They Split the Party, page 26
“So, I won?”
“That was the judgment,” the priest said. “Though there were some disagreements.”
“One guy tried to call it a draw and made a move for Ruby,” Thalia explained. “I punched him.”
“She’s underselling it,” Ruby said. “She almost knocked him out.”
“Okay, me dueling Hilda was not an invitation for all of you to start fist fights,” Angel said, immediately worried.
“It’s all right,” the priest assured. “Marcel is . . . new. He needed a reminder to behave himself.”
Angel raised an eyebrow as she sat up. “You know, you’re pretty congenial considering I almost caved your leader’s skull in.”
“Not everyone in this order thinks the commander is right about everything,” the priest said. “For what it’s worth, I had hoped you’d win.”
“But if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have stopped Hilda, would you?” Angel asked.
A small frown overtook the priest’s lips. “No.”
“Figures,” Angel said. She pushed her way out of bed, waving off the others before they could try to help her stand. “So, are we done here?”
“It seems so,” came Hilda’s voice from the doorway.
The whole room bristled, and Ruby’s hands immediately balled into fists at her side. Thalia put herself between the knight commander and everyone else while the priest looked suddenly concerned.
“Hilda—Commander,” the priest said, catching herself and earning questioning glances from everyone in the room but Thalia, who immediately recognized the concern and carefully placed boundaries in the priest’s voice. “You should be resting.”
“I’m fine, Naomi,” Hilda dismissed, her eyes never leaving Angel.
The two of them stared at one another, neither moving. Their eyes searched each other, each looking for something different and neither finding it. In the end, it was Angel who broke the silence.
“You still won’t help.”
“The girl is your charge,” Hilda said. “But the order is mine. And I won’t let you drag it down again.”
Angel shook her head. “I get that you hate me. But are you seriously going to turn your back on the world just because it hurt you?”
Hilda narrowed her eyes. “You did.”
Angel felt the self-righteousness leave her sails. Hilda had her there. She might have come here talking a big game, riding high off her little streak of playing a knight, but for however much she slagged off Hilda and the order for sitting on their asses, what had she done the last seven years?
And just like that, the argument was over. In the end, Angel and Hilda really were too alike for their own good.
After a few seconds of tense silence, Naomi cleared her throat. “I can walk all of you out.”
“I remember the way,” Angel said pointedly.
Naomi took the message and hung back with Hilda as the four of them left. Thalia lagged behind and lingered in the doorway for a moment. Her soft brown eyes found Hilda’s piercing blues.
“You’re wrong about her,” Thalia stated.
Hilda looked mildly offended that some bartender thought she knew Angel better than she did, but Thalia didn’t waver, meeting Hilda’s questioning look with resolute conviction. Without another word of elaboration, she hurried to catch up to the others.
42
DIVIDED
Roland swung himself through the halls of the Corsan embassy, grateful for some time away from the chancellor’s mansion where he had been staying since his arrival in Nikos. This summit might have been vital to the recovery and prosperity of Corsar, but his fellow heads of state were, put bluntly, a bit much.
Big and boisterous, Chancellor Kleitos of Parthica dressed himself extravagantly in multi-hued purples and an excess of gold jewelry, ate a full pie with every meal, talked loudly, and laughed even louder. And he kept trying to set Roland up with his son, which the king was running out of ways to politely dodge.
Though she wasn’t technically the leader of Iandra, Princess Diane Recpina had taken charge of the delegation from Her Lady’s City. Maybe it was just her recent stay in Olwin, but she was particularly fond of talking Roland’s ear off.
But they were both preferable to the sultan of Gypten. Far and away the oldest member of the summit, Tariq the Immortal’s cheerful condescension toward the rest of them and tendency to bring up meeting the other delegates as children was a constant drag on discussions.
In a way, finding out about Kurien had been a minor blessing. Nothing bought a reprieve from diplomacy like news of a deadly assassin on the prowl.
“If you would permit me to say so, I think you handled that quite well,” Lupolt said. “You warned everyone of the danger without revealing the full scope of the breakout, and your suggestion to postpone discussion rather than end the summit leaves the door open to continue our work here once the situation is resolved.”
Roland halted, took a moment to stabilize himself on his crutches, and stared Lupolt down. “What did you do?”
Lupolt considered trying to soften the truth but decided against it. Roland was too straightforward a man for it anyway. “The Starbreakers are here.”
Roland’s jaw tensed for a moment, and he closed his eyes.
“They might be the only ones capable of stopping Kurien,” Lupolt stressed.
“I know.”
“Coordinating with them for this might mean the difference—”
“I know. I just . . . need a moment.” Roland drew in a deep breath, did his best to bury the reflexive flare of pain and guilt, and focused his eyes on the task ahead of him. “All right.”
The two men entered the embassy’s office where Ink, Brass, Elizabeth, and Phoenix were all assembled. A hush fell over the room as whatever conversation had been going on before Roland and Lupolt arrived abruptly ceased. At an encouraging nod from Elizabeth, Phoenix cleared his throat.
“Your Majesty.”
“Phoenix.”
“I know that—”
“It’s probably for the best if we focus on the task at hand,” Roland said, sensing the direction Phoenix had been about to take things. “You’re here. You can help. And we need it. The past, and how we feel about it, can wait.”
“Right.”
“Where are the others?”
“Angel hasn’t been answering her messenger coil,” Ink reported. “Church is trying to make contact with a prayer now.”
“What about Kurien?”
“Kurien stole an arsenal’s load of arcane weaponry from collectors and other organizations on her way out of Puerto Oro along with the Heart of Shadows from the Cord of Aenwyn,” Ink said.
“It’s more weapons than even she could use, so we’re still not sure why she wanted that many. But the Heart explains why the Oracle couldn’t see her,” Phoenix said. “When the Servitor had that thing, we could only track the trail of stuff it destroyed. We also know she’s coming here to kill you.”
“I still don’t know how I feel trusting the word of a serial killer,” Wings said. “She could be lying to get us looking for her in the wrong spot.”
“Kurien’s a drama queen,” Brass said. “She’s not going to send us in the wrong direction when she wants a fight with us.”
“And if she’s not coming here, we have nothing to go on. No information, no plan,” Phoenix said. “For now, we assume she’s telling the truth, that she’s coming here, and we plan and act on that.”
“Do we have any idea where she is beyond ‘coming here’?” Roland asked.
“Local authorities are searching any location that fits her profile,” Ink said. “Theaters, music halls, coliseums—”
“Like I said, drama queen.”
Ink shot Brass a look that said she didn’t appreciate being interrupted before continuing. “But it’s a big city. We’ve put feelers out into less scrupulous circles, but that’s going to be even slower going than the authorities.”
Roland frowned. “Do we have any faster methods?”
“Well, actually—” Phoenix began, only to be cut off as Church burst into the room, pale faced and panting for breath. The room tensed, reading the fear on the priest’s face.
“The Dread Knight,” Church said. “Angel couldn’t stop it. It has an army, and it’s headed straight for Loraine.”
Stunned silence gripped the room by the throat. Lupolt was the one to recover his wits first. “How long?”
“Less than a day.”
Roland suddenly felt very unsteady. He adjusted his grip on his crutches and started talking. “Lupolt, get word to the baron of Loraine now. Tell him what’s coming, tell him to hold his town, and then get the garrison outside Olwin marching yesterday.”
“Hold the town?” Elizabeth said. “Shouldn’t they evacuate?”
“They’d never outrun the undead,” Roland said. “Their only chance is to hold the enemy until the army can arrive to wipe it out.”
“Or,” Brass offered, “skip that noise and send us.”
“What could you do against an army?” Lupolt asked.
“It’s undead. Just kill the thing that raised them, and the rest of them pop,” Brass said dismissively. “Easy stuff.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Lupolt said. “And even if you could, you’re needed here.”
“Lupolt, if they think they can stop the undead, they should go,” Roland said.
“Absolutely not,” Lupolt said. “You are more important than one settlement.”
“What?” Church gawked.
“It’s the calculus of rule,” Lupolt said. “Every day, people die. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is. All we can do is try to make the decision that keeps the number as small as possible. If Loraine falls, it falls. But if Roland dies, what’s left of Corsar dies with him. If that happens, it’s anarchy, if not war.”
Phoenix opened his mouth to offer a solution, but Brass got a word in first.
“Uh, have you been outside a city lately?” Brass asked. “Anarchy’s already the default.”
The glintchaser didn’t mean it as an accusation, but Lupolt took it as one anyway, and the royal attendant immediately snapped a response before Phoenix could say anything.
“I know what’s outside the walls. But it will only get worse without someone leading the kingdom,” Lupolt said. “Roland’s safety is our priority.”
Now it was Roland’s turn to interrupt Phoenix before he could get a word in.
“I decide whose safety is priority,” the king snapped. “And I won’t sacrifice my people for my own safety. That is not the kind of king I am.”
“With all due respect, it’s the kind you need to be. You are too important.”
“So are the people I’m sworn to protect.”
“Then we don’t choose!” Phoenix’s shout cut through the noise, driven by his frustration and the anxiety caused by everyone’s arguing. It hit everyone like a slap, stunning them to momentary silence.
Roland was the first to recover his wits. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we don’t choose. We find Kurien, take her down, and then teleport to Loraine to stop the Dread Knight. We don’t leave anyone to fend for themselves, everybody lives.”
“Well, that’s a nice idea,” Ink said. “First hurdle: we don’t even know where Kurien is, and magic’s useless for tracking her with the Heart of Shadows involved.”
“I think I have a way around that.” Phoenix eyed both the High Inquisitive and the King of Corsar. “But I’m going to need your help to do it.”
Roland met Phoenix’s gaze, and they locked on to one another. Their previous agreement to let the past be vanished, and each felt a tide of emotion roll over them. Grief, not only for the lives lost but for the bond between them that severed. The sting of betrayals, real and imagined. Frustration at finding something so hard that should have been easy.
They were friends once. Phoenix could still remember the brilliant smile on Roland’s face when the prince first tried out his new leg braces. The mixture of terror and pride he felt when the prince had recommended the Starbreakers as the heroes the kingdom needed to face the Servitor.
Phoenix’s only saving grace was that he’d been here before. Facing a friend he’d lost because of Relgen. When interacting with another person got complicated, similar experiences to draw on were a godsend.
“We can’t change what happened,” Phoenix said. “But we can help with this. We can do something here and now.”
For a heartbeat, the king of Corsar was impassive. Then Roland straightened as much as he could on his crutches and choked back the knot of regret and resentment in his throat. “What do you need?”
“As many illusionists as the Academy can spare and for you to have a talk with the chancellor.”
43
LORAINE
In a few hours, everyone in this town was going to die.
The Rusted Star had cropped up on an empty space at the end of a thoroughfare, giving a good view of the unrest spreading through the ruintown. Town guards marched through the streets with a crier, calling for anyone who could to report to the guard’s headquarters to aid in the defense. Some people heeded the call. Plenty more were too busy boarding up their homes or packing their bags.
Even in crisis, Loraine was still a ruintown. One particularly enterprising individual was already selling “emergency travel packs,” advertised to contain everything someone would need to survive on the road. Another right across from him was selling “genuine Old World personal defense weapons.” Both men’s stalls had crowds in front of them.
“Do they stand any chance?” Bart asked as the group spectated the chaos. The kid had a big heart, full of compassion for seemingly everyone he met. Right now, it was audibly breaking.
Angel shook her head. “If it was just the army of undead coming for them? Maybe. It’d be a fight, but provincials can be pretty resilient when they have to be. But there’s the Dread Knight. Even if they could stand up to that thing, as soon as he got close enough, he’d turn this whole place against them. The ruins are bound to be full of bodies, especially after the fight against the Servitor a few years back. Fuck, even their cemeteries. It’d be a slaughter.”
“Did the king not tell them what was coming?” Ruby didn’t like this any more than Bart, but she expressed it differently. His bleeding heart left him despairing at the fate of so many. She was angry.
She was angry at the thing that hated humanity so much it would see them wiped off the map. She was angry at everyone who had failed this town through their inaction or absence. She was angry at how utterly powerless she felt.
“He probably did,” Angel said. How was it that despite having such a grudge against Roland, she kept finding herself defending him? “My guess is he or the baron likes the town’s chances of fighting better than running.”
“Are they idiots?”
“Maybe not. It’s a long way to Olwin, and an undead horde doesn’t eat or sleep or get sick. They run, it’s good odds it just catches them on the road instead of in town. And that’s without even mentioning everything else that would come for them out here.”
“So, they’re screwed if they stay and screwed if they run?”
“Basically.”
“How does this even stop?” Bart asked. “How does this thing not just kill . . . everything?”
“If Roland throws everything he’s got at it—between the army, Seven Gates, the independent knights like Wings, and the Academy—they can probably take it down,” Angel said. “As long as they can get to it before its army gets too big.”
“But in the meantime, it just . . . keeps going? Keeps killing?”
“Other towns will have more warning than Loraine. More time to evacuate to Olwin or across the border or just out of the fucking way.”
“Right.”
For most of his life, Bart had found comfort in the teaching that Renalt did not allow evil and injustice to go unanswered, even if sometimes the answer was not immediate. Knowing that, eventually, things would be all right had been a comfort to him, especially in hard times. But never before had he been confronted so directly by the gap between the evils of the world and the answer of Renalt.
Someone would stop the Dread Knight. But until they did, people were going to die.
For the first time, Bart had an understanding for the people who didn’t much care for Renalt and his churches. “Everything will be all right in the end” was cold comfort to all the people hurt until that end came along.
Thalia spoke up for the first time since they’d arrived in Loraine.
“What if they didn’t have to make a whole trip to evacuate? We’ve got a tunnelporting bar right behind us. We could get people out, drop them somewhere safe, and come back for more before the Dread Knight even gets here.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it would be to convince even one trip’s worth of people to listen to us, pile into the mysterious inn, and let us just take them away?” Angel asked. “And that’s just the first group. As soon as people see their friends get swallowed up by the ground and not come back, they’re gone.”
At the mention of convincing people, Ruby’s eyes glinted like newly minted coins.
“What if I made them listen?” she asked. “Like I did to the knights on the mountain?”
“You did that once, by accident, to three people. You can’t just jump from that to an entire town.”
“I don’t have to,” Ruby said. She found herself channeling her mental image of Brass who so often seemed to fabricate plans as he was speaking out loud. “If . . . if it’s the right person, I only need to do it once.” She had to wait for her brain to catch up to her mouth. But when it did, the light came on in her head. “The baron lives in Loraine. All the guards take their orders from him, and people will listen to the guards. If they were on our side, working with us—”
