Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

No army had met them on the long march north. At first, Adare had felt relieved by that, then surprised, then worried. Lehav had set a brutal pace, and the Sons had outdistanced all the wagons on the road. Still, dozens of canal boats had slipped past them, gliding effortlessly on the current, all packed with deckhands gaping at the army, all headed for Annur. For all their haste, there was no way they had stolen a march on il Tornja, and their approach-a straight shot up the canal road-left him with a number of ways to respond.

Each day, Adare expected her own scouts to return with news of an Annurian army camped athwart the road. Mostly, she had dreaded the word, but at least a battle on the road might take place well clear of the city. The armies would churn the fields to mud, ruining the season’s crop, but if a crop was all that came to ruin as a result of her revolution, Adare would count herself lucky. The fact that the kenarang had not already opposed them terrified her. If he chose to make his stand in the cramped streets of the capital itself, houses would burn, shops and businesses. Men and women, Annurians, would die.

What’s your plan, you bastard? she wondered, standing in her stirrups, trying to peer into the shadowed gaps between the buildings. What’s your angle?

“Looks like he’s aiming to meet us at the walls,” Lehav said, squinting through his long lens. “Good.”

Adare stared. “Good?”

He nodded. “The old walls are at least ten blocks back, packed between houses and shops. We’ll see what the scouts have to say about the fortification of the streets, but city fighting should give us the advantage. The legions train to fight on open ground, but the Sons have been drilling street warfare since before Uinian’s death.”

“To fight us,” Adare said, studying him. “To fight the throne.”

“This fight’s been a long time coming,” he said, meeting her gaze.

Adare clenched her hands around the reins of her horse. Her old general had murdered her father, her new general had been scheming for years to fight her empire, and her only councillor was a half-crazed leach. The fact that she was still alive seemed nothing short of miraculous, and the odds of remaining so loomed longer by the moment.

“If we go to the streets,” she said, “people will die. I’ve read about siege warfare. Houses will burn. Businesses. Whole quarters of the city could be destroyed.”

Lehav fixed her with a hard stare. “You came here to start a war. Or did you forget?”

Before Adare could respond, two riders cantered out of the city, hooves of their horses raising a nervous tattoo on the earth. Lehav raised the long lens again, watched for a moment, then grunted. “Ours.”

The men reined up before them, bowing in their saddles to Adare, then turning to Lehav.

“Defenses?” he asked.

The older of the two-a short man with a lopsided mouth and ears that looked nailed to the side of his broad head-frowned, then jerked a thumb back over his shoulder.

“Nothin’, Commander. No folks in the streets, but no soldiers either.”

Lehav frowned, then glanced over at the other scout. “And you?”

“Same. No army. No sign of an army. There’s no one at all on these streets here, but you get five or six blocks in and it’s packed with folks, same as any other day, like they don’t even know that we’re here.”

“An ambush,” Fulton said. The guardsman had remained still as stone throughout the conversation, mounted on his own gray gelding just behind Adare’s left shoulder, but he nudged the beast forward now. “Ran il Tornja will have his men inside the shops and houses. Once you commit your force to the streets, they’ll close in behind you, cut your own army into pieces. Take you apart one block at a time.”

Lehav nodded. If he was irritated by the Aedolian’s comment, he didn’t show it. “They can’t block every street,” he said. “We’ll march west, come in through the Stranger’s Gate-”

Fulton raised a hand, cutting him off, then pointed past them all, toward the city. “You may be spared the march.”

Adare pivoted in her saddle to find another knot of riders emerging from the buildings, maybe a dozen men on horses gleaming with silk and bronze. Unlike the scouts, the new party rode at a stately walk, pennons snapping at the breeze above, pennons stitched with the rising sun of Annur.

“Who is it?” Adare asked.

Lehav trained the long lens on the group. “Palace guards, squared up in a standard protective knot.”

“Who are they protecting?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know him. He has long hair and…” He paused, squinting. “Looks like a blindfold over his eyes.”

Adare took a deep breath, held it a moment, then let it out, trying to order her thoughts.

“The Mizran Councillor,” Fulton ground out. “Tarik Adiv. Part of the delegation to retrieve Kaden.”

She nodded grimly. “Looks like he’s back.”

Fulton and Lehav positioned themselves between Adare and the approaching horsemen. She glanced over her shoulder, reminding herself that an army stood at her back, then tried to keep her back straight and her hands steady on the reins as she watched the men approach.

When Adiv was still ten paces distant, he dismounted. Then, to her shock, he bowed low, lower than he ever had when she was merely a princess. It was hard to interpret that bow-something short of the obeisance owed to an emperor, and yet more than her own collection of titles warranted, certainly more than Adare had expected. Adiv was il Tornja’s man. He had no reason to bow to her.

“Keep your distance,” Fulton said, stepping in front of Adare, broadblade naked in the morning light.

Adiv simply smiled. “Your loyalty does you credit, Aedolian, but I have no desire to harm the princess. Quite the opposite, actually.” He cocked his head to the side in that way he had, as though he were studying her through that heavy blindfold. “The regent has asked that I escort you to the Dawn Palace with all due respect.”

Fulton shook his head. “Not a chance.”

Adare put her hand on the Aedolian’s arm, moving the sword from her path.

“I’m sure the regent is clever enough to know,” she said, careful to keep her voice low, level, “that I am here, we are here because of him. Where is Kaden? The last I saw you, you were bound north to retrieve him.”

Adiv winced. “I beg you, my lady, let us discuss these matters in the privacy of the palace. There is much you do not know. Events have outpaced you during your sojourn in the south.”

“Is my father still dead?” Adare demanded. “Has Kaden claimed his throne? Does Ran il Tornja still make a mockery of the Dawn Palace?”

Adiv shook his head gravely. “The Emperor, bright were the days of his life, is dead, of course. Kaden has not returned. The regent himself is gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Raalte. Marching hard with the Army of the North.”

“Raalte?” Adare frowned. It all made less than no sense. “To what end? Against whom?”

Adiv’s lips tightened, and he took a step forward, approaching until the point of Fulton’s sword lay against his chest. “We should not speak of this here, my lady,” he said, lowering his voice. “While you were away, the Urghul moved, attacking in force against our northern border. Il Tornja goes to turn them back.”

“An opportunity,” Lehav observed quietly. “If it is true.”

The Mizran Councillor turned his unseeing gaze on the soldier. “An opportunity to see Annur destroyed.”

“I don’t serve Annur. I serve the goddess.”

“You may find that more difficult,” Adiv said pointedly, “if the Urghul take over. The only prayer will be a prayer of blood.”