Hell's Foundations Quiver (43 page)

“No,” Clyntahn grated. His shoulders hunched, and he shook his head. “We can't just cut and run, damn it! Think of the message that would send to all of the Faithful in Siddarmark!”

And of the way it would threaten your damned concentration camps, Zhaspahr
, Duchairn thought coldly.

Which, unfortunately, didn't mean Clyntahn was entirely wrong. Duchairn lacked the Grand Inquisitor's army of spies, but he spent far more time than Clyntahn out in the city of Zion itself, actually speaking to Mother Church's sons and daughters. Despite the fact that he knew he'd become deeply beloved, especially by Zion's poor, he remained a vicar and one of the Group of Four, so no one was going to complain openly to him. But the Bédardists and Pasqualates who oversaw the soup kitchens and winter housing projects were another matter, and so he knew about the creeping malaise, the uncertainty—even fear—which had stolen through the hearts and minds of Zion on the heels of the stunning reverses the heretics had handed Mother Church's defenders.

Maybe it has, but what does Zhaspahr think is going to happen if the heretics do to Wyrshym what they've already done to Harless and Ahlverez?

“—a valid point,” Maigwair was saying. “But if we suffer another—”

“We won't,” Clyntahn said flatly. “You've just pointed out that the troops Green Valley's operating with are specialized, and that the heretics don't have many of them. By the time rivers like the Ice Ash start melting, the Harchongians will be able to move, too, won't they?”

“Probably,” Maigwair conceded. “But they'll be moving overland, and—”

“And most of them are from
North
Harchong,” Clyntahn interrupted again. “If we have a force anywhere that can move in winter conditions, it's got to be
them
, doesn't it?”

“Well, yes. But—”

“Haven't you and Rhobair been telling us how important it was to equip and train the Harchongians? And haven't we been getting all those glowing reports about how well it's gone?”

“We have,” Maigwair admitted. “It would still be better to shorten Wyrshym's lines of communication, Zhaspahr. And I doubt very much that the Mighty Host”—he used the term quite seriously, Duchairn noted—“will be able to move before the heretics are able to attack in the Sylmahn Gap.”

“If they attack out of the Gap, they'll be attacking directly into Wyrshym's entrenchments,” Clyntahn riposted. “With Wyvern Lake in their way, they won't be able to move all of that damned mobile artillery of theirs right up in his face, either. At worst, he bloodies them first, then has to retreat along the high road, which means he damned well ought to be able to stay ahead of them. At best, he stands his ground and cuts them to pieces. By the time anybody could come in from
behind
him, the Harchongians
will
be able to move.”

Maigwair darted a glance at Duchairn from the corner of his eye, and the Treasurer shrugged very slightly. No doubt Clyntahn's analysis rested far more on his prejudices and refusal to disgorge his prize than on logic, but he did have a point. And as he'd just reminded them, it was Duchairn and Maigwair who'd transformed the Mighty Host of God and the Archangels into an increasingly formidable weapon. He'd supported them only grudgingly, too well aware of how bitterly the Harchongese aristocrats who'd supported Mother Church so faithfully and for so long had opposed every step of the change to be happy about it. Under the circumstances, it shouldn't surprise anyone that he meant to call in his debt and insist the Harchongians be used where
he
thought they were most needed.

“All right, Zhaspahr,” Maigwair sighed. “I'll tell Wyrshym to hold his position, and Rhobair and I will do everything we can to improve his supply situation. But you need to be aware that the Army of the Sylmahn's our most exposed, vulnerable force. If the heretics come up with another surprise.…”

He shrugged, and Clyntahn grunted.

“In the meantime,” Duchairn said, “I'd like to discuss Brother Lynkyn's latest report. In addition to the improved technique for banding the iron guns, he's achieved some initial success in duplicating the heretics' rocket throats. There are still some technical problems, and it looks as if it's going to take rather longer than he'd anticipated, but—”

*   *   *

“I hope
you
have some good news for me,” Zhaspahr Clyntahn growled, flinging himself heavily into the comfortable chair behind his desk. “If I have to put up with another meeting with that pair of—!”

He cut himself off with an angry gesture, and Wyllym Rayno nodded silently. The increasingly close partnership between Duchairn and Maigwair worried Clyntahn more than he would admit, even to Rayno. He might have a sound basis for that concern, too. Unfortunately.…

“I'm afraid there isn't a great deal of ‘good news' available at the moment, Your Grace,” he said.

Clyntahn's jowls darkened, but he pushed himself back in his chair and took a visible grip on his temper. He wasn't pleased with the Archbishop of Chiang-wu, not at all. Yet however tempestuous his passions might be, he still realized how badly he needed Rayno or someone like him.

“Tell me,” he said flatly.

“I've completed my investigation of that business at Camp Chihiro,” his adjutant told him. “It confirms the initial reports. The commander of the camp's guard force sent a pursuit after the murderer, but his men were unable to overtake him. They were able to confirm that there was only the one gunman, however, and according to the letter they found at the scene, it was Mab. And from the range at which the shots were fired, they could only have come from him or another of the false
seijins
.”

Clyntahn's eyes flashed, despite his resolution to restrain his temper, but Rayno made himself return his superior's glare levelly. There was no point trying to skate around the truth. Especially since the contents of “Mab's” letter had already been made public throughout the Temple Lands.

Wyllym Rayno was not a man much given to despair, nor was he the sort who admitted defeat readily, yet the relentless appearance of blasphemous broadsheets bade fair to drive him to do both. There was no way whoever was posting them could keep evading his agents inquisitor this way. It simply wasn't possible! Yet it continued to happen, as inevitably as the rising and setting of the sun. If he watched nine hundred and ninety-nine walls or village bulletin boards, the broadsheets appeared on the thousandth one. It was as if the heretics posting them knew exactly where every single one of his agents was on any given night.

And even if
that
hadn't been true, how were they produced so well and how in Shan-wei's name did they get distributed so
quickly?
The engraved illustrations rivaled—or even surpassed—the finest plates from Mother Church's own Office of Engraving, the paper was first quality, and the printing itself was always crisp, clear, and clean. There were differences between the illustrations, differences in wording, and they were printed on different stock, yet it was as if every one of them had been produced in the same superbly equipped printing office. Except that they
couldn't
have been, because they appeared everywhere from Desnair the City to Gorath to Zion herself and as far north as some wretched village church in the Province of Pasquale. Not only that, but in addition to the content they all shared, each of them contained stories about purely local events—stories that proved someone in the city or the town or the village where they were posted was responsible for them. Yet try as he might, his agents inquisitor had never
once
intercepted a single person on his way to tack one of his poisonous assaults on Mother Church onto a handy wall somewhere.

They
had
snapped up—and made examples of—almost a hundred corrupted individuals who'd sought to
emulate
whoever was behind the master campaign. But there'd been no comparison between the smudgy, amateurish sheets those people had been carrying and the ones which had inspired their imitation. And, truth be told, he wasn't certain turning them into examples was the best solution. It made the point that people who posted such things were heretics and servants of Shan-wei, but it also made the point that people were doing it despite the promise of the Punishment if they were caught at it.

At least no one seemed aware of how broadly spread the damnable things had become … so far, at any rate. Not even all of his agents inquisitor realized that. Most of them, like the communities they were charged to protect, believed they were a purely local phenomenon. He'd gone to some lengths to keep it that way, but his most senior subordinates had to know the truth, and an awareness of how ubiquitous the problem had become was seeping steadily through the rank and file of the Inquisition's investigators.

And that son-of-a-bitch Mab and the Fist of Kau-Yung aren't helping
, he thought bitterly.

It still worried Rayno more than he wanted to admit even to himself that the assassins had discovered the title his own agents inquisitor had bestowed upon them, even though Father Allayn's investigations had turned up no signs that the “Fist of God” truly had penetrated the Inquisition. Unfortunately, all that proved was that they hadn't
found
any penetration, not that it didn't exist.

At least, unlike Mab's accomplishments, none of their assassinations had made it into those pernicious broadsheets. Apparently even they shrank from the probable reaction of Mother Church's loyal children if they discovered someone was systematically murdering God's own stewards on Safehold. But there was no telling how long that restraint would last. And while word of the killings probably would inspire an outpouring of rage and fury—except, perhaps, among the handful of people who knew the truth about the dead vicars' personal lives—it would also be proof Mother Church could not protect even her own princes.

“I assume the contents of his latest letter are appearing in every realm?” Clyntahn said, biting each word out of solid granite.

“Actually, no, Your Grace.” Clyntahn's eyes narrowed, and Rayno inhaled surreptitiously. “It doesn't appear to have been … generally distributed. Instead, it's appeared at each of the holding camps. And—” he sighed “—on the door of St. Edmynd's.”

“What did you say?”

The question came out quietly, almost calmly, which was far more terrifying in its way than the most enraged of bellows. St. Edmynd's Church was the largest church in the Siddarmarkian city of Sairmeet. And Sairmeet was the central headquarters from which Inquisitor General Wylbyr Edwyrds administered the Inquisition in Siddarmark. In fact, the church was directly across the street from the mansion Edwyrds had requisitioned for his use.

“I'm afraid it's confirmed, Your Grace. It was posted on the church door in a blizzard, but the guards swear no one could have gotten past them. They've been relieved, of course, in light of the possibility that they themselves put it there. Personally, I'm strongly disinclined to think they were responsible, since they were the ones who found it and removed it—before anyone else had an opportunity to see it, fortunately. They'll be carefully interviewed, but I doubt anything will emerge to discredit their stories. Nonetheless, I'm sure rumors about it must've leaked out. Coupled with the broadsheets posted at the camps themselves, I'm afraid it's had a … significant effect on the morale of Bishop Wylbyr's Inquisitors.”

“This has gone on long enough, Wyllym.” Clyntahn's voice was still low, but “calm” was
not
the word Rayno would have chosen to describe it. “The only way this could be happening is that the false
seijins
truly are Shan-wei's demons reintroduced into the world by that Shan-wei's bastard Cayleb and his bitch empress. There's no other explanation. But the
Writ
and the
Book of Schueler
both teach us that demons cannot succeed against the holy. They may win battles, as they did in the War Against the Fallen, and even the Faithful may fall before them. But in the end—
in the end
—they must always fail before the
kyousei hi
of the Archangels and the wrath of God Himself. There can be no other outcome.”

His eyes met Rayno's, and the archbishop saw a deep, burning determination that was far more frightening than Zhaspahr Clyntahn's customary fury.

“Call in however many agents inquisitor it takes.” The words were beaten iron. “This so-called ‘Fist of God' operates here in Zion. You've taken some of them, so we know that whoever and whatever they may be, they aren't these accursed false
seijins
. They're mortal and they can be killed—enough of them have killed
themselves
to avoid capture to prove that. I want this city flooded with your agents. I want these murderous bastards
found
, and I want some of them taken
alive
. I want them put to the Question, and then I want them put to the Punishment. We'll find out who's killing the vicars of Mother Church, and we'll reveal the depth of their sin to the Faithful and make our dead brethren a rallying cry for vengeance and justice. And at the same time we do that, we'll inform all of Mother Church's loyal children that there are among them agents of Shan-wei, like those godless murderers, spreading sedition and lies in the service of Cayleb and Sharleyan, aided and abetted by the demons Athrawes and Mab and all the others. We'll turn their own lying propaganda against them.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Rayno murmured, even as his heart sank.

If the resources already hunting for the Fist of Kau-Yung were insufficient, merely adding more manpower was unlikely to produce success. He was convinced the Fist
could
be found and destroyed—as Clyntahn himself had just pointed out, they had proof its members were, indeed, mortal, however foul the evil to which they'd sold their souls. But he was equally convinced it would take time. That, ultimately, it would depend upon some unanticipated break, some mistake on the Fist's part which would yield to patient, meticulous investigation, rather than simply throwing additional bodies at the problem.