Father, I know that we shall meet again soon enough and hopefully under the best of circumstances, but it pains me to part again knowing how it happened the last time, and so I felt the need to leave you this note, just in case. I would have stayed. I dearly wished to stay. But we are about to change the world, and so I cannot.
Grandfather often spoke of the Inda defining their own destiny, while you have always professed to cleave to the notion of an unchangeable fate. Perhaps it is all the time I have spent in the empire, where philosophy attempts to fill the gaps between the logical and the divine, but I find myself believing in a curious combination of chance and the forging of our own path.
I am proud to be your son.
You, by your strength and your courage, have created something here that has never been seen in the history of the Inda. You have brought together men and women from different kingdoms and managed to see them work together like one people. That alone gives me hope for the future. And despite your astounding achievement and the ancient strength of the Inda, and despite the fact that it is the two great empires who have brought such misery to the Inda, it is curious that now the future of the land lies in the hands of their two great generals.
I am proud to be Cinna’s adjutant.
Perhaps it is fate driving us, perhaps it is luck. Perhaps it is that we drive ourselves, but one thing is true regardless of that. As a boy, when I left Initpur, I saw only ruination ahead for the Inda. Less than a year ago, when we first espied the forces of the Jade Empire at Jalnapur, I felt certain we were witnessing the end for our people. Now, though, between two visionary generals, a tenacious rajah and the triumph of logic, I finally see hope for the Inda and for the world.
We will meet again soon, Father. And this time I will no longer run away.
Good luck in these strange lands where you have carved out a civilisation.
I am proud to be Inda.
Until I return,
Dev
They had finally passed the outer markers, which meant that they had less than a mile to go until they met the first pickets. Dev rode with a sense of achievement and hope, as did every man with them, even General Cinna, though the stocky commander also bore the permanently creased brow of a man with a problem to solve. The very idea of defying the emperor’s command and attempting to halt the madness had seemed like a wisp of smoke initially – tantalisingly present, yet intangible and impossible to grasp. Now, though, it felt like a real possibility. The simple knowledge that the enemy general was of a mind with them and sought the same goal was enough to make that ethereal notion solidify.
It would still be far from easy and the danger was unimaginable, since this path would bring them into conflict with their own empire, let alone the plethora of enemies that lay in wait. But even the possibility was something to grab and hold tight, for everything that had happened since they had crossed the Oxus and marched into Inda lands had gradually spiralled the world down into chaos and destruction, and, left unchecked, the only possible conclusion to all of this was mutual annihilation of the world’s great cultures and the imposition of an unforgiving sun god on them all.
Not everything had added to the chaos, Dev reminded himself, a smile crossing his face.
‘Thinking about your family?’ the general asked quietly, noticing the change in his expression.
Dev nodded. It had been a wrench to leave the next morning, and Jai and their father had filled his thoughts most of his waking hours on the journey north. He had left a note for his father again, as he had when they’d last parted, but this one had been a note of love and of hope with a promise of reunion. When Dev had first left Initpur, angry at the world in general and the Jade Empire’s forage units in particular, he had been focused on a path, driven by hate and loathing. That hate had still been there, albeit somewhat muted by time, when they crossed the border river with the army to face the enemy. That was what Dev had sought as a boy: to lead an imperial army east to chastise the Jade Empire. That was the very reason he had fled to the empire in the first place.
Then they had met the enemy at Jalnapur. Initially Dev had been exultant, but that had soon faded. Faced with the realities, Dev had soon come to realise that the men they faced, those on whose account he had fled his home so long ago, were just soldiers and ordinary people, the same as his own. Moreover, the few encounters he had had with them had led him to the inevitable conclusion that they had no true desire to be there. They were not the ravaging monsters who had taken his brother as a youth. They were just reluctant soldiers doing their duty. If there was a man to blame for all of this, it was the Jade Emperor himself, and not these beleaguered warriors fighting a costly war in a foreign land. The war. The foraging. Even Jai’s abduction – they had all been the whim of the Jade Emperor, for that was the mentality of their people. They were more rigid and hierarchical even than the western empire.
His anger had diminished blow by blow, body by body.
Meeting General Jiang and discovering that Jai lived, not even as the slave Dev had assumed, but as a successful senior military officer, had finally dispelled what little ire remained. He could no longer hate the enemy, because they were not the enemy. They were the victims of this stupid, costly, futile war just as much as the forces of General Cinna. The true enemy was the Jade Emperor whose will had begun all of this. And the enemy was the insane emperor Bassianus, who would not compromise even if it meant the death of his own empire.
And the enemy was Ravi…
During that meeting at the monastery, and the good-natured evening of re-acquaintance that had followed, Dev had made no mention of his sojourn in the mountains and what he had found there. More than once he had found Cinna looking at him questioningly, for whenever the subject turned to the nature of, and the danger posed by, the Sizhad, Dev was oddly reticent, relating direct facts, but providing no personal details, as though he did not want to think about the Sizhad. Because he did not want to think about him.
Father and Jai had every right to know what had become of their younger brother, of course. That he was even alive, let alone healthy and influential. And it could be an important factor in the coming days that they were aware, though Dev could not yet see how. But the Sizhad’s identity was his secret yet, which he had kept even from his general. He was not sure how his father would take the news that his young, sensitive boy – for that was how Dev remembered him – had become a zealous megalomaniac plotting world conquest and the destruction of the Inda gods. Aram had always been a pious man. Dev suspected such a revelation might break the old man more than having lost the three of them in the first place. Certainly such knowledge would have soured proceedings at the monastery for the reunited family.
No, for now Ravi was his secret and his problem. And Dev still remained hopeful for a solution to that problem. Ravi had not always been this Sizhad, after all, and while he clearly believed that was he was planning was right and good, his abandonment of the gods and clinging to the worship of the sun had been driven by grief, pure and simple, and not logic. He blamed the gods for their mother’s and their sister’s deaths, and the spite and hatred that had grown in him then still drove him now, more than ever. Perhaps, in a way, Ravi was every bit as mad as the emperor Bassianus, driven insane by sorrow. If so then he would be lost forever as this Sizhad. But Dev could understand such a thing. He had been almost there himself after Jai was taken, when he had fled west. But his eyes had been opened over the past half year, and the ire he had carried for so long had gone. Perhaps that was still possible for Ravi too? Perhaps the Sizhad was still a shell, with their sensitive, loving brother trapped inside. Something might yet be possible.
‘You will see them again,’ General Cinna said, wrongly assuming Dev’s expression meant he was still thinking of the older of the brothers.
‘I know. I was just pondering on how things change and what might yet be possible. Will there be resistance from the army in the coming days?’ he asked, changing the subject. He knew the answer. They had talked of the matter often enough on the journey north.
Cinna huffed and shifted his grip on his reins. ‘I would be lying if I said I thought it would be a simple matter. There will be officers who cannot bring themselves to draw a blade against the administration and the man at its head. And the men themselves swear an oath to the emperor as part of their recruitment, as you know. What they will do remains to be seen, for military men hate breaking an oath. Bassianus is far from popular, but still his very name is enough to frighten many into submission. We will have to play all of this very carefully. Firstly, word must not get out. That can be your first task, actually, Dev. Cut all the lines of communication with the west and put an end to the courier system. Once we know that anything said at Jalnapur stays there and is not leaked back to Velutio, we will then have to deal with the imperial spies in our midst.’
‘How do we go about that, sir?’
‘I’m not entirely sure yet, but there are ways of identifying them. If all else fails we will have an unannounced search made of all possessions. All imperial agents carry a ring with an inscription on the inside in order to identify themselves when necessary, though they are easy to discard at short notice and so there is no guarantee we will find them all that way. But we can and will find them somehow. And once those agents are removed from circulation, we work on the officers, starting with the ones I know and can trust, like Sidonius and Evodius, then the other ones who are likely to be sympathetic or have a reason to hate the current emperor. Most units are more loyal to their own commanders than to some lunatic back in the capital no matter how powerful he is, so will fall in with their officer’s choices. Bassianus, after all, does not stand with them on a battlefield like their own commanders. We clear out the troublemakers and then work down from the top. And we contain it so that we can neutralise anyone who stands against us before he can influence his men.’
‘How many soldiers can we rely on, then?’
The general turned a wry smile on Dev. ‘Rely? At this stage very few. What we are about to do has not happened for centuries. Not since General Caerdin burned the mad emperor Quintus in his palace and began the interregnum. And he had the advantage of being the emperor’s personal friend and confidante and could get close enough to do it. We are restricted to insurrection on a foreign battlefield. Our only advantage is that we will have the vast majority of the imperial army under our control by the time the emperor even knows what is happening. Or at least that’s the plan. But until we can sound out the officers, the only people I would rely upon are my own personal guard, each of whom owes fealty by oath to me alone, and is paid by me independently of the army. I have enough enemies in the administration and command that I have always thought it prudent to keep my own force of loyal guards and not rely upon men assigned to me by the high command.’
‘Wise,’ Dev noted. ‘And fortunate now.’
He looked around at the blue, white and silver riders of the general’s guard. There were two hundred of them in total, or at least that many on paper. In the army a man learned to knock at least a quarter off any unit’s recorded strength to account for deaths, sickness, desertions and the like. But with the guard being Cinna’s private company, possibly they really did number two hundred. Even then, it was not a large number upon which to rely when contemplating treason amid an army.
‘With luck there will be…’
General Cinna’s voice trailed off into silence as they crested the last hill above Jalnapur. He stopped his horse.
‘Gods!’ Dev halted beside him, as did the guards. The twenty-seven riders sat silent astride their horses on the hill, overlooking the war zone as the nearest pickets scurried over to them, bowing respectfully. There was something in their expressions that Dev did not like, but there were more important things to think about right then.
The plain of Jalnapur was a veritable sea of humanity. If Dev had thought their army large before, nothing had prepared him for the sheer scale of what he was now witnessing. The reserves had come east, and Dev felt hollow panic at the realisation of just how many men had been taken away from the defence of the empire elsewhere. The reality of what was happening was hammered home once more.
‘Things have just become a great deal more difficult, if not impossible,’ General Cinna said with a grave expression. ‘Come on.’
They urged their mounts forward again and suddenly paused once more in shock, horses rearing, as a great booming noise echoed out across the valley. Wide-eyed, the two officers sought the source of the noise and identified the cannon on the far bank that still smoked, its missile punching through units of men on the near side. In answer there came the rumble of multiple artillery pieces launching. Great rocks and bolts, jars of pitch and more arced across the river and robbed men of their lives in various horrifying ways.
‘I left orders for minimal activity and no dangerous or costly pushes,’ Cinna said breathlessly.
‘Someone has clearly countermanded them, then, sir.’
Wordlessly, gazes locked on the vast force arrayed across the plain and the hills behind, the two officers and twenty-five guards accompanying them rode down the slope and into the enormous camp. The new troops must have arrived several days ago, as they had been integrated into the extant force such that tired veteran units of the Inda war stood side by side with fresh gleaming soldiers from the west. It was plain to see who had been here for so many months and who had just arrived, not only from the condition of their equipment and gear, but also from the difference in their expressions and manner. Those who were new were determined and proud. The rest were tired and hopeless.
They rode through the lines of tents and made for the headquarters on its low hill with a commanding view of the entire battlefield. The noise of a camp of this size was impressive enough that it almost covered the periodic blasts of cannon and the repetitive thuds and rattles of artillery as men died in droves on both sides of the river.
‘Not good,’ Cinna noted as they closed on the building.
‘Sir?’
‘My guard is not on duty.’
Dev nodded, worried now. Even in the general’s absence, his headquarters came under the protection of his guard. Arriving at the entrance Dev noted the two soldiers standing beside the door. Both regulars, fresh and fierce-looking. He suddenly felt remarkably vulnerable.
Cinna leaned towards the officer of the guards with them.
‘Take these men, find the rest of your unit and bring them to the headquarters. I want the entire guard standing to as soon as possible.’
The officer saluted and turned, his men following him as they rode off to find the guard camp, leaving Cinna and Dev alone. The young man’s sense of exposure increased drastically as he dismounted along with the general and, tying their reins to the hitching post, followed him in through the door. The guards did not even look at them, let alone salute, and Dev realised with a start that he had subconsciously placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.
The general’s office was occupied. They entered without announcement or query to find the great desk cleared of its usual documents and spread with a map of Jalnapur, painted wooden markers identifying the location of the various types of unit on both sides. Behind the table were five men in senior officers’ uniforms, and Dev felt his chest tighten with nerves at the sight. Two of the men were officers Dev knew well from the months of stalemate at Jalnapur, one of them a friend and ally of Cinna’s, the other more of an unknown. But the remaining three…
One of them, wearing the uniform of a prefect, also bore a cloak that marked him out as serving in Bassianus’s personal guard, while the others were two of the empire’s four marshals, the highest-ranking military men in the west. Even Cinna, a powerful general with a strong reputation, would bend his knee to those two. Dev dared not look at his commander right now. He did not want to see what was on the man’s face.
The five men looked up in surprise at the sudden interruption. One of the marshals’ eyebrows rose, while the other frowned.
‘Cinna, where have you been?’
It was a good question, of course. A dangerous question, though. Dev tensed.
‘There are a number of concerns other than the Jade Empire in this land that directly affect our military position. I have been to deal with one such, sir.’
The marshal, clearly unconvinced, looked to his peer, who shrugged. ‘You left your army to go gallivanting off on some personal tour, Cinna. We arrived to find a dispirited army lounging around and not even pressing any kind of attack upon the enemy. You have constructed an impressive array of artillery, yet they were silent and unused. What do you have so say for yourself?’
Cinna glanced at Dev and then back to the senior officers, his face starting to betray a deep anger at the situation. ‘There is the possibility, sir, that the enemy might be considering terms. I thought it prudent, given that chance, not to pound the living shit out of them with rocks.’
Dev felt his heart start to race. He’d not expected the general to admit as much to them, but he suddenly realised what the general had actually said. He had not confessed to seeking terms himself, nor had he intimated that there was any collusion. He had spoken the absolute truth, but by omission had made it sound as though the Jade Empire’s forces were considering surrender.
The marshals were now looking at him with interest, but there was nothing about their manner that gave Dev much hope.
‘There will be no terms, Cinna.’
‘Marshal, I was given a remit to—’
‘Your remit is no longer a concern,’ the senior officer said, and Dev noted a strange, gleeful cruelty in the eyes of Bassianus’s guard prefect.
‘Marshal—’
‘No, Cinna. You have failed in your task. The emperor had hoped by now to be the ruler of an empire that included the rich Inda lands and bordered the Jade Empire far to the east. Instead you have spent months mired down here unable – or possibly even unwilling – to prosecute the war for which you were selected. I warned the emperor that you were unreliable and not the correct man for the task, and I have clearly been vindicated. The emperor’s men in your camp repeatedly deliver reports of hesitance and dithering. His majesty has finally lost patience with you. We are here to finish the job you started, Cinna. We outnumber the enemy now by a large enough margin to achieve victory.’
Cinna was close to exploding with anger. Dev could see the tell-tale signs, right down to the hands clenched into fists so tight they were white.
‘Respectfully, sir, the emperor and the court are unaware of the many difficulties faced in the field here. And even if victory is possible, it will buy the emperor nothing. Rich Inda lands? This country is now poorer than the neediest of imperial provinces, and every month of war makes it worse. If you annexe the lands of the Inda it will cost the empire a fortune to make it viable, far from being a source of wealth. The administration is blind to the realities.’
‘You seem to be under the impression that I am some imperial clerk with no knowledge of war, Cinna. I am a marshal, and I achieved that rank by racking up every bit as many victories in the field as you. I will not be spoken to in such a manner by a lesser officer, who I also consider a lesser man. There has even been a suggestion of potential treachery, which carries the harshest of conceivable sentences, Cinna.’
‘You do not understand,’ growled Cinna.
‘And you do not listen, General,’ the imperial guard prefect put in with a nasty tone. ‘You are no longer in a position to make policy here. You are hereby stripped of command on the authority of the emperor himself. At this time there will be no further action taken against you, though following a thorough investigation of the situation here, what follows remains to be seen.’
He left the threat hanging. Cinna and Dev both read the future in the prefect’s eyes, and it was not auspicious.
‘In the meantime,’ the other marshal added, ‘we shall need to debrief you and learn everything you know of the situation here so that we can avoid making the same mistakes. Return to your quarters, wash, shave and wait for further orders. You are confined to quarters at this time. Do as you are told, Cinna, and you might just survive this with everything but your honour intact.’
The prefect’s glittering eyes suggested how unlikely that would be.
‘And have your personal guard sent to me. There is no room in this war for a potential traitor’s private army swanning about the camp. You shall dismiss them from service herewith and they shall be shuffled into a deserving regiment.’
Cinna, face pale with rage, saluted stiffly. Dev realised with a start that no one had yet mentioned him, and as the general turned and marched out of the room, Dev hurriedly followed before anyone could question him. In addition to being the general’s adjutant, Dev was clearly of Inda blood, and he could quite easily imagine what these haughty, uncaring new officers would make of him.
As soon as the two men were out of earshot of the room, Dev turned to the general.
‘What now?’
Cinna looked back at him. ‘What?’
‘Well surely you’re not going to do as they say, sir?’
‘I don’t have a lot of choice, Dev.’
‘Yes, you do. You were about to defy them anyway. Now you have more reason than ever. The need for subtlety is gone. Find the sympathetic officers and rouse them.’
Cinna shook his head. ‘That chance has passed, Dev.’
‘Sir?’
‘They have been here for days and have already taken control of the army. On the way in I could see how my own good loyal units were now broken up and mixed with new soldiers of theirs, and that is to be my guards’ fate. There is no force upon which we can rely. Any officer who might stand against them will already be confined to quarters the same as me. They will take no chances. Did you see Sidonius in there? A close friend of many years and the first officer I would turn to for support, and not only did he not speak up for me, he wouldn’t even look at me. The marshals have complete control. Almost certainly the emperor’s spies have already given them any names they needed to weed out trouble.’
‘But you can’t do nothing, sir. I saw the look on that prefect’s face. The others just want you out of the way and to take over, but that prefect? He wants you disgraced, or possibly even dead. You’ll be hauled into a trial and it will go badly for you.’
‘Dev, listen to me. Our plans have all been undermined. There is now no way to defy the emperor. There is no way to take the army from the marshals. It can no longer be done. They’ve seen to that in our absence.’
‘Then we need to get away, sir. You’ll die if you stay here, and with my skin and my record of service to you I’ll be dead a few heartbeats later.’
They emerged from the headquarters building and untied their mounts from the rail, hauling themselves wearily into the saddle. Dev caught a momentary glimpse of his commander’s face and frowned. There was something different now in the man’s expression. Then the general kicked his horse into movement and Dev was startled as he began to ride purposefully away, though not in the direction of his quarters.
‘General?’
‘You’re right, Dev. It took a moment for me to stop simmering and see it, but you’re right. I cannot do what I planned, but I must still do what I can. The empire is threatened by so many forces, and these fools strip it of men to fight this stupid, pointless war. If no one stops this, then the west will fall. I cannot accept that. I will not accept that.’
‘Where are we going, then, General?’
‘To my guard. They will be on their way here to muster, but I will not dismiss them and hand them over to be thrown into the mouth of a cannon. They are still loyal to me and they will have no desire to join this attack against my will. I said there was no one we can count on, but I was wrong. There are several groups we can count on. The guard will support us, as will your father, and there is another group I feel I can count on to do exactly as I anticipate. We will join with the guard, Dev, and leave the camp before the marshals realise we are gone.’
Dev, an odd nervous excitement thrilling through him, narrowed his eyes. ‘Where, though, sir? To General Jiang? To my father?’
‘No, Dev. Orders will have gone out now. There will be no safe way to approach the Jade Empire, and if we are tracked and we go to your father we will simply lead the marshals’ men to the monastery, which could have no good ending. No. We go to that third group I can trust to be predictable. To your dangerous friend, the Sizhad, instead.’
The young officer’s eyes widened in shock and alarm. ‘That is not a good idea, sir.’
‘I agree. But it is the only one I have. The Sizhad is now the only one who can change things.’
Dev shook his head fervently. ‘Sir, the Sizhad will not help you. He will not help anyone. He has his own agenda, and it is simply the destruction of us all and the affirmation of his sun god as the only god.’
And yet had not Dev only that very morning contemplated the possibility that his younger brother might still be brought back from the brink? But how could he suggest that to the general without revealing their fraternal connection? And that would then cast Dev’s own trustworthiness into doubt.
Cinna was shaking his head again. ‘I have no doubt that the Sizhad sees me as the enemy. In fact I am counting on this.’
‘Sir?’
‘These idiots have come here in the expectation of an easy victory and will crush any hope of peace in the process. The only chance now is to open their eyes to the real danger and bring them down to size – make them realise I was right. They need to know it’s not just the easterners across the river, but that the world is full of vicious bastards who will tear down the emperor. And since they are clearly blind to that fact, I will introduce the marshals to one of them personally. We go to find the Sizhad and his army, and we bring them south. I think we can count on the Sizhad to respond to provocation, and we will draw him to the marshals. We pit them against the imperial army here.’
‘Bringing a third army to Jalnapur might make things worse,’ Dev noted.
‘But it might make things better, and we’ve run out of options.’
Ahead, a force of riders in gleaming steel, and blue and white tunics was moving towards them in ordered ranks. The general’s bodyguard. The only unit in the whole of Jalnapur that Cinna could now rely upon.
‘We need to move quickly,’ Cinna said, ‘before it’s reported that I did not return to my quarters. I wish I had the chance to collect a few things, but every moment counts now.’
Dev nodded as they met with the guard and the general explained that they were going to ride out of the great camp to the north, past the now all but deserted city of Jalnapur.
The Sizhad. Ravi. The very idea of going back to that valley from which he had so narrowly escaped sent shivers through him. Would they have to face him? Would they even get as far as the valley? The last time Dev had ridden north with twice as many men and that had ended in disaster.
Dev, heart in throat, rode north.