Terms of Surrender (21 page)

General Baum sat at his desk in stony silence. Dispatches from Belle Terre on his left. Dispatches from the crusade on his right.

And in the middle, the prize captured from a sortie against the rebel tide, delivered by fast courier.

The Terrai were waging a lightning war, guided by a keen military mind. The
who
was no mystery: Judicael Leclerc had been a terror during the war when he led the Autumn Lance. No question he was running the entire show now, after the Terrai king and his entire bloodline had been drawn and quartered. The rapid advance, the precise knowledge of Imperial weak points, the charisma that drew more and more rebels to his banner by the hour—this revolution had Leclerc’s fingerprints all over it.

The one mystery, the only thing Baum couldn’t understand, was how the uprising had begun in the first place. At this point the rebels had no shortage of weapons and armor; they’d sacked enough Imperial garrisons and forts to equip themselves with the same gear Baum’s soldiers used. The spark that ignited the fire, though—the weapons they’d used to capture Fort Blackwood, when the Empire had done everything possible to disarm the Terrai of anything more dangerous than a soup ladle—
that
was the mystery.

A recent skirmish had actually turned the Imperials’ way, and per his standing order, the victorious squad had rushed the dead men and their kit back to the capital for inspection.

The prize on General Baum’s desk was the business end of a spear, snapped off in the heat of battle. The head was flawless, gleaming and sharp, baptized in Imperial blood. What caught Baum’s eye, though, was the broken haft just below it. And the tiny triangular mark seared into the wood.

The seal of a master Mirenzei blacksmith.

“
Still haven’t received weapons shipment
,” read the dispatch on the right side of his desk, sent by a commander halfway to the Caliphate. “
Peasant levies worse than useless. Morale floundering. Please advise
.”

“Lodovico Marchetti,” Baum whispered. “You treasonous bastard.”

The pope’s banker had armed the Terrai with the crusade’s weapons. Simultaneously sparking war in the west while destroying the emperor’s dreams of conquest in the east. Spurring a rebellion while half the Empire’s armies were scattered from the homeland to Carcanna on a doomed mission.

A knock sounded at the door. Baum looked up from the spearhead.

“Enter.”

A footman opened the door, standing aside for his green-robed guest.

“General Baum,” Marcello said with a smile. “Cardinal Accorsi. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

*     *     *

The outer promenade of Rhothmere Keep was a sweeping balcony wide enough to walk a pair of elephants side by side. Polished pink granite floors, cut with scalloping grooves, led to a raised and rounded banister. The walk overlooked a sharp embankment, the tangled streets of the capital city far below in the mist, and distant green mountains whose peaks stood drenched in white, ragged clouds.

Baum’s broad shoulders shivered against the chill. The morning cold didn’t seem to bother the cardinal, though.

“It’s true,” Marcello said. “Lodovico was behind the push to put Carlo on the throne in the first place. I don’t think Carlo knows anything about his true intentions. He’s just a useful puppet.”

“We were
all
useful puppets,” Baum grumbled. “Worst part? Even this won’t deter that madman. Theodosius only sees what he wants to see. And all he wants to see is his name above his father’s in the history books.”

“It seems you have two problems, then. The emperor’s reluctance to see reason, and Carlo’s support of his crusade.”

Baum walked to the edge of the promenade. He pressed his hands against the dewdrop-spattered railing, leaning forward and looking down over the city.

“One’s fixable. It chafes me, but if I can convince the emperor’s council to support Livia Serafini’s bid for the papacy, I’m sure she can be convinced to invalidate the crusade and send the peasant levies home. We’ll pay out the nose—in treasure
and
pride—but that’s one disaster down.”

“What if I had a better way? One that ends both threats, brings your boys home in time to deal with your little rebellion problem in the west, and saves you from having to bend your knee to Itresca?”

Baum turned to face him. His eyes narrowed.

“I’m listening.”

Marcello took a step closer. Glancing left and right, making sure they were alone on the granite walk.

“And if I told you that this solution would not be for the weak of heart or backbone? That it might require certain steps that a feebler man might find…a challenge to his conscience?”

“Cardinal, as we speak, my men in Belle Terre are
dying
. They’re dying because I can’t send reinforcements, because my armies are tied up in a crusade dreamed up by a lunatic and spurred on by a mad banker and his puppet pope. I will do whatever it takes to save my troops and save this empire.”

“And what if,” Marcello said, his voice whisper soft, “it meant a tiny act of treason?”

Baum loomed over him, his face carved from stone.

“Understand this, Cardinal, and understand it well: I am a
patriot
. That means I owe my loyalty to the armies I swore to lead and the citizens I swore to protect. I am loyal to the crown and what it means. Not to the fool wearing it.”

“Come take a ride in my coach,” Marcello said, his smile growing. “There’s something I’d like you to see. I think we’re going to be good friends, you and I.”

*     *     *

Later that afternoon, under a waning sun, an Imperial convoy rattled through the city streets. Coaches in the emperor’s livery, pulled by chargers and flanked by carts laden with soldiers.

“I don’t understand what this is all about,” Minister Wruck complained. “Why couldn’t we just discuss your news in the council chamber? Where it’s
warm?
”

The members of the emperor’s council followed Baum—and the silent Cardinal Accorsi—to the loading door of a warehouse on the desperate side of town. Baum’s soldiers pressed in from behind, looming sentinels.

“Because,” Baum said, “this is something that needs to be seen firsthand.”

He hauled on the loading door, its wooden slats clanking and ratcheting upward.

And beyond, the treasures of the heathen east. Gold and incense and woven tapestries, piled high and gleaming.

“What…” Minister Zellweger said, leading the pack as they slowly stepped inside and peered about. “What
is
this?”

Baum spread his hands. “This, gentlemen, is a warehouse owned by our beloved emperor. You see, once the trade routes to the east were cut off by war, he still wanted access to his imported pleasures.”

Wruck snorted. “Disgusting. But…not surprising. He was always waiting for the Caliphate to attack. Anticipating it. I think he
prayed
for it, to be honest. Anything for the excuse to call a crusade and outshine his father. He’s probably had this little treasure trove for years. What’s the point, General? We don’t respect the man any more than you do. This is hardly going to make us like him any
less
.”

“But this might. If you’ll follow me, please?”

The council edged deeper into the warehouse. No one—no one but Marcello—noticing how the soldiers had spread out to cover every exit.

Baum put his hands on an open crate and gave it a heave. It thumped down, spilling out its contents onto the clean-swept floor: a suit of Oerran outrider armor packed in wood shavings.

“An interesting set of armor,” he said, flourishing a sheaf of parchment, “with a
most
interesting history. You see, according to this letter—sent by an artisan in Mirenze to our beloved emperor—it’s a prototype for his approval. A perfect counterfeit.”

Baum lowered the sheaf, fixing the council in his gaze.

“A prototype, according to the follow-up letter, that the emperor approved. He placed an order for twenty more suits. Twenty suits to be shipped to the Caliphate border…just before the attack on al-Tali.”

A murmur spread across the warehouse, heads leaning in, whispers flying. Wruck frowned as he put it together.

“You can’t mean what I think you mean. You can’t.”

“I can. And here’s something interesting. In this letter, the artisan sets his price for the lot. And the very next day, we have…a treasury authorization slip for a cash withdrawal in that exact same amount.” He held up the page. “Signed and stamped by our own Minister Zellweger.”

Zellweger had already been pale and shaky, keeping to the back of the gathering. As he gazed upon his own seal, he shook his head wildly and backpedaled.

“N-no, no, you don’t understand—”

He turned to run, and two soldiers clamped their hands down on his arms. As he dug in his heels and shouted his innocence, thrashing in their grip, they dragged him toward the mouth of the warehouse.

“There was no Caliphate attack,” Baum declared. “Emperor Theodosius wanted one so badly he
invented
it, with Zellweger’s help. The entire crusade is a disaster born of a lie. Now, because of what he’s done, our entire Empire stands on the precipice of ruin. And that precipice is
crumbling
. One question remains: what are we going to do about it?”

Marcello took a step back, folded his arms, and smiled. Lodovico Marchetti had prepared his masterstroke to perfection: a plan to frame Emperor Theodosius for the crimes Lodovico had committed. One last stake to drive into the Empire’s heart and throw suspicion off his own deeds, held in reserve in case he needed it.

He just hadn’t expected someone
else
to find his secret weapon. Much less to put it to good use.

The debate didn’t last long. The ministers shuffled, grim-faced, back to their coaches. As Baum and Marcello walked past Zellweger, he cried out.

“Listen to me! Lodovico Marchetti was blackmailing me. I had no
choice
. That withdrawal—he never told me what it was for. I didn’t know what I was helping him to do!”

Baum smiled and leaned in, his lips to Zellweger’s ears, speaking for him alone.

“I know. But this fits the narrative better. See, you’re going to give a full confession about how you and the emperor came up with this little scheme. Right before we hang you.”

He stepped back and nodded to the soldiers holding Zellweger’s arms.

“Take him to Lowgate. Maximum security. No visitors.”

Zellweger was still screaming as they dragged him away.

*     *     *

Emperor Theodosius’s bathtub was the size of a small pool, carved from imported Carcannan marble and lined with gold. He lay back in the lukewarm water, a golden wine goblet at his side, a contented smile on his lips.

Then the doors thundered open and Baum strode in, leading a platoon of soldiers in full battle gear.

The emperor shot bolt upright, water splashing, as they converged upon him. “Baum, what in the Gardener’s name are you—”

Hands clamped on his wrists, hauling him out of the tub as Baum unfurled a scroll adorned by every seal of the emperor’s council.

“Due to your malfeasance, incompetence, and evidence of the willful perversion of your sworn duties,” he read aloud, “you are hereby relieved of power and will be brought before a tribunal to determine your ultimate fate. In the meantime, the Empire will stand under military authority until such time as a proper order of succession can be arranged, however long that may take.”

The soldiers dragged the emperor past him, naked and sputtering, leaving puddles of water on the marble tile in his wake.

“This is—this is a
coup!
”

“Yes,” Baum said, rolling up the scroll. “It certainly is.”

The night flew by in a flurry of orders and dispatches, messengers racing to the farthest-flung corners of the Empire.

“Let me be clear,” Baum said to his staff. They stalked the halls of Rhothmere Keep in a pack, with Marcello in tow. “The crusade is
over
. I want an immediate pullback, with eighty percent of our troops—the best and most seasoned—regrouping on the Terrai border. Time to stop this insurgency before it gets out of control.”

“And the rest?” one asked, scribbling furiously with a charcoal stick as they walked.

“Verinia. Specifically, the Holy City and Mirenze. We have a pope to pacify and a traitor to capture. I want Lodovico Marchetti returned to the capital in chains to answer for his crimes. I want him
alive
.” He glanced sidelong at Marcello. “Are you ready to do your part?”

“Ready and eager,” the cardinal said.

“Right. Pull a company of mounted cavalry from the capital guard: they’re to accompany Cardinal Accorsi back to the Holy City. Make sure they understand that number one, this is a covert military operation, and number two, Cardinal Accorsi is in complete command.”

The general leaned closer to Marcello, his voice low and hard.

“I trust you won’t disappoint us…Holy Father.”

Bells clanged in every watchtower in Winter’s Reach, an endless peal like hammers falling upon a mighty anvil. In the streets, heads lifted, eyes turned. Voices dropped in worried whispers as a flood of people made their way to the heart of the city. Every citizen of the Reach knew what that tolling meant. They’d been trained for it, warned of it,
expected
it since the day they were born.

They streamed to the square outside the Hall of Justice. Faces upturned to see Veruca Barrett perched atop the building’s arch like a brass-buttoned crow. She stood tall and spread her arms as if to embrace them all.

The crowd fell silent.

“The Empire is coming,” she called out. “By land and by sea. They’re coming and, make no mistake, they’re coming to tear down our walls, tear down our flag, and tear down our entire way of life. Did you bring your family? Did you? Look to them, right now. Look at your husband, your wife, your children.”

Heads turned, a murmur of soft acknowledgment. Down in the crowd, fingers brushed and hands squeezed.

“Now look at them,” Veruca said, “and imagine iron collars around their throats and shackles on their wrists. Because come sunrise, if we don’t win this fight, that’s
exactly
what you’ll see.”

A louder murmur now. Angrier.

“The Empire doesn’t talk. It doesn’t negotiate. And these men will not be satisfied with anything less than seeing every last one of us dead or enslaved. Now, our founders, the rebels who won the Reach for us with their blood and their fury, they knew this day would come around. And so did we.”

She swept out her hand, seizing the sky with her gloved fingers.

“The Empire thinks they can cow us with their shiny armor and their fancy regalia. Their lockstep marching and their ‘discipline.’ Well, I’ve got news for them! Know what I have, right here in front of me? I’ve got a city teeming with hard-bitten bastards who pick their teeth with Imperial
bones!
”

The crowd exploded. Some waved frost-slicked blades above their heads, others their clenched fists, every throat roaring defiance. Veruca stood above them, a grim and humorless smile on her face, and raised her arms high.

“I’m not asking you to die for the Reach. I’m telling you to
kill
for it! We’re going to wade hip-deep through Imperial blood and turn every last one of their wives into widows, before they can do it to us! You’ve trained for this. You know what you have to do. So get to it.”

She pointed down at the crowd, her eyes burning with the challenge.

“Either we stand victorious tonight, or our city dies and your families die with it. Your children are counting on you. The Reach is counting on you.
I
am counting on you. Don’t let me down.”

The preparations began. Block captains rallied their neighbors, assigning them to bucket brigades and barricade squads, while infants and the elderly were dispatched to shelter on the farthest side of town from the gates. Every single citizen following an emergency plan they’d spent years practicing but hoped they’d never have to carry out.

Veruca opened a hatch in the roof, clambered down a ladder into the hall, and found her commanders waiting before her basalt throne. Four of them, in the armor of Coffin Boys but with twists of scarlet cord at their right shoulders. One stepped forward, clearing his throat.

“Mayor. Our scouts have movement. Everything Renault said has been confirmed. We expect them to reach our gates by sunset.”

“Then we have just enough time to prepare. I want harassers on the forest road, anything to slow them down and test their nerve. How does the harbor look?”

Another commander sighed. “It’s vulnerable, Mayor. If they’re bringing ships with any kind of long-range bombardment capabilities, we could lose our port.”

“We can
not
lose that port,” Veruca said. “Lose that and we might as well abandon the city.”

“I…might have an idea,” Mari said. Veruca turned her head and blinked. The knight stood, with her small entourage, off to the side of the throne.

Veruca walked up to them, casting a dubious eye over the ragged, exhausted-looking group. Her gaze drifted from Nessa’s withered hand to Mari’s blood-spattered face.

“You,” she mused, “look like you just got your asses kicked out there.”

“You should see the
other
side,” Hedy told her.

Veruca nodded. “Fair enough. I’m all ears. What’s the plan?”

“You won’t like it, but I think it’s the only way.” Mari took a deep breath. “We need Captain Zhou.”

“That
pirate?
The one, I remind you, that you were supposed to kill for me.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to—”

“Not even the
point
,” Veruca snapped. “Absolutely not. I refuse to deal with that vermin.”

“Veruca, he has the fastest ship in Winter’s Reach. That’s what we need right now. Trust me. Swallow your pride, just a little, and send for him.”

It didn’t take long to find him. Soon Zhou and a gaggle of his sailors, a rough crew with hard, hungry eyes, joined them in the hall. The swarthy captain listened attentively, stroking the twin drooping braids of his mustache, as Mari outlined her plan.

“I like it. Of course, it’s risky. Can’t expect me to work for free. I’ll need some incentive—”

His eyes went wide as Mari put her forearm against his chest and slammed him up against the wall.

“Your incentive,” she said, “is the survival of the city you use as a haven from the law. You think
Mirenze
would put up with you? Go and find out.”

They locked eyes, glaring at one another in a brutal silence. Then Zhou barked a laugh.

“Spirit! All right, we’re in. Besides,” he said, casting a leering glance at Veruca, “it’ll be enough that everyone knows
I
saved the Reach from certain doom.”

*     *     *

A wolf pack of ships, five in all, cut across the frozen sea. Fat chunks of ice bobbed and spun in the wake of their iron-banded hulls. The
Mongoose
took the lead, a sleek galleon built for pirate hunting.
Which is essentially what we’re doing right now
, Captain Gagliardi reasoned, keeping a firm hand on the ship’s wheel.
Not our typical waters, but I’m not about to turn down an Imperial commission
.

“See those outcroppings of rock, poking up from the waterline?” he said to his first mate, nodding to the waves. “They call that the Jailer’s Teeth. Don’t be fooled: even close to shore, this water’s fathoms deeper than you might think. Lose a ship out here, you’ll never find it again.”

The first mate squinted through his spyglass, scouting up ahead. “What in the…”

“What? You have something?”

“Movement. One ship. Just the one. A stripped-down three-master, closing fast.” He passed his spyglass to Gagliardi. The captain raised it high, one hand on the wheel, and frowned.

“I know that flag. That’s the
Cruel Jest
.”

“What’s she doing?”

Gagliardi flashed a feral grin. “Bet you a pay purse that Zhou found out about the attack. He’s fleeing to save his own hide. Didn’t expect
we’d
be coming along. Hah! Look, I was right.”

The first mate took back the glass. The
Cruel Jest
tacked hard to starboard, turning fast to head back the way it came.

“She’s running, Captain!”

“Sure, sure, right back to the Reach. Just in time for us to pound it flat, too. Let’s hope we can fish Zhou’s body out of the drink. There’s a fine bounty riding on that head.”

“Now she’s—that’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Well, she just dropped all four of her ship’s boats. She’s leaving ’em there, just bobbing empty in the water.”

The captain shrugged. “Probably trying to lose any extra weight they can, for speed. It won’t help.”

Ahead of the Imperial convoy, a bubble of air rose to the surface.

A bubble ten feet across.

It popped with a wet
glurp
, and Gagliardi narrowed his eyes. “Now what in the Barren Fields—”

Distant shouting. One of the ships, a merchantman hastily repurposed for the fight, suddenly broke formation and veered dangerously close to its neighbor. Signal flags flashed, colors waving wildly in an Enoli sailor’s hands.

“What is that idiot doing?” Gagliardi snapped. “He’s going to cause a wreck.”

The first mate peered through the spyglass, focused on the signalman. “He’s spelling out…
E
…
L
…
D
…huh. ‘Elder’? What does that mean?”

The merchantman tacked too hard, too fast, and a sudden gust of winter wind set it straight into a war barque’s path. Hulls scraped and crunched, masts teetering wildly. Gagliardi barely noticed the disaster in the making; his eyes were locked on the water dead ahead.

The sea boiled. And then came the sound, a bassoon call from the depths, impossibly loud, impossibly vast.

Impossibly deep. But streaking for the surface.

In a sudden panic, and one side of the ship blocked by the slow-motion collision happening a hundred feet away, the captain hauled the wheel to port. The
Mongoose
’s nose turned toward the shoreline, turning slow, too slow to make it.

“Captain,” the first mate shouted, pointing, “the Teeth! We don’t have room to turn!”

A brutal jolt threw them to the deck as rock pylons just below the water’s surface tore gouges in the pirate hunter’s hull. Sailors shouted, running for their stations, repair and bailing crews pounding down belowdecks. But as he rose back to his feet, Captain Gagliardi froze. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, petrified by the rising groan from the depths.

And then the sea exploded as a barnacle-encrusted beak, fifty feet across and open wide, burst up beneath the merchantman and slammed its maw shut, crunching the ship’s hull like a chunk of dry tinder. Tentacles uncoiled from the water, dozens of them, some whip-fine and some thicker than oak trees, snatching at masts and men.

“Sir,” the first mate shouted, “your orders, sir? Sir! We need your orders!”

It’s not that far away
, Gagliardi thought, staring at the rocky shoreline.
A man can swim that far
.

“Sir,
please!
We need you to take command!”

The captain ran for the railing and leaped, plunging into the freezing water. The shock of the cold drove the breath from his lungs, but as the ships of the Imperial expedition died at his back, one by one, he paddled toward the shore.

He made it fifteen feet before a tentacle snaked around his ankle and hauled him down into the black.