He snorted. “No offense, Lady Winteria, but you make for a ragamuffin of a soldier.”
She nodded, glancing to herself in the cracked mirror leaning haphazardly against her wall. “I do indeed,” she said. She turned one last time and sighed again. “But it will do.”
Ten minutes later, Winters rode at the head of a ragged line of soldiers and Marsh scouts. She unstopped the vial and tipped a mouthful of the voice magicks back into her throat. She waited, gently clearing her voice until she heard it catch and the sound of her cough rustled the pine trees.
“I am Winteria bat Mardic, Queen of the Marshfolk, and I ride under arms for the Summer Papal Palace. Who will ride with me and mine?”
The men and women around her roared, and it seemed each time she repeated the call that more and more voices cried out in reply around her.
As they rode, others joined them, bearded men fresh in their mud and ash, weapons tucked in belts or slung over shoulders, still strapping on their ragged bits of armor and in some cases still leading their horses and kissing their children good-bye.
Winters remembered the last time their army had gathered up, recalling vividly the pillar of fire and smoke that had once been Windwir, stark against the sky of Second Summer. She remembered Hanric’s bellowing call to arms, followed by that first War Sermon on the march south and those exhilarating, terrifying moments that marked the first time she’d left the Marshlands.
She remembered the armies-all of them-lined up below their standards at the edge of those blasted lands.
Funny, she thought, that she hadn’t wanted so badly to cry back then and she did not remember once being afraid for her people.
But now, doubt chewed upon her as she worried what waited for her and her people at the end of this road.
And try as she might, Winters found no War Sermon upon her tongue or within her heart to bring courage as they settled into their slow ride north.
Instead, she rode silently into the shadow of the Dragon’s Spine, her eyes fixed on the storm clouds that gathered ahead.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo growled beneath his breath and braced himself against the rocking of the ship. The storm had come up quickly, pummeling them the last thirty leagues into port, and now they hunkered down at the top of the stairs, waiting for the word to be given.
Rudolfo had wiled his days pacing the narrow cabin, taking no pleasure in the lavish meals but pretending nonetheless so as not to offend his host.
Rafe Merrique had changed little in the decades that had slipped past them. He was a bit more flamboyant and slower to speak, his long hair had gone iron gray, but at the core of him, he remained the pirate lord that Rudolfo remembered from his youth. Still, the vessel Kinshark was proof enough of how well the man had done in the intervening years.
It was smooth, well kept, and faster than fast. Merrique’s crew kept it well oiled, bringing down the sails each night and replacing them with sailcloth soaked in a portion of the hold that had become more a vat than anything else. He rotated his crew as often as his sails, giving them as much time off the powders as on.
Rudolfo had spent his life among his Gypsy Scouts, well versed in the ways of stealth and strength magicks, and yet he’d seen nothing like the Kinshark in all his days.
Still, even the wonder of the vessel hadn’t held his attention. His mind continued wandering north to his wife, to his son, when he wasn’t poring over the Kinshark’s maps and charts or seeking out Merrique’s insight as to where Tam’s iron armada might’ve fled.
“No one goes east but me,” Merrique had told him. “And that not so much now with the gray robes gone. That leaves south and west.”
Still, he hoped Petronus could shed light on that. If I can get to the old fox.
The ship rocked again, and Rudolfo heard the boatswain’s whistle. “Hang on to me,” Merrique said in a low whisper.
The hatch opened, and they scrambled out onto the wet deck quickly. Below Rudolfo’s feet, he saw nothing but roiling water, and the vertigo that took him tugged at his stomach. He forced his eyes closed and clenched the back of Merrique’s belt. Behind him, he felt his Gypsy Scouts doing the same with him.
They moved to the side of the ship and one by one, lowered themselves into the waiting longboat. Merrique pulled Rudolfo beneath a heavy canvas and they huddled there, pitching and tossing, as the magicked sailors pulled oar and guided them to shore.
Once they made landing, the tarp pulled away and Rudolfo stood, hopping lightly onto the waiting dock. They were in a seedier part of the city-a series of dilapidated river docks along the backside of a row of run-down taverns. Upriver, a cannery squatted over the river on wood pilings, smoke leaking from a dozen chimneys, rising up into the cloudy sky.
The rain pounded down on them, and Merrique motioned them toward the shelter of a rickety balcony. “We’re early,” he said.
At a nod from Rudolfo, the two Gypsy Scouts slipped into the shadows to keep watch.
Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “How well do you know this Esarov?”
Merrique laughed. “As well as I know you, I imagine. I met him when he was still with the Order, before he left it for a life of debauchery on the stage. There were certainly years of silence, but lately he’s meant good business for me.”
One of Rudolfo’s scouts whistled, low and long, from his position at the corner of the building. A group of men approached, laughing and singing as they came.
Rudolfo watched them, keeping Merrique in the corner of his eye. He felt exposed here, but it was easy to feel that way. Even now, he knew the captain’s men, magicked and armed, surrounded them. Still, he knew the fierce effectiveness of his Gypsy Scouts firsthand, had trained with them and watched them sweep a battlefield clean as a grandmother’s floor. He was unaccustomed to trusting someone else’s men with his well-being. He found his left hand twitching for the narrow sword on his belt.
The group of men staggered toward them, and Rudolfo saw that they huddled close around two men at their center-both hidden in ragged sailor’s clothing and cloth caps.
One of the men slipped past his cohorts. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of silver spectacles, pushing back his long hair to slide them over his ears. “You are Rudolfo,” he said.
Rudolfo nodded. “I am.”
The men kept at their singing, all but the old one in the middle, as the short, long-haired man leaned closer. “I bear tidings from Petronus. And I bring a charge for you to keep watch over.”
Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “You are Esarov, then,” he said. “The Democrat.” When he said it, he found the word distasteful in his mouth.
Esarov nodded. “I am. I know you seek Petronus for reasons of your own, but I’m afraid he is not available.”
Rudolfo considered the man’s face and read the half-truth upon it. “Where is he? He is under my protection.”
Esarov smiled, and Rudolfo frowned at it. “Rumor is that you nearly rode him down on the highway to Caldus Bay for what he did to Sethbert and the Order. Interesting that you still consider the Androfrancine your protectorate.”
“Interesting or not,” Rudolfo said, “he is, and I would know of his circumstances.”
“He is under house arrest at Erlund’s hunting estate,” Esarov said. “He turned himself in for trial by Jury of Governors-in exchange for this man.” Here, he pointed to the balding old man.
Rudolfo gave him a closer look. The men had stayed near him, guarding him as closely as they guarded Esarov. Even now, they took up positions at each door or alley within eyeshot of the rendezvous. He was not quite as old as Petronus, though he looked older in this moment. He was haggard and pale, several days unshaven, and disheveled with dark rings beneath his eyes. This, Rudolfo saw, was a man who had not slept in a day or two.
“Who are you?” Rudolfo asked him.
The man blinked. “I am Charles, Arch-Engineer of the School of Mechanical Science.”
Rudolfo’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re Charles?”
I bear a message for the hidden Pope Petronus. The metal man that Aedric, Neb and Isaak now pursued in the Churning Wastes.
The man nodded. “I am Charles.”
“You created Isaak.”
The old man looked perplexed. “Isaak?”