Ecko Endgame (20 page)

The warm wooden hall of the Warden seemed to shudder with Syke’s sarcasm. Outside, the morning sun was pure and brilliant, lighting the windows to a bright-white dazzle of mica.

“I’m not,” Jade replied, grinning like a fiend. “You are.” He’d not slept – been too overwhelmed and excited and terrified by the deal he’d just pulled. Beside him, his breakfast and herbal were going cold.

Syke said, “You’re
shitting
me.”

But Jade was after him like a bweao. “Syke, I need you with this. I can spin logistics, juggle numbers, ensure the right things reach the right places – but I need you to watch him, play his game and bring him onside. You need to make that handclasp a guarantee. He’s a greedy little shit and we can’t trust him as far as I can spit. You need to make him play nice.”

Triqueta helped herself to Jade’s leather mug. She looked over its rim at the CityWarden as if he were two panniers short of a travelpack.

“You’ve gone loco,” she said.

“Possibly,” Larred said. He grinned at her, his expression like the sun coming up, and the lines round his eyes creased with mischief. “But I’ve been thinking this round in circles ever since we had Nivrotar’s message – how I can muster and still watch the city? – and I think I’ve damned well solved it.”

“You think
I’ve
solved it,” Syke commented darkly.

Jade chuckled. Outside, a flurry of birds rose from the building’s eaves, settled again. The CityWarden paced his wooden floor like a man possessed, his mind turning over and over with the new possibilities.

Triqueta drained the herbal, pulled one of her serrated blades and inspected the tip. As she carefully began to clean under her nails, Jade stopped his fidgeting and met Syke’s flat, grey gaze.

His unspoken challenge.

“Look, I can play figurehead,” Jade said. “If I’m going to hold this together, the people need to know I’m still here. But I need—”

“You need someone to do the shit you can’t.” Syke picked up the mug that Triqueta had discarded, ruefully inspected its emptiness, and put it down again. “Kick arse where your boots can’t go. An’ Roken in control of the streets—”

“Means I want you in control of Roken,” Jade said. He jabbed a finger at the sunlit window. “And if the city’s out there fighting some damned war, it needs secure supply lines. No gambles, no mistakes.” His expression was intense, thinking. “We can’t get this wrong.”

“I hate to piss on your parade,” Triqueta said. “But you’ve missed something.”

Jade raised an eyebrow.

“If you’re sending the city to war, you need a commander,” Triqueta said. “Not just some goon from the garrison, but someone with experience who knows this stuff nose-to-tail, who can win not only a fight, but a battle. Strategise. And you know Taure can’t keep his nose out the ale jug—”

“I know exactly who’s taking command,” Jade told her. “Can’t think of anyone better.”

Syke chuckled, catching something that Triqueta had missed. She folded her arms and glared at the pair of them.

“Share the jest?”

“No jest,” Jade said, spreading his hands. Syke was grinning like a loon.

Triqueta tapped her foot, raised an eyebrow. “So go on, who gets the short straw?”

“You, Triq,” Jade said, his grin as wide as his ears. “See yourself promoted, Tan Commander. You’re taking Roviarath to war.”

Triqueta said, with some feeling, “Shit.”

And then the time came when the talk was over, when the strategy was complete and the city’s final moments were before them.

When they could stall no longer.

Rhan stood on the balcony of the Palace, the sky before him as grey and cold as drifting ash. He was sheltered by the window, a pace back from the edge – as if reluctant to take that last step into inevitability, to begin the end.

Down below, glimpsed through the balcony’s shaped stone supports, lay the city’s heart, the open square once as familiar as the backs of his hands. A place of festivity, ceremony – a celebration of the city’s life and history. But its elaborate mosaic was shattered now, melted and blurred – just as if Vahl himself had been thrown down upon that very spot. Just as if a war had been won there.

Or lost there.

Immortal or not, Rhan felt sick.

Below him, standing silent about the mosaic’s remains and looking like some final jest of the Gods, was Mostak’s mustered soldiery, the remnant of House Valiembor’s might. Roderick had brought them, as he had brought the people, their ranks and lamellar armour ragged, ruinous like the city herself.

Some of the units were missing completely; others were represented by a lone man or woman, standard in hand as if they were the last fighter in the world. Some bore injuries, many untreated. Most had dirty, ill-fitting kit, though some had repaired and cleansed in an act of pure defiance, and stood with chins raised, their pride puffed like dust.

It was a brave attempt – but by the Gods, it was a mess.

Rhan swallowed, blinking.

So many times, he’d watched their drill – precision and polish, demonstrations to illustrate the city’s hegemony, performances to honour House Valiembor, or visiting guests, or days given to harvesting or feasting. Combat tourneys and range patrols and parades and decorations…

He swallowed again, and counted them.

He knew full well what the tally should be – nine warriors to a tan, nine tan to a flag – at last muster, there had been thirty-four flags, eleven of them cavalry. Plus fifteen flags of archers, seven on foot and eight mounted; the latter swift and light-armoured to skirmish, flank and bear messages. In all, some four thousand warriors. A tiny number for a land area the size of the Varchinde, but after four hundred years of peace, why would they need any more? They drilled to perfection, trained endlessly, and earned their pennons by winning games and chasing pirates.

Down below, their standards should have been flaring as the morning breeze caught them – pride and colour.

Instead, the mosaic’s dust stirred, mocking. The flags themselves – the battle-standards of each unit – flickered and failed.

Almost two thirds of the force was missing.

We can’t do this, we can’t…!

He caught himself. Stood firm, looking at the soldiers below.

Many, mostly the conscripts from surrounding farms and families, had simply deserted. Others had been garrisoned at the Varchinde’s cities and had never returned. The heavier cavalry had mostly gone with Ythalla; Ecko’s scouting had put their number at seven or eight flags. What remained were mostly skirmishers, both foot and horse, and the older rank and file of spearmen, perhaps those with the experience to have served as range patrol, or with the age to have learned the meaning of loyalty.

What Rhan could see was not an army. It had no artillery and very little horse, and much of its allegiance was carried on the immediate winds of pure and vocal charm.

Thank the Gods, Rhan thought, that he was not actually in command.

* * *

Tan Commander Mostak faced his mustered force.

His back was to Rhan, to the Palace and the balcony. He stood rigid, seeming to burn with vehemence in the cold air, as though he could make his warriors follow him by sheer force of will. With him was his command unit – herald, drummer, flag bearer, personal guard – all of them in laminated terhnwood and bearing the Valiembor sigil.

Only Mostak’s own armour was different. It was older in styling, had belonged to the First Lord Foundersson Tekissari, and it was ever so slightly too big for him. The irony of
that
realisation had not been lost on anyone.

This is all madness, Seneschal
. Mostak’s last words to Rhan had been like a warning, a barbed reminder of what he’d once said in the Council.
You and that damned storyteller…

But Mostak, perhaps even more so than Rhan, understood Nivrotar’s strategy, and the necessity of the gamble they played.

Whatever it was going to cost them.

* * *

Over the ramshackle force, a glint of sunlight penetrated the heavy clouds. It caught the tips of a thousand upright terhnwood spears, flaring them to life like torches. Like hope.

Rhan caught his breath, the thought coalescing out of the light…

Calarinde, Lady…

But the Gods were not listening.

Am I the daemon, Rhan?

Below him, Mostak raised a hand. His voice cracked, sharp and echoing, “Listen up…
Stand!
”

The scruff of assembled tan came to upright stance with a single, unified click.

Their discipline eased Rhan’s breathing, allowed him to uncurl somewhat, somehow giving him confidence in this whole crazed undertaking.

Then, from behind him, came Brother Mael’s voice. “Please don’t do this.”

Not taking his gaze from the force below, Rhan said, “Did you leave any horses?”

Mael gave a short sigh. “No horses or chearl left in the city – other than with Ythalla. You can herd what you can’t ride; they’re tacked up for portage. Well, most of them.” He gave an odd, sad smile. “We’ve been through the records, everything Scythe told us – we think we’ve tracked all of Phylos’s remaining hoardings. If you can’t carry it, and the Cathedral can’t take it, it’s gone up in flames.”

Flames.

Then there’s really nothing left.

The thought almost made him stagger.
Nothing left.
Then he took a breath and said the words he hadn’t wanted to say, the final tolling of the city’s death bell. “Then please bring my Lord Selana to the balcony. When this is done…” He swallowed, grief and complex dishonesty. “She should be free. We should all be free.”

Free.

The word was bitter, a slap to the cheek like an insult. Mael watched him for a minute in a final plea, begging him to relent, but Rhan said nothing.

The old scribe slumped, shaking his head, and turned away.

Rhan returned to the shattered mosaic, to the shadow in his own thoughts.
Four hundred returns, my estavah, and I yield my family, and my city. But victorious though you might be, you know you don’t dare let me live.

Come and get me. Come and get me and tear me to pieces.

As if the Gods bore witness, the great drum in the Cathedral tower began to thunder, the sound defiant. Rhan couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard it. At the edge of the mosaic the building’s great doors stood open – he could see Gorinel, and with him the slight form of Amethea. They’d taken what was left of the city’s populace into the depths of the building’s crypts, taken the last few helpers at the hospice and whatever supplies had not been loaded or burned. Leaving the people here was a risk, but a necessary one – the fighters had to have speed.

He’ll come straight after me
, Rhan had said to the old priest.
Chasing you through the catacombs could take cycles – he hasn’t got enough trained forces to spare. Once the city’s quiet, perhaps you can come out…

Perhaps.

The drum boomed, like a dare. And now, Rhan had one last thing to do, one last manoeuvre before his abandonment of his city was complete…

Mael came back onto the balcony, Valicia at his side.

And with them was Selana Valiembor, last Lord of Fhaveon.

The sight of the girl, haunted and shadow-eyed, nearly made Rhan’s knees fold. He wanted to speak to her, to beg her exoneration, but he had no words for what he was about to do.

She was pale, her face dark with figments. Her eyes jumped from place to place; she shrank from Rhan as though he’d slapped her. Mael held her upright, his hands gentle. He’d removed his glasses as if his old face fought not to crumple round them.

Finding his last reserves of courage, Rhan gestured at the balcony.

“You should speak, my Lord. The city awaits your voice.”

The Cathedral’s drum stopped, the silence was huge.

Selana raised her head, blinked at him. There were marks on her skin, like scars. Perhaps he was imagining them?

“Speak?” she asked. “Why… why didn’t you say…?”

Her voice was soft, afraid. Rhan’s heart began to tremble – maybe he
was
wrong, maybe she
was
just the young Lord of the city, maybe this mad endeavour would all end right here—

“I told you, my Lord, your final speech,” he said. “Make it a good one.”

Baffled, she turned to the balcony, to the warriors gathered below. The sun had risen further now and the mosaic glittered with the cold winter, its broken edges shattering the rising light. The horses were restive, shaking their heads against the terhnwood brackets that held the soft corners of their mouths, thumping wide, splayed hooves against the tiles. Their tack rattled and their breath steamed. The wind had risen, and the pennons on the spear-points were flapping now, agitated, the larger flags stirring to life. Mostak’s drummer sounded a blood-pulse tattoo, and silenced.

The sound, like the light, reflected in pieces from the walls.

Selana stepped forward, faltered, looked back. Rhan nodded, encouraging her, found he was holding his breath.
Don’t let this be for nothing.
A formless prayer, desperate.

Mael’s face was etched in pain.

“I…” She cleared her throat. “My… my people, people of Fhaveon!” Her voice was tiny in the morning air. “Heed me! Our final…” She stopped, started again, “Our final dawning is upon us!”

And a rich, dark voice in the shadows said, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

* * *

Rhan remembered.

A young man, Tundran and slender and burning with idealism, a starry-eyed fanatic who was going to change the world. The first Guardian born in Avesyr in numberless hundreds of returns, heralded as a hero, the saviour of his world and his people. He’d had a vision, he’d said, the Gods had spoken to him. He’d touched the very waters of the Ryll and the world’s thoughts had been shown to him, her greatest foe and fear…

Rhan had chuckled at the upstart’s presumption, fed him a goblet of the Cellen, and told him to calm the rhez down.

How many returns? Eighty? Ninety? Tundrans had a longer lifespan than Grassdwellers. Taught he was extraordinary in his earliest youth, Roderick had carried that conviction all down his returns. Beyond sanity, beyond the Ryll, beyond The Wanderer. Misguided arrogance or genuine vision, it had given him a sense of pure purpose that Rhan had always envied.