The Providence of Fire (71 page)

The sun had already settled into the serrated tops of the firs, but close to two hundred men—Annurian legionaries, judging from their uniforms—were hard at work by torchlight, digging through the earthen dam. Their commanders had them on a quick rotation, each group working no longer than two hours before a second marched in to take its place and the first returned to the camp. Valyn had been studying them since just after noon, and the pace never flagged. They showed all intentions, in fact, of working straight through the night, though with what goal in mind, he couldn't say. There were Kettral who specialized in hydraulic analysis—diverting rivers, destroying aqueducts, poisoning groundwater—but even Valyn could tell that a gap in the dam would flood the river below. The town was high enough that it would probably survive, but he couldn't see why anyone would take the risk.

“Something's put an ember up their asses,” Laith observed.

It was the kind of comment the flier would have made a month earlier, but all levity was drained from the words. Instead of glancing over slyly as he spoke, he refused to meet Valyn's eyes, keeping his gaze fixed on the town. It had been that way since their botched attack on the messengers four days earlier. Part of Valyn missed his friend's banter, but an even larger part welcomed the new solemnity; it relieved him of having to joke, to smile, to fake happiness or humor. They had come all this way to kill the man who had killed his father, and as long as he focused on that single fact, as long as he focused on the relevant tactics and dangers, the goal would fill his mind, pushing back the memory of the men he had already murdered. It kept him going, but it didn't leave anything left over for smiling.

“The Urghul,” Talal said. “It has to be the Urghul.”

Valyn nodded. “Long Fist was massing for something,” he agreed. “That was clear as rain.”

“Which means,” the flier observed acidly, “that our dear friend the shaman has fucked us.”

Valyn revolved the idea as he considered the army once more. At the center of the camp flew a massive banner emblazoned with the Annurian sun. Beneath the banner, a dozen soldiers were hard at work erecting a huge pavilion. Something that large could only belong to il Tornja, and Valyn panned back and forth with the lens, searching in vain for some sign of the man.

When he and his Wing rode out from the Urghul camp ten days earlier, Valyn had expected to travel all the way to Annur, to have to find the
kenarang
in his own palace and kill him; even for the Kettral, it had seemed a nearly impossible task. Something, however, had flushed il Tornja into the open. It made for an opportunity, but put Valyn on his guard at the same time. It also meant delaying even further his reunion with Kaden, but Kaden would have to fend for himself awhile. Clearly, events had outpaced Valyn since he quit the Islands. There were new stones on the board, and sticking obstinately to an outdated plan was a quick way to get dead.

“An Annurian army on the move could mean one of several things,” he said slowly, passing the long lens to Talal. “It certainly doesn't exonerate il Tornja for my father's death. For
any
of the deaths. In fact, it squares with what Balendin told us.”

Laith stared at him. “An Annurian army headed north means that someone to the north is misbehaving, and unless you think the actual thousand lakes have sloshed out of their beds to march south, that means the Urghul.”

“But according to Long Fist,” Talal observed quietly, “this is all a part of il Tornja's strategy. It's easier to justify a transition to military command if there's a war that needs fighting. He could have murdered Sanlitun
and
provoked the Urghul, all with the ultimate goal of consolidating his own position.”

“Which means there'll be more than just one death to lay at his feet,” Valyn added. “If the
kenarang
's forcing a major battle just to keep his seat on the throne, he'll be killing thousands. Tens of thousands, Urghul and Annurian alike.”

“I'm not sure I want to start laying deaths at feet,” Laith replied. “Not given what we've been up to recently.”

“Valyn,” Talal began, long lens fixed on one of the gates in the palisade ringing the town, where a dirt road spilled out into the fields beyond. Valyn had studied it earlier. It was an obvious attack point, and though the loggers had built squat towers to either side, an experienced siege team would force it easily. Valyn squinted. Figures on horseback were emerging from between the wooden walls.

“Who is it?” he asked, turning to Talal.

“What does your sister look like?” the leach asked.

Valyn shook his head. “I don't know. Tall. Thin. I haven't seen her in ten years. I was hoping to find a way to talk to her in Annur.…”

“You might get the chance a little early,” Talal said, passing the lens back to Valyn and gesturing toward the valley. “I can't be certain, but that sure looks like a woman with burning eyes.”

Valyn stared at the leach, then reached over for the lens. There were half a dozen riders, followed by a dozen or so men on foot. It took him a moment to find the range and focus, but when he finally managed it, a figure on horseback leapt into view. She sat her horse proudly, back straight as a spear, but it was clear within heartbeats that she wasn't really comfortable on her mount; she rode the poor creature as though it were a palanquin, not swaying at all to accommodate the beast's gait, sitting hard and low in her saddle, as though her legs could no longer hold her up.

Adare
.

Despite the long years, he recognized his sister at a glance. Even without Intarra's eyes, he would have known her. She was older, of course, a woman instead of a girl, but she had the same lean build, the same angularity to her features, the same honey-pale skin—shades lighter than either Valyn's or Kaden's, except … He squinted through the lens. It was hard to be certain at the distance, but it looked as though a delicate tattoo ran down one side of her face, a few graceful lines that seemed to glow in the sunlight, starting beneath her hair and swirling down her neck into her robes.

He shifted the lens to consider those robes more fully. His sister finally seemed to have shed the dresses she spent her childhood cursing. The golden cloth of her clothing was rich enough for any princess's gown, but cut in the austere style of an imperial minister, trimmed at the collars and shoulders with black. The shifting fashions of the Dawn Palace, the subtle social signaling of wardrobe, had never much interested Valyn, but Adare's clothes spoke of authority, even command. That, and the armed men escorting her.

“What in Ananshael's sweet name,” he muttered, lowering the long lens, “is Adare doing with an army on the march?”

“Does it matter?” Laith asked. “This is what we wanted, right? She can tell us what's going on. Forget the old plan. We go to her first, see if Long Fist's been selling us shit and calling it fruit. Then, if it still comes to taking down the regent, it might help to have a little royalty on our side.”

“Valyn is royalty as well,” Talal pointed out.

Laith snorted. “Valyn's a traitor, same as the two of us.”

*   *   *

Watching Adare from the tree line through a long lens was one thing; getting close enough to her to talk quite another. A young soldier on horseback met Valyn's sister on the road, bowed, face pressed against the pommel of his saddle, straightened up when she waved a hand, talked with her a moment, then bowed again before leading her forward.

Valyn glanced over at the other riders. Just behind his sister rode two soldiers, one, a young warrior with a bronze helm and a stern face that might have been chipped from marble, the other a grizzled Aedolian, hand on the pommel of his broadblade, eyes scanning the surrounding terrain. At Adare's side rode an old woman and an even older man, both gray-haired and stooped in the shoulders. Valyn didn't recognize any of them, but they were making straight for the tents of the army encampment.

“Bunking with the troops,” Talal observed. “Good for morale.”

“Not exactly ‘with the troops,'” Laith noted after a pause.

Adare was threading her way through the tents, aiming for the large pavilion at the very center.
Her
pavilion, Valyn realized, an uneasiness settling in his gut. Not the
kenarang
's.

“Shit,” he muttered. “It would have been easier to get at her in town.”

“We're not going to be fighting our way into the middle of an encamped Annurian field army,” Talal agreed.

Valyn chewed on the problem as Adare approached her pavilion, pointed at something, then kicked her horse into motion once more. The soldiers bowed as she passed, and Adare nodded back, dismounting before a different tent, one half the size of her own, but still large compared with all the rest. Even in the gathering dark, Valyn could see just fine, but seeing the camp didn't make it any easier to penetrate. He could watch Adare all he wanted; what he needed was to get close enough to talk.

“Who wants to play dress-up?” Laith asked. “I figure a cook could get into her tent. Or a cleaning slave. Or a whore.”

Valyn shook his head. “You don't know the Aedolians,” he replied. “They won't just wave through anyone with a porcelain platter. Those bastards check everyone who enters. Even if I ditch my swords, I'm not sure I'll pass as a cook. Or a whore.”

“If we had a bird,” Laith observed tartly, “you could just drop through the 'Kent-kissing roof.”

“We don't have a bird,” Valyn replied.

“Getting into the camp itself shouldn't be hard,” Talal said. “We've got the armor we stripped off that messenger.”

Valyn considered the idea for a moment. It was bold, but then, most good plans were bold. He had an Annurian horse, Annurian armor, Annurian accent. On the other hand, his burned-out eyes were immediately recognizable. There was no way to know how much communication had taken place between il Tornja and the Eyrie, no way to know what lies the
kenarang
had fed his sister, no way to know whether or not the guards around Adare's tent even knew what he looked like. There were scores of questions and precious few answers.

“I could get past the other pickets easily enough,” Valyn said slowly. “It's dark, and men at those posts are just normal legionaries.” He shook his head. “The Aedolians are the problem. If il Tornja is half the strategist everyone says, he'll be guarding against us, which means the Aedolians will be guarding against us. They'll know what I look like, which means they'll know what you look like, too.”

“I'll tell you,” Laith grumbled, “I'm getting pretty sick of the fucking Aedolian Guard. If they're not off in the 'Shael-spawned mountains trying to murder the Emperor, they're swarming all over the two people on this continent that we need to get close to.” He turned to glare at Valyn, as though the whole thing were his fault. “When do they go away? Or do they wipe your ass every time you take a shit?”

Valyn was about to snap out a sharp retort when he paused. “No,” he replied after a moment, raising the long lens to his eye once more, “they don't.”

“Don't go away?”

“Don't wipe your ass. At least, they didn't when I was a kid. Back in the Dawn Palace they would station themselves outside the privy chamber. They never came in.”

Talal pursed his lips. “I see where you're headed with this, but we're not in the Dawn Palace. Whatever latrine Adare uses will be ringed with Aedolians, same as her tent. You'll have as much trouble getting into one as the other.”

“The difference is,” Valyn said, pointing to the soldiers below who had begun digging a hole a dozen paces from Adare's tent, “that I'm not going to have to get inside. I'm going to
start
inside.”

*   *   *

By the time Valyn had threaded his way past the outer sentries, picketed his horse with the other animals, then talked his way through the inner guard, he was sweating, despite the cool night breeze. Fortunately, just about everyone in the camp looked half dead on their feet—they were resting now, but evidently il Tornja had been pushing them even harder than Valyn realized—and the guardsmen waved him through with little more than a glance at his Annurian armor and a few cursory questions. It seemed a crude sort of vigilance, but effective enough in its rough way. Even after being waved through, Valyn had to remind himself to walk slowly, to emulate the weary plodding of the other legionaries, to look at the muddied ground before him instead of glancing over his shoulder.

They're exhausted,
he reminded himself,
and you're just one more soldier among thousands. And it's night
.

He offered up a small prayer of thanks to Hull for the darkness. Though he could see quite clearly, the night hid his face and his eyes from the Annurians. Now that he was past the picket, no one was likely to challenge him unless he approached the Aedolians around Adare's pavilion. By the time he reached her tent, he had grown almost accustomed to his near-invisibility, and paused for a moment outside the pools of light cast by the torches to size up her guard.

Had he been optimistic enough to hope that the Aedolians might slacken their vigilance while surrounded by more than twenty legions, he would have been disappointed. A pair of men in full plate flanked the doorway while eight more surrounded the tent, two at each corner, back to back, facing out into the night: a double diamond. The position was simple, but nearly impenetrable—double sight lines, redundant postings, physical contact between pairs.… There were ways to break it, and Valyn had studied them, but each required multiple attackers and ranged weapons. With his full Wing he could probably get inside, but the odds of emerging again were pretty long. And il Tornja's pavilion was likely to be the same. The thought made his palms start sweating all over again, and with an effort he shoved it aside.