S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

There was less loyalty in them than in the palais dogs.

As long as they thought Justi would remain Kraljiki, they would do as he asked. But if they believed he were about to fall, they would be on him, snarling and vicious. .

If you go out now, at least they will remember. At least they will say, “He died bravely.”

Justi chuckled at the boy, as if his reports were amusing. “Renard, please give this boy some refreshment. He’s had a hard ride and he’s done his task well. It seems I will have to go rescue our commandant.”

The sycophants laughed with him, their amusement edged with nervousness.

Justi drew his sword, and the crowd cheered. “We ride forward” he cried, “and we will show the Hirzg what happens when he rouses the ire of Nessantico.”

Their cheers rose as he urged his destrier forward, and the chevarittai closed around him and the troops of the Garde Civile surged through the gates of Nessantico to the sound of blaring horns.

They cheered, and Justi showed them a stern face, and he wondered whether he would ever ride through these gates again.

Ana ca’Seranta

Ana had sent the dozen or so most effective war-teni ahead with Commandant ca’Rudka and Karl. The others. . she wasn’t as certain about any of them-in more than one way.

The training with the Numetodo had been at best erratic. Ana found that she couldn’t blame the war-teni, given the way she’d reacted to seeing the Numetodo spell-magic. Many of them had resisted the

training, they’d scoffed and hesitated and argued with Karl, Mika, and the other Numetodo who tried to show them ways to speed their spells or to store them for future use. Several, like Ana, had found their faith tested enough that they’d become less rather than more effective.

Worse, she wondered whether when the time came-and she knew it would come-that ca’Cellibrecca called on them to obey him as Archigos rather than Ana, whether they would stay loyal to her at all.

But. . a handful had taken to the training with enthusiasm. And many of the Numetodo had set aside their suspicions and recent history and pledged their support to Nessantico. “The better of two ills,”

Karl had said to her when he brought the news. “We know well how ca’Cellibrecca would treat us.”

Is this what you want, Cenzi? Do You truly want me to defend a man who killed his own matarh and who would sacrifice me without a thought if he believed it would save him? Someone who used me in the same way Vatarh used me? I know ca’Cellibrecca and the Hirzg are no better and perhaps worse, but I could flee instead. I could run away with Karl, perhaps to his home or beyond into Mahri’s Westlands. Are You truly asking me to die here?

Are You saying that I must be willing to shed your blood and the blood of the teni who follow you for this? Is this is Your will? Is this why You brought me here? Please, I beg you, tell me. .

“Archigos!” Kenne’s voice broke in on her prayer. Ana, her head bowed and hands folded before her, brought her head up. “Look!”

Perhaps a half mile beyond the old gates of the city, the Avi a’Firenzcia made a turn eastward. Several buildings, the outliers of the city, were set there, with fields around them and the River Vaghian murmuring behind. The fields had, only a century before, been a low mosquito-infested swampland, frequently flooded when the rain-swollen Vaghian left its bed. But during the Kraljica’s reign, the Vaghian had been tamed with mounds of earthern banks, and the fens converted to farmland.

Ana had commandeered the second-story balcony of an inn there, at the curve of the road. From her vantage point, she could see out to where Kenne was pointing. The fields, like all the farmland to the east of the city, had been stripped and harvested early. The meadows were now muddy encampments. At the eastern edge of the camp, soldiers in the colors of Nessantico were pouring from a small woods bordering the fields, and she could hear distance-blurred shouting.

“The commandant’s outer line must have broken,” Kenne said, and Ana felt a stab of fear run through her for Karl. “They’re retreating. Yes, look, there are the chevarittai, and that’s the commandant’s personal banner.”

Ana had already turned. Her hand brushed the hard, heavy bulk of the glass ball Mahri had given her, in its leather pouch tucked in a pocket of her green robes, and she felt the tingling of the power within it through the cloth. “Gather the war-teni,” she said to Kenne. “We’re going to them. .”

The ride through the Nessantican troops seemed to take a turn of the glass, though she knew it was far less. The agitation was spreading through the gathered army: the conscripts and soldiers of the Garde Civile grabbed armor and weapons nervously, the offiziers were shouting and assembling them. Pages were rushing about, and cornets and zinkes were sounding their calls.

When they reached the banner of the commandant, the chaos was more ordered but no less frantic. “Archigos,” ca’Rudka said, his voice almost sounding relieved. “I’m glad you’re here. We need more warteni. If you’ll direct them-the teni banners are over there-you, Page, direct the Archigos.”

“The envoy?” she asked, almost afraid to voice the question.

Ca’Rudka nodded indulgently even in the midst of the rush. “He’s fine,” he told her. “And he’s amply demonstrated his worth. Go to the war-teni and you’ll find him. I’ll send word as to what we need you to do. Hurry, Archigos. There isn’t much time. Check on the war-teni for me, then come back here. I need to meet with the a’offiziers.”

She gave him the sign of Cenzi and followed the page south toward the Avi a’Firenczia, just behind the newly-coalescing lines. Among the trees and along the road, she could hear the sound of cornets and the call of offiziers with strange accents-the Firenzcians. A low rumble seemed to shake the earth.

She saw him. “Karl!” He turned. His face was streaked with soot and dirt, his clothes were filthy, and he looked exhausted. The war-teni with him looked no different. “I’ve brought the rest of the war-teni. You can rest, recover your strength.”

He shook his head. “No time,” he said. “They’re on our heels. Put them in position, but they have so many. .” He shrugged. “War-spells won’t be enough.”

“Then we must do something different,” she told him.

Orlandi ca’Cellibrecca

“You weren’t there with us, Archigos,” U’Teni cu’Kohnle said, the scorn far too obvious in his voice. They were riding quickly along the Avi a’Firenzcia just behind the Hirzg’s retinue, with the army an ocean around them, grim-faced. “I tell you that my warteni did all we could, and more. There should have been no time for response to our first volley of spells, Archigos-no time. But they did respond, and it was strong. This false Archigos and her war-teni are using the Numetodo. It has to be. It’s a shame, Archigos, that the Numetodo blight was not removed entirely in Nessantico, as the Hirzg suggested to you.”

Orlandi grimaced with the unsubtle rebuke, as much from the pounding his rear end was taking despite the cushioned seat of his carriage as from cu’Kohnle’s words. “The false Archigos will be dealt with,” he told cu’Kohnle, “as will the Numetodo: once I am seated back on the Archigos’ Temple throne. I assure you of that, U’Teni.”

He didn’t care for the man’s attitude, or the fact that cu’Kohnle seemed to consider himself a peer, or worse, a superior. I don’t take my orders from you, Archigos. That’s what the man’s expression seemed to say-that, and the impatience with which he twitched at his horse’s reins, ready to ride forward to the Hirzg, as if talking to Orlandi was a waste of his time. More worrisome was that the Hirzg seemed to admire the man; certainly Orlandi’s suggestion that the Archigos rather than cu’Kohnle should direct the war-teni had met a stony refusal from the Hirzg.