The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (72 page)

Paranoia twinged, and he shook off Rallant's grip and clutched him by the shoulders.  “What are you talking about?” he said, trying not to grip hard, trying to stay calm—to not see that light of fear in Rallant's eyes.  “Savaad, I don't understand.  Why does the White Flame care what we do?  We're piking effective; we've shown that.”

“I can't speak for my superiors.”

“Well tell them they're piking idiots!”

Rallant's mouth twitched, and his hands hooked loosely around Linciard's wrists.  “Erolan, Erolan.  So blunt.  You're not made for this.”

“I don't care.  You're not a failure.  I came back, didn't I?”  At Rallant's cynical smile, he snapped, “I can't stop thinking about you!  I was worried the whole time!  I don't care that you screwed with my mind; I've had lovers do worse without magic.  You're not a monster, Savaad, and don't think you can convince me otherwise.”

Rallant laughed, low and harsh.  “They're coming for the captain, Erolan.  They'll take you if you stand with him.  As for me...”  He shrugged.  “I'm whatever they tell me to be.  Stay away.”

Instead, Linciard kissed him on the brow, because he needed to deny that.  “I'm gonna go now,” he said to Rallant's confusion.  “Let you rest and mend.  I've been reinstated—captain says we need all the swords we can get, troublemakers or no—so I'll be in the bunkroom with lancer sections three and four.  Currently on day-shift.  Got that?”

Rallant nodded slowly.

“All right then.  Whenever you want me.”  And he released Rallant's shoulders and carefully twisted from his grip, then headed from the room.

Only when he was outside, with the door shut at his back, did he let himself clench his fists.  Used just to see if the inoculation could be overcome?

But it wasn't like that.  It couldn't just be that!  And what Rallant had told him—

He needed to inform the captain.

Down the hall he went, and was starting down the stairs when he spotted a dark-haired man there at the turn of the steps, arms crossed, leaning against the corner.  Corporal Vyslin.

“Hoi, sergeant,” said his former lover.  “What have you been up to?”

Linciard kept going.  Whatever this was, he couldn't deal with it right now.

A hand caught his sleeve.  “Sergeant.”

He almost slapped it away, but controlled himself.  “Corporal.  I'm sorry, I need to report to the captain—“

“He's still busy chopping heads.  Listen, would you?”

Reluctantly, Linciard halted, though he didn't look at Vyslin.  Down below, the assembly hall was packed with men who had nowhere else to go: the brothel closed, the tavern closed, the streets unsafe.  At least five soldiers had disappeared recently, either deserters or kidnapped.

“You've been acting weird ever since you went berserk,” said Vyslin.  “I hear you got reinstated, but if this is how you're gonna be...”

“Do you have a point?”

“Oh yes sir, sorry sir.”  Sarcasm ran like a vein through his words.  “It's the men.  Morale is shit.  You haven't been around, Benson needs to ride a desk instead of a horse, the captain's gone crazy and now we're trapped here.”

“He's not crazy.”

“No?  He burned down the governor's manor with his
entire wine cellar
still inside!”

Linciard exhaled and crossed his arms, settling in for the long argument.  Nothing was ever easy with Vyslin.  “We didn't have time to empty the place out.  You know it wasn't safe.  And we netted plenty of loot just going through looking for that stupid Lord Governor—“

“Plenty?  A couple pockets full, maybe, but that place was covered in gilt and jewels!  The furniture was silvered!  The tapestries, man!  And do I have to remind you about the wine cellar?”

“Where would we put piking tapestries—“

“That's not the point.  The point is that the men went into that place, saw all the fine things the Lord Governor had, didn't get the chance to take them, then
burned the place down!
”

“Would you rather the stuff had fallen into cult hands—“

“Morale!  The only reason our men don't have swords to our throats is our rashi stash!”

Linciard hissed through his teeth, concerned about their volume.  Mutiny was a danger, yes, and the men below didn't need any reminders.  “What do you expect me to do about that?”

“Most of the officers like you—Light only knows why.  You need to talk with them.  Tell them what in pike's name is going on.  Ever since we got here, the captain's been like a caged animal, and now with the priest and the cult...”  He waved his hands vaguely.  “And all the men are pissed about the Velvet Sheath closing up, piking Stormfollower especially.  It's not good.  I thought you'd add some stability but then you just lost it—“

“I didn't lose it.”

“No?  You figured you'd get cut up for fun?”

Linciard turned on him, a sharp response on his tongue, but then a door banged open upstairs, followed by the sound of rushing feet.  His hand automatically fell to his sword-hilt, and he saw Vyslin's do the same.

“Make way, make way,” said Scryer Mako as she rounded the banister and hopped down the stairs, Magus Voorkei and Warder Tanvolthene on her heels.  They all held parts of the portal-frame that had brought Tanvolthene and Cortine here.

Linciard squeezed into the corner with Vyslin.  “What's going on?”

“New orders,” said the Scryer, breezing past.  “Military rule.  Reinforcements incoming.”

“Reinforcements, that's good,” said Vyslin, then hooked a finger in Linciard's epaulet and yanked on it for attention.  Linciard leaned toward him.  In an undertone, the corporal said, “The captain got permission for those executions, right?  Tell me he did.”

“What?  He must have.  He's the most responsible person in the world.”

“Not right now, he isn't.”

Linciard looked up toward Rallant's door, the warning echoing in his head.  With the captain acting erratic, was it wrong for the White Flame to have it in for him?  And what did that mean for the rest of Blaze Company?  What should he do?

Nothing.  They were soldiers; the army shuffled them around at will.  More than that, they were Imperial citizens and thus subject to the Throne, the Temple and the White Flame.

“Just stay calm, keep your men calm and don't do anything stupid,” he muttered.  “She said military rule, so it's probably about the cult or the Lord Governor.”

“But you agree that we're in trouble, right?”  Vyslin's pale eyes canted toward him, then flicked back to the mages assembling the frame down below.  His voice stayed hushed.  “Half our lancers are heathens, plus more in the infantry, so where do we stand anymore?  Messenger Cortine scares me just as much as the captain.”

“I know what you mean,” Linciard murmured, “but I'm serious: there's nothing we can do except behave, obey, and...”

Escape.  Flee into the night.

Was that the source of those five disappearances?  Five men smart enough to see how the company would fall?  Or was he just paranoid?

“Am I paranoid?” he murmured.

“You're a piss-brained sack of cats, but usually sensible.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Look, Cambri, you and I need to talk soon, somewhere private—“

“Oo, private.”

“—Shut up.  But not right now.  I need to talk to the captain.“

“This is a good time,” said Vyslin, pointing as a stream of soldiers suddenly joined the assembly hall from the corridor that led to the yard.  In their midst walked men with head-topped pikes; Linciard recognized Commander Tonner's dead visage and the two men the captain had been keeping down in the cells.

As the macabre parade veered around the mages and their portal-frame, Linciard saw Sarovy stop to trade words with Scryer Mako.  He bore the sheathed executioner's sword across his shoulder like it weighed nothing, though in the light of the warded walls his face was etched with strain.  The lines grew deeper at the Scryer's answer.

A moment later, her voice came through the earhook:
'All officers to the assembly hall.'

“Need to go,” said Linciard, heading down the stairs.  “Talk later.”

“I've heard that before.”

He gave Vyslin the pike-hand, then joined the milling crowd, trying to elbow his way over to the captain.  Half of the men were following the heads out the front door—any spectacle a relief from being cooped up in the garrison—while the other half clumped around the room, muttering speculations about the portal-frame.

On the cusp of extricating himself from the press, mouth open to tell all, Linciard saw Messenger Cortine approaching from the other side.  His blank eyes seemed to pierce across the distance, his flat smile almost a threat.  The words died in Linciard's throat, but he came on anyway, and fell into position at the captain's back.

Sarovy glanced at him, gaze cool, jaw lightly freckled with blood-spatter.  “Sergeant.”

“Captain.  We should speak—”

“Later.”

Linciard swallowed, but nodded.  So much for that.

*****

Sarovy fingered the hilt of the executioner's sword as, one by one, his officers emerged to join him.  He wanted to put the blade away, but that felt too much like concealing his misdeed.  And if whoever was coming to his 'aid' considered it a threat...

Well.  Perhaps it was.

Get a hold of yourself, Firkad.  These are reinforcements, not enemies.  Any punishment you receive will be justified.

So why did he feel like he was being invaded?  He had always thought himself a loyal Imperialist and a faithful Light-follower, but things had been going downhill since Messenger Cortine's arrival.  He could no longer tell if it was his head running the show, or his heart—or maybe his nerves, stretched thin enough to fray.

Maybe Makoura was right and there was something broken in his mind, some piece of conditioning that had slipped out of place.  If so, it was only proper that he stand down.  Turn in his helm and insignias and submit himself to mindwork.

The thought revolted him.  But if it meant his men would be safe...

'Steady,'
said the Scryer's voice directly in his mind. 
'I'm going to shield you, because you're projecting some bad feelings, but when this is done, we are going to talk.'

Yes, yes,
he thought. 
Join the queue.

'Those others can wait.  This can't.'

“Do you recall my recommendations, captain?” said Messenger Cortine at his side.  The priest had been hovering around him continuously since the Potter's Row ambush, offering solicitous advice on the subjects of loss and retaliation and leaving only to tend the injured specialists.  Dismissing him from the executions had been a pleasure, though it made Sarovy feel like a heretic.

“Of course,” he said.

“And will you follow them?”

“No.”

The priest's mouth pressed flat, and from the corner of his eye Sarovy saw one pale hand move toward his arm.  He stiffened, not daring to resist but not wanting that euphoric blessing, the submission to the Light.  Not now.

Then the mages in front of them burst into activity and Cortine's head turned, his hand falling.  “Got a connection, sir,” Scryer Mako shot over her shoulder, then concentrated on tending the frame.  Where her fingers passed, strands of magic rippled like harp-strings.

The gathered men hushed as the portal wove itself into being.  Sarovy squinted into the phantasmal surface, wondering how it worked, what was inside it before it connected—why it took so much effort to create, and how it could pinch together such disparate places.

The image cleared into a view of the base-camp's arcane sanctum, white-robed mages scurrying in the background.  At the frame were a mere handful of men in Crimson armor and uniforms, headed by a familiar figure.

“Colonel Wreth,” said Sarovy, mouth suddenly dry, and raised his fist in salute.

Tri-crested helm clamped under his arm, the grizzled old soldier stepped through the portal, its rippling light playing off the red lacquer of his armor like movement in fresh blood.  If the disjunction of travel affected him, it did not show on his seamed face.  Only the knife-slit of a smile and the hard iron of his eyes revealed his gloating mood.

“Captain Sarovy,” he said as he strode free of the portal's embrace, his subordinates following more cautiously.  His gaze roamed over the Blaze Company soldiers in attendance, then locked on him again.  “You've made a splash among the cultists, I hear.”

“We have held the city thus far, colonel.”

“Like a ship holding the sea.  Ah, an Enlightened Messenger.”

Cortine raised his hands in the phoenix sign, palms forward, thumbs locked.  “Blessings of the Light upon you, colonel.”

“My thanks.  I'll need them to fix this piking mess.  Walk with me, captain.  Show me what we have.”

“Sir,” said Sarovy, and handed the executioner's sword to the nearest officer, feeling foolish.  This was no deposing force, no military police squad come to relieve him of duty.  Colonel Wreth had never liked him and was clearly pleased by his misbehavior, but that did not mean dismissal.  He was almost disappointed.