Cliffs of Litori
URSTADT PACED BACK AND forth as the final piece to the War Goddess rose into place.
A ragged cheer rose up from the tiellan engineers. Back when they’d first left Adimora, Urstadt had wondered why Winter had brought along so many engineers. The army of Rangers and Winter’s own abilities were more than able to wreak havoc among the Triahn soldiers.
But, clearly, Winter intended to do far worse than wreak havoc.
At its full height, the War Goddess stood one hundred rods tall—a mountainous siege-engine. It was so large Urstadt wasn’t sure it would work at all; the dynamics of hurling rocks seemed inapplicable at such a scale.
The gray light of early dawn was just beginning to appear on the horizon. The engineers had concealed the true nature of their project by building it in pieces, keeping those pieces hidden in brush and piles of wood, and only putting the parts together this evening. A half-dozen significantly smaller trebuchets stood at the base of the War Goddess, as well as a few ballistas, like children at the feet of a giant. They’d have to be moved to lower ground, and much closer to cause any real damage to the city within the walls. But they were for show, and nothing more. A distraction for the enemy. Urstadt doubted Winter intended to move the smaller war machines; the War Goddess was the main attraction here. Whether Carrieri had fallen for the ruse, Urstadt could not say, but the War Goddess now stood completed, fully functional, and ready to make its first attack on the Circle City of Triah, the Center of the World.
All around them, the Rangers rose from their cots and bedrolls, heads craning back to take in the completed war machine before them.
Only Winter herself knew the full extent of what she planned; the queen shared less and less of her strategy with her captain. Urstadt had been most comfortable—Goddess, she had actually been enjoying herself—when she had been tutoring Winter, checking every decision the younger woman made, sparring with her daily. But the queen had grown into her position and closed herself off, and now Urstadt found herself feeling rather useless. She was nothing more than Winter’s glorified sparring partner, now—even her normal task in battle, leading the tiellan infantry, hardly mattered anymore since they had brought almost exclusively cavalry to Triah. She could still take Winter easily in a one-on-one spar, but that was a small consolation.
But where had Winter gone? She had been standing at the base of the War Goddess moments ago; now she was nowhere to be seen. Urstadt frowned, walking toward the siege engine, looking around for the queen.
At the base of the War Goddess, a line of not quite a dozen boulders, somewhere between one and two rods in diameter, stood in the grass. Urstadt could not imagine the damage such a large projectile would do to a wall or building. Even more horrifying than the boulders were the three barrels, each as tall as Urstadt herself, lined up behind them. They contained a mixture of cotton, sulfur, saltpeter, and pitch.
Urstadt gripped her glaive tightly.
Why are you letting this happen? she asked herself, not for the first time. Had she not accompanied Winter to make sure the young tiellan did not become another Daval? Was this warmongering not worse than anything Daval had ever done?
To destroy, I must first know love. She had come to love Daval before she killed him. She had come to love Winter, too.
She was not ready to destroy Winter. Goddess, if such a thing was even possible. Urstadt outclassed Winter by far in physical combat, but she had nothing like psimancy, or the two thousand loyal, adoring Rangers at her back.
A few people in the gathering crowd pointed up, about midway to the top of the War Goddess. Urstadt looked and finally found Winter perched atop the pivot of the trebuchet, where the two massive triangular frames met at their peak, forming a fulcrum around which the huge arm swung.
“Tiellans!” Winter shouted, getting the attention of the entire crowd. By now, all of the engineers had gathered at the base of the trebuchet, along with most of the Rangers who were not on duty. Nearly two thousand people, gazing up at Winter, shading their eyes as the first rays of dawn began to peel out over the land.
“We have been through much to get to this point,” Winter shouted. Urstadt wondered whether the tiellans on the edge of the crowd could even hear her; the wind threatened to carry away every other word.
“But now, we are here, and we have a purpose. We have a weapon!” Winter raised a fist in the air, and the tiellans erupted in an almost deafening cheer.
Urstadt glanced back toward Triah. Carrieri surely had eyes monitoring the tiellans on the cliffs, and the tiellans were making enough ruckus by now that they must have been noticed, spies or no spies—just like the massive war machine that had sprung up seemingly overnight. There was no sign of an incoming force yet, but she knew in her bones it was only a matter of time. Within the hour, surely.
“And we have a purpose,” Winter said, as the crowd’s cheers died down somewhat. “The humans outnumber us. They always have. You saw what the Eye did to the Rodenese fleet weeks ago, and it has kept them at bay ever since. But numbers and scare tactics have never mattered to us; you saw what we did to the Legion’s forces when they met us in battle! Each of you were there, each of you helped us defeat forces two, three times our own number. You fought against the daemons when they rained from the sky. You saw what we can do together.”
Winter smacked the wooden arm of the War Goddess. “Now, with this weapon, we will put a dagger in their heart, and pierce them through with fear.
“They will send soldiers to respond,” she continued, “but we will be ready for them. And today, we will see humans suffer, and we will watch as they cower in fear.”
Another ragged cheer rose up from the tiellans, although Urstadt couldn’t help but think that this one seemed less enthusiastic. Whether that was true, or the spawn of her own misplaced hope, she could not say.
“For tiellans!” Winter cried, both arms jutting above her.
The tiellans below repeated the cry in a deafening roar, but the chant slowly shifted. “For tiellans, for tiellans,” they chanted a few times, no more than half a dozen, before the words changed, and the overwhelming majority of the Rangers shouted, “For the queen, for the queen!”
Winter clambered down the War Goddess, landing on the grass next to Urstadt with a flourish. “Prepare the War Goddess,” she told the engineers. “It is time we attack, and show the Center of the World our own power.”
* * *
“How many?”
Carrieri stormed down the halls of the Legion’s barracks, a milieu of his generals, admirals, aides, and Nazaniin swarming around him. His chief aide, Ryven, spoke to him. Ryven was also the filter through which all intelligence passed through to him. “Not quite a dozen of them, Grand Marshal—”
“There’s no way those engines could reach the city, even from atop the cliffs. What are they planning?”
“That is… generally true, Grand Marshal, but there is one engine that defies that assumption. They must have been building the parts in secret since they’ve been here, but it only started going up last night, and, well, it’s assembled now, and it’s—”
“It’s massive, Grand Marshal.” General Toggo Marshton, of the Sapphire Regiment, spoke. “We have no doubt such an engine can reach the city proper, perhaps even the Trinacrya. And the size of projectile it must be able to launch…”
“Let’s not forget it was made by tiellans,” Admiral Seto said. “While it might look imposing, its functionality remains in question.”
Anger burned within Carrieri, chiefly toward himself. He had known of the tiellan presence in Litori for weeks, and had allowed them to remain on the clifftops unmolested, other than the occasional test of force. He’d successfully removed all the rihnemin, and thought it best not to pursue violence where violence wasn’t needed. The tiellans were not besieging the city, after all, only biding their time atop the cliffs. He had thought the war engines they’d been constructing were nothing he could not handle—the creations of inexperienced fighters; distractions. The possible alliance between the tiellans and Roden worried him, and he had thought the tiellans might be trying to pull Triah’s attention away from the war at sea. Winter was not above alliances of convenience, after all. She had proposed just an alliance to him, in the middle of a pitched battle, in order to defeat daemons.
But he had not expected a formidable weapon to appear on the cliffs above the city.
“We should get to the Eye,” someone said.
“And do what? Watch while they bombard the city?” Carrieri’s laugh was mirthless. “You know as well as I do that the Eye was not designed to fire at the cliffs.” He stopped to consider. The barracks would likely be a target, if the tiellans had remotely good intelligence on Triahn geography. But so could any number of buildings, locations, and key areas of the city.
But, first things first.
“If we cannot take down the engine itself, we can reduce the numbers that guard it.” Carrieri looked to his psimancer, Illaran. “What of the Hood Regiment? Are they in position?”
“They are, sir.”
“The tiellans will surely ride to meet the Hood Regiment if we send them out; they have the advantage of higher ground. Tell the Hood Regiment to attack.” The Hood Regiment, under command of General Arstan Gerundi, consisted of three thousand good soldiers; not his best, but quite nearly. The tiellans only numbered two thousand, but Carrieri had seen what they were capable of against forces twice their size. “Send the Orb Regiment out as reinforcements,” he said in a snap decision. “We must be sure to put as much pressure on them as we can.”
Aides scrambled to relay those orders as Carrieri continued speaking to Illaran.
“General Gerundi’s orders are to distract, if he does not have the numbers to destroy,” Carrieri said. “Tell him to be cautious—to distract the tiellans from using that thing, but not to risk his entire force. We can’t afford to lose the Hood Regiment, not when our forces are already spread so thin.” Even sending the Orb out to reinforce the Hood might prove folly if Roden chose to attack.
And that massive war engine could just be a distraction, to lure Triahn forces into a trap atop the cliffs.
But he had to take that chance. He couldn’t just let them bombard the city from the cliffs without retribution.
“We move to the top of the Merchant’s Tower,” Carrieri said. It was farther south than the Trinacrya, and would be a very difficult target, even with a machine the size his lieutenants described. “Bring maps of the city and the cliffs. We monitor the situation from there.” He thought for a moment, then looked to General Marshton, commander of the Sapphire Regiment. Marshton’s troops were mostly the children of nobles and wealthy merchants, and rarely saw battle because of the sway their parents held in the Parliament, but Marshton himself had a knack for tactics and positioning. “Marshton, send orders to your regiment to be battle-ready, and confine them to the southern barracks for now, out of shot of the war machine; if the battle is long, the Hood and the Orb will need relief troops quickly. But in the meantime, go yourself to the Eye. Survey the situation as best you can from there, but keep eyes on the harbor, too. Make sure God’s Eye is battle-ready. We can’t risk an attack from the sea as well.”
“Yes, sir.” Marshton saluted, then turned on his heel and marched off, his pace quick.
“Admiral Seto, ready the fleet. We will not be caught unawares, and even with the power of God’s Eye we want to be ready on the sea as well.”
The admiral saluted, and then rushed away with his own aides.
Carrieri nodded. Looking around, his eyes rested on Illaran, the Nazaniin representative.
“One more thing, Illaran,” Carrieri said, and the young man met Carrieri’s eyes. “In private, if you please.” He hoped the best for the Hood and Orb regiments, but he had a contingency plan, too.
* * *
Cinzia walked alongside Jane through the streets of Triah, the other eight chosen disciples trailing behind them. They had finally filled the last two disciple positions, unsurprisingly with the two remaining names the current Disciples had lacked from the original set of nine: Danica and Lucia. Together with Cinzia, Elessa, Ocrestia, Baetrissa, Arcana, Valeria, and Sirana, they made a quorum of nine disciples, mirroring the names of the original Nine Disciples that had followed Canta when she walked the Sfaera.
Cinzia was uncomfortable with the most recent appointments. Astrid’s given name, she had recently found out, was Lucia, and Winter’s was Danica. The knowledge rubbed her the wrong way—even though it was common for people to name their children after the Disciples. But when she looked at the disciples Jane had chosen—good, dedicated Odenites, both of them—it felt as if something was out of place.
The light of dawn broke over the eastern horizon, bathing the city in pale pink and orange light. It was a clear, crisp day, almost cloudless.
“It is a beautiful morning, Jane. Perhaps it is worth stopping, just to watch the sunrise?”
Jane looked over her shoulder toward the rising sun, and for a moment Cinzia thought her sister would ignore her suggestion. But Jane stopped, turning fully to face the dawn with a smile on her face. She looked particularly beautiful in the early morning light, her cheeks rosy with the morning chill.
“You’re right, sister. We should take in the beauty of Canta’s creations when we can, of course.”
They had left camp an hour ago. Jane had informed each of the disciples only last night that they would be journeying into Triah, for the first time, together. With the Denomination’s ban on Odenites entering the city lifted after Cinzia’s interaction with the Essera, Jane seemed to think it important that they enter the city immediately and “see what good needs doing.”
Cinzia had originally been worried about all ten of them going into the city together, but Knot, her brother Eward, and a small contingent of the Prelates he led were following close behind. Cinzia could not help but feel they were all targets. Not so much from the Denomination—she actually believed the Essera when she said they wanted to use the Odenites as a tool—but the Essera’s plans were not widely known. A typical Cantic faithful would not have much reason to treat the Odenite leadership cordially, and Cinzia had seen enough of that treatment in Tinska to suspect that Triah could not possibly be any better. At least, Cinzia mused, Jane had not settled on any insignias or symbols that would make them stand out.
And now here they were, traipsing about Triah, looking for whatever it was Jane thought they needed to accomplish here.
Cinzia had some ideas. There had been rumors of large groups of people in Triah who supported the Odenites, but could not leave their homes, families, or occupations to join the new Church outside of the city. The disciples had been discussing ways to connect with these people for a few weeks now.
But, in typical fashion, Jane refused to tell any of them where they were going, and they had to follow their prophetess blindly through the streets.
Cinzia had not heard a word from Luceraf since she had woken up in her tent after the ritual. Now that she was free of the Daemon, Cinzia felt more at home with the other disciples. She had yet to try her hand at translating; she feared that, although Luceraf was gone, Cinzia’s connection with the Daemon would be unforgivable in Canta’s eyes—and in Jane’s eyes, too.
Cinzia wore the gemstone, Canta’s Heart, in a pouch at her waist. She hoped eventually to tell Jane about it, and see if she could offer any insight into how to use it against the Nine when the time came, but she had felt more distant from Jane than ever, lately.
She caught Knot’s face in the distance, looking at her quizzically. Why have we stopped? Cinzia nodded at the sunrise.
Knot looked over his shoulder, then back at Cinzia. He shrugged, and continued his vigil, eyes moving slowly all around the near-empty streets. The throngs that crowded Triah’s streets would not be out for another hour or so—and Cinzia was enjoying having the streets to herself. Or, at least, to themselves. Sharing with the disciples would have to do.
As the sun’s bright orb rose above the horizon, Knot walked quickly toward her and Jane. She had seen that look in his eye more times than she liked, now: at Jane’s assassination attempt in Tinska; when they had been attacked by Kamites; when Outsiders had appeared in the Odenite camp outside Kirlan. The expression was all business, and reminded her of the impression he’d made on her when they’d first met: dead eyes, with nothing behind them at all.
“Move to the side,” Knot said. Eward and the other Prelates were already ushering the rest of the disciples away from the middle of the road.
Cinzia immediately did as asked, and was grateful to see Jane do the same. While Cinzia had learned to recognize the look, and Jane likely had as well, half the time Jane refused to listen to reason.
Just as Knot ushered Cinzia and Jane off the road, Cinzia heard it. A soft, rhythmic pounding, growing louder. The sound of many feet marching in unison. As she looked down the road, she saw, not far off, a group of soldiers marching toward them.
Her heart froze, and Cinzia gripped Knot’s arm. Had the Essera betrayed them after all? Lured them into the city, only to have them captured? But that did not make sense; the armor, the gryphon insignias on their tabards and breastplates, the banners they carried with them did not belong to Sons of Canta. These were soldiers of the Khalic Legion.
The first soldiers approached, but none of them looked at Cinzia, Jane, or any of the disciples standing at the roadside. They marched directly past, rank after rank, heading out of the city. The line of soldiers stretched out of sight.
“What is this?” Cinzia asked Knot. She realized she still gripped his arm tightly, and forced herself to let go.
“They’re going into battle,” Knot murmured.
Cinzia followed his gaze, and realized he was looking to the cliffs. Worry creased his face, and Cinzia saw why. A trebuchet stood atop the cliffs, overlooking the city. Even from this distance it was immense. She wondered at how the tiellans could have built it seemingly overnight.
“Winter,” Cinzia said softly. Knot had shared Winter’s location, atop the cliffs with the other tiellans, with her shortly after he had found out. She had asked if he wanted to go to her, unable or unwilling to tell him to do so, and he had expressed uncertainty, to her surprise. But now, she knew she could not keep him any longer. She could not do that to him.
“Go to her,” Cinzia said to him.
“I’m your Goddessguard,” he said. “I’ve sworn to protect you.”
“You are her husband,” Cinzia said, each word grinding out a deep, painful hole within her. “That is more important.”
For a moment Knot appeared to be frozen.
“Go,” she told him. She could not hold it together much longer. “I will be safe here.” The disingenuous nature of the comment struck her immediately. There was no telling what the massive war machine atop the cliffs could do, or how wide it could reach.
But Knot did not belong to her, or to anyone else. He needed to make his choice.
Finally, blessedly, Knot nodded, and she wanted to hate him for it but knew she could not.
“I’ll find you soon,” he said. Then, he turned and moved quickly away, avoiding the soldiers as he moved out of the city.
Only then did Cinzia’s hand move to her mouth to prevent her sob from being heard by the others.
The soldiers continued to march past, and a slow, overwhelming fear built in Cinzia’s chest.