The Silent Army (35 page)

“Come now.” She stood up and looked out at Canhoon in the distance. “It is time for us to run.”

Around them, all along the shoreline, horns sounded a cry to war.

The Sa’ba Taalor moved, stepping onto the ice with ease, their great mounts moving with them.

Theran could not guess how many of the hellish folk there were. The fog from the frozen waters was too thick to give the faintest hint.

He could not see the corpses that he left behind, either. That was for the best. He had felt two of them freeze beneath him as he touched the water and he would never get past that sensation in a hundred lifetimes.

Captain Callan looked at the ice and shook his head, simply shocked beyond his ability to understand for a moment. One thing to hear about sorcery. One thing to even travel faster than a man should ever manage. The ice was a different beast. It was an actual impossibility made reality.

“How is that happening?” He watched as the ice overtook every one of the black ships around them. Waves froze in an instant and even the ship he stood on – a ship that had managed not to get destroyed by a dozen impacts with other vessels, that had traveled miles in minutes against all possibilities, even so incredible a boat as that – was slowed and then suspended in the ice.

Daivem looked his way and frowned. “Powerful sorcery. More powerful than any I’ve seen, besides that city.”

They’d watched as Canhoon dropped softly from the sky and landed. They’d felt the surge of water lift all of the ships around them and theirs besides. It had been an experience not easily prepared for.

The air was warm with spring. The trees were blooming along shorelines that teemed with green, but now the whole of Gerhaim, virtually an inland sea, was frozen in minutes. Heavy mists rose from the ice, making even the closest of the ships little more than a silhouette, but still he could see the Sa’ba Taalor’s shadowy forms as they climbed from their trapped ships and started walking across the ice. Hundreds of the bastards were heading toward the island city.

“I don’t see how we can go after them at this point,” he said. “I mean, it’s one thing to hit their ships and another for a small crew to try to kill that many.”

Daivem nodded and then pointed. “Still, your crew will try, yes?”

Sure enough, the ghosts of his crew were scaling down the sides of the ship.

“What can they possibly do?”

Daivem frowned and shook her head. “Nothing. They are dead. They can do nothing once they leave the ship, except remember that fact.”

He wondered for only one moment what she meant. As they left the ship and walked a short distance, they flickered out of sight.

“Where are they going, Daivem?”

“To where the dead go. I am not dead and cannot say beyond that.” She sighed and looked his way. “I hear that they go to a place of peace. I hope that is true.”

“What do we do now?”

The Inquisitor looked at him and shook her head. “This was never my fight. Never Louron’s fight. This is your battle. We have merely provided you with a means to get here.”

He looked at the woman for a while, not sure how to respond. “How do you mean?”

“You asked for our help and we gave it. But you have lost your crew. What you do now is your decision, but we will not be staying.”

“Where will you go?”

“Home. The same way we got here.”

“With this ship?”

“No. We will follow the Shimmer.”

Callan nodded. He’d understood that something unnatural to him allowed the ship to move so quickly and he’d certainly seen the distortion around them. The Shimmer was as good a name as any for it.

“Do you come with us, Captain Callan? Or do you stay here?”

Callan looked to the city and felt the ship beneath him and was uncertain.

Drask looked down at the ice and nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

Andover looked his way. “What do you mean?”

“Why swim when you can walk? Freezing the lake was sensible.”

Whereas the Fellein were unsettled by the notion, neither Drask nor Andover was particularly shocked. Both had seen the actions of the gods.

Tega looked on and then shrugged. A moment later the mount under her moved forward.

Why it obeyed was something that Andover could not fathom. The mount had been Delil’s and she was not only dead, but now she was gone as well.

The night before, with Canhoon only a short distance away, he had taken her shrouded body and laid her upon the ground. He had uncovered her face one last time. She was perfectly still, but had not decayed. The Daxar Taalor had given him that. Or perhaps it was Drask. He hadn’t bothered to ask.

He touched her face one last time then covered her and set about the task of building her funeral pyre. He did not ask for help, but Tega and Drask gave assistance just the same.

There were no tears shed, but he felt the loss of Delil deeply.

In the end he could not decide if she would want to come back and so he left her death in the hands of the gods. Had they wanted her back they would have brought her back as they had Swech. Her body burned hot and the blaze was bright enough to light the area.

Eventually he slept and when he awoke all that was left of Delil was ashes.

Andover stared at the frozen lake and followed Tega and the silent fool who rode with her, Nolan.

Drask rode out onto the ice beside him. Theirs was a comfortable silence, at least for the moment. There were decisions to be made and that time was upon them.

“You should present yourself to the Empress.” The words were unexpected and Andover looked to Drask and shook his head.

“You jest.”

“Not at all. You were sent on a task by her cousin, the Emperor. You return now from that task and you should present yourself.”

“I suspect the guards throughout the city might object.”

“They might indeed, but you will be safe from them. Tega and I will see to that.”

“You discussed this then?”

“Yes. It is a matter of protocol. This is not your war unless you choose to make it your war, Andover. You have been tasked with a duty by gods, yes, but your Emperor also tasked you with a duty.”

“I don’t see how I can go back before them. I’ve changed.”

Drask sighed. “An honorable person is only as good as the vows they choose to make and keep. You have made vows. Would you not discharge them properly?”

“What will the Daxar Taalor say about it?”

“The Daxar Taalor were the ones who taught me about honor. There is a time and a place for conflict, Andover. If you choose to fight for the Daxar Taalor that is acceptable, and you may present yourself as their champion if they have, as you say, chosen you for that purpose.”

“They have.” He did not take offense from Drask’s words because he understood the meaning.

“Then you have even more reason to present yourself to the Empress. Fellein has suffered greatly and will continue to suffer. That is the way of war. One side must win and one side must lose and the losers are seldom pleased with the outcome. There is death, there is destruction, there is disease and often poverty. In this case there are also the Seven Forges. Five have now been relocated. They will change the very shape of the land in all directions. That change can be gentle, or it can hammer Fellein into a new shape as it does now.”

“Why do you say these things, Drask?”

“Am I not one of your instructors? Do you see any of the others here?”

Andover nodded.

“You speak for the gods on this and you must let the Empress know that she has an option aside from all-out war.”

“Drask, do you not want a war?”

“What I want does not matter. The war is already happening and is the will of the Daxar Taalor. It is also their will that you are their champion and must present yourself as such. It is not me who suggests an alternative to combat, Andover Iron Hands. It is the Daxar Taalor.”

Drask looked his way, his eyes glowing in the light. Andover knew the man, respected him, and still, even after all this time, found him unsettling. He was the only other member of the Sa’ba Taalor that Andover had ever seen with symmetrical Great Scars. He had the balance that Andover himself was seeking.

“As you wish, Drask.”

Drask shook his head. “No. As the gods wish. In this I will act as their agent. You will reach the Empress safely.”

That was all there was to say for the moment. They moved on, the mounts carrying them with ease.

The ice was thick enough to hold them and the mounts were fast. The heavy fog hid them and only hinted at the great obstacle before them. They rode hard and though he wobbled for a moment, even Nolan reacted properly. The man’s hands moved to Tega’s waist and held to her as she leaned forward over the shoulders and neck of the beast.

Drask leaned forward as well when the mounts moved faster and Andover followed their lead. The brutes tore across the frozen lake, claws adjusting when they started to slide, their speed whipping back the hair of every rider.

The city of Canhoon was a massive affair, indeed, easily dwarfing Tyrne. Andover had enough time to look at the vast wall ahead of them and the shapes of men that stood along it.

The wall was too high for even the mounts to hurdle and though he knew that, he kept moving forward at the same frightening pace. Tega or Drask or the gods themselves would have to either open a way or peel his broken body from the stone surface.

The shapes atop the vast wall moved, and Andover reached for his shield. They might have arrows or spears and both he and Gorwich would need the protection if it came to that. Closer still they rode and then the air flickered around him and Andover grunted, surprised to find himself in a different location.

The sun glared down, no longer hidden behind a veil of mists. The ice was gone and the ground beneath their feet was dirt and cobblestones. The yard was vast, and that was a blessing. Even the fastest mounts needed room to stop. They managed, though Andover almost fell on his ass at the sudden shift in speed.

There were easily thirty men in Imperial armor less than a hundred feet away. They were practicing with swords, and they stopped as the mounts and their four riders appeared.

For one moment he had no idea what to do and the ghost of the boy who had once been maimed by the City Guard wailed from inside his belly.

The soldiers moved quickly, forming into a proper rank and replacing swords with spears. A good sword would wound a man in close combat. A good spear would do the same but had the advantage of range. Before he had been trained by the Sa’ba Taalor and the Daxar Taalor, Andover had considered spears to be little but sticks with a pointy end. He knew better now.

Andover climbed down from his mount and patted Gorwich on the side. He looked to the men coming his way, most of them with swords drawn, and casually pulled his axe from the side of Gorwich’s saddle.

“That is enough!” Andover barely recognized his own voice. “I am Andover Iron Hands, and am here to speak with Empress Nachia Krous and with Desh Krohan!”

The man in charge of the group looked at him and nodded. He seemed absolutely unimpressed. “I am Captain Alaire of the Imperial Guard, and you will stand down or you will die here and now.”

Tega spoke up. “I am Tega. I am apprentice to Desh Krohan. We will wait here while you pass a message to the Empress and her First Advisor.”

Drask said nothing. He merely sat tall in the saddle on Brackka’s back, his hands in easy reach of enough weapons to terrify anyone who knew what he was capable of.

Nolan giggled.

It wasn’t long before the four riders were escorted to see the Empress.

Nachia stared at the four who came into her throne room. They were hard not to stare at. The last time she’d seen Tega and Nolan they were on their way to examine the Mounds. The last time she’d seen Drask Silver Hand, her cousin had still been Emperor.

As for Andover Lashk, the only reason she really recognized him at all was because of his hands.

“What did they do to him?”

She whispered the words to Desh, who looked at Andover and spoke back just as softly, “I couldn’t hope to tell you.”

Drask Silver Hand was the first to approach and as he did he dropped into a formal bow, his arms spread to his sides and his head lowered. “Empress Nachia Krous, I return to your lands in troubling times.”

“Indeed, Drask. The world has changed a great deal since last we met.” She spoke formally as did he, and she sat on her throne and did her best not to fidget.

Andover came forward next. He had changed a great deal. He’d left Fellein to be an ambassador between two different civilizations and came back dressed like a member of the Sa’ba Taalor nation, with gray skin and scars too numerous to count.

“Majesty, I am Andover Lashk, called Iron Hands.” He bowed formally. “I come before you as a citizen of your Empire, returned from a long journey. I come to you as a messenger of the Daxar Taalor.”

That earned him an arched eyebrow. Part of her wanted to react more substantially, but there were protocols to consider.

As was often the case Desh Krohan was on one side of her. As Andover gave his speech Merros Dulver moved into the throne room and to her other side. His eyes scanned Drask, and his face spoke of a dozen sorrows. They had never become friends, exactly, but they’d shared a deep respect for each other and now stood on opposite sides of a conflict.

Desh spoke for Nachia at her signal. “You bear the hands of Andover Lashk. In most other ways you have changed a great deal.”

“I have been in the presence of seven gods, Desh Krohan. I have spoken with them and been blessed by them. These are events that change a man. I remember you well. You were kind to me when my hands were ruined. You have never done me any unkindness.”

Nachia nodded. “What message do you bring to me, Andover Lashk?”

“The Daxar Taalor, the gods of the Seven Forges, offer you one last chance to avoid all-out war. Even now the Sa’ba Taalor surround this city. They are prepared to attack, but they have stayed their actions long enough for you to consider the path you choose.