5.

 

Crouched in his cell, Bueralan stared at the Spine and watched the fires. They were small, isolated, and looked to be more for purposes of light than signals of destruction. He had heard that they had been created by raiders who were attacking the city, but none of the soldiers he overheard were sure what they signaled. There had been a lot of excitement when the first line of smoke emerged, but emotions had tempered as the moon rose and the flames remained at the foot of the sky.

If it was an attack led by raiders, Bueralan believed that the general had played his hand too early. The army was two days’ solid ride from being in a position to deploy their catapults, and that did not take into account the soldiers digging in, building trenches, fences and fortifying their camp. It surely would have been better to wait until they were in a position to do that to launch a surprise attack on the back of whatever they’d set up. But as he stretched his back against the bars, he was reminded of the pitch darkness he saw when the mother was speaking, and the brief sense that he had of being all round the Mountains of Ger.

“Do you watch our fire?” The general emerged from behind the cart, holding a plate in his left hand, a cup in his right.

“I was told a long time ago that in war fire is not your friend.” The plate was pushed through to Bueralan’s unshackled hands. “Do you not subscribe to that?”

“The grunt’s perspective. Spoken by a soldier who liked the spoils of war, but had very little interest in battle.” Waalstan leaned against the side of the wagon. “Do you know that they are our raiders up there?”

“Your cannibals?” The meal was cold, barely cooked meat, the bread beneath pink from the juice. His stomach rebelled at the sight of it, despite what his mind said. “Did they dig through the ground with their filed teeth?” he asked.

“Over a year ago, I organized the purchase of a mill within the city. At the same time, I purchased a series of land lots, half a dozen close to the Spine and another four further down the mountain. The raiders that we sent out had three jobs: to create a small series of skirmishes, to ensure that the villages followed a specific design and—”

“—to dig the tunnel.” The mother’s voice had spoken to the men and women who had hidden in the tunnel, in the dark. In searching for Zean and Dark, he had seen that—heard briefly her words to them, to soothe their concern. “To live in it.”

Waalstan’s smile mirrored Bueralan’s feeling of confidence. “We’ll come up on the other villages within two days. By then, I will have a good measure of Lady Wagan and the Mireean defenses.”

“At the expense of your soldiers.”

“I do not expect to lose them.”

Bueralan shook his head and poked at the piece of meat—with it, might he be able to ride on another wave of Leeran magic?—while the general’s smile faded.

“She has never seen battle,” he said, finally.

“No, you’ve never seen battle.” Bueralan gazed at him through the iron bars, the plate held tightly in his hand. “Muriel Wagan has ruled over the trading capital of the world since she was thirty-two, a city she was born into, unlike her Lord. She married him: Elan Wagan was only Captain Jeal of the Mireean Army before, a man with no family name or history. He took her name and became the public head of the city, but anyone who met Lady Wagan would not believe that she gave control over her home to anyone, not even a man she loved.”

“I met Lord Wagan when he rode into Leera over six months ago, his treaty with us in his satchel. He was a proud man.”

“Was that before or after you gouged his eyes out?”

Waalstan shrugged off the comment. “He had been good friends with Rakun—”

“And is your king alive?” Bueralan forced a laugh before he could reply. “You know, before you came here, I was thinking that you had made a mistake, that you sent your raiders in early. But that’s not quite what happened, is it? Your raiders have made a mistake. They panicked.”

“Everything is as it is.”

“That’s why you’re here, asking about Wagan, trying to figure out how she will exploit your weakness? General, I tell lies for a living and you have much to learn. You will learn from her, as well, but not in the way you think. She’s an intelligent woman who knows she has never faced battle like this before. But so what? She made the Captain of the Spine for that purpose.”

Waalstan pushed himself off the wagon. “Are you finished with your meal?”

“Did you ever wonder why he took the job in Mireea?” As much as his stomach rebelled, Bueralan wanted to eat the raw meat, to see if any of the raw power remained for him, if he could force the same reaction as before and reach Zean and the others before they reached Ranan. He curled the plate against his stomach and continued speaking. “Aned Heast could have demanded more coin on any side of Leviathan’s Throat.”

“But he did not.”

“No, he did not. In another kingdom, Heast would be a general. Perhaps he would have been more. In any kingdom where he worked, he would have demanded respect and got it. But in any other kingdom than Mireea’s, he would never have been anything but a man of low birth, who had made his name as a mercenary and built his reputation on a series of ugly battles doing what few would. In a time of peace, the people of the kingdom he was in would ask why he was there, why their king or queen kept him. That never happened in Mireea. Up on that mountain—on the back of a dead god—he is the Captain of the Spine, and that title is his legacy and his dream, the piece of him that he will leave behind long after you and I are dust.

“You ask of Lady Wagan, General, and I know why you ask, and you misjudge her. She has ensured that for you to take her home, you have to go through the man she has given status and respect to, who was as infamous as he was famous for how he won his battles. She knows that. She knows the nature of the man and how it reflects on her.

“And before this war is done, so will you.”