necessary.’
Corvus stood and held his hand out to Rivil, who clasped his wrist. ‘We know the timeframe, if this one is to be trusted,’ he added, though there was no doubt in his mind. Not even a shred. The Blessed One’s communion would confirm it. ‘What say you we get busy taking the city?’
‘Agreed,’ Rivil said. ‘And there’s to be no let-up, day or night, until it’s ours.’
Corvus glanced at his guards. ‘Bathe the Godblind and find him some fresh clothes. Put him in something blue. I think the colour will suit him.’
Fourth moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
South Rank harbour, River Gil, Western Plain
‘You’ve got that look again.’
Mace started and focused on Dalli. ‘What? What look?’
‘Like someone just kicked your puppy,’ she said, and then put a conciliatory hand on his thigh. ‘At the risk of repeating myself – because I am repeating myself – it wasn’t your fault and we’ll get there in time. We were out of choices at Yew Cove and it’s not like you ordered us into those tunnels. You didn’t do this, Mace. Look, your Da knows how to defend a city. Gods, he’ll probably have won it single-handed before we arrive. And wouldn’t that be bloody nice?’ she added under her breath.
Mace’s smile felt false even to himself, and judging from Dalli’s expression it looked even worse, but it was still the best he could do. ‘We lost days in those bastard tunnels and recovering afterwards. The city might have fallen by now.’
Dalli puffed out her cheeks. ‘We couldn’t have moved any faster than we did. Not with our numbers of wounded. If we hadn’t rested, there’d just be corpses crewing these ships down to Rilporin. You know that.’
He stared back out across the harbour at the approaching dusk. When they’d come up out of those tunnels in the aftermath, the pitiful, shattered remains of his proud Rank, there’d been no thought of continuing the march. Too heartsore at the scale of their losses, at the sheer callous deliberation on the part of the Mireces to drown them, in the tight, choking black beneath the ground.
Easy to blame the villagers who’d been forced into the deception. Easier to blame himself. The semblance of order he’d managed had lasted until Lim Broadsword, chief of the decimated Wolves, had climbed out of the tunnels with his wife’s corpse in his arms. A hundred folk of Yew Cove had died under Wolf blades – Wolf and Rank blades – before Mace and Dalli had been able to calm them.
We turned on our own to try and stop the hurting. Took innocent lives.
What is this war turning us into?
Mace didn’t have an answer. Mace had just one overriding imperative now – to reach Rilporin, aid his father and the defence, and take his vengeance on the Mireces. Justice, his mind insisted. Vengeance, his gut replied.
Whichever one his Rank was after, once they’d rested – the first genuine rest since the battle of the Blood Pass Valley – they’d marched with him, and the Wolves too. None of them had anything to go home to, after all. They’d all given everything for their country, and it had chewed them up and spat them out. They were the broken remnants of war’s ravenous appetite, and they were going back for more.
The South Rank’s fleet had been mostly destroyed, no doubt Corvus’s work, but it looked as though there were enough ships, just, for his troops and the Wolves to set sail for Rilporin and the siege.
There was splashing as someone waded into the river towards a drifting bow line and Mace shuddered and looked away. He remembered the water taking his legs from under him as he and his Rank charged through the smugglers’ tunnels towards the surface. Too slow, too far to run, the water a screaming animal behind, around, above and then in front of them and no air left, no air to breathe, water battering them against tunnel floor and roof and walls, smashing them into each other, men in plate armour tossed like straw dolls to twist and flail and sink and die.
‘Mace? Mace, love, easy now. Breathe, that’s it, just breathe.’ Dalli’s voice was firm and strong and he clung to it as though he was drowning again.
He came back to the sunlight and the warmth and the wide-open skies, his palms clammy and his chest heaving for air. Dalli’s normally short hair was growing out, he suddenly noticed, beginning to curl down on to her forehead. He focused on those curls and focused on breathing, and after a long minute she put her hand over his and prised his fingers out of the flesh of her elbow.
‘Ouch.’ She smiled. ‘Better?’ He nodded and straightened as the panic receded, made himself look at the river again. Think. Function.
‘Good.’ She pressed a kiss to his cheek. ‘I’m looking forward to taking those bastards by surprise; no doubt they think we’re all dead. Can’t wait to ram my spear up a few arses and prove them wrong.’
Mace snorted, thankful she didn’t acknowledge his moment of panic. Of weakness. ‘It’s your way with words I love the most about you,’ he said as a surge of anger filled his chest. Dalli wasn’t the only one with a score to settle.
‘There’re a lot of things you love about me, General Koridam.’ She laughed, sticking out her almost flat chest and squeezing her elbows together to give the cleavage some help. Mace stuck his face in her shirt and she laughed again, batting him away. ‘I’m going to check on Rillirin and Seth; don’t leave without us, all right?’
‘Believe it,’ Mace said and meant it. ‘Send Lim to me, would you? And insist this time. We can’t – mustn’t – have a repeat of what happened back at the Cove.’
Dalli’s face twisted and she nodded, getting to her feet with a wince. ‘I’ll try.’ She patted his shoulder and limped away and Mace couldn’t help but watch her arse until his view was blocked by a decidedly less attractive form.
‘Colonel Dorcas, how fares the eye?’ he asked, and then forced himself to listen as Dorcas related, for what was possibly the tenth time that day, the story of how, while heroically defending his men in a side tunnel, a Mireces had skewered Dorcas in the face and taken his eye as a trophy.
Mace was a little hazy on the practicalities of trophy eyes. Ears, fingers, teeth, hands he could understand, but not eyes. Just squishy balls, weren’t they? Couldn’t string them around your neck without them bursting, couldn’t dry them into leathery sticks to keep in a jar to frighten children, couldn’t …
‘Astonishing,’ he murmured when the flow of words ceased. ‘And yet you march on without complaint.’ Dorcas preened, oblivious of the irony. ‘Oh, but if you would excuse me, Chief Lim approaches. I need to speak with him in private.’ Dorcas saluted and wandered off to find someone else to regale. ‘If you could ensure as many boats as possible are ready to set out tomorrow, Colonel,’ Mace called after him. ‘Every able-bodied soldier to be put to work.’
Mace eased himself to his feet and waited for the Wolf chief to reach him. Lim’s face was closed, locked tight on emotions Mace couldn’t begin to comprehend. His right hand rested on his knife hilt; his left carried a charm. Mace forced himself not to look at it.
‘Lim, my friend. Thank you for coming.’
‘What do you want, General?’ Lim’s voice was as closed as his face.
‘How are your people, Chief?’ Mace asked, switching to the formal title Lim seemed to prefer. Putting as much distance between us as he can. Telling me we’re allies, not friends. Not any more. Not after everything that’s happened.
‘As expected. The strength they’d begun to recover is being wasted. Wounds are reopening, stitches ripping under the rigours of the march. And