Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“Savages, is it? That tree was one a’ the best kings I ever saw.” She gestured to the dark boughs of the pines. “A tree doesn’t start wars. Tree doesn’t raise taxes to build palaces. A tree doesn’t kill the people who refuse to bow down.” A sad note had crept into her voice, and her eyes had slipped away from Adare, first to the woods, then to Oshi where he swayed in his saddle, light as a bundle of old cloth. “Could do a lot worse than a tree,” she concluded quietly.

“Well, I’m not a tree,” Adare said. “And I need the people to accept me as Emperor. I didn’t have time for a coronation before leaving Annur, didn’t have time for the hundred little ceremonies before and after, which means that right now I’m … nothing. I’m not even the Minister of Finance anymore; il Tornja filled the role with someone else after I disappeared for Olon. The Sons of Flame think I’m Intarra’s prophet, or her saint, but a saint’s a far cry from an emperor. A saint doesn’t actually rule.”

Nira fixed her with that shrewd gaze once more, all traces of her previous melancholy gone. “Ya know how ya get to run an empire, girl?”

Adare shook her head in frustration. “That’s what I’ve been asking.”

The old woman poked her in the chest with the stick. “You run it.”

“Meaning what?”

“You see what needs doing, and ya do it. Everything else follows: the throne, the taxes, the title. I’ve watched a lot of folk try ta rule a lot of land. I’ve watched men cling ta their fancy titles while their people and their realms just … slipped away, and I’ve watched men who couldn’t give a watery shit for the names and the titles rule half a continent. Ya just do what needs doing, and the people will figure out all on their own that you’re the ’Kent-kissing Emperor.”

Before Adare could respond, Fulton kicked his horse forward, forcing his way between her and a small group of men and women rounding a bend in the road, emerging from the trees a hundred paces or so ahead of them. Two other Aedolians, part of the full guard Fulton had recruited back in Annur, nudged their horses forward until they were flanking her.

“Keep well back, my lady,” Fulton said grimly, limbering his sword in its sheath.

Adare hesitated a moment, then shook her head.

“It’s a family,” she said.

There were two men, one old, one young, both bearded, both carrying axes in their hands. Behind them, a group of barefoot children slogged doggedly ahead, chivvied along by three women dressed all in leather and fur. The children, obviously weary and bedraggled, perked up at the sight of the approaching army, shouting and pointing. The oldest, a girl of ten or so, attempted to dart forward, but her father caught her by the elbow, dragging her off the road along with the rest of the family.

When Adare reined in alongside them, she realized that the younger of the two men was wounded, his arm slashed viciously from the elbow to the wrist. Someone had made a feeble attempt to bind the cut, but the dirty cloth had soaked through with blood and pus.

“Best hurry,” he said, jerking his head to the north.

“Why?” Lehav demanded, pulling in his horse beside Adare.

The soldier had initially been reluctant to march north, pointing out that while il Tornja was gone, they could occupy Annur itself, install Adare on the Unhewn Throne, rehabilitate Intarra’s Church, and spread word of the kenarang ’s treachery, word that would make it all but impossible for him to return. It was a tempting vision, but a false one. As Nira pointed out, “Ya ain’t gonna last long running an empire if the first thing ya do is ta sit still while the Urghul take a shit all over it.”

The words rankled, but the woman was right. If the Urghul posed a legitimate threat, Adare needed to be a part of the solution, regardless of the kenarang ’s treachery. More, as she pointed out to Lehav, if the Sons of Flame were to win the trust of the empire’s population, they, too, would need to march north.

The logger spat into the mud. “Urghul,” he said curtly. The smallest child began sobbing. “Burned our house, field, and half our forest. Killed anyone couldn’t run.”

Adare stared. “This far south?”

“Nah, we’re from up north. Way up past the north end of Scar Lake. Thought about stopping in Aats-Kyl, but the army camped there ain’t gonna stop what’s comin’-I’ll tell you that for free.” He glanced down the ranks of the Sons of Flame. “Hope you got more where these came from.”

“What is the army doing?” Adare asked. “The one in Aats-Kyl?”

“Didn’t stop to ask,” he replied. “Been talkin’ to you too long as it is.”

The logger started to move, but Lehav brought him up short.

“One more question, friend. The army in Aats-Kyl: which way is it facing?”

The logger shook his head. “Not facing any ’Kent-kissing way at all.”

“They’re not dug in for an attack from the south?”

“What would they do that for? Just got done tellin’ you-the Urghul are comin’ down from the north .”

Adare waited until the loggers were well behind them to turn to Nira and Lehav.

“Sounds like the Urghul really are coming.”

As she said the words she realized that she’d been praying ever since leaving Annur that the whole thing was a trick, a hoax. If il Tornja had lied about the threat, it would just be one more crime to hang around his neck when the time came. She could fight him, hopefully kill him, and have done with it. The handful of filthy farmers, however, that gash across the arm, changed everything.

“The family could have been trumped up,” Lehav observed, jaw tight. “A few coins in their pocket to play a part, to make us complacent.”

Nira chuckled. “It’d be a good trick.”

“I’d prefer to be the one playing the tricks,” Adare said, trying not to glare at the woman.

“And I’d prefer to have a brother who wasn’t busted in the head,” Nira replied. “Turns out, though, that preferrin’ don’t have much to do with things.”

Lehav, as was his habit, ignored the old woman entirely. “We’ll know more when the scouts return.”

The scouts, as it turned out, confirmed the logger’s account, at least the latter part of it. The men had come across no sign of the Urghul, but they insisted that the Army of the North was peacefully encamped just to the east of Aats-Kyl and that more refugees were headed south, some on the main road, some on the crooked forest tracks.

“The kenarang hasn’t barricaded the road?” Lehav pressed. “No earth walls?”

The lead scout shook his head. “There’s just the normal palisade around the camp itself, the kind of thing every army on the march puts up. There are a few score men working on the dam, but the rest are just encamped.”

“The dam?” Adare said, shaking her head. “Why would they be working on the dam?”

“No idea,” Lehav replied grimly. “And I don’t like not having an idea.” He turned back to the scouts. “You swept the forest? It’s dense on either side of the road.…”

The scout nodded wearily. “Went up on the east, came back on the west. Nothing. No ambush, no snipers. Nothing but hemlock and deer shit. Up near the village we got close enough to listen to a couple men chopping wood at the edge of camp. They know we’re coming, know we’re close, but they think we’re coming to help them.”

Lehav frowned. “Maybe we are.”

It was late afternoon when they finally broke from the damp shadows of the pines into ruddy sunlight. For the first time in days, Adare could see more than a few dozen paces, although the world was so bright that for a moment she wasn’t sure just what she was looking at. She blinked, shaded her eyes with her hand. They’d reached a lake, she realized, a wide lake stretching north so far she couldn’t see the opposite shore. Sun shimmered like golden coins on the surface.