Legion Barracks, Triah
NONE OF THE REPORTS on Riccan Carrieri’s desk mattered to him except the one on top, detailing the rout of the pirates he’d hired to attack the Rodenese fleet. Roden had lost two or three ships, and at least three hundred people. Such losses weren’t to be sniffed at, but Khale had hoped for more. The attack had barely made a dent in Empress Cova Amok’s navy. And when he read how close the mercenaries had come to capturing the empress herself… it made him sick to think of the missed opportunity.
A knock at his door.
Carrieri leaned back in his chair, stretching his neck. The wooden paneling of his ceiling stared back at him dispassionately. His visitor knocked again, and Carrieri swore quietly under his breath.
When he opened the door to see Karina Vestri, Consular of the Khalic government.
“This is the second time in six months you’ve come to my door without first requesting my presence,” Carrieri said flatly. “Not really fitting for your station, is it?”
“This is the second time in the year we’ve suffered a catastrophic military defeat,” Karina snapped. “Is that really fitting for yours?”
Carrieri moved aside, and Karina stormed into the room.
“‘Catastrophic’ isn’t the word I would use to describe it,” he said. “I’m disappointed we didn’t turn the navy back, but the attack was not a failure. And, need I remind you, I was against paying pirates from the beginning. Your own parliament overruled me.”
“So you’re saying that this disaster wasn’t your fault?” Karina asked, her eyes bright with anger. “Khale’s Grand Marshal?”
Carrieri’s frown deepened. It was not like him to shirk responsibility, or make excuses. But it was her holding him responsible, and when it was her…
Karina sighed, collapsing into a chair in his open study, just a few paces away from the doorway to his chambers.
“Goddess, we’re in a mess, aren’t we?”
“Aye,” Carrieri muttered, the muscles in his chest still tense despite Karina’s clear resort to informality—or perhaps because of it.
“You defeated Roden in a war once before.” Her eyes pleaded with him.
“Nothing is certain.”
“Canta’s bloody bones, you cannot say something comforting, just once? Even if it means lying?”
Carrieri hesitated. A part of him wanted to comfort Karina. Instead, he said, “I’ve always been a soldier first, and you a politician.”
“I know,” Karina said quietly. “That’s why we’ve never worked.” She leaned her head back against the chair, one palm pressed against her forehead. Her dark hair, streaked with gray, fanned out behind her.
Carrieri stood motionless by the door to his quarters, unsure of what to do. He did not want to say anything to make her leave. If they could not be together, at least they could be alone in the same room.
“The Denomination refuses to let up pressure about the Odenites,” Karina muttered after some time. Something in her voice somehow gave him permission to move once more. He walked toward a cabinet that held several glasses and several more containers of liquid.
“Water?” he asked.
“Of course,” Karina said. She continued. “They haven’t said this in any official meeting with me, but some of my spies say that there are those within the Denomination—within the High Camarilla itself—that are calling for the execution of all Odenites.”
Carrieri nearly dropped the water container. “You’re sure about that?”
“Sure enough.”
“It is my duty to protect the people of Khale,” Carrieri said. “The Odenites may have struck out against the Denomination, but they are still Khalic. I will not allow genocide in my own country.”
But, even as he said it, his words felt hollow. Wasn’t an attack on Khalic tiellans—the murder of tiellans en masse as they left the city of Cineste—exactly what had started the war with the Chaos Queen? That had surely been genocide, by anyone’s definition, and now he was waging a war against the survivors.
“I know you won’t,” Karina said, “and neither will I. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone may attempt it. And with the Rodenese fleet bearing down on us from the north, we may not have the capacity to—”
“The Rodenese fleet bearing down on us from the north, and the tiellans from the west,” Carrieri added.
Karina swore. “There’s been movement?”
Since Carrieri had abandoned Winter and her forces at the Battle of the Rihnemin, the tiellans had more or less retreated to the western plains. What skirmishes they had fought since then were little more than banditry.
“I had a feeling after the most recent failed attempt by the Nazaniin to capture their leader, Winter Cordier, that we would see more of them,” Carrieri said. “But I had nothing to qualify that feeling until I received word not an hour ago. A tiellan army moves westward, toward Triah.” It was a force of just over two thousand strong, according to his scouts. He did not relish the idea of what the tiellans could do with two thousand of their Rangers, and the Chaos Queen at their head.
Karina paled. “We cannot fight wars on two fronts. Not after the losses we suffered over the past year.”
Carrieri had gone through the scenario a thousand times in his head. If the tiellans besieged the city from land, and the Rodenese fleet blockaded them from the sea, Triah would be cut off from any source of food. The city’s stores would run low. There was little chance of survival, let alone victory. And if the two forces coordinated their attacks, the city would be caught in a vise. Such a thing was unlikely—Roden had systematically murdered and exiled all tiellans decades ago—but Carrieri needed to prepare for any possibility.
“We have God’s Eye,” Karina said, a hint of hope in her voice. “We can keep the Rodenese fleet at bay with God’s Eye, and our legionaries outnumber the tiellans.”
Carrieri grimaced. God’s Eye could be powerful, but it only worked during the day, and even then it took great effort and coordination to use the weapon. “Do not put all your hope in that. We have not used God’s Eye in anger for decades,” he said. “We should not rely on it now.”
With a sigh, he met Karina’s eyes. “But we are preparing war engines, strategically placed around the city and the harbor. If luck is on our side, and God’s Eye is functional, we can perhaps keep the Rodenese at bay long enough to deal with the tiellans.” It was one of the few scenarios that had a slim chance of working in their favor.
“Can you defeat the tiellan woman?”
Carrieri hesitated. Winter was a gifted field general, even though she was inexperienced, but he was not sure she could besiege Triah with only two thousand troops. Not against his ten thousand.
But Winter herself was one of the most powerful psimancers on the Sfaera, worth a thousand soldiers. Perhaps more. There was no telling what she might do to turn the tide of any battle.
“I’ll need the full cooperation of the Nazaniin,” Carrieri said. “Without them, I do not think it matters how many troops we have. She will crush them on her own.”
“Is she that powerful?” Karina asked.
Carrieri sat down in the chair next to Karina and massaged his forehead.
“I can still hear the screams,” he said, eyes closed. “The screams of my own men by the rihnemin, as daemons ripped through the fabric of existence, and then tore my men to pieces.” Kyfer’s screams, as he became a towering, wrathful terror, still echoed in his mind.
“I left that battlefield knowing no force on the Sfaera could stand up to such daemonic strength. I left knowing that, in doing so, I would eradicate one enemy, but have to deal with those daemons. But I also left because I could not see how to defeat such an army. I ran, Karina. I ran because I had no hope of defeating my foe.”
Carrieri met Karina’s eyes. “Winter Cordier somehow defeated hundreds of daemons, including one of the Nine. If she could do that—” Carrieri stopped as a thought came to him.
“The rihnemin,” he said.
Karina raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” she said slowly, “what about it?”
“We must destroy, or at least remove, every last rihnemin in or around Triah.”
Karina’s face scrunched together as she spread her palms wide. “Remove the rihnemin? Why in Oblivion—”
“Winter used the rihnemin at the battle to defeat Mefiston and the other daemons,” Carrieri said quickly. “Somehow, whether through psimancy or some other means, she accessed whatever power was dormant in the stone, and defeated the monster in a rain of blue fire. Some of our soldiers witnessed it—those unable to retreat with the main body. Most didn’t escape the tiellans and the daemons, but one did; I heard his report with my own ears. We cannot let her do the same to Triah.”
“No,” Karina whispered, “we cannot.” Then the color returned to her cheeks. “We will do what we can about the rihnemin.”
Carrieri shook his head. “Doing what you can is not enough. Take some of my forces if you need the manpower. We must remove them from the surrounding countryside. Uproot them, crush them, whatever it takes. And then… bloody bones, we throw them into the harbor for all I care. We must keep them out of her reach.”
The two sat in silence for some time, contemplating the fate of their city. Karina finally broke it.
“Roden to the north, tiellans to the west. The Denomination out for Odenite blood. We still cannot broach the subject in the Parliament, as most of the senators do not believe the reports, but… Daemons lurk outside our doors, Riccan. I fear none of these conflicts will matter in short time.”
Carrieri nodded, a hollow feeling growing in his chest. It had festered within him since he had fled the Battle of the Rihnemin. “I’m afraid you’re right. But Khale cannot diffuse centuries of conflict with Roden any more than it can atone for centuries of tiellan slavery. We’ve dug ourselves into this hole.”
He’d decided one thing, though. One thing in all of this. If it came down to the tiellan woman’s life—no matter what was at stake—he needed to let her live. She destroyed Mefiston, when Carrieri did not think anything on this Sfaera could.
She might be their only hope against the coming darkness.