Foss, Lemon, and Chel stood in the doorway, staring at the empty room. The bed was made, blankets pressed flat, and on it lay a single bottle, one of the wines Lemon and Foss had pilfered. It was unopened.
‘Guess she wasn’t thirsty,’ Foss said. ‘Half-expected her to have left the sword.’
‘You’re joking, eh? She’d sooner part with an arm.’
Chel looked from one to the other, searching their faces for oncoming levity, a relieving break to the tension. None was forthcoming. ‘She’ll come back, though, right?’
‘Hmm?’
‘She’s threatened to leave before. She’ll come back, once the dust settles. Right?’
Lemon puffed her cheeks. ‘Often said it. Never done it.’
‘So?’
‘So, I don’t know, wee bear.’
‘Will she be all right?’
‘Her? Aye, she’ll be grand, that one. All of nature’s bounties.’
‘What do you mean?’
Foss stirred. ‘You know, if you break a bone, it heals thicker, stronger than before?’
‘Yeah, I suppose.’
‘If you break it again, it gets a little thicker? A little stronger?’
‘If you say so. What are you getting at?’
He nodded, slowly, his gaze still on the bed, bright shafts of patterned sunlight dancing over it. ‘I’m saying she’ll be all right, friend.’ He took a long breath. ‘It’s the rest of us we should worry about.’
Footsteps thumped up the hallway behind them. Rennic was almost at a run.
‘Get to the gallery. Now.’
‘What’s the commotion, boss?’
‘Now.’
Chel searched for words, thinking of how to phrase the news of Loveless’s exit. Lemon overtook him, with a nod inside the door.
‘Did you see—?’
‘Yes. Now move it!’
***
The dust cloud had gone, although dark smears of thick smoke still rose from the neck of the pass into the brilliant morning air.
‘No,’ Chel whispered, his hands on the gallery rail. ‘Already?’
‘How the fuckity …’ Lemon murmured beside him. Foss just stood very still.
Before them the plateau had parted, the abandoned camp at its centre, the seething press of the unwelcomed refugees still choking the bridge and the guide towers. And at the plateau’s far end, slithering into view like a steel-plated blood-snake, came the column. It widened as it advanced, spreading outwards, revealing thickening ranks of marching figures, little more than gleaming crimson blurs. Behind them, the first great engine rolled out of the pass, a giant armoured wagon on steel-rimmed wheels as tall as a man, hauled by a team of indistinct, lumbering beasts. Even at the extreme distance, the scale of the machine was breath-taking.
Chel stared, fighting the urge to rub his eyes. It was too much to take. ‘There are so many of them. So many …’ This was not the modest host of the Gracechurch. This was a horde. ‘How could they have got through so fast?’
‘By blasting.’ Kosh was behind them, dark eyes wide, face solemn. She was wearing Serican clothes, a lot of silk, although she had kept her outfit practical. ‘They have … far more powder than I could have imagined. An impossible volume.’
‘You mean witchfire?’
Her brow furrowed, and her eyes flicked onto him, finding focus. ‘What you call “witchfire” is many things, none of which I have the time or the inclination to distinguish for you. Rest assured, they have more of it than they should. Far, far more.’
She looked off over the rail for a moment, then her gaze snapped back to Chel. ‘The Keeper has requested your presence.’
‘Me?’
‘All of you.’
‘Aye, right, so the old dear came round, did she?’
‘No.’
***
Matil stood beneath the outer arch of the Butterfly Room, the Keeper’s chain held loose in her hands. From the way her shoulders hung, it might have been made of deep lead. Kosh almost raced to her side, taking her hands and relieving some of the weight of the chain, metaphorical or otherwise. Behind her, at the chamber’s centre, angry voices bellowed over each other as a knot of figures, some in robes, some in polished armour, jostled and jabbed at each other, their retainers encircling them in a sheepish ring.
Chel and the others hung back, uneasy at breaking whatever moment was passing between Kosh and the new Keeper.
‘She’s in charge now?’ Rennic’s voice was a growl, but hushed in the confines of the hallway. ‘Why do you think she summoned us?’
‘As it happens, she didn’t, I’m afraid.’ Tarfel stood to one side of the arch, also alone, peering round at the sound of their approach. ‘Not directly, at least. It was me, really.’ He looked a little abashed. ‘Everyone else had a retinue; it was difficult to be taken seriously.’
‘Where have you been?’ Chel asked. ‘You didn’t return last night.’
The prince nodded. He looked tired beyond measure, purple hollows beneath dawn-red eyes. ‘I was in attendance of our former Keeper, Shepherd rest her. Duties of state, you understand.’
Matil approached, the chain still dangling from her hand, no evident intention to wear it. Kosh trailed her like a puppy. ‘Prince Tarfel, if you are ready,’ she said, ‘perhaps we should bring the council to order.’
‘My condolences again, Exalted. I can sympathize, of course, my father was ill for a long time … probably.’
Matil ignored him. Her gaze rolled over them as she turned back toward the council, then she paused. ‘Where is Rai?’ It took Chel a moment to realize she meant Loveless.
‘Gone,’ Rennic replied, voice stripped of emotion.
‘Gone? Where?’
‘Through the north-west gate and out into plains, some time before dawn. Bartered for a horse at the gatehouse. That’s all I can tell you.’
Matil nodded, eyes narrow, her reaction controlled. Chel scanned her for emotion, struggling to read her thoughts. As she turned back to enter the chamber, he caught a flash of something he could have sworn was relief.
The commander of the house guards, and apparently, by extension, the defence of the city, was a slick, well-presented man of Rennic’s age or thereabouts, whose gleaming breastplate was almost as ornate as Matil’s had been. His long moustache was oiled and styled to points, and his smooth skin shone like wax. Chel disliked him immediately.
‘In deference to the presence of our honoured guest,’ Matil announced, her accent stronger as she raised her voice over the hubbub, ‘we will conduct our affairs in his language.’
The commander bristled, his moustache twitching, but he offered no dissent. Chel hung back with the others in the outer circle of retainers, hoping they felt no less out of place, as Matil and Tarfel advanced to the tall, circular table at the council’s centre. Kosh went with them, always a step behind Matil.
The new Keeper summarized the situation: the Church’s forces had cleared the rubble of Korowan from their path far faster than anyone had expected, working through the night and detonating black powder – the rumbles that Chel had felt through the evening, no doubt. The confessors were streaming onto the plateau, dragging their engines and supplies, and looked to be forming up to lay siege.
‘We should sally,’ the commander said, his accent less thick than Chel had expected, his voice precisely as smug. ‘They have marched, assaulted, dug through the night, and marched again. Their men will be exhausted. We have the finest cavalry at our disposal, ranks of seasoned spearmen. We advance to the towers, set ranks, and encircle them. They will try to flee, and we will have them, trapped by the neck of the pass.’
Matil rubbed at one eye with her free hand. She looked more tired than Tarfel, whose own complexion was grey in the room’s gilded light. ‘Thank you, Lord Ghiz, for your thought. I foresee a number of potential obstacles, however: first, their force is very much larger than we realized, encompassing a number of what appear to be former mercenary companies. Our lookouts report company pennants, overpainted with the symbol of the crook.’ Rennic twitched at this, and Chel thought of Nadej’s words, and Fest’s treachery. ‘There is no guarantee that the men who dug and laboured through the night are the same as those entering the plateau, especially given our intelligence on the nature of their alchemy.’ There, a little look to Kosh, who responded with a tight smile of satisfaction. ‘Second, we cannot attack in cold blood. They have raised a flag of truce.’
‘Truce?’ cried one of the robed types. ‘They laid our fortress to waste!’
Matil nodded, jaw clenched. ‘Which they may claim was in defence of an act of aggression from those manning it. We have no way to confirm, there being few left to us who can speak of the events, and under the treaties we have little alternative.’
Ghiz’s moustache was trembling. ‘Your mother would never have stood for this.’
‘My mother,’ Matil replied with a voice of ice, ‘refused to treat with an army on our doorstep, dictated an aggressive ultimatum and triggered the destruction of our city’s greatest defence beyond the gorge and the loss of hundreds of lives. I shall not make the same mistake. Keep your forces ready, Commander, but you will wait for orders.’
‘Very well.’ He turned to leave.
‘Very well, what?’
He paused, exhaled through his nose. ‘Very well, Exalted.’
‘You are dismissed, Commander.’
The rest of the council filed away after him, muttering in their own language. The words might have been unknown to Chel, but the tone wasn’t, nor the pointed looks at Matil and Kosh both.
Tarfel remained. ‘You’re going to treat with them? Is that wise, Exalted?’
‘I understand your concerns, highness. But we risk little in hearing them out. Their position may be more flexible than was implied.’
‘And if not?’
‘I will not surrender you, highness. If they insist, I will refuse, and they will lay siege, as was perhaps always their intent.’
‘You’re not worried?’
‘I am. But Arowan is the most defensible city in the known world. They must cross the gorge to reach us, along a wide, open bridge, to reach a triple gatehouse. And they cannot surround us – we will always have the water of the wells, the aqueducts, and two bridges out to the plains, allowing us to bring in food and evacuate people as we see fit. Arowan has never fallen, nor will she. Ever.’
Matil paused, one hand resting on the table before her. A brilliant blue butterfly descended onto her shoulder, resting there for a moment, slow wings shining in the shafts of coloured light from above. ‘When we treat with them, highness, you will need—’
‘Yes, quite, I shall attend.’
‘No, absolutely not. If they have come for your head, I will not present it to them as a gift. You will need to nominate a second, someone to represent you and your interests.’
Tarfel nodded, relief bringing some colour back to his pallor, and with it, a small smile. ‘What better second than my first sworn. Would you do the honour of representing me, Vedren?’
Chel swallowed, nodded, took a step then stopped. ‘Of course, highness.’
‘Chel has been my man for half-a-year, kept me alive with the kingdom against me. I couldn’t have a better second.’
‘Anything we should know, Chel sworn to Tarfel of Vistirlar?’
‘You need to open the gates and let those people in.’
‘I believe you said as much before.’
‘And it’s no less true now. If you care about those people—’
‘They are not my people.’
‘But they are people! And they will die on that bridge if you do not let them in. You said it yourself, the gates to the plains are open – they could cross the city and go straight out the far side, no bother to a soul.’
‘I cannot allow unrestricted access to the city. For centuries we have controlled—’
‘Leave them on the bridge, and you will have their blood on your hands. Your hands, Exalted.’
Matil gazed past him, off toward the slow-spinning silken butterflies. ‘I will think about it, Chel of the South.’
She turned to leave, and Kosh went to follow. The engineer shot Chel an angry look as she did so.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’
She frowned, but stayed as Matil strode away.
‘What?’
Chel nodded her away from the others, toward where the silk butterflies dangled. His mind swirled along with them. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘We need to prepare for the possibility that everything is about to go to shit.’
Kosh raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
‘You know better than anyone what those confessor bastards are lugging in those wagons. I’ve seen your alchemy—’
‘I am an en—’
‘Engineer, yes, but you know more than enough alchemy to get by, don’t you? More than anyone in our wretched kingdom, I’d guess.’
She preened, but didn’t disagree. ‘What are these thoughts that pain you?’
‘Why did you believe they’d have less than they do? You keep saying they should have exhausted their stores, yet here they are on the city’s doorstep, and they seem in no hurry to conserve their alchemy.’
She folded her arms. ‘In simple terms?’
‘Why not.’
‘The powder is difficult, time-intensive and dangerous to make, and the recipe I gave them was the hardest of all. They should have struggled to procure reagents in sufficient quantities, and lost many batches along the way.’
‘Is there a chance you could have been wrong about the difficulty of, uh, procurement? Or could one of Corvel’s own alchemists have experimented and refined the recipe?’
Kosh pulled at the end of a dyed and frayed tangle of hair, her lips pressed together. ‘Maybe.’ Her next words sounded like they were being dragged from her by a straining team. ‘It’s possible I may have miscalculated, in my duress.’ The flash of her eyes dared him to make something of it. He did not.
‘If they still have stores or witchfire, powder, whatever, they will be keeping it in those armoured wagons, yes? Well away from fire, out of the reach of anything we might try to lob at them.’
‘Likely, yes.’
He turned to one of the silken butterflies, a miracle of gilded orange and green, rotating on the faint breeze from the upper window. He ran his finger along it, pulled it back, let it rock and spin on its thread.
‘I was in Denirnas when your people’s ships arrived,’ he said, eyes fixed on the twirling artifice. ‘And I saw something significant …’