The Fall of the Dagger (The Forsaken Lands) (21 page)

“Makes you have some pity for the Grey Lancers, doesn’t it?” she replied, cleaning her sword on the bedcover.

He shook his head. “Ah, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. They had a choice and they chose to reject Shenat teachings long before they met a sorcerer. Ignorance, greed and gullibility. Fobbing horrible combination.”

She looked across at Perie. “You all right, lad?”

“I’m fine. Killing sorcerers always makes me feel good.” He straightened up with the spiker in his hand, having wiped it clean on the bedspread.

“Then let’s get out of here,” she said. “We’ve done what we came to do. And as an added bonus, we now know your name, Master Gadfly. Or should I say, Sergeant Buttercup Horntail? Nothing like a spot of coercion to bring memory to the fore, is there?” She smiled sweetly.

“Tell me I didn’t say that,” he growled, an appalled expression on his face. “That can’t be right, surely!”

“Buttercup?” Peregrine asked. “
Buttercup?
You can’t be serious. Did he really say that?”

Gerelda adjusted her scarf over her face once more. “Loud and clear. I heard him. And we all know you can’t lie under coercion.” She opened the door and peered out into the passage. “All clear, Buttercup.”

“Shut up, you leprous lawyer!”

As they ran downstairs again, Perie had a hard time muffling his laughter.

T
he defenders of Gromwell Holdfast watched in joyous disbelief as
Dragonfly
sailed away in the direction of Twite, leaving the waters at the foot of the cliffs unguarded for the first time in almost a year, all without a shot being fired.
Golden Petrel
was now anchored where
Dragonfly
had been.

Prince Ryce celebrated on the eastern wall by broaching the very last bottle of the castle’s brandy with Beargold and Anthon Seaforth. “Here’s to freedom,” he said. “The siege will be broken within a sennight, mark my words!”

“How is one ship going to break the siege?” Beargold asked. “They could supply us, I suppose – or help us escape by boat. No more than that.”

“Juster will find a way,” Ryce said. “You’ll see.”

Beargold gave a derisive snort. “That inane fop? What does he know about sieges?”

“We’ll find out soon.” He should have known Beargold’s innate pessimism was not so easily dissipated.

“They’ve just launched a boat,” Seaforth said, looking through the spyglass. “They’re sending somebody across to us.”

“I imagine that’ll be Lord Juster,” Ryce said, and curbed a sudden sadness. If only Bealina and Garred were there to see this.

“It’s close to three years since you saw him,” Beargold said. “He could be dead, and the ship in the hands of someone else. Besides, he’s renowned for his inconsistency. They call him ‘Jiber’ about town, did you know that? From some sailing term, meaning to change direction.”

Ryce hid a smile. “I don’t think that word has been applied to him because he changes
loyalties
, Beargold. More to do with whether
his bedmates have tits or pizzles. Here, Anthon, give me that spyglass.”

“Va’s galls, they had better be bringing some food with them,” Seaforth said. “I am so sick of weevils in my biscuits, and I swear I’ve forgotten what fresh fruit looks like.”

“Pickle me sour,” Ryce said. “Can’t you two stop complaining? Help has arrived!”

He rested the spyglass on the top of the wall to steady it against the wind and peered through. It took him a while to pinpoint the longboat in the expanse of blue water, but when he did, the first person he saw sitting astern was the flamboyantly dressed Juster Dornbeck, his topcoat embroidered around the sleeves, his hat resplendent with peacock feathers and gold pins. One hand clutched the hat to his head; the other was clasped around the top of a cane – gold-knobbed, Ryce wouldn’t have minded betting.

He shifted the spyglass to take a look at the second passenger in the longboat, seated in the prow. “Blister me speechless,” he muttered.
That can’t be Saker Rampion, surely?

But it was. Not in a witan’s garb, but smartly dressed in clothes of a foreign cut. The witan was still all sinew, whipcord and muscles, by the look of him, sword at his side, long dark hair tied at his nape.
It really is him.

He started to laugh. The last time he’d seen Saker, the man had been naked up on Chervil Moors…

“That’s madness. Cock-eyed madness.”

Saker leaned against the wall of the
Golden Petrel
’s wardroom, listening as Prince Ryce – of all people – protested Lord Juster’s plan to end the siege. The prince had obviously sobered in the years since they’d seen each other; he’d once been game for anything, especially if it involved recklessly risking his own neck. Now, after being brought down from the holdfast to a meeting on board ship, he was demonstrating caution and restraint.

The air in the cabin was heavy with the reek of the three unwashed men: Lord Seaforth, his cousin Sir Beargold and the prince himself. Compared to the others in the cabin – Sorrel, Lord Juster, Mate Grig Cranald and Mate Aspen Finch – the three from the besieged castle
were hollow-eyed, gaunt and filthy, their clothes not far from rags. There was an intensity about them too: the tight comradeship of men who had lived with the fear of death and prolonged deprivation.

Outside the sun was slowly sinking behind the cliffs, leaving the estuary a bruised plum hue under a blood-dark sky. Luckily the wind was slight and the tide was at the neap, because out on the water the
Golden Petrel
’s boats were still ferrying the holdfast’s occupants across to the ship. Ryce had agreed that, now they had a safe escape route for all the besieged, there was no point in holding Gromwell any longer.

Lord Juster’s plans, however, did not mesh with the prince’s. Juster wanted to take every able-bodied man and attack the Grey Lancers from behind, whereas Ryce wanted to raise an army of his own to seize Throssel and ensure the safety of his wife and son – before engaging the Grey Lancers.

“What if there’s still a sorcerer among that lot?” the prince asked.

“You just admitted you haven’t seen a sorcerer since Bealina was taken,” Juster pointed out. “You’ve also said that the lancers don’t bother to keep watch on the cliffs because they think
Dragonfly
had this escape route sealed off. We have a way of spying on them, thanks to Saker’s witchery and his eagle. We also have someone here with a Shenat glamour witchery. I’m told you already know that.”

Ryce glanced at Sorrel, inclining his head. “We’ve met,” he said dryly. “The last time under somewhat trying circumstances, for which I apologise.”

She smiled at him, eyes twinkling. “I’m sure our future relationship will continue to be beneficial to us both, Your Highness.”

Seaforth’s eyes widened at her obvious lack of deference, but Ryce returned her smile before replying to Juster. “We have very little ammunition remaining. We have scraped the bottom of our last barrel of gunpowder and we have one working longbow and ten arrows. We do have a number of crossbows and we’ve been making our own crossbow bolts. We burned the beams we salvaged from the wrecked part of the holdfast to keep the forge alight.”

There was an intake of breath followed by an appalled silence in the wardroom.

“Sweet Va,” Juster said finally. “You were that close to—?”

“We even reconfigured a number of crossbows to shoot stones,” Ryce said.

“
Stones?
You’ve been throwing stones at men in armour?”

“What armour?” Ryce countered. “Juster, these lancers are rabble. Dangerous rabble, but still rabble. Undisciplined, half mad, wretched farmboys and illiterate street sweepers. Ensorcelled and pitiable, but also totally pitiless. There is no honour in them, but no initiative either. The sorcerer told them what to do, and as far as I can see they will keep doing it until they die. They were never given armour and they don’t know how to make it. This is a mad war, my friend.”

“I think you’re both forgetting something,” Saker said into the ensuing silence. “Your Highness, you think that if you return to Throssel, you will find your family safe under your father’s protection. But Lord Juster has not long seen and spoken to the king. Believe me, he’s incapable of offering protection to anyone.”

“I’m afraid that’s true,” Juster agreed. “He’s very ill, and not in full command of his faculties.”

“Valerian Fox would not have any interest in placing Prince Garred with him,” Saker continued. “If he’s seeking some kind of legitimacy for his temporal rule, then he will want control of the prince himself. I imagine we will find that he has been declared the young prince’s guardian. It’s very possible that Your Highness’s son is under his wing in Vavala.”

The prince scowled. “No. I refuse to believe that.”

“What makes you think Fox cares about legitimacy?” Juster asked in support of Ryce. “He’s an amoral sorcerer!”

“Why bother to have an election to become Pontifect, unless it was to seek legitimacy?” Saker asked. “Your Highness is correct when you said this is a mad war. We have to rid our minds of past history and think how this battle will be
won
. Not how it can be fought, but how it can be won. By
us
. I never liked Valerian Fox, but I did once underestimate him. Never again. When a man holds a hot branding iron under your nose and the expression on his face tells you what he’d like to do with it—”

He had their full attention now.

“We are all scared of sorcery, but he is only one man and he
is reluctant to be profligate with his power. Each time he uses it, it is diminished. He can replace it by killing one of his sons, or by sucking the life out of a newborn. That has to complicate his life. These sorcerous sons you’ve told us about? They are his power – but they’re also his weakness. Kill them, and you leave Valerian Fox without weapons and the Grey Lancers without leaders. We can defeat a leaderless rabble.”

They were still silent, absorbed by what he was saying, so he continued.

“A large army is not going to win this war, because there never will be a single army to fight, or a single battle. There will only ever be small forces put in place and eventually left to their own resources – like this group of besiegers. I think we should fight them, vanquish them and move on, to do it again and again every time we encounter Grey Lancers.”

“Harsh words from a witan,” Lord Seaforth said, frowning. “I was always taught to show mercy in victory.”

“From what I’ve learned since I returned, they will never be normal men, or happy men, or kind men. Perhaps it is a mercy to bring their lives to a close. If they want mercy, all they’d have to do is surrender.”

“I agree with Saker,” Ryce said. “Small companies of soldiers scattered all over the country, ready to respond. Mounted, trained, armed, led by men like Lord Seaforth and Sir Beargold.”

Saker nodded. “An important, deadly task, but even so, a task that is only secondary to a different kind of battle – which is to kill all sorcerers.”

“How?” Ryce asked. “We’ve stayed alive and Gromwell did not fall because we were able to keep the sorcerer at a distance. He never had a chance to ensorcel us.” He eyed Saker with a puzzled frown. “And how is it that you think you know so much about these sorcerers when you apparently haven’t been in the country for the past two years?”

“There was another land which had an infestation of sorcerers in the Summer Seas. The present rulers were kind enough to tell us how they defeated their enemies.”

“How?”

But Saker wasn’t about to spill Chenderawasi Avian secrets, and speak of magical plumes, or a kris containing
sakti
distilled from a Raja’s bones and blood, its blade laced with barbules from his feathers. “Those who had power united,” he said vaguely. “They used a combination of witchery artefacts and ordinary warriors. Ardhi has access to some of their magic which we believe may aid us.”

“You trust them? People from the Va-forsaken Hemisphere?” Ryce was incredulous.

“Oh, yes. They have already helped us with their witcheries. ‘Va-forsaken’ is a stupid term coined by people who have never been to that part of the world.”

Ryce folded his arms. “All right. Go on. What next?”

“We have to find out who killed a sorcerer in Hornbeam, and how they did it. We have to use the same method.”

“And how do we find that out?” the prince asked. He was looking more and more worried.

“We’ve heard that Fritillary Reedling is alive—”

“Are you sure of that?”

“As sure as we can be without actually setting eyes on her. We’ve been inside the hidden Hornbeam shrine. We’ve seen what they are doing there and they as good as told us that Fritillary was behind it. She has organised resistance from without, using shrines as centres to train people to use their witcheries to fight.”

The look on Ryce’s face was a mixture of relief and astonishment. “I’ll be beggared,” he said. “Witcheries as
weapons
?”

“I suspect she might know how that sorcerer died and how to kill more of them. We need to contact her as soon as we can, and I believe we can do that through the Twite shrine.”

“If we are to attack these Grey Lancers here and now – where do we get weapons and ammunition?” the prince asked.

“In the hold,” Juster said. “I spent part of our spice money buying everything I could find in Hornbeam. We have enough to arm every able man that you’ve brought on board. I’m with Saker on this. We deal with the besiegers first, then see what we can find out from Pontifect Reedling, then we set about finding Prince Garred and his mother.”

Saker looked back at the prince. He read more resolution in his
expression than had ever been there when Ryce was at his father’s court. He was a different man. Harder, sadder.

But then, they had all changed.

In his heart, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, but he did know there was no going back.

T
he following day was spent in preparation. Two hours after sunset,
Golden Petrel
weighed anchor and headed up the estuary, all lights dimmed. On the weather deck, Juster and Ryce watched the crew go about their work as, four hours before dawn, the ship edged closer to the coast. Clouds filtered moonlight into an unpredictable glow, allowing only occasional glimpses of the white froth at the base of the cliffs.

Ardhi was up in the crow’s nest because he was deemed to have the best night vision. On the portside, working without a lamp, a seaman was counting off the knots on the leadline to measure the depth they still had under the keel. Everything around them was in darkness. Along the eastern horizon, the first pre-dawn light must have been creeping into the sky, but it was obscured by heavy cloud cover.

Below decks in the crew’s mess, the sailors and the prince’s men were checking weapons, sharpening swords and daggers, distributing the shot for the arquebuses and pistols and apportioning the crossbow bolts.

Sorrel was in her cabin. She had dressed in her men’s clothing and boots for ease of movement, idly wondering whether she would ever be comfortable in cumbersome skirts and thin-soled slippers again, when someone knocked at the door. It was Saker.

He took one look at her, and said, “What do you think you’re doing? You aren’t going ashore!”

She waved him inside with a sigh. “We have had this argument before. I’m tired of it.”

“A battlefield is no place for someone untrained in combat. It will be chaotic out there.”

“Don’t patronise me. Do you think I don’t know that?”

“Your glamour won’t help you! You may not be seen, but a ball from a pistol, or the slash of a sword, could kill you nonetheless. And if Ardhi and I are worried about you, then it will have an impact on our effectiveness.”

She wanted to be angry, but saw his anguish. “Women agonise when their menfolk are in danger, but you men don’t stay at home because of it. I’m not brave. I don’t want to go. But I’m not the wife or sister or mother who waits at home, either. I’m part of our ternion.”

He winced.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” she persisted.

“Are you sure your presence in a battle is the best use of your talent?”

She considered his words with all the dispassion she could muster. “I’m not going out there to spike a cannon or run a sword through a lancer’s belly. I’m looking to see if there’s a sorcerer among the Grey Lancers. If there is, this battle will be lost unless he is identified and killed quickly.”

“Are you sure you could recognise one?”

“I think all three of us could, because of our witcheries.”

He shook his head. “That can’t be right. You had a witchery back when you first came across Prime Fox in the palace in Throssel. You never knew what he was! You’ve raised Piper and you’ve sensed nothing in her, either.”

Doubts shafted through her like needles of ice. “That’s – that’s true. But perhaps Fox is powerful enough to hide what he is. Besides, back then I was careful to keep out of his way. I don’t think these sons of his are like him. From what Prince Ryce told us yesterday, they are pale approximations who fade a little every time they use their witchery.”

“We’re not sure all folk with witcheries recognise them for what they are.”

“We’re different. We’re a ternion that has both witchery and
sakti
.”

He thought about that. “The Rani did say that a man who imbibed too much
sakti
became their first Chenderawasi sorcerer. Sorcery here could just be too much stolen witchery perverting and twisting those who were never granted it by an unseen guardian.”

“I’m going out there, Saker. All three of us are going. We will only succeed as a ternion. Piper depends on us, and Va knows how much else. I won’t take it for granted that I’ll recognise a sorcerer.” Mischievously she added, “Although it may be easier than we know. Prince Ryce says the ones who command the lancers wear black, not grey!”

He gave a reluctant laugh. “Don’t rely on that either!”

From somewhere above came the sound of footsteps thudding on the deck, then the scraping rattle of the anchor running out. She stepped into his arms, and he enfolded her in a hug. “Take care. We both need you,” he said.

She leaned back slightly to look at his face, her worry breaking through. “You’re going to twin with the bird, aren’t you? I don’t know how you do it. Living in two heads…”

“Sometimes I don’t know either.”

He gave a lopsided smile, but she wasn’t deceived. He was struggling and there was no way she – or anyone else – could help him.

Sorrel and Ardhi disembarked three hours before dawnbreak with the first group of fifty men leaving the ship, led by several men who’d grown up in the area and been employed at the holdfast. As they assembled at the edge of the cove, it was like watching a pack of dogs aching to start a hunt. Listening to their soft chatter, Sorrel knew they relished the chance to wreak revenge for the prolonged siege. Their destination was the far side of the holdfast. They would have to loop around out of sight, travelling in the dark, aiming to be in position at about the same time as the second, larger and better armoured contingent under Prince Ryce arrived close to the main gate.

Ardhi was not only barefoot, but bare to the waist. He’d oiled his body with something he had brought from the Summer Seas. An advantage, he told her, in one-on-one combat, not only because it made his skin slippery, but because it helped prevent infection of wounds.

A surge of fear washed through her. For him – for all of them. She had to resist an urge to touch him, to tell him how much she cared. Instead she said, “I’ve decided to wait for the next group.”

He tilted his head, considering, assessing.

“Really?” he asked, and even in the dark, she could see he’d arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “They have Saker to tell them if there are any sorcerers.”

She did not reply.

“You want to look on your own.”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” He undid the sheathed kris and handed it to her.

She could have said he needed it more, but he carried a staff, an ordinary dagger and a sailor’s cutlass, so he was well-armed even without it. Besides, she had an idea that either she accepted it, or he insisted on staying with her.

She took the kris.

“
Seri
guard you,” he said.
Seri
, the living soul of the land and sea, the foundation of all that was Chenderawasi life. The closest concept they had to Va.

She smiled her thanks.

“Are you intending to start a – a—” He searched for the word he needed, but couldn’t find it so he substituted a word in Chenderawasi.

She made a guess at its meaning. “Diversion?”

“That’s it.”

“It did cross my mind that one might help. Prince Ryce estimated they have five times the number of men we have. We need every tiny advantage we can get.”

“Tents usually burn well,” he remarked. Behind him the other men were already filing off the beach in silence.

She gaped at him. How the rattling pox did the irritating man know that she was carrying a lighted coal?

A question for another time.

“
Before
the signal from Saker’s eagle would be best,” he continued. “It’s going to drop a stick on us when it is time to attack.” He turned and vanished into the darkness, hurrying to catch up with the others.

I swear, he reads my mind
…

She fished into the purse at her waist to check on the lit coal placed in a mullein stem, the cook’s customary way of keeping an ember going for a fire. Peeping inside the hemp wrapping, she made sure it was still alight. The cook had been helpful, but he must have
told Ardhi what she had asked for. Rot them, there was not a man on the ship who didn’t try to mollycoddle her!

Shaking her head in a mixture of exasperation and affection, she started down the path leading from the cove to the main gate of Gromwell Holdfast. Used for years as the cart track between the sea and the castle, even in the dark it was well-defined, twin lines of pale sandstone through the coastal tussocks. She walked it at a steady pace, not needing a guide, knowing she’d be at the Grey Lancers’ encampment before Prince Ryce’s contingent. With her glamour, she could walk openly.

Just after the sun had risen, she reached a rise overlooking the outskirts of the camp and stopped dead, shocked to have arrived without encountering any guards. Arrogant overconfidence on their part, surely, to think guards were unnecessary.

Bisected by the cart track, a line of scattered tents straggled along the banks of a tiny stream, extending to her left and right as far as she could see. The tents closest to the track were the largest, some with outside shelters and rough-built trestles and benches.

The track she’d been following crossed the stream over a stone bridge. No one was using it now, although there was a four-wheeled dray pulled off to the side, still loaded with half a dozen casks. They had been covered by canvas, now partially loose in the wind, exposing enough for her to recognise them as the size of gunpowder kegs. Stacked under a makeshift shed on the other side of the track were larger casks and barrels. Pickles and wine, she guessed. There was no sign of any horses, mules or oxen.

Directly below her, the camp was waking in a leisurely fashion. Campfires burned and the first meal of the day was being prepared. Some men were at their morning ablutions along the stream. No one talked to anyone else, or even interacted much. When she looked to the top of the opposite slope, she could see the cannon mounted on their gun carriages on either side of the track, and a few scattered sentries on watch, their gaze focused on the distant battered walls of the holdfast and the remaining pock-marked tower. The walls were bare of sentries, but the reason for the lack did not appear to have occurred to any of the lancers on watch.

She moved away from the track, searching for any hint of smutch.
A stench of rot assaulted her nostrils, enough to make her gag, but she didn’t think it was anything to do with sorcery. The slope down to the tents had once been covered in vegetation, but the trees had been cut for fuel, and the meadow grasses and bushes were dead. As she walked on, it was clear the slope was now a midden heap. Human and animal excrement was mixed in with rotted food and carcasses. Some of what she cracked underfoot included human bones. Sweet Va, they did not bother to bury the dead.

The horror crept up on her, one little piece at a time. The insidious stink that soaked into her clothing. Images for personal nightmares: the broken grin of a skull; a disembodied arm with the flesh falling into green shivering slime wriggling with maggots. The grating buzz of flies and bluebottles disturbed from their feasting, blundering into her face and crawling into her ears and eyes. The boldness of the rats, their sharp whiskered faces glaring at her. The nauseous way the ground oozed underfoot where the rot was alive with slithering things.

This was the worst thing she had ever had to do with her glamour: match herself to that revolting background.

She cast aside her squeamishness and replaced it with burning rage.

Prince Ryce, Lord Juster at his shoulder, headed the main group. Leaving the cove at dawn, they followed the coast towards the castle, and then cut back inland, walking just below the crest of a rise through a low line of scrub, out of sight of the besiegers. Saker travelled with them. The sea eagle hated flying before the cool of the night had dissipated and it could catch the rise of warmed air, so it was an hour after dawnbreak before he could persuade it to leave its perch on the crosstrees of
Golden Petrel
for a preliminary look at the configuration of sentries – only to find that there were none, at least not at the besiegers’ rear.

“Told you,” said Ryce. “Undisciplined rabble. How far are we from the camp?”

He sent the bird cruising higher above the rolling hills and closed his eyes the better to concentrate, receiving disjointed glimpses of what it saw as he gave it directions it didn’t fully comprehend, let
alone want to obey. Asked to look at humans, it was indifferent and didn’t understand what they were doing, or how many there were. Hungry, it was more interested in the glint of water than in the doings of men.

“Ten minutes,” he told the prince and opened his eyes. “I’m not going to get much detail, but I’ve seen enough to wonder what kind of soldiers they are. No rearguard, no sentries, and their camp looks like a midden!”

“What would they fear? The local folk are terrified of them. Besides, they supposedly represent the king, and to fight them is treason.” He smiled bitterly at Saker. “You are a wanted man now.”

“I already was. And now I’ve tied my future to yours, Your Highness, whether you like it or not.”

“A-ha, I always said you’d be my Prime one day!”

He smiled. “I don’t think I’d be a good exemplar for the faithful.”

“Good,” said Ryce. “I like sanctimonious clerics about as much as I like sorcerers. Let’s push on.”

One of Prince Ryce’s scouts warned them that they were approaching the besiegers’ line of tents. They crawled up the rise that overlooked the camp and lay flat on their stomachs at the top.

“Va-damn their fobbing cheek,” Ryce muttered, looking through his spyglass. “Some of those tents are from the Royal Games we held in Twite a couple of years back. I recognise the colours. How far are we from the track to Gromwell?”

“About a mile,” the scout said.

“I’ve never seen anything that looked less like a disciplined company of men in my life,” Juster said. “This should be an easy battle.”

“A dangerous assumption,” Ryce snapped. “They’re not cowards. They fight like madmen bent on killing as many people as they can before they die. I’ve lost count of the number of times they tried to scale our walls. The worst fight – the one that lost us the main gate and the outer bailey – lasted a night and two days, and they fought with a savagery not easily forgotten.”

Beargold, lying on the other side of Lord Juster, grunted his agreement. “They don’t respond like normal men,” he said. “Think of… cornered animals, but unlike animals their aim is to slaughter with
as much pain as possible. Give no quarter, because you’ll get none. They don’t know fear. Worse, they prefer
not
to kill cleanly.”