The Godless (38 page)

“—to dig the tunnel.” The mother's voice
had
spoken to the men and women who had hidden in the tunnel, in the dark. In searching for Zean and Dark, he had seen that—heard briefly her words to them, to soothe their concern. “To live in it.”

Waalstan's smile mirrored Bueralan's feeling of confidence. “We'll come up on the other villages within two days. By then, I will have a good measure of Lady Wagan and the Mireean defenses.”

“At the expense of your soldiers.”

“I do not expect to lose them.”

Bueralan shook his head and poked at the piece of meat—with it, might he be able to ride on another wave of Leeran magic?—while the general's smile faded.

“She has never seen battle,” he said, finally.

“No, you've never seen battle.” Bueralan gazed at him through the iron bars, the plate held tightly in his hand. “Muriel Wagan has ruled over the trading capital of the world since she was thirty-two, a city she was born into, unlike her Lord. She married him: Elan Wagan was only Captain Jeal of the Mireean Army before, a man with no family name or history. He took her name and became the public head of the city, but anyone who met Lady Wagan would not believe that she gave control over her home to anyone, not even a man she loved.”

“I met Lord Wagan when he rode into Leera over six months ago, his treaty with us in his satchel. He was a proud man.”

“Was that before or after you gouged his eyes out?”

Waalstan shrugged off the comment. “He had been good friends with Rakun—”

“And is your king alive?” Bueralan forced a laugh before he could reply. “You know, before you came here, I was thinking that you had made a mistake, that you sent your raiders in early. But that's not quite what happened, is it? Your raiders have made a mistake. They panicked.”

“Everything is as it is.”

“That's why you're here, asking about Wagan, trying to figure out how she will exploit your weakness? General, I tell lies for a living and you have much to learn. You will learn from her, as well, but not in the way you think. She's an intelligent woman who knows she has never faced battle like this before. But so what? She made the Captain of the Spine for that purpose.”

Waalstan pushed himself off the wagon. “Are you finished with your meal?”

“Did you ever wonder why he took the job in Mireea?” As much as his stomach rebelled, Bueralan wanted to eat the raw meat, to see if any of the raw power remained for him, if he could force the same reaction as before and reach Zean and the others before they reached Ranan. He curled the plate against his stomach and continued speaking. “Aned Heast could have demanded more coin on any side of Leviathan's Throat.”

“But he did not.”

“No, he did not. In another kingdom, Heast would be a general. Perhaps he would have been more. In any kingdom where he worked, he would have demanded respect and got it. But in any other kingdom than Mireea's, he would never have been anything but a man of low birth, who had made his name as a mercenary and built his reputation on a series of ugly battles doing what few would. In a time of peace, the people of the kingdom he was in would ask why he was there, why their king or queen kept him. That never happened in Mireea. Up on that mountain—on the back of a dead god—he is the Captain of the Spine, and that title is his legacy and his dream, the piece of him that he will leave behind long after you and I are dust.

“You ask of Lady Wagan, General, and I know why you ask, and you misjudge her. She has ensured that for you to take her home, you have to go through the man she has given status and respect to, who was as infamous as he was famous for how he won his battles. She knows that. She knows the nature of the man and how it reflects on her.

“And before this war is done, so will you.”

 

6.

 

After he gave his verbal report to Heast, Zaifyr climbed the stairs of the Spine and made his way down to the western edge of the city. Mireean soldiers had erected metal barricades to stop their attackers from scaling the wall and breaking into other parts of the city, but it was unnecessary. No such attempt had been made. Fires had been lit instead, causing thick, pungent smoke to run up the walls and into the sky.

“We have misunderstood the nature of our enemy,” the Captain of the Spine had said as the two stood on the roof of
The Pale House
, earlier. “We were deceived by stories of crop failure, poverty and rebellion. We saw the filed teeth on the bodies of those we killed and thought nothing of the nature of a person who would submit to such pain. We heard of priests, but knew nothing of their god and did not ask. We thought we knew the answers and characterized the Leeran Army as a religious crusade, one directed by madness and desperation, but it is not. They have dug through the Spine while we watched the show they provided. We have, in short, been complete and utter fools.”

Zaifyr nodded to where the fires trailed into the night sky. “How many made it through?”

“We estimate two hundred and fifty. Even a conservative take on the number of men and women in the towns you saw would suggest that they have lost around forty percent of their force.”

“You were lucky.”

“We were.” Heast's pale gaze turned to him. “Imagine how much worse it would be if it happened in two days' time, when the siege engines are in place.”

He did not disagree. After he had told Heast what he had seen, the other suggested that the collapse of the tunnel had forced the hand of those in it rather than the collapse being a result of overeagerness.

“A handful of people were cleared out of each town two weeks ago,” Heast said. “We've been unable to account for them in the camps and my belief is that most returned to the villages and joined those living in the tunnel. It's more luck than anything else that a part of it collapsed and they were forced to play their hand early, or risk suffocation, or worse. Still, we do not want to be fighting in the streets when the rest of the Leeran Army is within range of their catapults.”

“How long are you giving Steel?” he asked.

“Until the morning's first sun,” the captain replied.

And until then, Zaifyr knew, he could only wait.

“How you stand apart from them, apart from those mortals,” a voice said from behind him. “It is very symbolic.”

Bau.

“I want to avoid smoke in my eyes,” he replied lightly.

“Also symbolic?”

“You tell me.”

Dressed in his clean, white robes, the Healer walked around Zaifyr, stopping well before the smoke and the line of soldiers who lurked around the barricade, their faces covered by cloths and long bows held in their grasp as they waited for a target to appear. “You are not what I had imagined, Qian,” Bau said, turning his back to them. “Aelyn had described you to be passionate, emotional, whereas I find you … much more disaffected. Tell me, what do you think of all this?”

“Of this?” He glanced at the soldiers, at the fire and smoke behind them. “Nothing much. People have died and fought for centuries.”

“But you remain.”

“So do you.”

“We should have left already.” Wood cracked in the fire and a sudden burst of smoke arose along the Spine. “But there is some work to finish first. Would you believe, however, that it grates on me to leave? There is much I can do here, and more I could do if I was not forbidden. The world would be a different place in the span of five days if I had free rein to do as I please.”

“Nothing would truly change. At best you would just recreate the immediate world in an image you believe in, but it would just be your creation about your morals, your life. And it would not stop war and famine and cruelty around the world. You would realize soon enough that you need an army just like the one around us, and what you stopped would only begin again.”

“Aelyn said that such thoughts made her realize that our laws were a necessity.”

Zaifyr replied blandly, “I have heard it said before.”

“Doesn't the hypocrisy of it bother you? I mean, here we are, both of us sent to learn what is happening. Our very presence is representative of larger forces and ideologies of dominance.”

“You are only describing the Enclave, Bau.”

A sudden burst of flame lit the Keeper's face, revealing his smile fully. “I have often thought the same.”

“Do your brothers and sisters share that thought?”

“Some.” He turned and pointed to the trails of smoke rising. “Like all organizations, opinions range from one side to another. Certainly, some laws have had a positive impact, but in others, such monsters like the Innocent thrive because of it. Personally, I think of the Enclave as a cage hanging over a fire. When our evolution is complete, when we are the divine and our power has finished rebuilding us, it will be then that the fire is at its strongest. Those that we have ignored will have evolved just as we have and our reluctance to engage them will only fuel that which we have been trying to avoid. When the floor drops away and plunges all of us into the fire below, I will not be surprised.”

“Your fire is just another word for war. Nothing else.”

“I know.” Ash began to settle on Bau's white robe, discoloring it. “But that is nothing new for you and me, either.”

 

7.

 

Ayae was in control of her breathing and herself when she closed her eyes, but was hard-pressed to maintain her calm upon opening them.

Before her was the smoldering remains of a street two blocks back from the mill, a line of burned husks with fires lurking within, as if the hearts of the houses—the emotion, the love that was attached to the building—was revealed through destruction. That destruction had been set by the raiders. After an hour of chasing Steel through alleys with little success they had set the streets around the mill alight, destroying any advantage the mercenaries' may have had in their hiding places and knowledge of the streets, and erecting a barrier between themselves and any support they may have received from the Mireean Guard who stood along the wall. For Ayae the fires had been so much more debilitating, bringing back memories not just of her attack in Orlan's shop, but of Sooia, of the primal memory of childhood, of the fire that had consumed familiar buildings she would see years later in their blackened state, surrounded by the stone cairns that had been laid months after the destruction.

Staying in control of her emotions had rendered her more than taciturn, had turned her mute, to the point where her replies to Bael were no more than nods.

If the large, axe-wielding uncle of Queila Meina was bothered by that, it did not show. He accepted her nods and stepped only outside his role of leadership to point to the large raven that shadowed her, jumping from standing building to fallen, never out of sight. For her part, she did her best to ignore the bird, following the quick pace through the narrow streets and steeling herself as she passed burning buildings, being led toward the untouched, silent form of the mill that loomed before them.

A skinny youth with short red hair had asked Bael why the raiders had not already torched the building, burning those trapped inside.

“They've been careful with their fires around the mill,” the mercenary replied. “There's lots of space between the set fires and where they are. My guess is they're digging in.”

Ayae did not understand why they were doing so. If Bael had a theory, he did not voice it. “Deal with what we have, not the why. The why can wait until later.” There was no point arguing with him: for every two mercenaries from Steel that they met and drew into their group or directed back to Meina, they found another dead or near death. Already Ayae had seen Bael run his blade along the throat of two of his men, witness to the passing of a man and woman whose names she never learned.

As the moon entered the final quarter of the night, at times hidden by smoke, Ayae began to think that she herself would soon join those who had died. Her control was slipping, and when she closed her eyes she could imagine Bael's large hand around her mouth. When she touched her face she rubbed at the invisible impression his fingers would never make, and could feel the warmth of his impressions on her skin. She had become so consumed by her own fear that, as the large mercenary began to explain to those around him what was required of them, she missed what he said. It was only when he began to pass out the long stemmed torches that she realized that they were to begin their attack.

Yet, when it came time to cross the road, to follow the others and light her torch from the dying flames of a building she had tensely passed through, Ayae did not hesitate.

When they began to climb the wall that surrounded the mill, her panic flared again. Yet, for the first time she was able to take it and place it apart from her. She was not in Sooia. The memories, the emotions she felt, were part of a different time, a time of terror, in part because of her own lack of authority over the situation. She had been a child. Her parents had been lost. She had been at the mercy of the goodwill of others in the camp, and that was not always forthcoming. Against the Innocent, they too were without authority. But the soldiers before her were not the unseen, almost mythical troops of a merciless man who had spent centuries destroying all life in the country of her birth.

They were just men and women.

And when the raiders emerged she was able to run through the smoldering buildings, charred wood crunching beneath her feet, without hesitation.

 

8.

 

Soon, she was separated from the others.

It had always been the plan. “After you've drawn them out of the mill yard, you will split up,” Queila Meina had instructed them earlier. “Don't go alone: break into pairs, three at the most. Give the raiders a lot of targets to follow, enough that they will need to send two to three for every one of you that they see. This is a big area—an industrial area. The streets are wide, the buildings are big and empty, so run them around as much as you can as you make your way back to the gate. The rest of us will be there as quickly as we can, but you are responsible for yourself. Do not—I repeat, do
not—
hole up for the night. By the time the morning's sun has begun to rise, we need to be out of this area.”