am the only one capable of reading the signs and finding an enclave.”

“Did he send a letter explaining this?” demanded Jan-Torres. “He should have sent guards to accompany you!”

“He could not have sent guards. The Circle executes all Kjallans who come too near their enclaves.”

“When you are
allies
?” Jan-Torres shook his head. “Surely not.”

“Come and sit with us,” said Rhianne. “You must be famished. Have some lunch, and you can tell us more.”

“With all respect, I cannot. I must be off immediately.”

“Absolutely not,” said Jan-Torres. “Sit down. You must give us a better explanation than this.”

“Janto,” said Rhianne soothingly, “I’m sure she has her reasons.”

“Your Majesty, please,” said Vitala. “Lucien’s life may depend on this mission.”

“Then I’m sure you can explain why—” began Jan-Torres.

Rhianne placed a hand over her husband’s, and he fell silent. “Of course we shall provide you with what you need,” she said.

Half an hour later, Vitala was galloping south on a fine black mare with provisions and a bag full of tetrals.