The distinction did not appear to bother Siala. ‘We need them. There are others, sniffing round the gold. Tachos Ironskin, Veren’s Staff and Bane I’ve heard of, Mistress and the Jesters I have not. Do you know of them? Are they rabble; are they worth paying for?’
Zhia nodded. ‘I know them, and if you can control a group of Raylin, some are a veritable army in themselves. Think of Mistress as a superlative horse-trainer, except the horses are wyverns. The Jesters
are
worth whatever obscene price they will demand; they are bastard sons of Death himself and Demi-Gods in their own right. Veren’s Staff, though, might be too much trouble: his reputation often fails to mention his intractable madness -for pity’s sake, Veren died during the Great War. I’m at a loss to know how the man thinks he is inhabited by the former God of the Beasts. The same goes for Bane, whose obsession with vampires will make him impossible to trust.’ She smiled. ‘You know, I cannot remember the last time I heard of so many Raylin in the same place at once. It’s rare to have more than two or three together, and yet you’ve gathered a dozen of the strongest in Scree.’
‘Whatever it signifies, it will be a blessing for us if we can forge them into an army. That is what I need you to do, Sister Ostia, organise them so that when the Farlan come we have soldiers who are trained, and know who’s giving the orders. The noblemen leading them are under my control, but the troops are not battle-ready. Since you know these Raylin already, you can use that connection to influence matters. Can you do that? I have few other Sisters of the Circle I can rely on.’
Zhia made a show of thinking, but this was exactly what she wanted. She had a number of enemies amongst the Raylin, but if she was in a position to influence Scree’s armies, she could dictate the coming course of events.
‘I can do it,’ she said finally. ‘I’m no soldier but I can organise the legions to bring this about. Do you have any competent Sisters at all I can add to my staff?’
Siala spread her hands helplessly. ‘Half of them have fled to Helrect, to be further from the Farlan -as though Helrect could stand if Scree fell -and of the rest, I despair. All I have is what are left of the Fysthrall, who are stretched thin enough already. The Third Army consists of our remaining Fysthrall troops’ soldiers, and I need every one of those.’
‘What about that new girl, Legana? She doesn’t look like a fool, and a pretty face is always useful to get soldiers to do what you tell them. Can I trust her?’
Again, Siala looked defeated. ‘I cannot say. If you want her, then take her. Can you trust her? She was working as a whore until I took control of the city and her pimp thought to make some money by selling her to us. A shame he didn’t understand the principles of the Circle a little better.’ That put the ghost of a smile on Siala’s face; the pimp had obviously found a squad of soldiers at his door, keen to explain how the Fysthrall thought women should be treated.
‘Then I will take her and deliver you an army as soon as I can,’ Zhia said brightly.
‘Good. You will find the mercenary captains based in the Dawn Barracks, where I can ensure their obedience. Recruit as many more as you can, just be sure their commanders are drawn from Scree’s nobility.’ Siala’s eyes narrowed. ‘There is only one ruler of Scree, so please do not forget that my agents will be keeping a careful eye on everything. And now, I have yet more city officials waiting with yet more requests. Please, send them in on your way out.’
Zhia gave a slight bow and left. Outside, the men stretched and smiled with relief, then trotted obediently into Siala’s room while Zhia walked to where Legana and Haipar were leaning on the banister of the stair, talking softly together. She beckoned to the pair and they followed her downstairs.
‘I need somewhere private,’ she told them, and Haipar nodded curtly and led the way to a secluded corner on the first floor.
Once Zhia was certain they were alone, she relaxed and turned to face her new aides. ‘Haipar, a pleasure to see you again, and alone, too.’
The Deneli tribeswoman smiled like a cat. ‘Erizol is outside the city, but I’m sure she’ll gladly return to see you.’
‘Don’t bother telling her; I really don’t need the irritation.’ She stopped herself baring her teeth; Erizol the Fireraiser brought out Zhia’s temper in a way that few could these days. Bane and his petty little crusade against vampires bored her, but there was something about Erizol’s very personal hatred that annoyed Zhia immeasurably.
‘I don’t doubt it, but, ah—’ Haipar cocked her head towards Legana, who was watching the exchange with a puzzled expression on her face.
Zhia smiled. ‘Oh, don’t worry about Legana. She doesn’t pose any threat; no true member of the White Circle would be here under orders from a man.’
Legana stepped back, instinctively reaching for her dagger, but Zhia, moving faster than any human could, grabbed Legana’s wrist in an iron grip and pulled the woman close. Legana froze, trapped in Zhia’s gaze, until she blinked and let her expression soften. She released Legana’s wrist and pushed her back to beside Haipar.
‘Let’s not get dramatic here,’ Zhia said calmly. ‘I think we might yet become allies. What are you, a devotee of the Lady?’ Legana looked at Zhia and Haipar and nodded hesitantly, though she showed no fear now, only a flicker of apprehension. Zhia felt a small glow of satisfaction: Legana would indeed prove useful.
‘I thought as much. Your employer is Lesarl, the Chief Steward of the Farlan, yes? When you report to your master, please tell him that one day I will instruct him in the finer points of subtlety.’ She smiled. ‘Until then, you’re both my aides while I take charge of the army here and decide what I intend to do with it. Siala has just bitten off more than she can chew.’
‘Does this mean I’m the only genuine person here?’ beamed Haipar, her accent noticeably more refined than when she was in Siala’s office.
‘Well, shapeshifter,’ Zhia snapped, ‘I suggest you don’t spend too much time crowing about that -you’ve picked a poor employer this time, though I doubt you’ll have heard yet.’
‘About the White Circle? Please Zh—Apologies, Mistress Ostia, the entire city knows of it. They attacked Narkang and almost killed King Emin.’ Haipar shrugged, as though the news did not interest her one bit. ‘But I’m a mercenary, war is my trade and I go where they can afford to pay me. If that means going up against Narkang, so be it.’
‘But you would prefer to be alive at the end? What Scree doesn’t yet know is that the White Circle has made it clear their principal goal is to kill or capture the new Lord of the Farlan. Siala needs this army because she will soon be at war with the Farlan. Lord Isak is young and headstrong, and he now commands the largest army in the entire Land. I doubt he will be reluctant to use it.’
That wiped the smile from Haipar’s face. She’d been expecting the usual messy squabble, the sort of war that never quite flowers into anything too terrible but offers plenty of scope for profitable activities for her kind. Sitting across a poorly defended border from the largest army in the Land was not part of her plans. ‘So what are you doing here?’ she asked, a scowl on her face.
‘My business is my own,’ Zhia replied, ‘and I see no reason yet to discard an identity that has been useful. Things will need to be pretty desperate before I flee the White Circle, but I am quite confident that should it come to that, I would get out alive.’
Haipar had seen Zhia forced into a corner before, and if the Farlan did attack the city, there was no question: Haipar would want to be allied with Zhia. Raylin had no truck with loyalty and honour; you got what you paid for, and what you paid for were unstable tempers and barely controlled skills and talents.
‘So what now?’
‘Now, we have work to do.’
‘Work?’ Legana repeated, finding her voice at last. ‘You’re going to follow Siala’s orders?’
‘Certainly, since that was exactly what I had hoped for. She wants me to liaise with her armies to get them trained and give her a chance against the Farlan -at the moment she has a rabble: raw recruits, mercenaries of varying talent, unblooded noblemen and Raylin of all shades. A rabble will be useless, but a rabble they will stay unless someone takes control. That means I need to find officers, ensure each regiment has
some
experienced staff, and get whatever Raylin we have onto the command staff. You Raylin can smell trouble coming. Haipar, your first duty will be to persuade the Jesters to sell me a few of their acolytes, half a dozen, if possible, for there’s more than just training to do.’
Haipar gave a mock curtsey. ‘Smelling trouble is part of our job; we are mercenaries, after all.’
‘I know, but it’s an innate sense sometimes. You mentioned Erizol the Fireraiser; is Matak Snakefang travelling with you too? Did one of you suggest Scree for any particular reason?’
‘I—’ Haipar looked confused at the question. She smoothed her white-grey hair away from her tanned face. ‘I don’t think so. We decided it was time to hit the road again, and it took us this way. We didn’t know there were other Raylin here until we reached Braban, the village where I left the others. We’d been joined by Tachos Ironskin and some woman I didn’t know called Flitter, and city guards tend to get over-excited when they see more than a couple of us together, so I came to speak for us all.’
‘The fact that so many are congregating in Scree is important, I think -your kind are as bad as white-eyes when it comes to tolerating the presence of your own. There’s something in the air here, a storm brewing. I intend to find out what that is, and be ready when it comes.’ Her expression darkened. ‘When I see a wandering minstrel wearing an augury chain, it makes me think you Raylin might have got it right when you smelled trouble.’
CHAPTER 7
In the burnished light of evening Lord Salen looked down over the valleys and ravines that served as streets for the great city of Thotel. At this distance the pickets and patrols that kept the conquered inhabitants under control were silent, the torches and guard-fires little more than pinpricks of light. Salen enjoyed the sense of standing above the rest of humanity. Here, above the darkness of the streets, a trace of sunlight still remained. For a dizzying moment it felt like he stood on the peak of a mountain, his body light enough to float away into the abyss below.
He shook off the feeling and turned his attention back to Thotel, a city quite unlike any Menin city. The hollowed-out rock formations that the Chetse called stoneduns were massive weathered chunks of granite scattered around this deep valley like a giant’s discarded toys. Wind and water had eroded the softer stone to expose these gigantic boulders, then the Chetse had chipped and scraped until the rocks were riddled with tunnels and living chambers. The mud-brick houses that surrounded them looked like worm-castings in comparison.
Each stonedun had a clan name carved into the rock, identifying it as a community, a fortress in its own right. Some clans had refused to surrender to the Menin, believing their barred gates would hold them safe through a siege . . .
Lord Salen was leaning out of an open window at the highest point of one such stonedun. The rough rock ledge felt curiously pleasant against his palms, as though the wall still resisted, long after the gates had been torn open and the inhabitants slaughtered.
A brass-bound, wax-stoppered bottle hanging on a long golden chain from his neck chinked delicately against the stone and he pulled it up and slipped it into one of the many pockets of his patchwork robe. He was small for a white-eye, but he was the Chosen of Larat and Lord of the Hidden Tower, and his mind was sharper than his blade. He wore no armour and carried only a long dagger, but years of study had armed him with weapons few soldiers would even understand. Though the Menin were Karkarn’s chosen people -the War God’s own -Salen had always preferred the controlled ways of Larat to Karkarn’s brutal strength. In Lord Styrax’s absence, he had quietened this city with mere words. When he stirred himself to action, the very bedrock of Thotel would tremble.
‘Lord Salen?’ The messenger coughed uncomfortably, trying not to look too hard at the charms and amulets set into each of the brightly coloured fragments of cloth. Some made his eyes water, writhing to avoid his gaze; others, of tarnished metals, had gems that sparkled too brightly in their pitted settings. A few were impossible to make out in the gloom. Those were the one Mikiss found his eyes drawn to the most -he was glad that he couldn’t discern any details.
The mage didn’t move.
‘My Lord, a message from Larim,’ Mikiss repeated.
‘The maggots are quiet tonight.’
‘My Lord?’
‘The Chetse. Don’t you think they live like maggots, Mikiss? Tunnelling their way through these great stones; riddling these ancient forms with holes. There’s been violence every night since we took the city, but tonight is quiet. Perhaps even maggots have primitive senses, enough to smell something in the air.’
‘I wouldn’t know, Lord. One of the patrols killed some youths breaking curfew -one was carrying a weapon, so they were all executed, according to your standing orders.’
‘And the benefit of those orders is now plain to see: I am enjoying the peace it has brought to the city this evening. These people can only be cowed; a shame Styrax could not see that.’ The white-eye leaned over the balcony and looked directly down. Mikiss could hear the man’s rings scrape on the stone as he watched a ripple run though Salen’s robe, though there was no hint of any breeze.
‘Ah, the message, my Lord?’ Mikiss said again, trying to hide the apprehension in his voice. ‘Lord Larim has seen the wyvern approaching. Lord Styrax will be here very soon.’
‘Good. I’ve been waiting for him. I wonder what he’s been up to; what can have taken so long.’ Salen’s aristocratic voice was measured and calm, but Mikiss still found it sinister and shivered - he imagined a lizard would speak that way. Larat’s adepts were all like that: their words were measured, whispery, their eyes were clinical and inhuman. He knew treachery was planned, and he was beginning to feel as if the foulness in the messages he’d carried over the last few weeks had seeped out to infect him with the poison of Larat’s influence. A long-forgotten sense of duty, of honour, was awakening, crying for action, but he had felt Salen’s gaze on him constantly over the last week and he could hardly eat or sleep with that unnatural presence sitting cold and heavy at the edges of his mind. The weight of exhaustion dragged at his heels.