The Merchant Emperor (61 page)

As he beheld the retreat of Fhremus’s regiment, he couldn’t stop the delight from welling up in him. Anborn threw back his head and laughed uproariously, to be joined a moment later by a mere eight thousand voices. He gave the sign to stand down, then rode forward to the gate and turned, surveying fondly the ragtag regiment that the Sorbolds had not laid actual eyes on. He was a shrewd strategist and a fine master of the bluff, but in a thousand years of soldiering he had never seen a hidden force of skeletal proportions so overwhelmingly convince an army that had outnumbered them four times over, with the additional advantage of a weapon of war like the iacxsis, that they were outmatched to the point of choosing retreat.

He knew it would not happen again.

Something’s wrong,
he thought.
That was far too easy, should never have happened. Something’s wrong.

He shook his head to clear it of the thought.

“All right,” he said gruffly to the soldiers still in the throes of merriment. “Enjoy the sight of their arses flapping as they run like frightened children. Don’t get used to it, however. They will be back, stronger next time. Fortunately, our reinforcements are on the way as well. But look well on this day—you were privileged to witness a
city
kicking the hindquarters of the army that ravaged it, like a woman killing her rapist. In all my days I have never witnessed such a thing.” He laughed aloud again, feeling the camaraderie of the oldest of days in his memory once more.

From atop the wall, Gwydion Navarne leaned over the rampart above him, his face white as death.

“Lord Marshal,” the young duke said. “Come, please, sir.”

57

By the time Anborn had hastily climbed the ladder and reached the rampart atop the wall, Rhapsody had already regained consciousness and was slapping away the ministrations of the young duke of Navarne and a variety of soldiers who had been with her on the rampart when she fell.

They were merely trying to help her, given that she had an arrow jutting from her chest, and was bleeding copiously on the floor of the rampart.

“Leave me alone,” Anborn heard her insist as he came to her side. “I’m all right.”

“You have an interesting definition of ‘all right,’ as you do of most things, m’lady,” said the Lord Marshal, signaling dismissal to the other soldiers. “Get me clean rags and calendula, if there is any to be had.” He watched the men descend the ladder.

“Witch hazel and thyme would be better,” Rhapsody called weakly to the descending soldiers.

Anborn laughed, though his face betrayed his worry.

“Even an arrow wound can’t overcome your extraordinary bossiness,” he said fondly, taking off his cloak and balling it up into a pillow to brace behind her back. “May I borrow your sword?”

“Certainly. Did you lose your own?”

The Lord Marshal drew a dagger. “Hardly. I want to sterilize my knife.”

“She refused to let any of the archers remove the arrow,” Gwydion Navarne said. He had regained a little of his color from when he had summoned Anborn, but was still trembling nervously.

“Of course she did; she’s not a fool. Look at your hand. It’s shaking like a dog coming out of a pond. Theirs would have been worse.” Anborn took hold of the hilt of Daystar Clarion and pulled it, as respectfully as he could, a small ways out of the scabbard until the licking flames could be seen. He held the blade of the dagger in the elemental fire. “She’s also fairly particular about who gets to see her naked.” He chuckled as Gwydion blanched, but Rhapsody merely winced in pain, ignoring the comment he had expected would bring at least a blush to her face, if not ugly words to her lips. He got neither.

“Why don’t you go see about that calendula—and the witch hazel,” he said, giving the young duke a chance to vacate the uncomfortable scene.

“He should stay,” Rhapsody said flatly. “He needs to know how to remove an arrow.”

“Yes, but he probably doesn’t need to see it being done to his
grandmother
,” the Lord Marshal retorted. “Go,” he said gruffly to Gwydion.

The young duke bowed and hurried down the ladder.

Anborn handed Rhapsody his handkerchief. “Put this between your back teeth.”

She shook her head.

“Are you under my command?” demanded the Lord Marshal.

“I believe so.”

“Then you are dangerously close to disobeying orders. Put the damned thing in your mouth.”

She glared at him but said nothing as she complied.

“I am not trying to abate your pain or save your tongue from being bitten off; the handkerchief is just an excuse to get you to stop talking,” Anborn said as he gently removed her armor and tore her shirt open with his dagger; he winced at the sight of the wound, knowing it was painful. “On second thought, perhaps I would have achieved my objective better if I had let you bite your tongue off after all.” He waited for the retort he knew was coming.

Rhapsody said nothing.

The Lord Marshal continued to wait, applying pressure to the wound, until one of the archers returned with bandages, clean rags, and calendula, a flower-based tincture used to prevent infection and inflammation. The man departed hastily, and Anborn set to removing the arrow, wishing he had taken it himself.

He cleaned and dressed the wound, then bandaged her.

“Start singing your song of healing,” Anborn said, holding her shoulder to stanch the blood. “I need you back in fighting form immediately.”

“I can’t,” Rhapsody said, her face pale but set grimly. “Thank—you for taking the arrow out.”

“What do you mean, you
can’t
?” the Lord Marshal demanded harshly.

She was struggling to breathe in a regular pattern.

“I can’t remember my true name,” she said between measured breaths. “You of all people should understand why I can’t heal myself. I will just have to endure like anyone else would. Stop babying me.”

Anborn fell silent. After a moment he returned to addressing her wound.

“Beloved niece-in-law,” he said quietly as he tied off the bandage, “I know the loss of your son has cut out your heart. But you do know it’s temporary, and that he is safe, do you not?”

“Yes.” Rhapsody struggled to sit up.

Anborn’s hand came to rest on her face. He turned it to allow him to look into her eyes.

“M’lady,” he said softly, “you are cold—not as a result of the arrow, but of a completely different wound. I beg you—don’t let that coldness ruin you. The loss to the world would be heinous, but it would be the end of me, truly it would.”

Rhapsody stared at him. After a moment, she lowered her gaze.

“I will try,” she said finally. “I just don’t know how. I feel nothing, Anborn. Nothing.” She winced in pain. “Well, nothing emotional. My chest hurts like
hrekin
.”

The Lord Marshal sighed, then nodded. He had spent a thousand years in just such a state.

“I understand better than you know,” he said. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Serviceable. Thank you.”

Anborn nodded again. “Good. Now we’ll get you to a hospice in Bethany; I will arrange an armored carriage and my elite regiment—”

“No, I’m sorry. I have to get to Tyrian.” Rhapsody attempted to tie her shirt up without success. “The same devastation through iacxsis attack that destroyed Avonderre Harbor has been visited upon Port Tallono as well. Rial needs me, and I need to be with my people. Unless you have specific requirements for me in the next few weeks, I want to go to Tyrian.”

Anborn waited until her gaze returned to him, and met it.

“My only requirement of you at the moment is that you stay safe,” he said seriously as he tied her shirt up for her. “There will come a time when, I suspect, I will specifically have need of your skills in battle.” His voice dropped in volume to just above a whisper. “When your husband returns, when the ports are liberated and the blockade lifted, I want to hold a war council to assess the continent’s status. I’ve done some calculations, and it is growing apparent to me that in order to survive we will need to harness resources other than what we have.”

Rhapsody listened intently.

Anborn’s eyes took on a gleam, though what it represented, Rhapsody could not tell. Excitement, perhaps. Or perhaps something more, something deeper. Realization.

Or maybe fear.

“Constantin and I had the opportunity to share and analyze the intelligence we collected or knew regarding Sorbold in the time we traveled together, before we arrived in Ylorc,” he said quietly. “From without, it is essentially unassailable.”

“That’s what we thought about the Bolglands.”

“True. But Talquist has been planning his ascension and conquest for a long time. I suspect he may have killed both the empress and the Crown Prince himself. He has resources, both here on the continent, and around the Known World, especially maritime resources, that dwarf any army we can field. At least from without.”

“You have said that twice now,
from without
,” Rhapsody said. “What is your plan from within?”

“I’m not certain yet. But I will say this. Talquist may have found allies and servants who share his plans—or he may have deceived some of them into believing that they do. It is very clear that he is a consummate liar. The trick will be to determine who shares his vision out of a similar self-interest—and who has been misled into believing that they are doing the right thing by throwing in their lots with him. That will be true both outside Sorbold, and inside it.

“A large and growing part of the population of Sorbold is not there by choice,” he continued as Rhapsody’s eyes took on a similar gleam. “Now, if the slaves who toil in his fields and factories, who sweat to death in his forges, could be convinced to join us, to throw off their shackles and rise up against Talquist,
that
would be something that might balance the scales. I have already begun to set it in motion.”

“But how would you do that?

Anborn’s smile brightened, along with his eyes.

“From within. But only once either you or Gwydion can hold the reins on this side of continent. Until that time, I will be your loyal coachman.”

A small smile came over Rhapsody’s face.

“Excellent. Now, can we see about getting me that armored carriage and regiment you mentioned—only point it southwest in the direction of Tyrian?”

Anborn laughed and kissed her hand.

“As my lady commands. Now, would you care to explain to me how you got so proficient in the use of a whip made of a dragon’s tongue? I don’t suspect that’s training they provide in Namer school.”

“No, they don’t,” Rhapsody admitted. “I have been practicing on crows. All the way home from the Deep Kingdom, in fact. I have great incentive—they make such a satisfying sound when they explode. I was a farm child; I hate crows. In fact, I don’t recall much about those days, having given that name away, but one thing I do remember is how much I hate crows. Snapping them from the skies was the most fun I remember having in a long while.”

Anborn laughed. “Well, imagine that Talquist has a caw to him, and think about what fun it will be to snap him from his tower in Jierna Tal and hurl him a thousand feet into the chasm below. Witnessing that might be the most fun
I
would have had in a long while.”

*   *   *

Inside the walls of the broken city of Sepulvarta, Fhremus had mustered his field commanders who had survived the rout.

“I will leave within the hour,” he said to the line of men staring stonily back at him. “I must go to Jierna’sid personally to explain the loss—this is not news that the emperor should receive by messenger or bird.” He scanned the line, his brain making note once again of the missing leaders in the rank beneath his, soldiers of superior skill and battlefield tactics, men he had never expected to lose in a raid on a farming village. Then his eye went to the most senior of the remaining commanders, and he tried not to let his hatred show in his voice.

“Titactyk, you are tasked with holding the city. Do not engage in maneuvers outside Sepulvarta’s walls until I return, or until you receive word of my death and replacement from the capitol.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Gentlemen, you are dismissed. Return to your units and tend to the injured.”

58

TRAEG, NORTHWESTERN SEACOAST

Ashe had timed his arrival at the seacoast to coincide with the darkest part of the night, when the moon was hovering at the horizon, preparing to set into the arms of the sea.

He had left his cloak, well-made but plain and without ornamentation or insignia, wrapped around one of the thin men of the northern docks, homeless and hollow-eyed, most often old sailors who had lost their souls and more to the sea. It had served its purpose in shielding his vibrational signature during his travels from Highmeadow. He had no need of it now; perhaps it would bring some warmth to old bones that rattled each night in the harsh north wind.

The clothing he wore had been specially designed, tight-fitting to the heavy muscles of his chest and legs to allow for ease of movement in the water. He knew it mattered little; when Kirsdarke was in his hand beneath the waves, his body took on a vaporous state, becoming one with the element, allowing for easy movement with the tides.