‘WE HAVE TO stop Sinclair before he gets here,’ Will said.
It was the one thing he knew for certain. He looked at the others. He could see that Cyprian and Grace were still emotionally half-caught on the mountain, and maybe Ettore was too, though the bandit was harder to read.
They were sitting at tables in the osteria. Will and the others had been rejoined by Kettering. Ettore was offering his opinions from a long-legged lean against the cracked plaster wall in a pose that reminded Will of James. James himself was sitting on a barrel near the door, one knee cocked. A scattering of bandits sat around him, including the Hand.
‘He knows how to raise that army,’ said Will. ‘And how to control it, even if we don’t.’
He knew Sinclair well enough to know that. Sinclair was ahead of all of them. Sinclair was sailing right now to the dig, where he would wake Sarcean’s army from the dead.
He knows how to raise it, and we led him right to the chamber. He didn’t speak that part of it aloud. He was the one who had opened the chamber under the throne. Not Sinclair. Not the others. Him.
He felt like he was playing a game against himself, the Dark King in the past making moves that Will could barely see, let alone counter. He’d planted that army and was waiting for them to awaken. And he had some plan for them, just as Sinclair had some plan for them. Will just couldn’t see yet what it was.
Cyprian frowned, his eyes troubled. ‘The Stewards were supposed to stop that army.’
‘But they didn’t,’ said Will. ‘They died of the white death instead.’
Sinclair wouldn’t care that he was unleashing the white death. Probably, like Will, he was immune. Sinclair could simply walk through a palace full of white corpses to the throne.
James spoke from the barrel, an edge in his voice. ‘Sinclair’s ship arrives in three days. That doesn’t give us long.’
‘We cut him off before he reaches the mountain,’ said Will. ‘But I think—’
‘You think?’
‘I think we need to be prepared that we may have to fight that army.’
James’s eyes went wide with shock. ‘You mean—’
‘I mean if the Dark army is released, the locals here deserve a chance to fight. We need to tell them. Prepare them for what’s coming.’
He watched that sink in. His friends and Kettering had seen the vast cavern under the throne room that could hold hundreds of thousands of soldiers. And Ettore and the bandits had heard Nathaniel tell of whatever lay beneath the mountain killing thousands of Stewards.
‘You really want us to prepare these people to fight the Dark King’s army.’ Cyprian said it as though he couldn’t believe it. Or was only starting to believe it.
‘How will you feel if they’re released, and we haven’t warned the villagers or given them a chance to fight?’
Cyprian was nodding slowly, the Steward lieutenant, finding a role for his gifts outside the Hall.
‘We can arm them,’ said Cyprian. ‘Give them some basic training. How to fight. When to fall back. There are legends throughout the villages of the evil rising from under the mountain. They at least will have a reason to believe us, and to fight.’
‘We split our forces,’ said Will. ‘One group attacks Sinclair’s convoy, while the other stays behind to ready the towns and villages for what might come.’
He saw nods from his friends, but the greatest surprise came from the banditti. The Hand sitting with her legs spread put down her tin mug and stood, the action like a promise.
‘I’ll fight Sinclair with you,’ said the Hand. ‘It’s what I’ve wanted to do this whole time.’
‘Hand,’ said Ettore.
Their eyes met, and something passed between them, an understanding that Will didn’t recognise. But all Ettore said was, ‘If she will, I will.’ Anch’io came the agreeing call from the other bandits. Combatterò anch’io.
‘As will I,’ said James. ‘If your men don’t mind fighting with a witch.’
‘I’d rather fight with you than against you,’ said Ettore, ever pragmatic.
A murmur of agreement from his men. Even with their ancient muskets, their torn clothes, their unwashed faces, Ettore’s bandits were a small but significant militia, ready to fight. Ettore had renounced the Stewards only to gather a new fraternity of fighters around him, Will reflected, reenacting his past even as he turned his back on it. Just as well: they might soon need every fighter they could get, even this tarnished, scornful re-creation of the Stewards.
‘What can we expect?’ the Hand asked James, frankly.
James straightened on the barrel, surprised. James was perfectly capable of ordering others around, but he didn’t seem to expect people to look to him for any sort of serious leadership. Anharion had commanded armies, but James had been trained by Sinclair as a singular weapon who answered to only one man.
‘He’ll dock at Civitavecchia.’ James was thinking it through as he spoke. ‘A ship’s worth of men, that’s two to three hundred soldiers. And he’ll likely bring his inner circle to protect him. His son Phillip can wield dark objects. The unicorn is an enigma. Almost certainly he’ll bring his Lion, who will be very hard to fight.’
‘Tom Ballard,’ said Will. ‘I’ve seen him fight before, on the Sealgair. He killed a dozen Stewards without breaking a sweat.’
‘You can fight a Lion with magic,’ said Cyprian.
‘Yes, but—’ James broke off.
‘But?’ said Cyprian.
‘But Sinclair knows I’m here,’ said James.
It wasn’t the first time he had said it. He didn’t like speaking the words out loud; his lips drew back from his teeth. He didn’t like admitting that he might be outmatched in a fight. Underneath that was a deeper reluctance. James feared a confrontation with Sinclair, who’d been a father to him after he’d escaped from the Stewards.
‘You can’t just ride three hundred men into the Papal States,’ said Kettering. ‘Not without local objections. How is he bringing them here?’
‘Protection for his convoy, “workers” for the dig – no one will ask questions,’ said Ettore. ‘A lot of money changes hands in this region.’
‘He’s been planning this for a long time,’ said Will. ‘Years. Decades, maybe. We need to be prepared for what’s coming.’
‘What is coming?’ said Grace. When the others just looked at her, she said, ‘The army, what form will it take?’
Cyprian said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘They won’t be Reborn, like James. They won’t be infants. Will those frozen figures under the throne room reanimate? How is it done?’
‘Nathaniel never described the armies,’ said Cyprian. ‘Just the white death that came before them.’
Will had seen in his own vision an army that stretched out to the horizon, and a roiling black cloud that blotted out the sky.
There were too many questions left unanswered. But the mission was unchanged. What lay under that mountain could not be allowed to wake up.
‘It doesn’t matter what form they take. We know what they’ll do,’ said Will. ‘It’s the thing all armies do.’
‘What’s that?’ Cyprian frowned.
He could feel it, waiting under the mountain. It seemed to resonate deep in his bones.
‘Conquer,’ said Will.