Hammer Of God (59 page)

“And if – if—” God, she couldn't get the words out. With her arms still folded, she dug her fingernails into her leather sleeves. “If things have not fallen our way,” she said, carefully, “I'll make sure you're protected.”

“Tcha,” said Zandakar. “If Mijak defeats the armada, you will blame me, Rhian. You will say the witch-man Sun-dao should have killed Mijak in Jatharuj.”

And she was silenced, as though a blade had pierced her throat.

“The council,” he said again, his eyes patient. Resigned. “I will find my way back to my chamber.”

She left him standing there, and made sure not to look back.

Word of the armada's sighting spread through Kingseat township like fire in a summer wheatfield. By the time she and her council and the ambassadors had made their official, solemn way down to the harbour, every street and building with a vantage point was crowded to the point of danger. Idson and his men were hard-pressed to keep order. When they saw her carriage, the people of Kingseat started shouting.

“Queen Rhian! Queen Rhian! God bless our huntsman queen!”

“I wish they wouldn't,” she muttered to Helfred, as the carriage horses made their careful way to the harbour's Royal Gate. She'd asked him, and Dexterity, to travel with her to the harbour. The notion of travelling alone was more than she could bear.

Helfred snorted. “I believe it was you who coined the phrase.”

“I don't care about that,” she said, impatient. “But they assume our armada returns with a victory and Helfred…they mightn't.”

He was sitting beside her, Dexterity opposite. His hand covered hers, still soft, still plump, but with an unexpected strength in it. “Faith, Rhian,” he said quietly. “Above all things, faith.”

Not above victory, Helfred. But she didn't say that aloud. She felt too ill for arguing with him.

“The prolate's right,” Dexterity added. “There's no use in borrowing trouble, is there?”

Prose, prose, prose. They were as bad as each other. “I still say I should've commandeered one of the harbourmaster's skiffs, so I could sail out to meet them,” she said, to distract them. “I'm like to die, standing on the dock waiting for the armada to come to me.”

“Tcha,” Helfred scolded. “A dignified sight that would be. You're not a fishwife waiting for her smelly husband, Rhian. You're a monarch with the eyes of the world upon her.”

More's the pity. I envy that fishwife. She can have my crown in a heartbeat.

They reached the harbour without further conversation, and made their way to the dock where only a few weeks ago…a lifetime ago…she'd stood with these same men and watched the armada sail away. Sail and then vanish, whipped away in the wind.

The afternoon was failing. Already torches had been lit around the harbour and the docks, anticipating the approaching dusk. A lively breeze skirled among the gathered officials, laden with the mingled scent of salt and hope and dread. Rhian risked a glance at her dukes, and the ambassadors. They were silent, expectant, but behind their polished public faces she could feel their jangling nerves.

God save us from a riot if the news isn't good.

As the first ship passed through the headlands and into the calmer, quieter waters of the harbour, she felt her insides squeeze cold and tight with apprehension. Behind her, the ambassadors were muttering.

Even in the lowering light, it was possible to see…

“Prolate,” she murmured, not looking at Helfred.

“I see it, Majesty,” he said tightly, standing to her left. “The armada is…considerably diminished.”

Dear God, that was hardly stating it. The armada had been culled, like an overlarge flock of sheep. Surely it had been reduced by two-thirds…

Rollin's mercy. Rollin's mercy. Have they come home destroyed?

Straining her eyes she looked for the Ilda, the ship her father had seen built and named for her mother. The ship that had taken her brothers to their doom.

I should have burned that ship. I should have sent Alasdair on a rowboat before I let him sail in that ship.

Heart thudding so hard she felt sick, like vomiting, she watched and waited for the ships to come closer. Searched for the Count of Arbenia's vulgar flagship, for the Slainta of Harbisland's sealskin-hulled galley. She couldn't see them.

The ambassadors were openly agitated now.

“Where is Han's ship?” she said under her breath, fighting not to leap from the dock to the water and swim to the armada. “Dexterity, can you see it?”

Close by her right hand, Dexterity shook his head. “No, Majesty. I can't.”

A pain began pounding behind her eyes. Alasdair. Alasdair. Alasdair. “Helfred, I can't see the Ilda.”

“Nor can I,” said Helfred. “But that's not to say—” His voice broke. “Have faith.”

Limping, dispirited, the charred and gouged remnants of the trading alliance armada sailed sluggishly into Kingseat harbour. There was no sign at all of Ebrich or Dalsyn. She couldn't see a single trireme from Dev'karesh. Was it her imagination, or were fully half of the Tzhung warships missing? Only a handful of Slynt ships remained, a smattering from Keldrave…

No…no…no…so many…please God, no.

The agitated ambassadors fell silent. Her dukes fell silent. The crowding, cramming, chattering people of Kingseat fell silent. Rhian didn't dare look at Dexterity, or Helfred, or her dukes. She didn't dare turn to glance at the ambassadors. She was glad Kingseat's people were so far away.

If we've won, this will be worth it. If we've won, we'll bear the pain.

And then the leading row of vessels parted, and a single injured ship emerged from the fleet. Before she could stop herself, Rhian made a sound. Grief. Relief. Some mixture of both. It was Emperor Han's flagship, raw with wounds but still whole. Standing in its bow, Emperor Han and his witch-men. Duke Ludo. And Alasdair.

My love, my love…

Helfred closed his soft hand hard around her wrist. “Thank God.”

She didn't dare speak, so she nodded.

All the mooring points cleared for the armada had remained unused while it was at sea. Rhian heard herself breathing hard, with difficulty, remembering how the ships had crowded her harbour, remembering the complaints of her harbourmaster as he declared the impossibility of berthing so many vessels at once…

Seeing now how many empty berths remained, as one by one the ships of the armada found their allotted places and drifted to a halt, scarred almost past recognition, some of them, she pressed her fist to her lips to hold back the anguish burning her throat.

Han's flagship was granted precedence. Slowly, painfully, scorched from beatuy to ugliness, it nudged its way through the water and bumped to a sharp stop against the dock before her. A harbour crew came scurrying to secure its mooring lines and connect ship to shore with a gangplank.

And there was Alasdair, there he was, with Ludo behind him, coming down the gangplank onto dry land. He was bruised. Battered. He was alive. She snatched her wrist free from Helfred and ran, weeping, to meet him.

The oppressive silence around them was giving way, gradually, to grief. The people of Kingseat knew, without being able to see Alasdair's stark face, that this was no triumphant, victorious return. This was a defeat, cruel and crushing. The armada had fallen before the dark might of Mijak.

Rhian stumbled to a halt as she reached her unharmed husband. Speechless, shivering, they stared at each other. Then Alasdair pulled her to him in a suffocating embrace.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Rhian, we failed.”

Many hours later, far past midnight, she sat in the war room with him, and Ludo, and the rest of her exhausted council – except for Zandakar – contemplating the wreckage of their fragile new treaty.

One by one, so swiftly, the trading nations had deserted her. One by one their ambassadors and their rulers' representatives, those who'd survived, had withdrawn their country's support, which meant their ships, their sailors and their desperately needed soldiers. They must return home immediately, they said, so cold, so angry. They must consult directly with their rulers in the light of this calamity. Alas, while they were pledged to assist Ethrea, their first loyalties must lie at home.

What could she say to that? How could she stop them? She could try to confiscate their wealth…except many had already emptied their treasure vaults. Besides, she wasn't entirely certain the law was on her side.

“We still have Han,” she said stubbornly, in the face of her councillors' silent gloom. “He and his witch-men are worth more than Harbisland and Arbenia and the rest of them put together.”

Alasdair shook his head. Ursa had physicked his scrapes and bruises, but he still looked exhausted from his ordeal. “He and his witch-men are three-quarters dead from battling Mijak, and then getting us home again. Don't be too quick to assume their allegiance. Their losses are grievous. And the emperor is…displeased.”

She didn't need him to tell her that. She was well aware of Han's displeasure.

At the harbour she and Han had spoken briefly, privately, before his palanquin arrived to take him to Lai's residence.

“Do you see what Zandakar of Mijak has cost us? In saving his family, he has nearly destroyed mine.”

His rage had been all the more brutal for its restraint. “I know, Han,” she'd whispered. “I'm sorry.”

“And will your sorrow bring my drowned and burned witch-men back to life? Will it bring back Sun-dao? Will it save us from Mijak?”

She'd met his fury without flinching. “Nothing can bring them back, Han. We could weep enough tears to fill this harbour twice over and they'd still be dead.”

Han had leaned over her then. Exhausted, shivering with the extremity of his distress, still he was terrifying. “I want him, Rhian. Zandakar belongs to the Tzhung.”

Tilting her chin, she'd met him stare for stare. “You can't have him. Zandakar might be all that can save us now. Your revenge will have to wait.”

Han had walked away from her then, and she'd known that for him, it was walk away or kill her.

She was yet to share his fury with anyone.

“Emperor Han is shocked and grieving,” she said, choosing her words with care. Just as carefully didn't look at Alasdair. “As are we all. But he knows that as Ethrea falls, so falls Tzhung-tzhungchai. He won't desert us.” No matter how much he hates me. “I am confident of that.”

“So…what do we do now?” said Ludo, staring around the council table. Like Alasdair, the marks of his time with the armada lingered in his face and eyes. “By Han's calculations, the warships of Mijak are four weeks away.”

Four weeks. So close. Dear God, it's not enough time. “What do we do?” she said. “We fight, gentlemen. What else can we do?”

“Alone?” said Adric.

She gritted her teeth. “No, not alone. How many times must I—”

“Before this disaster, we had nine nations fighting with us,” Adric said, his hands white-knuckled. “Now we have one. Perhaps. But you can't be certain. It's possible the armada has killed Tzhung-tzhungchai, and we are witnessing its lingering death.”

She couldn't argue, though she wanted to.

“I know it would seem we've lost the support of almost every trading nation,” she said. “But I refuse to abandon hope. I refuse to surrender to fear, and doubt.” She tried to smile at Helfred. “I do not accept my faith is misplaced. My prayer is that the Tzung are only wounded, and Arbenia and Harbisland and the others will return to help us.”

“And if they don't?” said Edward quietly. “If they choose to defend themselves first, and us not at all?”

It took nearly all her remaining strength to appear confident, and unconcerned. “Then the people of Ethrea will prove their mettle, Edward.”

“Well said, Majesty,” Helfred murmured as the others shifted and looked at each other.

“What of Hettie, Mister Jones?” she said. “Her guidance now would be appreciated. Are you sure there's no way we can—”

Dexterity was shaking his head. He looked ready to weep. “I wish there was, but there's not.”

“Never mind,” she said gently. “Let's just find strength and comfort in what we already know. She urged you and Zandakar to Jatharuj, and you returned with the scorpion knife. It's a powerful weapon, one we can—”

“Majesty, Zandakar's blade is no match for Dmitrak's gauntlet,” Ludo protested. “If you'd seen what he did with it…the way our ships burned, and sank…I swear, you'd have as much chance of sawing down a tree with a butter knife.”

She'd seen Zandakar's scorpion blade sink a Tzhung skiff. She could only imagine what Dmitrak's gauntlet had done to the carracks and the galleys and the triremes of the armada.

“Ludo's right,” said Alasdair, his eyes so bleak. “We might as well not have that knife at all, for the good it can do us. We had our chance to end this. That chance was squandered.”

What? “Alasdair,” said Rhian, her voice low, a warning.

“I'm sorry?” said Edward. “What chance was that?”

She schooled her voice to indifference. “It's nothing, Edward. An incident we can't—”

“Nothing?” said Alasdair, disbelieving. “You call the sinking of our armada nothing?”

“Of course I don't,” she replied, her temper precarious. “But since the past can't be changed, I see no purpose in discussing it.”

Not when feelings are running so high. Alasdair, Alasdair, what are you doing?

“I'd like to know more of this ‘chance’ the king mentions,” said Edward, bewilderment giving way to suspicion. “What incident is he—?”

“Edward, I've already said there's—”

“When Mister Jones and Zandakar were in Jatharuj, the witch-man Sun-dao tried to destroy the township,” said Alasdair. “Unfortunately, they stopped him.”

“Stopped him?” said Rudi, breaking the shocked silence. “What do you mean?”

“Alasdair,” said Rhian. “This isn't the time.”

“I mean,” said Alasdair to Rudi, but staring at her, no apology in him, no remorse, only anger, “they prevented Sun-dao from smashing Jatharuj to pieces. If they hadn't, it's likely the Mijaki would have been destroyed with it, or at least so badly crippled we'd have stood a fair chance of the armada finishing them.” He spread his hands. “But Mijak was allowed to live. And now Ethrea stands in the shadow of death.”