The Year of Our War (13 page)

Twenty letters later we are here, in the Rachiswater manorship on the edge of Lowespass. Weather: bracing, even for me. Swallow’s fyrd marched until nightfall and then she gave the command to make camp. They had reached the southernmost trenches, and the soldiers set about clearing them out, a very nasty task. While the daylight lasted, they dug around the camp making a square ditch and rampart. Some soldiers were posted along the trenches to keep watch. From the air I could see their round steel helmets in a line as they patrolled the edge.

Broken Insect limbs jutted into the air like machinery; there was a jumble of dirt-colored skeletons unearthed by the trench-diggers, waiting to be thrown in a mass grave. The trench earth was fetid; sleet pooled in the clay, becoming freezing mud. It stank of sulphur.

I had the feeling I was just keeping pace with the day, only managing the bare essentials until the tiredness wears off and I could tackle the real questions at last. I flew over the encampment, bleary-eyed, incapable of thought, observing the altered landscape that unfolded below. Rachiswater was wreckage. I saw a ruined barn where the fyrd had trapped Insects and burned them. I saw Insects themselves, tiny in the distance, running across the pale green fields. The perspective was strange—at a distance they looked as small as ants, but they tried to cross a barbed wire fence which I knew to be two meters high, so they must be as large as deer. My first coherent thought of the day—this can’t be true. We were at the front with fewer soldiers than ever before, and there were more Insects than ever before.

I focused all attention on the spot where I had to land, and swung in over earthwork and barbed wire, over canvas roofs to the Castle’s pavilion. Lightning and Swallow were standing outside, trading opinions. She had a guitar slung over her shoulder, inlaid with mother-of-pearl plaques. I bounded to a halt in front of them.

“Good evening, Jant. Nice flying.”

I struggled to get my breath. “Ah…Swallow! Turn round and go back. What do you think you’re doing? Saker, you should know better! How many fyrd do you have?”

“Six thousand.”

“How many sodding Insects do you think there are?”

“Is it the Emperor’s command?”

“No. Mine.”

Lightning said, “Swallow, I told you. Listen to Jant.”

“You go if you wish, Eszai. I stay.”

“For a start this isn’t the best time of year,” Lightning said.

“So you’re scared of a little snow, as well?”

“It’s hard to keep a bowstring dry in this bloody weather.”

I shook my wings to dislodge shards of ice, and attempted a conciliatory tone. “Let’s go back to the Palace. The soldiers can camp in the park, and I can talk to Staniel and hopefully convince him to help us. Then we can march into Lowespass and reach the fortress. It’s foolhardy to try it with just six thousand.”

“There isn’t enough time. I’ve already sent messengers to Eske and the Plainslands manors asking for assistance,” Swallow informed me.

“You have. Good. The Plainslands manors have all refused to send fyrd to Awia, as they don’t agree with Staniel’s tactics. That’s Eske and Hacilith Moren; Swallow, you’re on your own.”

Palely, she asked, “And Tanager?”

“You know what happened to Tanager? She took her fyrd to find the casket of Dunlin’s remains which his brother dropped so unceremoniously. She didn’t get farther than the Lowespass trenches before the Insects ripped into them and they turned back. Half her men were killed there. Eleonora’s a brave lady, but she’s licking her wounds in Tanager now and gathering new troops.”

The Archer let out an exasperated breath. “We’re an Empire. The Empire isn’t fragile! It’s the most fundamental collaboration! Why are they not working together anymore?”

I sighed. If this was outside Lightning’s experience what hope did we have? “Swallow, let’s leave…?”

“No. Let us make an effective contribution.”

“I can tell you’re getting older.” Swallow was starting to use those callous efficient words which allow one to deal with the world without thinking about it. She knows how to say “I’m sorry” when hearing news of a death. In that context, what the fuck does “I’m sorry”
mean
? She knows how to say “hard luck,” “good day,” “I’m fine,” “see you next year”—how daring it is for a mortal to anticipate that! The shell is growing, and it hides her. In a few years she won’t be thinking or feeling deeply at all, and I am afraid that then her music will cease.

Lightning said, “I am willing to try to gain the next line of trenches. That is twenty-seven kilometers of land we can ensure is free from dispersed, straggling Insects. It’s a small strip of land but it will prove that Castle is still attempting to protect the Empire, regardless of what help is sent. Then we can move, and wait to see if our statement merits any response.”

“That’s great, Saker. I knew you were with me.”

“Would that I could always be with you.”

“And I have to prove myself to the Emperor. He said that Eszai are good warriors, well, it is his recurrent theme
a crescendo
. If it will help my cause, I’ll show him I can fight.”

I looked at her insouciant body carefully—her wide, freckled face, tip-tilted nose, and delicate lips, though she had bitten nails, and muscular legs. “If your claim to be Eszai is that you are the best musician in the world—”

“And I am.”

“What good does it do you to fight?”

Swallow shrugged. “Ask the Emperor. It’s beyond me.”

I turned away from her and peered into the stripy gloom of the pavilion, palms up, saying, “No offense, but you are not a warrior. Your father kept you from the field. How arrogant it is! You think you can command where Eleonora failed, and Rachiswater. Eleonora is a skilled swordsman, you are a pear-shaped pianist.”

“Jant, watch your mouth.”

“Saker. Give me my orders for I’m away. I’m not watching your cold, hungry troops turn to pillaging their own country, and fed like tidbits to the Insects for the vainglorious lust of some ginger hussy.”

“Jant!”

“He’s just frightened,” she said.

“If the Insects kill you, San will have a fat problem taken off his hands. Is the myth of your short life fame enough? I’ll put up a statue—maiden armed with guitar against the hordes! Inscription:
More ambition than sense
.” I whipped my sword from its scabbard which was tied upside down between my wings, and prodded the grass between her feet with the point. “Come, and leave the hard work to the Eszai. One day you’ll thank me for saving your life.”

Swallow put out a hand to the Archer, who understood the gesture. He unbuckled the sword belt from round his waist and handed the Wrought sword to her, hilt first. She grasped the hilt and pulled the blade from its jeweled sheath. A few soldiers nearby looked up, interested. “Guard,” she said.

“Don’t be bloody stupid.”

She was furious that I didn’t consider her worth fighting. As I turned away she lunged, the blade catching the inside of my leg, slicing through the leather. Bitch! I batted it down; it slid up my sword to the hilt. I parried her next blow easily, and then we were at it in earnest. I was faster than her. I had longer reach. I thrust, the heavier blade turned it. She swung up to my throat, I jumped back. I hacked at her legs three times and she checked each stroke, wincing. She feinted left, left again, and then I lost sight of her sword completely. Where is she? Right? Right. Oh, down there. I dropped the blade low, like a scythe.

I was off-balanced, reaching out for nothing. My arms flailed wildly and then I landed on my side in the mud. The breath was knocked out of me as Swallow stamped her flat foot heavily onto my kidneys.

Her sword pressed into my back. “Is it here?” she asked.

Lightning’s voice: “No. Lower.”

“Here?”

“Ow!” The point cut through my leather jacket.

“Jant? I can push this point though your backbone here. It separates two vertebrae. It doesn’t hurt very much but you won’t be able to run anywhere ever again.”

“Eeep!”

“Do you fancy that?”

“No! No! Please!”

“Let him go,” said Lightning. Swallow ruffled my scapular feathers, withdrew her sword and I got up with alacrity. She handed it back to Lightning who said, “Not bad. With practice you’ll learn not to look at the blade at all. It’s an extension of you. Watch your opponent’s reaction.”

“He’s been giving me lessons,” Swallow explained, while I pulled bits of mud out of my hair.

I glared at Lightning. “Why didn’t you teach me that trick?”

“I had a feeling that one day a lady would need it to get the better of you.”

“Swallow, I’m sorry.”

“Glad to hear it. Are you with us now?”

“If I must.”

T
hat night a fire was lit in the middle of the compound and the soldiers roasted deer and warmed bread brought in from the villages around Rachiswater. Swallow asked for the venison fat and ate it sloppily with her dagger. I appreciated her appetite, wondered if she was as voracious in bed.

Flying made me hungry, but I was sulking at having underestimated Swallow. Many women are excellent fighters and could beat me; I respect their ability. But Zascai soldiers saw Swallow win; I knew that the story would spread fast and far.

I left while Harrier was handing round cups of wine, and I concealed my supply of cat. I couldn’t resist taking a little. Handling it helped me relax, and the ritual focused my mind. Powder lined in the folds of paper, mesmeric candle flame, hiss of liquid, satisfying resistance of solution in the syringe. I was taught about herbs in Hacilith when I was young, and my knowledge can be relied upon when everything else is so vexatious. I am good at it, and it makes me feel safe, but I’d like to be able to stop.

My feeling of inadequacy grew as I dwelt on the Castle’s immense depth of time. I thought about all the immortal Messengers before me; the title lives on although the individual might not. Archer, Swordsman, Messenger; the title is important but the person is dispensable. I’m immortal, and the other immortals before me have died, so I shouldn’t feel inferior to them, but by my actions I feel I’m letting those worthy people down. I feel I’m letting down the first Comet who joined the Circle at its founding, and at least twenty others that came after him in progression; the last Comet being a cheerful blond Morenzian woman I beat in a distance race in eighteen-eighteen. There’s only ever been one Archer, and he remembers all my predecessors. Indulgently I speculated about who they all were, and how they might have died—displaced by better runners, or injured by the Insects beyond repair.

I had just taken the needle out of my wrist and was dabbing at a spot of blood when Swallow fought her way in through the canvas entrance. I checked that everything was hidden, hoping that she wouldn’t notice my drooping eyelids and white lips.

“Jant, I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Why? You did well.”

“I showed you up. It was cruel. Everyone could see you were tired.”

Being offered sympathy by a Zascai was worse than being beaten! “You’ll never make an Eszai if you worry about such things,” I said softly.

“If immortals aren’t fair, the world will cease to love them,” she answered.

I flapped my hands at her. No one on a rush can bear to sit and suffer truisms. “Know what the Circle is, sister? Just a way of taking powerful people out of society and herding them all together in the Emperor’s care where they can’t do any harm…Of throwing the world’s best at the Insects so the world never changes…Swallow, be clever. Stay and rule Awndyn where San can’t clip your wings and command all your potential. We’re going to need you free and carefree in twenty years’ time.”

“I have no freedom now that I’d lose in the Circle.”

“Mmm.” I lay back on the bearskin and looked up at her. “You’re trying so hard to entrap yourself forever. Mortals are free of the responsibility of…this…” I waved floppily at Lightning’s stacked sheaves of arrows, bowstaves and armor. “In many ways I was happier when career-less and clueless in Darkling.”

“I don’t want to be forty.”

“Well, I have no answer to that.”

She passed the mother-of-pearl guitar to me. I caressed the beautiful instrument; the pegs were ivory, the strap blue and gold, and Awndyn’s insignia was painted on the back. She smiled when she saw how lovingly I held it, not knowing that the clarity of cat made it breathe under my hands. “Please look after it for me,” she said.

“Why?”

“I won’t play another note until I’ve killed Insects in battle.”

“Oh, Swallow. Why are you doing this?”

“The Empire is forcing me. I’ll do whatever it takes to be Eszai.”

“Marry Lightning.”

“You know he’d wear me down. I’m not a river, or a butterfly, or a star, or anything else he says in his letters. I’m not as pure and perfect as any of them, but still more varied than any of them together.”

“Yes, you are.” I tapped my nails on the scratchplate, lay with the guitar on my stomach and played a riff.

Swallow yelped. “It’s never made a sound like that before!”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, go on.” She urged me to play the rest of the melody. Although she was surprised that I knew the headstock from the bridge she didn’t look down on me. She aimed to learn from everyone. I felt the frets and then played, eyes closed for a while before embarrassment stopped me. She was grinning.

“I made money that way in Hacilith,” I said.

“In the concert hall?”

“Hardly. Busking. One of the Wheel’s members taught me. He was called Babitt.”

“Come out and play for me by the fireside.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Using scolopendium is a very solitary activity and I wouldn’t want to appear in public for at least an hour afterward. But Swallow is persuasive. She simply attributed my condition to exhaustion and said I needed fresh air. She dragged me out to stand by the fire, where soldiers were drinking, cutting roast meat, talking boisterously, laughing more often as Swallow raised their spirits with a song. I played reels and wild czardas while she danced, gleaming and beaming, in front of the fire, and Lightning looked on.