“Then let’s change that,” Saska said. She twisted her neck, looking back, to where the mounted archers were trotting along at the rear of the column, a full score of them with fine white longbows captained by a veteran called Kaa Sokari. Saska had met the man only that morning, though had been reliably informed that he was a master-bowman. “See that man there,” she said. “His name’s Kaa, and he can shoot the wings of a fly from horseback while galloping at full speed, I’m told. If I ask him, he’ll be able to train you.”
The boy shook his head at once. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“It won’t be trouble. When we stop to water the horses, I’ll speak with him. How about that?”
He chewed on it a moment. “Only… only if you’re sure.” He seemed equally enthused and afeared by the thought. “Won’t it be embarrassing, though? All these bowmen…they can fire from their horses, as you say. I’d struggle to hit water if I fell off a boat. They’ll only laugh at me.”
Saska smiled. “They won’t. Every great archer has to start somewhere, and so long as you’re willing to learn, that’s worthy of respect. And anyway, you told me how you shot Robbert with that arrow. That’s how you became his squire in the first place. And you saved his life as well. That was a good shot, wasn’t it? Robbert would have died if you hadn’t hit that Emerald Guard.”
“I didn’t hit, not really. I only grazed his armour.”
“The graze was enough.” She hadn’t been there to witness it, but Leshie had told her what had happened. How she and Del had come rushing down the alley to find Robbert Lukar beneath a knight in an emerald cloak, driving a dagger down into his eye. Leshie had shouted out and Del had fired his bow and that had been enough to break the knight’s hold. After that, Robbert had struck him in the jaw, heaved to his feet, and battered the man’s head to mulch. “It was like soup,” Leshie had told her later. “Red bloody soup with bits of brain and skull bobbing about in his helm. Never seen anything like it. It was brutal, Sask.”
And well earned, Saska thought. It turned out the knight was a man called Sir Wenfry Gershan, a grandson to the Master of the Moorlands, and he’d been ordered by Cedrik Kastor to kill Robbert during the fighting, to help him steal the throne. Well, no chance of that now. Saska looked down at Joy, loping gracefully along beside her horse, and imagined her muzzle all red, her eyes like silver flame, tearing and ripping at Cedrik’s flesh. A smile warped her lips, as she pictured it all again. It was a memory she would treasure forever, to keep her warm when the nights grew cold.
“You saved his life,” Saska said. “That’s the important part. And you didn’t panic either. Most boys your age would have fumbled the arrow in the string, or missed the man entirely. That you didn’t speaks volumes, Del. You didn’t wilt in the heat of battle.”
That won her a smile of sorts, though as ever with Del it was bashful. “I guess,” he said, in that mumbly voice of his. “And it was close, the arrow. To hitting Sir Wenfry. Properly, I mean.”
“Do you wish it had?” Saska asked him. “Taking a life…” She paused, realising she hadn’t broached this topic with him yet. “Have you killed anyone yet, Del? During the fighting in Kolash, or…”
“No.” His eyes went down. “I wanted to, that night. I told Prince Robbert I would, but…”
“It’s not a bad thing,” she said. “That you haven’t killed, I mean. Taking a life…that’s not something everyone can do, Del. The guilt, and regret…it can become a burden.”
A moment passed in silence. There was nothing but the rustle of the men around them, the clatter of hooves, the murmur of voices. Then Del asked, “How many have you killed now?” He looked over. “Have you…killed lots of people, Saska?”
She cycled through them all, one after another after another. Lords and knights and sellswords and killers, all worthy of the blade. Only Sir Jesse, perhaps, gave her cause for regret. The rest had earned their ends, and more. “I don’t keep a tally, Del,” she said, lying to spare him. “I don’t think it does a person any good to dwell.”
He nodded, thinking, then gave her a brotherly smile. “They all deserved it, I bet. Like Sir Wenfry did.” His eyes darkened. “I’d have killed him, happily. He was trying to murder Prince Robbert. I’d have given my life to protect him.”
“That’s very brave, Del.”
“I’m not lying,” he said, thinking she might be humouring him. “I’m not the same boy you knew in Willow’s Rise. Man,” he corrected. “I’m a man now.”
“I know, Del.”
His chin lifted. “I’ll protect you as well, if it comes to it. You’re my sister, and…and I love you, but you’re much more than that now. All of us here. It’s our duty to protect you. Even me.” And he nodded, firming, straightening his back. “I’ll train,” he said, committing. “With that archer. I don’t care if it’s embarrassing. I have to do my part.”
I should have left him behind, a part of her thought. Rolly had suggested she do just that. That Del would only be a burden to her, causing her to worry and fret when she needed to focus on herself. He had said the same about Joy, once before, though at least Joy could defend herself. Del was not the same. Even if he learns to master the bow, he will never be a warrior.
But she could not say any of that to him. He is here, now, and there’s no going back. So all she did was smile, reach across to him, and say, “I am so glad you’re with me, Del.”
The day was yet young. Though already it was growing hot, the horizon rippling with a blanket of burning air, bubbling and fizzing off the plains. Their course took them south, at first, along a wide paved road that led down to the coast, past the abandoned Tukoran warcamp. Much remained amid the wreckage, all left behind in their haste. She saw pavilions blowing in the hot dry wind, tents overturned, old firepits dug into the ground. Wagons sat about, empty. There was evidence of horse lines, boundary stakes and poles, the stink of latrines, and death. Some of Hasham’s men and those of the Strong Eagle were still poking about, looking for anything of worth, piling whatever they found onto carts to roll back into the city. They had been joined by scavengers, jackals and vultures and big black southern crows, fighting over the last of the dead who had not yet been gathered and burned.
Saska saw an eagle too, circling above them. Hunting mice, she thought. No doubt there were hundreds of them here.
The trebuchets had been left behind as well. They stood forsaken, great wooden monstrosities attended by wains piled high with rocks. The bombardment had been little more than a ruse, in the end, a distraction to hide their true intent. To open the gates from within, storm inside unchallenged, and win the city. But within that plan, were plots. Plots within plots, Saska thought. Cedrik…he was going to betray Elio Krator, once they had won the city, take residence in the palace and wait out the war from there. They had that from one of the prisoners, a Tukoran knight in Kastor’s favour. Another, an Aramatian, had said that Elio Krator was planning to do the same. A two-headed snake, devouring itself.
But neither had anticipated the deceptions of Cliffario Denlatis. Playing both sides, selecting who would win. He was the kingmaker more than anyone, Saska knew. Even Vincent Rose never rose so high.
It took some hours before they reached the sea, crossing down through a great nub of barren land that extended east from Aram. Here they met the Capital Road, a two-thousand-long coastal road that stretched all the way from Solas in the southwest of Lumara to Eagle’s Perch in the northeast of Aramatia. The air was a little cooler here, owing to the breeze coming off the sea, and the road was well maintained, allowing for a swifter course. Much as Saska had wanted to go north through the plains in the hope of finding Ranulf, she knew this was the better way.
For now, anyway, she thought. If we hear fresh tidings, we can still change our course. Ranulf may yet come back.
The morning rolled into afternoon, the sun beating down upon them. The coast here was rocky, rugged, the waves crashing in on the surf. In places the road got so close that they could feel the spray on their faces, when the wind was right, blowing a fine briny mist across their path to give them some relief.
But mostly that wasn’t the case. Though a coastal road, it often diverted inland when blocked by high stark crags and bulky headlands, wending around them, often for many long hot miles, away from the salty breeze. At these times the air grew stifling, unpleasant. Their pace began to slow, conversation halting. The energy in the company sagged.
They passed traveller inns along the way, and some small fishing villages as well. Some had been ransacked when the coalition army had passed this way. “Did you know about this, Squire?” Leshie asked. That was her name for Del. “You didn’t take part in it, did you?”
She was teasing him, Saska knew at once. But he took it seriously. “No. Of course not. Prince Robbert would never have allowed it.”
“Cedrik Kastor would,” Saska said. She remembered the south of Rasalan, the Lowplains and lands around Harrowmoor. Kastor’s Greenbelts had pillaged their own northern cousins, killing crofters and cobblers with impunity, stealing away their daughters. They wouldn’t think twice about doing the same thing here.
“I heard that the sunlord didn’t like it,” Del told them. “He said that innocent Aramatians were not to be harmed.”
The Butcher laughed aloud. “What the sunny snake says and what the sunny snake does are two very different things. He took Kolash, did he not? You were there. His own forces were part of the battle.”
Del nodded from atop his spotted palfrey. It had a black mane, like his hair, untamed and long. “I didn’t see them. I was with Prince Robbert’s company. Green Company, he called us. We fought through other parts of the city…”
“But they were there, yes? In other parts of the city? Aramatian soldiers, serving Krator?”
Another nod. “I saw them, leaving their own warcamp. And returning.”
“With blood on their blades. The blood of their own. This is a foul thing that Krator did. And the Port of Matia…” The Butcher’s horse was much bigger than Del’s, a one-eyed destrier, frothing at the mouth, a little mad like him. He loomed above the boy, looking down. “My mother was Matian, did you know that? Mine and the Baker’s. She was a whore. But a nice one. That means I am half Matian. A Matian Aramatian.” He smiled. One of his serious smiles. “She has been dead for many years, but I still know many people there. Some will have been murdered, because of Krator. So think again, Dellard. Do you think the sunny snake cares about harming his own people? Even innocent ones?”
Del frowned, thinking. “Well…maybe not. I did think…the innocents…” He looked around. “I thought he was only killing soldiers.”
