Emrael sat on the steps of the old mansion in the central square of Trylla, hands balled into fists to bear the pain as Dairus the Imperator Mage-Healer poked and prodded at his ruined left eye. Ban and Jaina stood nearby, looking down at him with pity in their eyes.
Hundreds of their wounded littered the square in ragged rows of moaning, screaming men and women. Dairus wouldn’t be able to Heal them all, not even a meaningful fraction. Emrael felt guilty for accepting the Imperator’s Healing, but knew it was necessary. They’d all die if he became incapacitated now.
Dairus shook his head sadly. “I lack the skill to repair your eye to working condition, young mage. The best I can do is to heal over the eye socket so you do not risk infection.”
This was not the news Emrael had hoped for, certainly. To his shame, his thoughts turned to his recent visit with the Fallen in the Ravan temple. The dark God had healed him of his wounds once.
His mind then turned to his mother and Elle. Could one of them have Healed him properly, if they were here? No matter. What was done was done.
He tried not to let any of his inner turmoil show, to keep a straight face and smooth voice as he responded, “Do it. Thank you, Dairus.”
The Mage-Healer nodded, moving closer. “I am sure you have noted that each Mage-Healer’s process is different. My Healing is not gentle, I am sorry to say. Hold infusori if you have any, and bite down on something.”
Ban quietly handed him a strap of leather to bite. Emrael pulled the last of the infusori from the armor suit he still wore and held it while the Imperator put his finger right in his injured eye socket. He screamed around the leather strap as infusori coursed through him, a river of ice-cold agony. His eye and the deep wound that stretched from his scalp to his cheekbone itched and ached intensely. The pain of healing was worse than the pain of the wound itself.
When it was over, Emrael stood, panting, running his fingers over the freshly healed wound. Smooth scar tissue now covered the entirety of his eye socket, and he was surprised to find that an eyeball was still underneath.
Dairus saw his surprise and shrugged. “Better than tearing it out, no? I do not trust myself to be able to control the bleeding in these conditions.”
Emrael stood on shaking legs to clap him on the shoulder. “See to Timan next, please. I need him.”
Ban and Jaina followed him to where Worren and Garrus coordinated the men that remained in repairing some semblance of a defensive perimeter. Foodstuffs hauled from the temple compound and the supply wagons they had left north of the city were being distributed, and more wagons had been sent to retrieve the injured there. The two Captains First had things well in hand.
Just as he reached them, the sound of clattering hooves filled the square as Saravellin returned at the head of a few thousand mounted men in teal Raebren uniforms. They had been out pursuing the dregs of the Westlanders, making sure they didn’t have time to regroup and attack them again.
Saravellin spotted them and walked her horse over, a squad of Raebren men tailing her at a polite distance. Blood splatters adorned her armor, her face, her horse. “The bastards are marching out of the ruins as we speak, fifteen thousand of them left alive. Maybe more we didn’t see. They’re likely retreating to their nearest stronghold, wherever that is.”
Emrael nodded and motioned for her to join them. She started as she drew near enough to see his newly healed-over eye but recovered quickly and a sly smile cracked her serious face. “I see you’ve been taking care of yourself.”
“I wasn’t all that handsome to begin with,” he replied, matching her small smile. “We all owe you our lives, Saravellin. Where did you get so many men? Did Dorae send the men in Ire green?”
She laughed, drawing a letter from one of her saddlebags. “No, I’d say not. Those were Garrus’s men. Dorae sent this, though.”
Emrael broke the seal on the letter and read it. A knot formed in his stomach.
“You read this?” he asked without looking up. He knew as well as any that wax seals were easy to pry with a hot knife and replace the same way. She seemed the type to want all information available to her. He would have done the same.
“I did,” Saravellin murmured.
“And you still came?”
She just shrugged.
He turned to Worren, Jaina, Ban, and Garrus, who waited to hear the news. He told them.
Dorae hadn’t sent any men, and wouldn’t be. Sagmyn had fallen to the Malithii, his mother and their Legion there besieged in Myntar. Elle had abandoned him, abandoned them, and had somehow taken control of a portion of her father’s province—and the Barros Legion. Rather than offer support, she had demanded the Iraeans vacate Gadford. Dorae had been forced to keep his Guard at Whitehall and wouldn’t be helping anyone anytime soon. He ended the letter asking Emrael to negotiate with Elle over Gadford, as Dorae didn’t have resources to hold it and defend Whitehall should the Watchers attack again.
“That crafty girl,” Jaina murmured.
“Indeed,” Saravellin agreed. “I thought you and she were…?”
She trailed off, her gaze boring into Emrael’s eye. He shook his head. “It’s complicated.”
She guffawed. “Wonderful. We are all caught in your lovers’ spat.”
He shook his head again, remorse and anger warring in his chest. “No, this is something more. I offered an alliance to the rebellious Lords Holder in the south of her province, who then besieged her father in Naeran. If she controls the province now, something happened to her father and likely her sister besides, and she likely blames me. She could be a real problem. I need to speak with her immediately.”
“How will we get to Sagmyn to relieve the siege there?” Garrus asked, blunt as always. The Sagmynan Captain First’s family lived in Myntar and he had extended family spread throughout the province. “We cannot leave them in the hands of these cursed Malithii.”
Emrael held his gaze a moment, and could only be honest with him. His Captains had certainly earned that. “I don’t know, Subcommander Imarin. We don’t have enough men or resources to do much of anything. For today, enjoy being alive—which is more than many of our sisters and brothers can do.”
He swept his hand toward the teams of men beyond the fort who loaded wagons with the dead. Their Iraean brothers and sisters would be buried. The Westlanders and soulbound were being piled onto pyres for burning.
“For now, we rebuild here. Subcommander Worren, I have an assignment for you, my friend.”
Both Worren and Garrus looked at him with curious looks. “We are … only Captains First, Lord Ire,” Garrus offered, as if afraid Emrael had lost his mental faculties.
Emrael laughed. “You’ve both earned a promotion and more. Garrus, I expect you to pick men for promotions, take Darmon’s Watchers into your battalions. Watcher officers will keep their ranks.”
Garrus saluted, his face stoic.
“Worren, pick a battalion and go to Gnalius. You’re going to take command of the men there and send Toravin and Lord Syrtsan to me. I’m going to try to negotiate with the bastard, but if we can’t come to terms, you’ll be going to war with the Syrtsans. Be ready to leave in two days. I’ll have detailed orders ready for you, but hold everything east of the river at all costs.”
Worren saluted, his grin malevolent. He was not one for rebuilding. War was his calling. “I’ll see to it.”
When he and the others had finished reviewing the plans for treating the wounded and repairing the defenses, he headed for his rooms to get some sleep at long last. He felt ready to collapse after a very full day of fighting and infusori expenditure. His building now housed wounded in nearly every room, but his personal quarters were still his. Ban and Jaina followed him, of course, but he was surprised when Saravellin walked beside him.
“I see what you’re doing,” she said in a low, throaty tone. “Rotating your Commanders so none of them cement enough power to threaten you. Do you fear them so much?”
Emrael looked at her askance. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“Isn’t it?”
In truth, Emrael had considered it, but only as a fringe benefit. Truth was, Worren was exactly the field commander he needed to secure Gnalius and the eastern Syrtsan holdings quickly and with finality. Toravin was the man he needed to help him coordinate what would be a complex and arduous campaign to rebuild Trylla, recruit new soldiers, and expand northward as they expelled the Malithii and their ilk.
“I trust my officers, Saravellin.”
She shrugged, still smiling. “I’ve heard. We’ll see.”
Darmon and his Watcher confidant, Captain Vaslat, approached them as they headed across the square. Emrael slowed, allowing them to intercept. He hadn’t debriefed with the Watchers, and certainly owed them that much after they had risked so much to trade alliances.
Darmon pursed his lips as he took in Emrael’s scarred-over eye. “We’re quite the pair now, eh, Ire?” He held up his stump of an arm.
Emrael’s lip twitched in a small wry smile. “Pity you blue bastards couldn’t take care of those Westlanders any faster. That was my favorite eye.” He now felt an odd kinship with the man, despite their past, despite his misgivings. He knew that Corrande was only here because he had no other choice, and trusted him little even so. But there was something about having fought a desperate battle on the same side that softened Emrael’s heart.
“How many men do you have left, Darmon?”
“Four thousand or so.”
Emrael nodded. “Good. With your leave, I’d like to take them into my Legion. Your men will be spread among the companies, your officers will retain rank and take command of the reorganized groups.”
Darmon hesitated. “I have no rank,” he said finally. “What am I to do?”
“I have something in mind,” Emrael replied, waving a hand vaguely. “Arrange your men with Subcommander Garrus there, and we’ll talk specifics tomorrow.”
Darmon moved to salute as Emrael continued his tired walk to his residence. Captain Vaslat moved as well, but what Emrael had taken to be a salute turned into a lunge, a dagger in his hand. At first, Emrael thought the Watcher was coming for him, but he aimed just behind instead, where Jaina and Ban walked.
Emrael sprang without thinking, twisting to put himself between the attacker and his friends. His family.
Vaslat’s dagger sank into the flesh of Emrael’s forearm. Emrael flexed and twisted his wounded arm, ignoring the pain as he used his other arm to punch at Vaslat’s face. The dagger slipped from the Watcher Captain’s grip.
Before he could even move to draw his own weapon, Darmon’s sword flashed to skewer the Watcher Captain in the back, right through his heart. Blood splashed to the stones at their feet.
The heir to the Corrande Governorship threw his sword to the cobbles and sank to his knees instantly. “Please, Lord Ire. I swear to you, I had no part in this. Vaslat was a man of his word as long as I knew him. I joined you in good faith, as did my men. Please, I mean you no harm. None of us do.”
Rage coursed through Emrael in parallel with the pain in his arm. He knew that he needed Darmon, needed his newfound unlikely alliance if he wanted to win not only the war for Iraea, but the war to defeat the Malithii and the Fallen God who commanded them. But his anger didn’t want to listen. It wanted to eat Darmon’s heart raw. The only thing that stopped him was a hand on either arm—Jaina and Ban had stepped forward to restrain him, to calm him. Ban moved to wrap Emrael’s wounded arm to stem the bleeding.
Emrael stood silent, still shaking with rage as Jaina knelt next to the dying Watcher. She stood, a grim look on her face, a small ring in her now blood-soaked hands. “Mindbinder,” she growled.
Saravellin looked confused, Darmon shocked.
Jaina spoke. “We checked all of the officers before we rode for Trylla, Emrael. This should not have been possible. I do not believe Darmon to be capable of this.”
“How did this happen?” Emrael asked Darmon harshly.
Darmon looked like he was going to be sick. “I don’t know, Emrael. I swear it. I’ve only seen one man who had these Craftings. A bastard Malithii named Savian.”
“Their Prophet.”
Darmon’s eyes widened. “You know him? How?”
Emrael stared hard. He still shook, though he now had control of his emotions. “I know him. He’s here, in Iraea?”
Darmon shook his head. “I don’t know. I last saw him in Corrande Province.”
“He’s here. And you’re going to find him.”
Emrael stalked back to where Dairus the Healer still worked without further discussion, leaving Darmon on his knees with his friend’s corpse.
Emrael’s eye was locked on Darrain’s face, her body wrapped in the cleanest cloth they could find. The blue glow of the copper script inlaid on the walls of the Ravan temple made her pallid skin look even paler than it was, like she had become an ephemeral being.
A ghost.
He squeezed Ban’s shoulder and pulled him close. His brother’s body shook with quiet sobs. The two Crafters had been close. How close, Emrael didn’t know exactly, and didn’t ask. He couldn’t bear hearing the answer.
More corpses occupied the other stone biers in the room—in truth, they were the magical bunks like the ones they had slept on in the temple in the wilderness of the Barros Province. They had wanted to honor their dead somehow, and this was the best Emrael could come up with. Flame-haired Alsi and many others from the Royal Guard rested here, as did four Ordenan Imperators who had died in the fighting. Other spots had been given to Garrus and Worren to choose, honoring particularly valiant men and women who had fallen. Already the corpses stank, but their party lingered after the last body had been laid to rest. Jaina, Timan, Yirram, Daglund, Worren, and Garrus stood quietly in a rough semicircle just outside the door to the chamber.
Finally, Timan took a half-step into the room. “These Imperators, and indeed the lot of them, have died so all of us might live, and for our freedom. May the Sisters grant them a measure of Glory.”
Jaina and Yirram tapped their chests in response, evidently an Ordenan custom of some sort. Emrael cleared his throat. “Time to see to the living.”
He ushered everyone out and turned back to the doorway when they had all exited. A pulse of infusori actuated the door’s mechanism. After it clunked shut, Emrael frowned in thought and put his hand back to the door. He drew a huge amount of infusori from the ambient power of the Well and pushed it into the door, using his senses to guide the power through the stone just so. The imperceptible cracks around the perimeter of the door sealed shut, and the Crafted mechanism inside the wall burst with a violent explosion.
“No one will disturb their rest,” he said simply, tears now leaking from his eye. Odd that he would cry now. Yirram nodded and put a hand to his shoulder.
They walked through the war-torn ruins back to their fortifications in silence.
The main square was still filled with hundreds of tents that housed their wounded. Many died daily despite their efforts. Such was the cost of war, but Emrael wished desperately that he had more Mage-Healers. When he knew that most of these people could have been saved by one with the proper abilities, their deaths were a particular insult.
He spotted Saravellin on the steps of his manse. He had given her his rooms, opting to bunk with Ban again while usable rooms were scarce.
Saravellin paused briefly in her conversation with Garrus to look Emrael’s way, but immediately resumed her conversation as if he didn’t exist. She had all but taken over reconstruction of the city, even personally arranging the teams that loaded the enemy dead into wagons to dump in the large pyres on the outskirts of the city. She had hardly even wrinkled her nose at the putrid stench of the soulbound corpses, which seemed to decay at ten times the rate of a normal body. An odd woman. Odd but impressive. Garrus thought the world of her and gladly let her handle nonmilitary matters.
Emrael was just glad the two got along. He was in no mood to negotiate peace between allies.
Ban led him to the Crafters’ Hall, which hadn’t changed materially since Emrael had last been there except for the copious amounts of scrap material strewn about the hallways and in just about every room Emrael saw.
“This is almost as bad as your workstation back in our room at the Citadel was,” Emrael quipped.
“Things got … hectic,” Ban said apologetically. “My Crafters worked some miracles for us, Emrael.”
Emrael smiled. His Crafters. Ban hadn’t asked for power, hadn’t yearned for leadership. But it had found him anyway.
Ban continued. “I don’t know if you realize, but the damage we did to the Malithii and their men with our projectiles—”
He stopped to purse his lips and scrunch his eyes. He was trying not to cry. “Darrain saved us all with her design, Emrael. She deserved to be here.”
Emrael put his hand on his brother’s shoulder as they walked up a large granite staircase to his workshop on the top floor. “I’m sorry, Ban. I tried,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “I am to blame. I should have kept her safe. She wouldn’t listen when I tried to keep her back, and I wasn’t expecting one of our own to be shooting at our backs. But I should have kept her safe.”
Ban shook his head. “No, Em. You had no way to know. Glory, we were almost killed right on our doorstep. This burden is mine. I’ll have something built by the end of the week. Mindbinders won’t plague us any longer.”
They arrived at Ban’s workshop, and Emrael stopped just inside the doorway, staring at a giant metal contraption that nearly filled the large room. “Where in Glory’s dark name did you get the materials for this?”
Ban looked sheepish. “I looted the temple. Don’t tell Jaina. Or that shaman of yours. I took the copper from a room I don’t think anyone will look in, and kept the circuit whole so the inlay still glows just fine.”
Emrael laughed from deep in his belly, the first real laugh he’d had in weeks. “Your secret is safe with me. Jaina really would whip you bloody, though, you know.”
Ban turned to his copper spire, which seemed to extend through the roof. He fiddled with some boxes and various Craftings he had connected to the spire, then motioned Emrael forward. “This is like the Observer I made for you, but it can broadcast much farther. Receive, too. My Crafter Aelic had its twin working in Whitehall weeks ago, but I had him send it on to Larreburgh with Paia—figured Halrec would need more help, and Aelic can build one more easily in Whitehall than he could in Larreburgh. We have been broadcasting on higher frequencies to reach our scouts here in the city more clearly to target the Malithii machinery, but I’ve just reconfigured it for distance and we hailed Paia early this morning. She said Halrec wants to speak with you.”
Ban looked at him expectantly. Emrael waved his hands at his brother impatiently. “Go on then, get Halrec for me.”
Ban turned back to his work, chewing on his tongue as he twisted knobs and finally pressed a lever near an array of hundreds of steel pins connected to a wire that led to the spire. “Paia, this is Banron at Trylla Station. Please respond.”
He let go of the lever and waited. Five minutes or so later, he repeated himself. Emrael took a seat and began fiddling with a half-finished project on a nearby worktable. Several attempts later, a voice responded.
“Ban? Is Emrael there?”
The voice emanated from one of Ban’s boxes, corrupted by a series of pops and crackles. It was more than clear enough for Emrael to recognize Halrec’s voice, however.
Ban depressed a lever and beckoned Emrael over to a device that looked like a bird’s nest of looped wires. “Go on, speaking into this.”
Emrael couldn’t help but smile as he responded. “I’m here, Hal.”
“About damn time. We’re in real trouble here, Em. Just more than half of the minor holders answered my call to gather in Larreburgh and accepted me as Lord Holder.”
Emrael grunted. “Seems okay to me. Half is more than I would have expected.”
“That’s not the bad part. Whether those absent fight against me or not, I think I’m going to have upward of fifty thousand Watchers and Malithii and Absent Gods only know who at my gates within weeks. Days, maybe. Most of my scouts don’t return, and those that do report large groups of soldiers moving to the east up the Tarelle Gap, and north in Paellar.”
“Fallen Glory,” Emrael sighed, closing his eye. “Hal, we just lost at least half of our men just to keep Trylla, and it was a close thing. Sagmyn is under siege, and Elle has abandoned us in an attempt to take over Barros Province. She’s threatening Dorae. I don’t have more than five thousand men that could march right now. You’ve got to get out of there. Take any who will leave and come to Trylla.”
Halrec was quiet long enough that Emrael looked to Ban, thinking that the Crafting had malfunctioned. Ban shrugged, his hands in the air. “It’s working.”
“Hal?”
His friend finally responded, his voice low and hard. “These people just accepted me as their Lord Holder, Emrael. That means something to me.”
Emrael sighed. “I know Halrec, but we’ll get Larreburgh back at some point. We can retake a city. I can’t replace you, or the men the will die with you.”
“Thousands will die if I leave them, Emrael. Tens of thousands. I can’t do that.”
“Halrec, see reason. All of you will die if you don’t leave. Take any who want to leave with you. Come to me in Trylla. Or go to Whitehall. I don’t give a shit. Dying in Larreburgh is not the answer.”
Halrec guffawed, causing the Crafting to crackle and pop loud enough to hurt Emrael’s ears. Ban scrambled to adjust some knobs.
“Emrael, these people can’t travel hundreds of leagues ahead of an army of Watchers and soulbound and who knows what else. Many don’t have a horse or wagon to their names. Children, Emrael. Is becoming king really worth leaving them to die?”
Emrael sank his head into his hands. “Hal, what do you want me to do? I can’t get there in time, or with enough men. And I have my own battles to prepare for here. We haven’t won the war, not even close.”
The Crafting sat silent. He sighed again, then pushed the lever down one more time. “I love you for staying, Hal, I do. I’ll send to Dorae and even to Elle, asking them to send men. But please, consider sending any of your people who can travel to safety while you still can. Get our men out to fight another day. I can’t help, and the others likely can’t either.”
“I can’t leave, Emrael. This is the fight I choose. Help me if you can. I’ll update you this same time tomorrow.”
Silence.
Emrael cursed, quiet at first, but crescendoed to screaming profanities. Ban watched calmly.
Emrael finally stopped, breathing hard, wanting to lash out, to break things. He knew how much Ban’s Craftings meant to him, however. He nearly turned to stalk out the door in search of something to break, someone to fight, anything on which he could vent his frustration. His brother’s calm eyes stopped him.
“You done?” Ban asked quietly.
Emrael flopped into the chair again and folded himself to rest his head on his knees, his hands gripping his hair, which had grown in the weeks since he had last had time to think about cutting it. “What am I supposed to do, Ban? It’s too much. Mother, Halrec, Dorae, Elle, the people here. I can’t save them all, no matter how hard I try. And how am I supposed to beat the Fallen God himself? I can’t do it.”
“You must accept that the people you love control their own destiny, Em. You can’t control what others do without becoming as bad as the Fallen himself. So why do you think you are to blame for everything that goes wrong?”
Emrael didn’t respond, so Ban stood. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”
Emrael slowly unfolded himself from the chair and followed, his rage quickly settling into a deep melancholy. They climbed a metal ladder at the end of the hallway to stand together on a railed balcony on the roof of the building. The Crafters’ Hall was likely the tallest building left standing south of the river now that some of the largest had been brought down on the heads of the soulbound and Westlanders that had assaulted the fortifications. He could easily see the river from here, and beyond to the ruins where the temple lay.
They stood there for a time, watching the thousands of men and women that had followed them to Trylla. Rebuilding the outer wall, caring for the wounded, cooking, hauling water, riding out on patrols. Their shared dream had been wounded, but was once again bustling with life.
“You did this, Emrael,” Ban said finally. “You have paid the price as much as any but the dead.” His brother touched his scarred-over eye gently and kept an arm around his shoulders. “All of these people believe in something greater than what they were born to, just like we do. And you’ve given them a chance to fight for it, to build it with their own hands. Whatever we have to do, that’s worth something. Whether the Fallen is real or not, we can’t stop fighting. We can’t leave these people to languish.”
Emrael, still staring northward, started laughing.
Ban pulled his arm away and punched his shoulder. “Ass,” he grumbled.
“Not you,” Emrael said, punching his brother back. “Look there,” he said, pointing to the river. “I can see it even with one eye.”
“Is that a ship?”
Emrael gripped the stone railing of the roof balcony. His melancholy now warred with anger. Anger and, oddly, hope. “Ordenans.”
The Ordenans were dangerous bedfellows, but he didn’t have much choice at this point. “I’m either going to start another war with the most powerful nation in the world, or make them our ally. Let’s go find out which.”