The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy (50 page)

At noon that day General Urso Protogenes rode out to the still-flaming ruins of the Second’s barracks. He’d refused a heavy escort, saying he’d be gone only a few minutes, hardly time enough for any of “those villains” to put together an ambush.

The legate in charge of the five-man party said General Protogenes had taken a look at the sprawled bodies of what he sincerely believed had been fine soldiers, and heavy sobs had shaken his chest. He kept shaking his head in disbelief, but his eyes could find no ease.

“My people,” the legate heard him whisper, and no one knows if he was talking about Nicians or his soldiers.

He bade the legate wait a moment; he wished to step inside the regimental office, which was no longer aflame. There was something he hoped to find there.

Ten minutes later, when the general had not reemerged, the alarmed young officer went looking for him.

The general had evidently gone out the back door of the office, across the rear of the compound, and out into the city.

He was another who was never seen again, nor did his murderers ever claim credit for helping a sad old man find the death he sought.

By now we were so hardened that the next deaths almost made us smile. Another of the Rule of Ten’s councilors, notorious for preferring the most brutal of bedpartners, couldn’t restrain his lust. He, along with the mealymouthed chamberlain, Olynthus, went looking for satisfaction one night.

Their bodies were found sprawled in front of the Rule of Ten’s palace the next morning. The cords that strangled them would have come as a blessing, from the savage wounds on the corpses.

This was finally enough for the Rule of Ten. They determined to negotiate with the mob, with the Tovieti, even though there’d been no leaders show themselves, nor any demands made.

The Rule of Ten’s speaker, Barthou, managed to convince five of Nicias’s smoothest-tongued diplomats to take on this vital mission. Tenedos said he’d been asked if he wished to accompany them, and he’d told Barthou he thought the speaker was mad.

With a full troop of the Helms, who actually were beginning to shape into something vaguely resembling soldiers, I escorted the five to the edges of the Chicherin district, where the riots had first broken out, and where the Rule of Ten had somehow decided the heart of the rebellion was.

The negotiators had white flags tied to staves, and, holding them high overhead, the five walked down the winding street into the slum.

Half an hour later, I heard a single scream, a scream that reflected all of the pain the world could hold.

Then silence. We waited for another hour, until rooftops began bristling with slingers and even a few archers, then wheeled our horses and rode back to the tower.

General Turbery took over command of the army, and ordered all troops to withdraw into a ring around the Rule of Ten’s palace. We would hold, and then strike back from there.

With them came those wardens who’d faithfully tried to hold their outlying stations. The regiments were ordered to loot as they came, so every granary and warehouse was stripped bare.

As the troops marched or rose into the parks around the palace, the rich, the noble, all those who were the Tovieti’s or the mob’s targets, came with them. Makeshift camps were set up everywhere.

Among them were Amiel and her husband, Pelso, still loyally guarded by Legate Yonge and his three scoundrels. I wished I could find a way to move the count and countess into the tower, but knew there wasn’t one. Rasenna had also arrived inside the perimeter from wherever Tenedos had been keeping her hidden, and at least she was allowed to be with the seer.

I took Yonge aside, and told the hillman his charges were now safe in the bosom of the army, his responsibility was over, and I needed him and his friends desperately.

Yonge looked sly. “Ah, Captain Damastes, but I cannot. You remember what I told you once, how impressed I was with your way of honor and loyalty, even unto death?”

“I do.”

“Then I must hold to my oath and still serve the Lord and Lady Kalvedon.” He looked most pious.

“Besides,” I said dryly, “I wouldn’t be paying you in good red gold.”

“There is that,” Yonge said, brown teeth flashing. “There is that, indeed.”

I went to Tenedos and asked him how long would we have to prepare for the attack.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve been having better luck with my magic, and whatever spells Thak has been spreading are wearing thin. I can
feel
it building, feel them readying their weapons. I’d say, oh, three days. Five at the outside.”

“What do you think our chances are?”

“Well, let’s count, or guess, really, since I haven’t counted noses. Let’s think as small as we can. We have four regiments around us, two thousand men. A thousand wardens. Another six or eight thousand fugitives, let us imagine, although I’ll wager there’s twice that many. Then there’s the government clerks, diplomats, hangers-on, magicians … other useless types.

“Against us, what? Half a million? A million?”

“Sir, aren’t you supposed to be a pillar of inspiration?”

“Only to legates and below. Captains can keep their own lips stiff. Besides, I’m certain with truth and justice on our side we’ll win through,” he said bitterly.

“Oh. One other thing.” He reached in his pocket, took out a small ornate metal case, and handed it to me. “There are two tablets inside. If the gods don’t find it in them to change our luck, you and the countess are welcome to these.

“They’re painless and shall return you to the Wheel in seconds.”

I left his cheerful company and started detailing men to dig trenches.

When the sun rose the next morning, welcome warmth cutting through the mists, the Latane River was a cacophony of ships’ bells and whistles.

The army had finally arrived.

R
ETRIBUTION

The whistles and bells sounded the mob’s doom as well as our salvation, and they and the Tovieti knew it. A group of them charged the docks, but were broken against the arrows coming in from the transports and from the welcoming force I’d quickly assembled.

The riverboats moved to the docks then, and gangplanks dropped and long lines of men snaked across them, carrying their weapons with the ease of long familiarity. They paid no mind to the jeers and chants coming from other parts of the waterfront, but keenly looked about, evaluating a new battlefield, and, as like, what loot might present itself.

There was no singing, no flashing display, and I wanted to grab each of the surviving Helms by the throat and say, “See, this is what soldiers are, not your empty bullshit of trumpets, parades, and banners.”

General Turbery and Tenedos arrived just as the formation’s de facto commander, normally head of the Varan Guard, was disembarking. He was a tall, rawboned man, clean-shaven, with short hair and a scar-seamed face, Domina Myrus Le Balafre. I knew him by reputation, a brawler, a swordsman, a duelist who’d killed more than his share, and a supremely confident and able battle commander.

He saluted General Turbery.

“I thought you might never come,” the general said.

“I thought the same,” the domina said. “We should have expected opposition the minute we put out down the river. But we didn’t … and paid hard for our confidence. But no matter now.

“Sir. I have the honor to present the relief force for Nicias, thirteen regiments strong, six of horse, seven of foot. We await your orders.”

General Turbery hesitated, thinking. Tenedos stepped forward.

“Sir, may I offer a suggestion?”

Domina Le Balafre scowled at him.

“Who the blazes are you, sir, if I might ask?”

“Seer Laish Tenedos, special adviser to the general of the armies. Sir.”

The two men stared hard at each other. Domina Le Balafre was the first to lower his gaze, but I felt the clash of wills had just begun. General Turbery turned to the seer.

“Go ahead, sir. You’ve always been the first with an idea.”

“Sir,” Tenedos said, “I think we should not wait, not develop a firm plan. Let us move immediately. Put the regiments into the parks, break them down into battle formation, and move them out into the city at first light. The Tovieti will never expect that.”

General Turbery blinked, then turned to Le Balafre.

“Can that be done?”

The domina was as startled as the general. Then he considered, and smiled tightly.

“Yes. We can manage that. Yes, indeed. That would be a short, sharp shock for the rabble. Sir, I can guarantee the Varan Guard will be ready, and … let me think … at least half, most likely more of the regiments. Maybe all of them,” he thought aloud. “I’d suggest you only hold one of them back. The Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers won’t be ready to fight.”

My own regiment! A pang touched me. What had happened? Le Balafre went on to explain, and now we found why the army was so late. They’d not been able to move downriver as fast as they should, because the supplies and new driving belts for the
Tauler
-type transports “somehow” weren’t waiting at dockside as had been arranged. But things had not come to real grief until they entered the great delta, upstream from Nicias, just below the city of Cicognara. They’d encountered dense river fogs that forced them to tie up for days.

“Did you not recognize sorcery, sir?” Tenedos said.

“I pay little heed to magicians,” Le Balafre said. “This time, it was my error.”

General Veli, the expedition’s commander, had realized time was running short, and so, in spite of the weather, had set out once more. The fleet had become lost in the delta, taking dead-ended passages or channels that shallowed uselessly. In one long, narrow strait they’d been attacked. The flagship had been hit by huge boulders, catapult-launched, “although how the hells the gods-damned rebels managed to build them, let alone wrangle them into position in those gods-damned swamps, is beyond me.” The ship lost way, listed, and began sinking, and then archers came from hiding and volleyed arrows into the men trying to swim to shore.

“They killed General Veli then. And that’s when the Lancers were crippled. They had their domina, uh …”

“Herstal,” I put in, in spite of myself. Le Balafre gave me a dark look — captains don’t interrupt dominas — but said nothing.

“Herstal, yes, that’s it, plus their adjutant and about half of their senior captains had gone on the flagship for a conference. We only fished a handful of men from the water, none of them officers.”

So my old enemy, Captain Lenett, was dead. Oddly, I was disappointed — I had been looking forward to a chance to show him he’d sadly misjudged me. Now, I’d never have the opportunity.

Three other riverboats had been sunk, but the fleet had rescued most of the men. Their attackers vanished into the swamps as rapidly as they’d emerged.

They went on, and found the main channel, then lost it again.

“It was then I had a bit of an idea,” Le Balafre said, smiling grimly. “I’d heard, just rumors, y’know, about these scum and their strangling cords. They haven’t come yet to Varan, where we’ll give them a warm welcome.

“But I thought I’d have a peep into the gear of the riverboat pilots and officers. You’ll never guess what I discovered in eight of them.”

“What did you do with those Tovieti when you’d discovered them?”

“Why, hung them, of course. They made pretty decorations on the boat’s cranes, dangling and kicking like pomegranates in a summer wind.” He looked hard at Tenedos, probably expecting shock from the civilian.

“Good, sir,” Tenedos said warmly. “Very good indeed. I promise you you’ll have more strange fruit to admire before you leave Nicias.”

Le Balafre nodded approval. “After that, we had no further trouble, and we came on Nicias late last night. We didn’t dock because, frankly, we didn’t know what our reception was. Glad you were able to hold out.”

“Yes,” General Turbery said. “Now, let’s get the soldiery ashore. It’ll be a long day preparing for the morrow.”

“One thing before we move, sir,” Tenedos said. “This matter of the Lancers?”

“Yes?”

“I had the pleasure of having a troop of them guard me when I was in Kait, and — ”

“You’re
that
Tenedos, eh?” Le Balafre interrupted. “My apologies for being rude before, sir. You did well, sir. Very well indeed.”

“I thank you.” Tenedos turned back to Turbery. “As I was saying, I found them to be excellent soldiers. I think it would be a pity to lose their services now.”

“You have a suggestion?”

“I do. Name Captain á Cimabue their domina. He’s from the regiment, and has served well.”

Both the domina and the general gazed at me intently.

“Irregular,” General Turbery said. “Most irregular … hmm.”

He thought for a moment. “Jumping a man two full grades … that’ll not sit well with the army’s list keepers, now will it?”

“And the hells with them,” Le Balafre snapped. “As if you and I haven’t spent most of our careers battling those shit-heads, always carrying on about who’s senior to whom, and who’s in the Upper Half and who’s in the Lower Half and who gets to sit ahead of whom at the banquet.

“Balls to them all. I hope the Tovieti killed more than their share down here.”

General Turbery smiled a bit. “I’d forgotten how subtle and diplomatic you were in your speech until now, Myrus.” Once more he considered. “You know, General Protogenes
had
said that, when this emergency was over he wished to reward the captain if he lived.”

He looked at me closely. “Captain, do you think you can handle the task?”

“Sir, I
know
I can.” And I did. Hadn’t I been ordering around, even if indirectly, dominas and regiments lately? Maybe I was arrogant, but I felt a swell of confidence.

“Then, sir, I take great honor in naming you, Captain …?”

“Damastes, sir.”

“Damastes á Cimabue, domina of the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers. Now, sir, take charge of your regiment!”

I came to attention. Domina Le Balafre looked about. “Hell of a place to be promoted. No bands, no speeches, no pretty women to kiss. Here, boy.” He untied his own sash of rank and tied it about my waist.