The Guns of Empire (37 page)

“Marcus.” Raesinia straightened one of the chairs and sat down. “Listen to me for a minute.”

He looked back at her, seeming to see her for the first time. “Sorry. It's just . . .” He gestured helplessly at the map. “I don't know what to do.”

You do,
Raesinia thought.
You just don't want to admit it.

She wished that Dorsay or Whaler had been in touch. They were the enemy, of course, but an enemy she could come to an accommodation with, unlike the white riders or the implacable cold. Given the weather and the dangers on the roads, though, it was unlikely they'd risk trying to make contact. She wondered, for the hundredth time, whether she ought to tell Marcus about her meetings with Dorsay, and for the hundredth time decided not to.
Not yet.

“If we go down to half rations right away,” Marcus said, flipping through a few loose pages scattered on the table, “then that buys us a little leeway. Maybe a week. I'll tell Give-Em-Hell to use every trooper he's got and blast the Polkhaiz road open. Start by pushing as much fodder through as we can. The men can go hungry longer than the horses. After that—”

“After that?” Raesinia said. “Suppose it all works. What happens then?”

“We buy time,” Marcus said. “If Janus recovers, if Winter tracks down this Penitent, then he might be able to come up with something. Or maybe whoever is bringing us the snow runs out of power and the weather goes back to what it ought to be.
Something
.”

“What if we don't get any breaks?” Raesinia said.

“There has to be
something
,” Marcus repeated. “Janus wouldn't have brought us here if he didn't have a plan.”

“Janus is unconscious,” Raesinia said. “If he has a plan, he didn't tell anyone.” She paused. “If we stretch things out as far as we can and things don't go our way, how are we going to get back to Polkhaiz? That's a week's march over bad ground.”

“I know.”

“What's the longest we can stay, if we want to keep enough of a reserve to get us back before we starve?”

Raesinia knew the answer to this, because she'd gone to Giforte that
morning and gotten him to work it out. She knew he'd provided the figures to Marcus, too, but it was important to make him say it.

I could
order
him to march. With Janus hurt, he'd probably listen, but I might lose him afterward.
The thought of that was painful, and she had to persuade herself that it wasn't entirely for personal reasons.
I need Marcus. There's no one else the army trusts more.

He let out a breath. “If we want to keep everyone on full rations, we ought to have left the day before yesterday,” he said at last. “Tomorrow if we go to half rations.”

“Then I don't think we have a choice anymore.”

Marcus closed his eyes. “Janus—”

“Janus isn't in command right now,” Raesinia said. “You are.”

“You don't understand. If he wakes up and finds out I ordered a retreat . . .” Marcus shook his head. “You didn't hear him talk about it. He'd never forgive me if he brought us this far and I ruined everything.”

“Marcus,” Raesinia said gently. “You know where your responsibility is.”

“To Vordan.” He looked up guiltily. “To you.”

“More than that. The lives of everyone in this army are in your hands. You owe it to
them
to do whatever has the best chance of getting them home alive.” She put on a slightly more formal tone. “Column-General, in your professional military opinion, is it possible to maintain the army in its current position?”

Marcus straightened automatically, lip curving in a very slight smile. “No, Your Majesty.”

“Then please take steps to rectify the situation.”

He inclined his head. “Yes, Your Majesty. I understand.”

—

“Orders have just gone out,” Sothe reported. “We cross the river in the morning.”

“Thank God.” Raesinia let her head loll back. “Why do I feel like that Penitent Damned did us all a favor?”

She wasn't sure how to make sense of her emotions anymore. It felt like a dish of paint with everything swirled together, relief and worry and guilt, all at once. And a faint sense of cowardice, to boot. She'd never had to put her plans into action, to take Dorsay's bargain.
Could I really have done that, before the end?

Sothe said nothing. The assassin had been brooding—
brooding more than usual, anyway,
Raesinia silently amended—since the Penitent's escape.

“Marcus is going to be more important than ever,” Raesinia said. “Whether
Janus recovers or not, Marcus is going to be our hold on the army, which means we need a hold on him. Once we get back in touch with Vordan, I want you to start a search.”

“A search?” Sothe looked up. “What for?”

“His sister. Marcus has a little sister—did you know that? Apparently she disappeared in one of Orlanko's plots, but he's certain she's still alive. Looking for her is part of what Janus promised him. I'd like us to find her first.”

“His . . . sister.” Sothe had a distant look in her eyes.

“Are you all right?” Raesinia said. “You're certain that Penitent didn't touch you? Even a speck of that poison could be deadly.”

“I'm . . . fine.” Sothe shook her head. “Just thinking. I've been thinking too much lately.”

“Do you know anything about Marcus' sister?”

“No,” Sothe said. “But I imagine I can find out.”

T
he handler, a sniveling little weasel of a priest, cowered under the blank stare of the black-masked Pontifex.

“It's the snow,” he said. “Our scouts haven't been able to make much headway. And the tribesmen aren't much for writing reports.”

“It's not a complicated question,” the Black said. “Is Vhalnich's army still camped by the Kovria?”

“We
think
so,” the handler whined. “But I can't say for certain. Not with the snow.”

“But,” the Black said, “s
he
is certain.”

He turned to the demon-host, a girl in her middle teens. She wore a shapeless gray robe, her hair shaved to stubble, and she sat in her chair with a slack expression. Her demon didn't have its own name, only a designation, Sensitive #74. She was, the handler assured him, the best they currently had.

“She's always been accurate in the past,” the handler said. “We've run tests.”

“Ask her again.”

The priest looked like he was going to argue, then thought better of it, sensing the pontifex's mood in spite of the mask that concealed his expression. He knelt beside the girl and whispered in her ear, fragments of words that sounded like nothing but nonsense to the pontifex. The girl started to speak, equally unintelligibly.

The Black gritted his teeth. Sensitives achieved their maximum potential when they were bonded to demons young, but the process interfered with their ordinary mental development. They required handlers to care for them and
interpret their reports, and he was always suspicious that some inaccuracies were introduced during translation. Like so many other things, a double-edged sword, but one that was too useful to do without.

“Two of them,” the handler said eventually. “Coming closer, very quickly. And
possibly
a third, very weak.”

“And the two?”

“One is a powerful demon. The other . . .” He swallowed. “She says it is a demon lord, Your Excellence.”

A demon lord.
That had to be Ihernglass, if reports from the last team were accurate. His power was still unknown, but it was clearly formidable.
If Ihernglass is coming, Vhalnich is with him. He would not surrender that power so easily.

“And how long until they get here?” the Black said.

“It is hard to estimate distance precisely, Your Excellence—”

“Get out of my sight.”

—

“They are still coming,” the pontifex said. “How can they still be coming?”

“He's crossed half a continent to get here,” the Beast said. “A little snow and ice isn't going to stop him.”

“Armies need bread. Horses need fodder. The tribesmen are burning everything the snow hasn't covered.”

“And yet,” the Beast said, smiling slyly, “he is still coming. Just as I warned you.”

The pontifex snorted, glaring at the prisoner. It was pointless, since the Beast's eyes were obscured by the iron helmet and the creature couldn't see him. It
couldn't
, but it raised its head anyway, as though to meet his gaze. The girl who was its host was growing thinner, her wrists chafed and blistering where the shackles rubbed them. Her red hair was growing out, the iron helmet not permitting regular, hygienic shaves. Spiky, dirty strands stuck through the gaps in the metal circlet.

“What demon does Ihernglass bear?” the pontifex said. “What power does it grant him?”

“Some things are beyond even my knowledge,” the Beast said, grinning like a skull. “But it must be a potent creature indeed.”

“Then what good are you? Why am I imperiling my soul speaking with the enemy of all mankind?” The pontifex turned away. “I will leave you to rot in the dark.”

“You know why,” the Beast said in a whisper.

The Pontifex of the Black stiffened.

“This is the greatest threat the Church has faced since Karis' day,” the Beast said. “Since
me
.”

Karis the Savior. The
Wisdoms
taught that he had interceded with God to spare humanity the final judgment, and God, moved by mercy, withdrew the Beast. But there was another history, passed down among the Priests of the Black.

Karis saw that the Beast would be the end of humanity. So he prayed for strength and confronted the creature. And, with the Lord's help, he
mastered
it.

That had been the true beginning of the order. Everything that came after—the
Wisdoms
, the council, Elysium itself—had been to further that singular purpose. To guard the Beast and keep mankind safe.

Karis mastered the Beast.

“My master warned me,” the pontifex said, not turning. “For a thousand years, you have tempted the leaders of my order thus. And for a thousand years none of us has given in.”

“Your master was a coward,” the Beast said. “Uncertain in his faith. He had the world in the palm of his hand and refused to take it because he feared that God would not grant to him the strength He had given Karis.”

Karis
mastered
the Beast.
The strongest of demons, bent to his will.
Power.

My faith is being tested.
The Pontifex took a deep breath. “Vhalnich will fall. Ihernglass will fall. Elysium will stand, as it has stood for a thousand years. You have failed again, monster.”

He strode out, closing the door behind him. Alone in the darkness, the Beast began to laugh.

—

“Tell him we need more.”

“More?” The keeper of the Old Witch looked blearily at the pontifex, who had roused him from slumber in his modest cell.

“More,” the Black said. “The snows have not stopped Vhalnich.”

“But . . .” The keeper licked his lips. “Any more and he may not survive long. He is weak already.”

“His survival means nothing if Vhalnich's cannons tear the city down around our ears.”

“And he cannot control the power, not precisely. The people—”

“Sacrifices are necessary. You know what is at stake. Do it.”

The keeper lowered his gaze in defeat. “Yes, Your Excellence.”

—

She had known from the beginning, of course, that she was not going to survive.

The Liar had led Twist and Wren against Vhalnich and his demons, three of the best of the Penitent Damned, and they had never returned. That bastard Shade had reported that the creatures defending Vhalnich were stronger than anything the Church had faced in hundreds of years. The Penitent Damned were a shadow of what they had been in their heyday, when they'd warred openly with the sorcerer-kings and demon cults. Magic was fading from the world, and the ranks of the Penitents had been allowed to thin as their opposition grew frail.

A mistake. She'd always thought so, though it was not her place to question. Evil had grown strong beyond the Church's reach, in Khandar, and now it had returned.

She and Viper had planned carefully. Frost's attack would draw Vhalnich's creatures away. Viper, protected from the cold by one of her own vile concoctions, would pass under the river to make her move. A simple plan, but in Frost's experience, the simple plans were always the best ones.

For a moment, in the forest, she'd thought she was going to win. Ihernglass, the rumored demon lord, had seemed so
weak
, only human. But the other two had caught her by surprise.

She didn't know whether it had worked, not for certain, but she guessed it had. The tribesmen told her that Viper had escaped, that the Vordanai were riding in pursuit. And now the mighty army was striking its camps and preparing to march, not north to Elysium but
south
, the way they had come.

It worked.
She swallowed, fighting back the pain.
Elysium is saved. My sacrifice was not in vain.

She did not look forward to death. Her soul was forfeit, after all, sacrificed the moment she spoke the name of the icy demon that lived behind her eyes. All she had to look forward to was an eternity in a personal hell. The grace of the Lord was not for her.
One soul, sacrificed to save thousands.
That was what the Penitent Damned were, in the end.

But death was coming, whether she willed it or not. She'd awoken in
agony, strapped to a crude travois dragged by a pair of the tribesmen's white ponies. They'd found her where Ihernglass and his companions had left her for dead. The tribesmen held her kind in superstitious awe, and they hadn't dared to leave her to bleed out in the snow.

At the time she'd cursed them. They might believe she was more than human, but Frost knew better. She could tell a mortal injury when she saw one. The strange spears of darkness had pierced her gut, through and through, and though the tribesmen had wrapped the wound as best they could, it already stank of pus and decay. Her head swam with fever, and she floated in and out of consciousness. In one of her more lucid moments, she'd ordered them to make camp within sight of the Vordanai army and wait.

Now she understood. The Lord had guided her, of course. There was one last task she could perform, one last service for the faithful, before she abandoned her body and accepted her punishment for defying the laws of God.

“When did they begin to cross?” she asked the tribesman who attended her. He was a short, filthy man, greasy hair bound in complex braids.

“At first light, Blessed One,” he said, eyes averted. “Their host is vast. It has taken most of the day.”

“But they are still crossing?”

“Yes, Blessed One.”

Lord be praised.
She had not missed her chance. “Take me to the river.”

He scrambled to obey. Two more tribesmen came and lifted her, as gently as they could. The jostling still brought waves of agony from her perforated midsection, and her vision flickered at the edges.
Just a little longer.
The Lord would not take her until her task was complete, she was certain.

They had taken shelter in a shallow cave. Outside, even the weak sun made Frost blink, and her head swam. The tribesmen carried her down the slope, leather shoes crunching in the snow, and laid her reverently at the bank of the river. The snow had drifted and piled atop the frozen surface, but here the ice was visible under only a light dusting. Frost laid her hand against it and sent her vision inward.

One more task.
She called on her demon, felt it respond, drawing energy from her failing strength. She hit the limit of her power and pressed beyond, letting her entire being drain into the demon's maw.
Once more.

Cracks spidered outward through the crust of ice. Underneath, the Kovria flowed as swiftly as ever, a vast, cold torrent. As the demon's power took hold, the ice shifted its shape, pressing downward to impede that flow. The mighty river pushed back, roaring and thrashing, as Frost sought to choke it off.

Something had to give, and, as she'd known it would be, it was the ice. With a series of
cracks
like musket shots, it broke, water blasting upward from the fantastic pressure below. The river, briefly dammed, returned to its course with a vengeance. Downstream, the crust of ice had broken up as the water level dropped, and now the returning flow slammed into it like the hammer of God.

A wall of frothing water and tumbling, shattered ice rolled downstream, bearing down on the unsuspecting Vordanai army with all the fury of a mountain avalanche. But Frost could not see it. The demon had burned the last of her life, and the breath rattled out of her with a final, satisfied sigh.