What Lies Beyond, page 52
part #6 of The Cycle of Galand Series
Dante gazed out at the ships anchored in the bay. He wanted nothing more than to take his first proper bath since returning to Rale, then go eat some charred meat. From there, a nap sounded quite called for, the longer the better.
But though the crowds of soldiers, priests, and workers had given them space to speak to Naran, the people were still watching Dante and the others closely. They had spent many weeks delaying the lich to keep alive the slim hope that he could be defeated. The need to know their fight had not been in vain was etched into their weary faces.
They had performed their duty to Dante. He would perform his duty to them.
He reached into the ground beneath his feet, compressing the coarse sand into sandstone and lifting up a platform, elevating himself six feet in the air so that all of the thousands could see him.
"Countrymen and friends!" He laced his voice with the nether, amplifying it above the wind and the crash of the waves. "We have returned from our long journey—and we have brought a terrible weapon back with us."
He took a breath, ready to go on. But the crowd thrust up their fists and cheered. Hearing the power of their voices unified, Dante stood a little straighter.
"To obtain this weapon required the three of us to do great deeds. Now, we are all needed to achieve a much greater deed. Quite soon—likely within a matter of days—we will confront the White Lich. One way or another, this war will be brought to an end. Even with what we've brought back from the realm of the gods, it will be our most desperate day.
"But if, on that day, we stand together—if each one of us fights with every spark of our souls, inspired by the knowledge that everyone next to us is doing the same—we will have the chance to break the new cycle the lich means to end us with, and forge our names in the iron of history."
He bowed his head. The roar that came next was the loudest of them all, rising higher and higher, until Dante suspected the gods could hear it on the other side of the Mists.
35
"We are assembled today," Olivander said, "to bring about the death of the White Lich."
Olivander would admit he was past the prime fighting years that had helped elevate him to Narashtovik's captain of war. But though he was well into middle age, he looked no less formidable than when Dante had first met him when he was little older than Dante was now.
The Sword of the South pitched down a wave, causing several people to grab at the table. They'd managed to cram a veritable host of attendees into Naran's cabin. Dante, Blays, Gladdic, and Winden were there as well. So was Nak, who wasn't much of a strategician or a soldier, but who had ably guided the army in Dante's absence.
They were seated, but Somburr the master of spies had too much energy for that, the features of his brown face darting about like little birds, as if he could watch many different things at once. Hart the venerable norren was a pure contrast to the spymaster, sitting in his chair like a block of stone. Merria was almost as old as Hart, but the Councilwoman's gray eyes were as sharp as ever, and her tongue remained even sharper, not to mention infamously crude.
In peaceful times she spent most of her days strolling around Narashtovik's streets observing problems of all kinds, be it with the city's infrastructure, criminal elements, rat population, tax collection, traffic flow of pedestrians and carriages, shortages of goods in the markets that might be shored up by enterprising merchants, and all of the other various and sundry ways that something could go wrong in a large urban environment. She knew the whole of Narashtovik better than anyone else alive.
They'd brought numerous experts, aides, and servants with them, too, to the point where most of these were waiting out on the deck in case their name was called. They were currently getting rained on, but Naran had ordered his sailors to rig up some tarps to protect them from the storm that had hit the coast within minutes of the fleet weighing anchor and plowing east toward Narashtovik.
"There's no reason for the lich to abandon the city," Dante said. "Not when he can turn its defenses against us. We should assume he'll force us to try to fight our way in and root him out."
Olivander nodded. "Under any normal circumstances, I'd recommend a siege. Winter is near. To hasten the siege, you could round up as many rats as you could find. Kill them, reanimate them, and send them into the granaries to putrefy their supples."
"That sounds…effective," Dante said. "But I can already see the flaw."
Gladdic stirred. "That you ought to divert some of the rats to bring plague to the people instead?"
"That's a truly gruesome idea, but the problem is there are no people to be starved or plagued. There's just Blighted. You can't starve them. I doubt the cold will bother them, either."
"While the longer we wait, the colder and hungrier our troops become," Olivander continued. "Additionally, the White Lich destroyed a great deal of crops on his march north. There will be starvation this winter no matter what we do."
"Then conducting a siege would only hurt us. All right, I want everyone's best ideas for how we're going to invade our own city."
"Just like this wouldn't be a typical siege, this won't be a typical invasion," Olivander said. "Firstly, the lich has no citizens he needs to defend. Nor will he care about saving the city from damage. This will free him to use the defenses as he pleases—and to abandon those defenses the moment they're no longer useful. The second significant difference lies in the composition of his army. It will outnumber us several times over. But it has no archers to hold fortified positions and take advantage of elevation, such as the upper floors of buildings. We will be fighting some sorcerers and a vast mass of infantry."
"And the White Lich himself."
"Well," Blays said. "At least we know the city's weaknesses."
Merria crossed her arms. "Of which there are a shitload. Just Dante's luck that his refusal to fix any of them might be the very thing that gets us inside."
"And you thought I was being cheap," Dante said. "Turns out my foresight is simply beyond mortal comprehension. Let's start with how we gain entry to the city. Is this best done through a conventional assault on the wall? Or should we land directly in the port and bypass the Pridegate altogether?"
"The port would be a significant risk," Olivander said. "We'll be more vulnerable on our ships. And the lich has shown significant ability to make tactical use of bodies of water. They're no obstacle to him. An amphibious landing might be part of our strategy, but I would only make such an attempt if the White Lich was distracted by a larger assault elsewhere."
After Bressel—to say nothing of the White Lich's long undersea march from Tanar Atain, as well as his use of the canals during the taking of Aris Osis—Dante couldn't argue with this. That left an attack on the walls as their primary option, and they spent some time discussing where would be best to attempt their breach, whether it might be best to attack multiple points at once, and so forth.
They soon concluded one of the chief impediments was going to be the sheer mass of Blighted. The lich could simply clog the streets with them, grinding their progress to a halt and opening them to be battered by the Eiden Rane and his lesser liches. There would be no chance of breaking the Blighteds' morale, either. Dante and Merria spent some time examining which routes and boulevards would be least cloggable while also providing them alternate routes in case the lich did something like drop a building in their path. They made such plans for several of the city's major defensive landmarks, but focused primarily on how to recapture the Sealed Citadel.
Dante leaned over the sketches they'd made. "The more we talk, the more clear it becomes that our chief strategy should be speed. We have to get to the Citadel as fast as possible. Otherwise the Blighted will bog us down. If they bog us down, they're in good position to halt us altogether. If we stop moving, I'm not sure we'll have the strength to fight free and continue toward the Citadel."
Blays made a flippant gesture at their maps. "Why are you so interested in capturing the Citadel?"
"Because it's the heart of the city?"
"So what? Why are you treating this like a game of Nulladoon?"
"I'm aware that Nulladoon isn't a perfect proxy for war. But there are a lot of conceptual similarities."
"But we're not playing Nulladoon. We're playing chess."
Dante stared at him a moment. "The goal isn't to recapture the Citadel. Or even the city. It's to kill the enemy's king."
"Well, that would have been a grievous oversight, wouldn't it?" Nak said. "The whole point of everything you fellows just went through was to retrieve the Spear of Stars, yes? For that's the only thing that can slay the lich. So our strategy is very simple: create a Blays Delivery System that lets the spear-carrier get at the lich."
The ship pitched down another wave. Outside the cabin windows, the sky was darkening, though hours remained until sunset. A drop of rain struck the window. Within moments, a downpour hammered the ship, but it eased off to a drizzle just as quickly.
Blays laced his fingers behind his head. "If the goal is to get me close to him, then we ought to make it look like we're exactly not doing that."
"You have a suggestion?" Olivander said.
"Sure. Hit the city with a full frontal assault."
"You mean exactly like we were just talking about."
"Well yes. But now it might actually get something done."
Olivander tapped his finger on the table. "If the goal is to deliver you to the lich, then we would increase our chances by creating more than one route of potential delivery. We will make an attack on the wall. But we will also invade through the port. A fifth of our forces will make landfall there a few minutes after the initial attack. If this draws the White Lich away from the wall, you might be able to strike at him as he's moving through the streets."
"What if we hit the wall at two places instead of one? Giving the lich another problem to worry about?"
"If we spread our forces between too many points, we risk one of those points being overrun. After that, the enemy will have little difficulty in turning aside any effort we make to push into the city with what we've got left. I would not attempt a third avenue."
They delved into the details of the plan to attack by land and sea, but Dante only paid it partial attention, even as they located a point on the Pridegate that would give the lich a clear lane to travel between there and the port—and, with any luck, would thus encourage him to do so.
"There is a third way to bring the spear to the lich," Dante said at last. "One that doesn't require a quarter of the army to make it work. The tunnel from the cemetery to the Citadel."
"That could put you upon him even as he's safe behind the Citadel walls," Nak said. "Do you suppose the lich knows about the passage?"
"The entry in the dungeon is sealed up. And he's only had a few days to get to know the city. Somburr, can you confirm he hasn't found the tunnel—without tipping him off that we're interested in it?"
"Consider how much more easily that is said than done," Somburr said. "But I can see what can be seen."
"Surely Blays won't travel through the tunnel alone," Olivander said. "If you're intending to escort him, you can't just walk away from the field of battle. The White Lich will smell a trap."
Dante pinched the bridge of his nose. "Does he even know I'm back? I could keep myself out of the battle altogether. Stay hidden. Then again, the tunnel's the backup plan. If we're going to catch the lich by breaking through the wall, we'll need to throw everything we've got at it."
Blays had slipped a small knife from his boot and was tossing it in the air to himself, something that seemed extremely reckless, given the swaying and rolling of the ship. Yet he hadn't missed a single catch.
"Pull a Lord Pendelles," he said. "Fake your own death."
"I'll fight at the wall with the main force. If it doesn't look like we can get at the lich there, I'll pretend to get badly wounded and retreat from the field. From there, we have the option to join the assault on the port, or make our way to the tunnel and ambush him at the Citadel."
Blays raised his eyebrow. "Do we have a plan?"
"I think we have a plan."
There were further refinements and contingencies to be added, but the genesis of the strategy was in place. Dante exited to the deck to take the air. A sheet of black clouds hung overhead. They weren't currently being rained on, but the gray curtain of a storm on the sea encircled them like a death shroud.
The wind grew stronger, the air colder. Rain lashed the deck in squalls. The war council resumed inside the cabin, brainstorming strategies against the Blighted based on their previous encounters. The ship pitched and rolled until they had to grab their chairs and brace their feet against the floor. Sailors yelled to each other outside.
The discussion switched to the possibility that all of their assaults would fail to penetrate the city, and if that came to pass, how they might lure the lich out from behind the ranks of his armies. Nobody had anything especially compelling.
Nak hadn't said anything for several minutes. After a particularly vicious drop of the boat, he clapped his hands to his mouth, kicked open the cabin door, and ran out onto the deck to pay a visit to the railing.
This seemed like a good indicator that the war council should take a brief hiatus. Most of the members took shelter belowdecks or in the couple of cabins they were all cramming into. Sailors grappled with the sails and rigging to prevent it from getting ripped apart by the mounting gale. Dante should have gone indoors, but he felt compelled to stand under the storm, to be reminded that, in its way, what they were sailing toward was nothing new, and that the world had been trying to kill those who walked it since the first day the gods had put them here. The ancestors of everyone who now lived had weathered countless storms to get here. Dante would see them through one more.
The wind drove the rain against the deck in a hard slant, though the angle varied greatly as the waves cast the Sword of the South about with their terrible strength. The ship began what felt like a long roll only for some quirk of the sea to stop its momentum cold. High in the rigging, a boy screamed.
He plummeted from the mast, snatching at the ropes but missing each one. He struck the deck feet-first. For all the deafening bluster of the rain and the waves, the snap of his legs cut through the sound like a knife through a fish's belly.
The boy's left leg was bent backwards at the knee. His right thighbone pierced his trousers like a morbid sword. Even if he survived, his was the kind of injury that would leave him forever incapable of securing either employment or a wife, and the other sailors pressed their hands to their heads, groaning in sickened sympathy. The boy took one look down at his ruined legs and shrieked like a demon being banished.
Dante ran to the boy, slugged him on the head with the shadows to get him to stop screaming, then plumbed his bones with the nether. His right femur was shattered. Rather than attempting to locate every splinter and try to find its right place, Dante had to settle for packing the biggest pieces together, arranging them as best he could, then flooding the bone and its marrow with nether, encouraging it to fill in whatever was missing.
While it did its work, he turned to the boy's left leg. The tibia and fibula had simple fractures. The knee and its many tendons and ligaments was a mess. Dante successfully prevented himself from dwelling on just how much of a mess, focusing instead on reconnecting one ligament after another, then filling in the fractures with fresh bone. He turned back to the shattered femur. It was looking good. Not perfect, but good. More than good enough.
He sat back on his heels and brushed his sopping hair out of his eyes. He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, then sent another dab of nether into the young sailor's head. The boy's eyes popped open. He began to scream again.
"Oh, shut up," Dante said. "You're not even in pain anymore."
The boy quit shrieking, mouth hanging open. He glanced down at his legs, quickly, horrified at what he might see, then blinked and gave them a longer look, staring at them motionlessly, as if hypnotized. Finally, he lifted his left leg and moved it a few inches. Then his right. He looked up at Dante.
"You'll need several days of rest," Dante said. "But you'll be fine."
The boy shook his head back and forth, unable to respond. Dante stood. A group of sailors pounded across the deck, looking massively relieved, and picked the boy up from the ground, hustling him belowdecks to get him drunk, which was in one sense all wrong for him, but was in another sense probably exactly what he needed.
As if the storm had been sent by Phannon to try to claim a sacrifice for the sea, the wind gave one final frustrated blast, then died down to little whimpers. The rain receded to nothing. Dante tipped back his head. A single snowflake landed on his face.
~
Two days later, they made landfall outside Narashtovik.
They might have sailed right up to the city, but to avoid ambushes, and see if they might provoke the White Lich into marching out from the city, they disembarked six miles to the west. Snow fell slowly but steadily, just beginning to accrete on the sand and rocks above the tideline.
Thousands of soldiers had yet to reach shore in their longboats, giving Dante plenty of time to think about whether they were moving too quickly. There were other options. They could spend more time on strategy. Come up with a multi-step approach to draw the lich out from behind the city walls. Turn aside and seek reinforcements from Gallador, or even pursue an alliance with King Moddegan of Gask.
But they didn't have the food to keep their army encamped through the winter. And Taim might come for them at any day. Hadn't they already learned their lesson at Bressel? Trying to play it safe would only result in their ruin.
At last, the army was assembled. A fifth of the fleet remained embarked. They would wait with the unloaded ships until the army began its attack, then fly toward the city harbor.
Blays stood beside him, removing the thicker gloves he'd worn on the voyage and replacing them with thin ones suitable for the swinging of swords. "Still think this is a good idea?"
