Leviathan's Blood (53 page)

Before she had left, before Pueral had walked out through the palace gate alone, she had met briefly with the First Queen. Against the morning’s light, Zeala Fe appeared to be a frail
figure, one whom a stronger light would break apart. Yet, as Pueral closed the door, the Queen rose from the chair under her own strength and spoke in a voice that, a month ago, the Eyes of the
Queen would not have recognized as Zeala Fe’s own.

‘A historian might write that we spoke of ordinary things,’ the First Queen said, her hand on Pueral’s. ‘Strategies and alliances, and the weaknesses and strengths of
both.’

‘A conversation already had,’ she replied.

‘I would rather history record that we spoke of our anger.’

It was the fury within the First Queen, not the illness she had battled for so many years, that would consume the last of her body, Pueral knew. ‘It will be announced,’ she said,
placing her hand over the Queen’s. ‘Soon enough, with swords and fire, and no historian will need doubt our response to Aela Ren.’

‘Thank you, my friend.’

In the courtyard, the steel boxes had been stacked onto the back of the cart in order of size. The longest – those that would hold parts of legs and arms – were on the bottom, while
boxes that would hold hands, pieces of spine, and fingers, sat on top. Each was uniform in design, made by the chief armourer on specific orders from Pueral, and there was no ornament on any. They
were smooth and heavy and, once locked, would be taken into different parts of Ooila, where deep holes would be dug to bury them. Soldiers would stand on the lips of dormant volcanoes before
releasing their weight; they would be carried under guard to the ports, where ships would head out into the wide, empty space of Leviathan’s Blood; they would travel beyond the edges of
Samuel Orlan’s maps. All the parts of the Innocent, all but the skull, the crown of his body, would be taken far away from Cynama.

Pueral did not believe it would be simple to kill the Innocent. She had listened to the First Queen’s description of the battle with the Saan more than once and, though she did not agree
with Bueralan Le’s assessment of the Saan and Ooilan soldiers, she nonetheless understood that any one man who cut his way through so many soldiers was not mortal. That Aela Ren had delivered
onto himself a mortal wound after he had fought the men, to prove that he could not die, was to Pueral an unnecessary act.

Still, he was one man.

One man, no matter his skill with a blade, no matter his personal strength, and no matter the strange nature of his mortality, could be weighed down by a much larger force.

Around Pueral, Ooilan soldiers began to appear. They did so in fragments, as if being assembled before her, as if they had been made from the sunlight. They were figures from the fable she had
imagined earlier, creations given to guard the daughter and her father as they made their journey to the castle of the monster. But of course, it was nothing of the sort: they appeared because the
camouflage spells that the witches had laid could not hide them as Pueral rode past so close, as she broke through the shell constructed of sunlight and moonlight.

Pueral rode past black-and-red-armoured soldiers who stood before bedrolls and cold campfires, who pulled off the helms they wore to wipe sweat from their faces, who stood before tents and
carts, and before lines of picketed horses. Ahead of her they formed, and kept forming, as over five thousand men and women were revealed around Yoala Fe’s mansion. That number was not the
whole of the First Queen’s military, but it drew from the most seasoned, the most disciplined, from those who had experience fighting on horseback, and fighting with siege machines –
machines such as the pair of catapults that she saw now, one already assembled, and one in the final stages of being so. They would be pulled into range of the mansion from here, but the witches
would not go any closer to the mansion to work the large spell, and so the last of the distance would be made by flesh.

In Sooia, the Eyes of the Queen told herself, surely such a thing had been tried. Surely such huge forces had met Ren, and surely, they had crumbled. But there, he had been part of an army, a
force that was – depending on which books she read – either huge and sprawling and disciplined, or made of such horror that it was clear no human rode at its head. That force had stood
beside Aela Ren from the day he had begun his war, but it was not on Ooila. Had she herself not seen the beach on which the Innocent had come ashore, and had she not seen much of his early
violence, she might not have believed so easily the reports of her spies that they could find no sign of Ren’s army on Ooila. Nor might she have believed the bloodstained assurances of the
witches who said that he had walked from the coast to Cynama alone.

Pueral no longer believed that the Innocent had intended to bring his war to Ooila. He had arrived on
Glafanr
, and he had done so with the intention of finding Samuel Orlan and Bueralan
Le. He had not brought his army with him. Whoever had helped pilot the giant ship off the shore had stayed upon it and left Ren to his personal quest.

By the morning, Aela Ren would realize that mistake.

The torches marked the arrival of the Maosans long before they came close to the ravine.

Taaira’s gloved hand had awoken Heast from a light sleep. ‘You will not believe what is to be seen,’ he said quietly.

Stiffly, the Captain of the Ghosts pushed himself up, his right hand lifting the sheathed blade that lay beside him as he did so. In the few moments that he had had to process the
tribesman’s words, Heast reasoned that they had missed their chance. Over the afternoon and evening’s observation, he and Taaira had found half a dozen Leeran soldiers hidden in the
scrub around the siege tower, and Heast believed that at least two or three were within the tower itself. It was more than enough men and women to close the trap on the Maosans who entered, and
when the night had darkened and the clouds had covered the moon and stars, Heast had reasoned that there was an even chance that he and Taaira would not notice the approach of the soldiers into the
trap until it was too late. But when he reached the edge of their small camp and saw the torches, he realized that what he was seeing was much worse.

‘They’re not soldiers,’ he said.

‘It does not appear so.’ Taaira handed him the spyglass. ‘They wear armour, but most are armed with farm equipment.’

The lens of the spyglass took a moment to focus, but Heast saw that the tribesman was right. The approaching group numbered a dozen, each with drawn, heavily shadowed faces etched with
exhaustion like deep scars. The best of the weapons appeared to be axes, long-shafted and heavy-headed, but he could count no more than three of those: the rest were hoes and staffs and, on the
back of one woman, a rusted scythe. Heast’s gaze settled on the grey-haired woman for, though she rode at the end, she did not hold a tall burning torch. Instead, she led half a dozen draught
horses by a thick rope. For a moment, Heast thought that this was proof that she and the others were not soldiers, but opportunistic farmers in the wrong place, but then she shifted, and he could
see the crimson sash around her waist, and quickly, he found one around each of the remaining figures.

‘What did we estimate, seven?’ Taaira asked.

‘Eight.’ Heast closed the spyglass. ‘But I would expect another three or four.’

‘A difficult task for the two of us.’

‘We’ll take the tower first,’ he said. ‘But the biggest threat to us will be the ride into the ravine. The odds would favour us better if we slipped in after the trap was
sprung.’

‘If they charge the ravine while we’re fighting, we may not save any, I fear.’

Heast grunted sourly in agreement. He had thought that he could lose up to half of whatever force arrived and had been, if not pleased, at least able to accept that. But the torches that the men
and women carried were bright markers, and a seasoned Leeran soldier would make short work of the targets. Because of that, he and Taaira would have to charge the ravine without any light –
and both would have to hope that the ground was not pitted, filled with sudden drops or holes in which their horses could break their legs.

Running his hand down his beast’s neck, Heast gripped the saddle’s pommel and pulled himself up. ‘One last chance,’ he said to the tribesman. ‘You don’t have
to fight if you don’t want to.’

‘Captain.’ Taaira wrapped the bridle around his left hand and pulled himself up. ‘I am Hollow.’

‘Once I start—’

‘Is this conversation for me, or for you?’ One-handed, he drew his heavy blade from its sheath and, for a moment, it looked as if he held a piece of darkness. ‘The shame that
is before me is one I have felt before.’

‘There’s only shame in death, boy.’

Heast was the first out of the camp.

He let the horse have its head in the pace that it set towards the ravine. It was fast and sure, but Heast would have pushed it faster, if he had not trusted the training that Kal Essa’s
Brotherhood had put the beast through, if he had not trusted the battles it had already fought. Like him, the horse was a veteran, a creature that would find itself on familiar ground once the
battle began.

In his hand, Heast’s sword was weightless. He held it low and, as the lip of the ravine showed itself in a craggy broken-toothed opening of scrubland, he raised it.

The tower sat five, maybe six hundred metres after the opening, a dark, solid shape. Inside it, he would be able to funnel the soldiers spread around for the trap, he would be able to use the
walls as protection against crossbows. He knew he might not get all of them inside, where he and Taaira would be able to control who they fought, but he would get enough in there that the numbers
outside it would be in his favour. Behind him, he heard the solid gallop of Taaira’s horse, the reassuring fall of the hooves, the presence of a man who, Heast believed, would ensure that
little resistance would be offered.

In front of him a Leeran soldier rose from his concealment, hastily aiming his crossbow. The bolt flew wide and Heast’s horse did not pause as it rode over him with a sickening crunch.

Movement and sound erupted around him after that. Heast heard shouted orders from his right and heard bolts burst from the positions he had identified earlier. Another two Leeran soldiers were
revealed by their voices deeper into the ravine, where it was darkest, but he did not turn to them, or slow his ride to the tower. His sword slashed out, but it hit metal and skidded off, catching
the edge of something – but causing what damage, he could not say.

Ahead, the dark bottom of the tower cracked open and a woman stepped out. She was a solid woman, and in her hands she held a heavy crossbow, which she lifted calmly to her shoulder. Only for her
shot to go wide as a roar tore through the ravine.

It came a second time and Heast, as startled by the sound as the Leeran soldier, turned to his right to see Kye Taaira drive his horse into the darkness of the ravine.

‘
Nsyan!
’ the tribesman cried out.

A third roar sounded from the darkness and, to Heast’s gaze, it appeared to ripple. With a curse, he drove his heel into the flank of his horse and continued alone to the siege tower.

A certain psychological insight had become evident after they had selected their rooms, Bueralan believed. Taela, the first of the three to take a room, had chosen one at the
far end of the building. Located on the first floor, it had a single, narrow bed before an equally narrow window, and it felt, the one time the saboteur thought as he had stepped into it, like a
fist closing tightly shut around you. The room he had opted for – a simple guest room that overlooked the dug graves – was larger, but without any of the personal touches of the first.
Once he left, no one would know that he had been there. But Samuel Orlan’s room was different: the cartographer had chosen the one room equal in size to Yoala Fe’s master bedroom. While
it did not have the golden handles on the drawers, or darkly polished furniture, or the elegant rugs laced with thin strands of precious silver, the room had clearly been designed for guests of
importance and substance.

Bueralan discovered that the old cartographer had stripped the walls of its curtain and tapestries in the early hours of the morning. They lay across the floor, against the wall, and both on and
under a small maze of chests and tables that he was forced to navigate to cross the room. Once inside, Bueralan saw that the cartographer had pushed the rest of the furniture into the centre of the
room, leaving the bed locked in the centre amid a pile of unmade blankets.

Samuel Orlan stood in the far left corner of the room on a chest of drawers. In one hand, he held an expensive quill, in the other, an ink pot. Before him an elaborate, detailed map of the world
sprawled across the first two of the pale-orange-painted walls, beginning at the door frame where Bueralan stood. It gave the impression of a world slowly being consumed by fire.

‘It helps me relax.’ The cartographer spoke first, his arm outstretched to a high point on the wall. ‘Surely you have something that takes your mind off your
troubles?’

‘I like to drink,’ he replied.

‘I have not seen you drink once.’

‘Maybe I’m not troubled.’ Orlan had begun with Ooila, Bueralan saw, as he turned to gaze at the wall behind him. The cartographer had drawn the continent around the frame of
the door and, if left open, it looked as if a hole had been dug into the middle of the continent. ‘How’s that lie?’

‘Poor.’ The cartographer dipped the quill into the pot, then tapped it on the edge. ‘When you first met Ekar Waalstan, I was impressed by how well you held your own in that
situation. You were in control, you were dangerous: you clearly should not have been left alive. I have often wondered if that is exactly what happened – that Ger made you god-touched then
and that Bueralan Le died then – since I have not seen that man since.’

‘Every now and then, Orlan, I start to like you.’ He grabbed a chair from one of the tables and turned it upright, before sitting. ‘Then I remember that you killed my
friends.’