Antiphon (50 page)

He stretched out his hand beyond the railing and squeezed his blood into the ocean with a cry.

Vlad felt a tickle along the back of his neck and realized when Myr squirmed against him that he held her arm too tightly. He released it.

Could it be so simple?

He heard it rising in the stillness of the wind, felt the faintest vibration of it in the deck beneath him as it moved through the deep
waters. As it drew closer, it became a buzz and then a roar, and the sea heaved and bucked from it as it moved in a slow upward spiral toward them.

Already, Mal Li Tam was stripping off his robe and fixing the silver knife between his teeth. Around them, the crew raised a shout, and in the midst of that shout, Vlad made his choice.

With one hand, he slipped Myr’s knife from her belt. With the other, he pressed words into her forearm.
See the others to safety. You bear my grace.

It broke the surface off the starboard side of the bow, and he’d never seen anything like it. It was larger than a ship, long and made of a pitted metal that bent and flexed as it twisted through the water, gears grinding and shrieking as it moved. Dozens of jeweled eyes cast back the moonlight as it turned toward their ship.

Mal Li Tam leaped overboard from the prow with a loud cry.

Digging the edge of the knife into his own palm, Vlad Li Tam followed him.

Rudolfo moved through the forest quietly, savoring the silence once he was far enough away from camp. Twice, he passed guard posts, whistling his intentions to them as he slipped by and into the deeper forest. At last, he reached a clearing with a tree he could lean against while watching the stars.

The meeting with Philemus had not gone well. He’d watched the man’s face redden, and in the end Rudolfo had raised his voice to make his point clear. The second captain would follow his orders, but Rudolfo sensed a breaking point on the close horizon. The Gypsy Scouts were the pride of the Ninefold Forest, a fearsome fighting force, and reducing them to a type of state police did not sit well with anyone . . . especially among the officers. But word now sped south, and tomorrow, Philemus would follow the birds and return home to the Seventh Forest Manor. Tonight, Rudolfo needed to decide if he would ride with him. There was nothing here for him to do, and his epiphany held, the memory of it as fresh as the memory of the knife jarring his shoulder as he pressed it into the woman’s heart.

We cannot win here.
And still, he would find what path he could through what came. He had to. The face of his son, conjured up at each intersection, compelled him to find a way.

The forest was still but for the sound of overweighted branches losing their snow when the wind caught them just right. He stood and watched the moon and thought about the family that strengthened his resolve.

Over the past several months he’d found himself frequently asking himself what Jin Li Tam would do. And he’d grown accustomed to seeking her counsel late at night when they lay whispering in bed. Now, with her and Jakob so far away, he found he missed her words the most. The quiet and careful way she spoke them and the hard edge to those words when his stubbornness required it. Their pairing might have been a manipulation, but it was a formidable partnership nonetheless, and she’d proven this again and again.

We cannot win here.

The real enemy gathered strength and now made forays into the Named Lands with blood-magicked scouts who were capable of surviving the toll those magicks took upon their bodies. They were a hardy stock, well trained, and a brutal fighting force. And while this enemy built its own path, his own kin-clave to the south plotted against his family. His best intelligence couldn’t touch the competence and ferocity of Ria’s network, and his best ambassadors could not persuade even the opening of dialogue with any but Erlund, who was too distracted with political reform in the wake of his civil war to care much for what happened with the Ninefold Forest.

Rudolfo swallowed and wished for a moment he’d brought the firespice with him. He pushed the craving aside, alarmed at how quickly it had become a crutch he could limp along with.

The thought of limping brought Isaak to mind, and he wondered how his metal friend fared. By now, Isaak should be in the Marshlands with the others. Before Jin’s coded note, Rudolfo had worried less. But knowing now that another metal man—this Watcher she spoke of—made his home there raised Rudolfo’s hackles to third alarm. Whoever their enemy was, they did not want the mechanicals dreaming. And, more than that, they didn’t want the Seven Cacophonic Deaths loose in the world. He did not doubt for a second that their call for him to release the mechoservitors into their care would ultimately lead to yet more light gone from the world.

Rudolfo sighed and tried to pull the stillness of the night into himself, tried to conjure images of his sleeping child.

He heard the man in the forest long before he saw him. The crunch
of frozen snow, the labored breathing and the whispered curses were like shouts across an open plain.

Rudolfo remembered a time when Gregoric would follow him out into the woods. That first captain and closest friend always gave him plenty of time to think in the quiet, but inevitably, he turned up. That was a loss that still rode him hard.

Lysias broke into the clearing, bundled in furs and panting as he placed his boots in the prints Rudolfo had left behind. The old man looked around, clouds of steam rising from his mouth and nostrils as he caught his breath.

Rudolfo whistled low and the general turned. As the man made his way to him, he noted his posture and stride. Whatever anger he bore had been burned off by the quick-paced walk. He nodded to Rudolfo.

“You’ve found me,” Rudolfo said.

“The snow helps.” Lysias took the tree next to him and leaned against it, still gulping his air.

Rudolfo said nothing, giving the man time to gather his thoughts and slow his heart rate and breathing. He waited for five minutes, and then Lysias finally spoke.

“It is quiet here,” the general said.

Rudolfo nodded. “It is good for thinking.” He’d known since boyhood how to woo a crowd, but it was from the quiet, still places that he drew his strength and found his paths.

Lysias’s eyes narrowed in the moonlight. “And what are you thinking?”

Rudolfo took in a deep breath. “I’m thinking,” he said in a slow voice, “that no matter what we do, we’re damned and buggered. We build our army too late for a hunter that has set his snares and harried his prey too long.” As he released those words, he felt their power on the wind and felt relief from finally having said them. “We cannot win here.”

Lysias nodded. “You may be correct.”

“And I am thinking,” Rudolfo said, “that it may have been a mistake, killing the girl.”

The old general nodded again. “It may have been. I think I could’ve broken her.”

Rudolfo regarded him. “Perhaps,” he said, “but I think it would’ve broken something in you. Some actions we take can do that.”

Lysias chuckled. “You underestimate me, Lord. Those parts of
me were broken a long time ago.” He was quiet for a moment. “Still, she is dead and that is an unchangeable fact.” He looked back to Rudolfo, and their eyes met. “At least,” he said, “you took action.”

Yes.
“I hope it was the right action.”

Lysias shrugged. “It felt right at the moment?”

“It felt . . .” Rudolfo let the words trail out. His answer troubled him. “It felt satisfying.”

“Perhaps it was what you needed to find your path again.”

Perhaps it was.
But another part of him rebuked that inner voice. He let the quiet settle in again.

The sound of the bird was loud, and Rudolfo heard its shrill cries long before it settled onto a fallen log in the center of the clearing. His hand moved instinctively for his scout knife as it flapped the ice from its wings.

It was larger than he’d imagined it would be up close. Its dead, glassy eyes stared, and even from a distance, he could smell the decay of it. The kin-raven hopped in place upon the log and opened its beak.

A voice leaked out. “Greetings, Rudolfo son of Jakob, lord of the Ninefold Forest. I am Eliz Xhum, regent of the Crimson Empress. Grace and peace to you from the Empire of Y’Zir.” The voice paused, though the beak did not move. “Your father rejoiced at the coming of this day and bid me bear you his pride and love. He had longed to hold the Child of Promise in his arms but, alas, it was not the path set out for him.”

Rudolfo felt the words even as he heard them. They were colder than the winter sky and sharper than knives.
My father?
He forced his attention back to the mottled dark messenger upon its log.

“I have been informed of the recent treachery against your family and can assure you that every step is being taken both for the prevalence of justice and the safety of the Great Mother and her Child of Promise. I regret the chaos and violence of the past two years and I regret the chaos yet to come, though I’m certain a time is coming when you will concur, as your father did before you, that this is essential for the healing of our world.” There was a pause, and Rudolfo glanced to Lysias. The man listened intently with a look of understanding that grew to look more like alarm with every word. The voice continued. “My emissary will reach your western border by way of the Whymer Road in approximately one week’s time. My eager hope is that they will be met with peace and welcome, and escorted safely to you that our strategy for a successful transition may be discussed. I look forward to our work together, Rudolfo.”

The bird’s beak closed, and Rudolfo did not hesitate. He drew his knife and flung it at the kin-raven even as its great wings spread. He’d not thrown in a goodly while, and he felt the strain of the sudden movement in his shoulder and arm. The knife went wide, missing by a span, and the bird lifted into the sky to shriek at him as it fled west.

Rudolfo cursed and walked to the log, recovering his knife. Lysias said nothing, and by the look on his face, Rudolfo could tell the older officer was trying to read him, to gauge this new information and its impact upon him.

My father.
He did not believe it, of course. It wasn’t possible. He’d watched his father ride out to put down resurgences in the name of the Pope. What was his role in this? The knots in his stomach were twisting now as his mind went back to the blood shrine they’d found in the forest. And the list of names, including some of his father’s closest and most trusted friends.

Our strategy for a successful transition.
He looked to Lysias. “What do you make of it?”

“Invasion,” the old general said. “And he would not tell you so much if he did not know already that there was nothing to be done for it.”

Rudolfo nodded. “I hope you’re wrong.”

But he did not believe he was, any more than he believed this sudden fear he felt about his father was somehow misplaced. It answered too many questions.

In that moment, Rudolfo wept, and he felt rage and despair rising off of him like heat from a banked fire.

Somewhere in the crowd, an infant wailed and broke the silence that had taken hold of them. Winters looked out over the mass of people who had gathered beneath the rising moon, took in the cutting table and then turned her attention to the man who had just spoken.

When she answered him, her voice rolled out for league upon league. “There is nothing reasonable about your faith,” she said. “You impose it. You force your mark. You press your gospels into the hearts of small children and teach it to them as if it were certain truth.”

As she spoke, a smile played at the corners of Eliz Xhum’s mouth. Something bright sparked in his eye. “And how is that any different from your Homeseeking Dream? Were you not taught as a child that eventually this Homeseeker would arise? Did you not cover yourself with ash and mud to remind you of sorrow and loss during your sojourn between homes?” The regent spoke slowly, his magicked voice a gentle thunder in the winter air. “And beyond matters of faith, your Androfrancines—soulless offspring of that deicide, P’Andro Whym—did they not also teach their view of things as if they were certain truth? To children? And did they not hold hostage an entire population to their atheistic convictions and their worship of human knowledge, hoarding that knowledge to themselves in their walled city, doling it out or withholding it at their whim?”

Winters glanced to Jin Li Tam. The woman watched her, her eyes betraying concern, as she shifted Jakob in her arms. Winters turned back to the regent. “As to the Androfrancines,” she said, “my people have resisted them from the time they arrived upon our lands. You know this.” She looked to her sister. “And as to my faith . . .” She paused.
My faith.
It was indeed hers, and it stirred up a feeling in her even stronger than the feelings that Neb had stirred up in the days when their dreams had touched and they had touched within them. She met the regent’s eyes. “My faith is built upon two thousand years of the Homeward Dream, passed down from father to son until at last, it came to me.”

“And mine,” Xhum said, “hearkens back to the days before, when the Moon Wizard Raj Y’Zir fell to live among us and teach us the love of a father for his child. But regardless, our faiths are not mutually exclusive, young Winteria. Indeed they are intertwined. You are young in your knowledge of Y’Zir, but there are many passages about the Machtvolk and their role. Perhaps this one will interest you.” He looked from her to Ria, and Winters followed the glance and saw the worry upon her face. “ ‘In the Winter of Days, a daughter shall be born and named for the season of her arrival, and she shall call forth the true Machtvolk by blood in the shadow of the Deicide’s pyre to take back that which was promised and heal that which was broken.’ ” It correlates with a passage from your own father’s dreams that I suspect you have not read.”