She wasn’t much of a mage, because she didn’t sense him as he glided in behind her, then hesitated.
I’m about to kill a pregnant woman …
But she’s a Dokken.
He punched in the thin blade while putting his hand over her mouth to keep her silent. She sagged against him and dropped to the floor and died less than a minute later. The foetus lasted another minute. He felt it die, because he’d linked part of his awareness to its heartbeat. He felt he kind of owed it that, although he couldn’t have said why.
Agnes Yune had some strange ideas about when a child became human. So did the Kore. Whatever they thought, this felt like murder … but there was a war on.
From above, he heard the sound of sudden violence – the cohort had obviously broken in – and that distraction nearly cost him his life.
Someone bellowed behind him and he spun to see an immense shape waving a huge scimitar coming at him. Instantly he fired off his most powerful mage-bolt, even as the man emerged into the light. The searing burst of energy punched into the man’s huge chest, charring his clothes and sending him lurching backwards, screeching in his own tongue. As a lamp lit his face, Ramon recognised him from the oil painting.
Merda! It’s the rukking caliph!
‘Sir,’ he cried, ‘I’m sorry!’
Damn it, I’m supposed to be
rescuing
the poor bastido!
He ran towards the caliph as he staggered away, following him to what turned out to be the top of the central staircase. Below, people were milling about, both servants and soldiers, and all obviously terrified. They were trying to block off the doors and windows with whatever they could find – he could see planking, chairs, tables, even a metal bath.
When they saw their lord at the head of the stairs, clutching a bloody and burned hole in his chest, they cried out in shock and outrage, and as Ramon stared in horror, the caliph tumbled backwards down the staircase, smashing his head as he went, and landed at the foot in a bloody heap.
Rukking Hel, I’ve just killed the Caliph of Ardijah …
A woman stood staring at the massive corpse that slid to a halt at her feet.
He recognised the calipha from the painting as well. In the flesh she was even thinner, as skinny as a stick, and about half as pretty, but she had a vivid, birdlike presence. She was clad in a glittering, heavily embroidered gown encrusted with gems – he was quite certain they were real – more befitting a ball than a battle.
Ramon watched as her face changed emotion five times in two seconds:
fear-anger-worry-hope
– then something that looked a lot like
triumph
. She looked up at Ramon, pushed out her small bust and cast him an enquiring look. ‘Magus?’
Sol et Lune! That was the shortest mourning period in history
.
‘Calipha. How may I help?’
As she looked up at him, her head held proudly high and her eyes appraising, there was a clatter behind him and his cohort poured down the stairs and took up formation about him. Lukaz glanced at him. ‘Sir, what is your command?’
‘Just wait,’ Ramon told him quietly, his eyes on the calipha. Her servants were still shouting in alarm and the braver ones, mostly the soldiers, threw themselves into a cordon about the young woman, who hadn’t flinched.
Moving as if she had been born for this moment, she drew herself to her full height – which was not even as tall as Ramon – and replied in Rondian, the tongue he’d addressed her in, ‘That rather depends. Are you here to rescue me or ravish me?’
He shouldn’t have had to think about that. ‘Ahhh. Rescue … ?’
The young woman raised her eyebrows and looked at him in the way that only someone born to rule could truly manage. ‘You say this, who have slain the caliph, my husband?’
‘Errr …’
She looked down at her expired husband with the most virulent look of hatred and contempt he had ever seen. ‘The caliph is dead,’ she announced, in tones of the utmost satisfaction. ‘Long live the calipha.’
She turned and looked at her people, who were looking in confusion from the dead man to his living wife. ‘
Uzyn kranli Calipha Amiza!
’ she shouted, jabbing a finger to the floor. Ramon saw half of the people kneel immediately, but the other half were wavering, and they were the armed ones.
‘
Uzyn kranli Calipha Amiza!
’ she repeated.
Time for the rescue bit …
He stepped to the head of the stairs and shouted, ‘Long live the calipha!’ and when they looked blank, he did his best to mimic her words: ‘Oozun … cranley … calipha amiza!’ He kindled mage-fire in one hand and jabbed a finger at them. ‘
Kneel!
’
Thankfully, the calipha’s people caught on fast; they fell to their knees before their mistress and the new ruler of Ardijah smiled triumphantly up at him before ascending the stairs to stand at his side.
She shouted orders to the men and women below and they burst into action, sealing off the entrance and dragging away the body of the caliph. It took eight men to do it. Then she looked at Ramon, her eyes hot. ‘Thank you, Magus. You have freed me.’
‘You’re most welcome.’ He eyed her up and down. She wasn’t a beauty, but she had a kind of intense conviction that could freeze limbs. ‘I am Ramon Sensini, Pallacios Thirteen. We’re liberating Ardijah.’
‘Wonderful! I am Amiza. Welcome to my home.’ She grabbed his arm and as she dragged him towards the nearest room, an office with a massive divan against one wall, he caught a glimpse of Pilus Lukaz and his men, gazing at him in bemusement.
Then the door slammed shut and the Calipha of Ardijah was all over him. His conscience began to jabber at him, but relief at his survival and the exhilaration of victory were telling him something far different and he found himself helpless as she thrust him towards the divan, shedding layers and revealing skin the colour of the crema of a Silacian coffee and as smooth as the costliest silk.
‘Now,’ she said in a decisive voice, ‘you ravish.’
Sorry, Aggy, ethics were never my thing …
And then, some time later …
Sorry, Sevvie …
*
Dawn, appropriately red, shimmered on the waters of the floodplain. The vivid palette of oranges and pinks swirled at the fringes of the bloody sun as the light chased the night from the sky and lit the moon in marbled cream and grey. Ramon thought how strange it was that the most beautiful sunrises came after those nights filled with the most horror.
He sat on the battlements by the cupola at the northeastern corner of the northern gatehouse. Last night archers had fired a torrent of arrows down upon Seth Korion and Sigurd Vaas’ men from here; this morning there was little to show that such a battle had taken place. The last few wagons trundled across the causeway into the keep, leaving the space before the gates almost empty now. But the air was thick with smoke and the acrid smell of blood. Corpses were being hauled away to the funeral pyres, and the captured Keshi were being marched south to be handed over to the Khotri commander. He didn’t like to think what would happen to them, but right now he had more immediate problems.
Sevvie was sitting beside his knee, watching the sun with a strained look on her face – not because she was in pain, but because she didn’t care for the calipha, who had been openly flirting with her man – in fact, they had just had quite a spat about it and things were still tense between them. His own sense of guilt didn’t help.
At least she doesn’t know how far it went.
Jelaska had captured both Yorj Arkanus and Hecatta with her conjured necromantic spirits, but unfortunately Zsdryk had got away. Even so, they had control of both the northern and southern island fortresses, and the calipha’s men had turned on the Keshi garrison with glee once Ramon had secured her aid.
Their own losses hadn’t been bad, despite the carnage at the gates, but they could ill afford the death of Sigurd Vaas. Jelaska had taken the news with fatalistic fortitude, like someone who expected bad news as a given, though Ramon was sure he’d heard her muttering something about a curse.
Now Kip ambled over and stood beside him, the sunlight bronzing his massive shoulders. He looked as cheery as a man who’d enjoyed a really good night out. Regret and sorrow didn’t appear to be part of the Schlessen tribesman’s nature. He was pleased to see Baltus Prenton here too; the Windmaster had outmanoeuvred the Dokken shifters pursuing his skiff and now he and Kip were sharing some potent spirit they’d unearthed from somewhere and chuckling over the more grotesque deaths they’d witnessed. They paused every now and then to toast one of the fallen.
An irregular thumping sounded on the stairs and Seth Korion hobbled towards them. The arrow in his thigh had been removed with much swearing and the expenditure of a great deal of healing-gnosis, but he was already moving as if the wound were days old. It obviously still hurt though, and he looked relieved to throw himself down on a bench someone had dragged over.
‘General,’ Baltus greeted him, passing his flask.
Seth took a rash mouthful, spluttered and choked. Then he had some more.
So Baby Korion fought like a hero! Wonders will never cease.
Ramon tried to spot visible signs of this new and heroic Seth, but he still looked as uncertain and intimidated by life as usual.
‘Any news of Bondeau?’ Seth asked, but everyone shook their heads. There had been no news of any of the force they’d sent off to slow down Salim’s main army.
After a moment, Baltus said, ‘While I was trying to shake off those animagi I glimpsed a few flashes away to the east – maybe ten miles away? It could have been them …’
‘They should be back by now.’ Seth sounded anxious. ‘We should send scouts, or try to scry them.’
‘I have tried,’ Jelaska admitted, ‘but I got nothing – although he could be warding. That would affect me as much as an enemy.’
Seth swallowed and peered across the river.
Rukka mio, he actually cares
. Ramon allotted him a few credits. ‘I’ll send Coll,’ he said at once.
‘Safer if I fly out for a look,’ Baltus replied. ‘Just let me rest up for a few hours.’
‘What does that Noorie woman want?’ Severine put in, her face still tetchy. ‘That calipha. Skinny little bint has been strutting about the streets, making everyone she meets kiss her feet. Is she on our side?’ She glowered up at Ramon, furious that the calipha had insisted – in a very proprietary way – that Ramon escort her while her subjects swore allegiance to her.
Luckily, Sevvie didn’t know that she’d thanked him again in private afterwards too, and
very
passionately. He was feeling a bit bad about that, but he had considered the consequences of refusal.
Damn those ethics!
Jelaska interrupted his train of thought. ‘The calipha has generously given us rooms in the second tower, and she has allowed us to bring our army across – the bridge-keeps are too small to house more than a quarter of our men. She could have made things very awkward for us, but instead she has persuaded the emir’s soldiers to pull back and allow us to set up on both islands.’
‘Well, I don’t trust her,’ Severine said, fixing Ramon with a stare. ‘Why is she helping us? And why does she have to speak to Ramon all the time?’
‘I rescued her – of course she’s grateful,’ Ramon explained, not looking at her.
‘Too bloody grateful,’ Severine said sullenly, crossing her arms.
The other magi all looked at each other awkwardly, except Baltus, who winked ostentatiously at Seth. ‘I’m rather impressed with her,’ the Brevian said. ‘Apparently she’s already packed off the caliph’s other two wives: sent them back to their families with nothing but their clothes. She is clearly a woman who knows how to deal with rivals.’
‘So am I,’ Severine said tersely.
‘She’s not a rival,’ Ramon said, equally curtly. ‘She was in need of a protector and I happened to find her first. But,’ he said, looking firmly at Sevvie, ‘I am
not
interested in the calipha, except for how she can help us get home.’
‘I know what you men are like,’ the Pallacian girl said, holding her belly as if to emphasise her vulnerable state. ‘Any opportunity and you’ll take it, then blame the woman.’
Sevvie’s words were uncomfortably close to the truth, but lies were contagious: once you started, you had to keep telling new ones to cover up the old ones. He fell back on a half-truth. ‘Sol et Lune, woman, she scares me! I’m not going near her.’
‘I’ll talk to her.’ Kip smirked. ‘I’m not scared of women.’
‘You should be,’ Jelaska growled.
Seth raised a hand. ‘Enough. She’s been useful to us. Let’s talk about what to do next.’
Ramon gave him a grateful look. ‘Thank you! Some leadership! Who’d have thought.’ He met Seth’s eyes, and for possibly the first time there was humour on both their faces.
‘We need to rest, and reorganise,’ Jelaska said. ‘The soldiers are exhausted, we have a lot of fresh wounded, a lot of men to mourn …’ Her voice dropped away for a moment, then she continued, ‘and we’ve got to get ready for Salim.’
‘We need food,’ Ramon added. ‘Cloth for bandages. Ointments and purifying spirits. Leather. Wagons, to replace those we used for the river attack. Steel, timber. Horses. Whatever we can purchase from the calipha.’
Seth snorted resignedly. ‘What do we bargain with? Won’t the Emir of Khotri cut her adrift if she starts demanding such things for us? She’s not our hostage.’
‘She should be.’ Severine glowered.
‘We can’t afford to antagonise the Emir of Khotriawal,’ Ramon replied, ‘not with Salim a day away. But if we can keep the calipha onside, she will give us a way to talk to the emir. So we must keep her happy.’
‘Well, we all know what’ll make her happy,’ Sevvie replied snarkily. ‘More parading with her favourite mage.’
Baltus and Kip sniggered behind their hands like schoolboys and Ramon sighed.
Remind me … oh yes, she’s having my child … and ethically, I’m a bad person …
‘Look, I’ll never talk to her again, all right? Someone else can – send Bondeau when he gets back!’