Cold Steel

41

Rory gave a copiously false yawn and rose to open the shutters. Roosters crowed. The creak of wheels and trample of feet and hooves drifted from the encampment as the army moved out.

“Where are we going today?” Rory asked as he plundered the remaining bread and cheese.

Aides and attendants clattered into the room to pack away the gear with impressive speed. The general personally escorted me to the latrines. Youths wearing the red jackets of fire mages hovered close all the while, like hawks waiting to dive on cautious rabbits. The truth was, I did fear their fire. Rory did not even try to flirt with them.

Faster than I had thought possible, the headquarters staff was on the road in a column of horses, carriages, and dust. We were led by a company of Amazons under the command of Captain Tira. A battalion of Iberian infantry marched behind. The baggage and hospital train would follow at the rear.

Rory chatted companionably with the young staff officers, but I stuck next to the general. I did not like the look of James Drake, wearing yet another of Vai’s purloined dash jackets to spite me. What I least liked the look of was his squadron of thirty young fire mages. How many catch-fires he controlled I was not sure, for one of the carriages was locked, with caged persons inside, while a file of shackled catch-fires marched under guard of soldiers wearing Lady Angeline’s badge.

We traveled hard all day on the main road, passing sections of the slow-moving baggage train. Columns of infantry marched away to either side, across fields, the army like locusts on the move. Messengers galloped up on spent horses with reports from the vanguard. In the town of Castra, where Lord Gwyn had died, we were met by cheering locals lining the road.

North of town we stopped to water and feed the horses. Soldiers ate stale bread and took naps. I walked upstream to wash my dusty face and hands.

Rory lay down on the grass and slid into a doze. I smiled to see his peaceful face lit by the sun. As for me, I was terribly hungry. The roofs of a farmstead rose nearby. I would have gone to beg food from them, but I had no money to pay for it and probably they had already had their granary emptied by a quartermaster.

“I wonder,” I said to dozing Rory, “how a general who comes to liberate makes sure he isn’t just seen as a thief.”

He snorted awake, rising up on an elbow. I turned. Lady Angeline approached along the bank. Downstream, horses muddied the waters.

I made a pretty courtesy, for although as wife to the heir of Four Moons House I now ranked as her equal, I did not want anyone here to know of Vai’s new status. “Your Highness.”

Her gaze grazed along the length of Rory’s body, and to my amusement she flushed when he winked at her. Unlike Drake, he did look good in Vai’s clothes, even when they were rumpled from travel. She turned to me. “What am I to call you?”

“Maestra Barahal, as you wish, Your Highness. May I ask if you have been married long?”

“Let me make myself understood to you, Maestra. Do not make an enemy of me. I am the only child of the prince of Armorica, he who stands as overlord above the Veneti dukes.”

“Ah.” I surveyed her proud posture and confident stance. Her riding clothes suited her. Clearly she was a woman of taste, in most regards. “Yet if I am correct, by Gallic law you cannot rule in your own right because you are a woman. You must marry a man who will become son to your father and then prince in his place.”

“You comprehend my situation astutely, Maestra. Unlike every other prince’s son, James has no interest in ruling Armorica and will leave to me the inheritance I have earned.”

I knew how to dig for information. “I suppose his ambitions are set on recovering his ancestral crown in the Ordovici Confederation.”

“You think he is volatile and angry, but that is because you do not know the circumstances under which he was driven from his rightful place. In fact, he has a philosophical temperament, one that prefers to gaze at the stars and plumb the mysteries of the universe. When the time comes, he will be perfectly happy to leave the administration of both principalities to me.”

“Goodness! I can understand that the chance to rule two principalities would be an inducement for a woman of your princely birth and ambition. Yet if the law were changed to allow the daughter to inherit equally to the son, such a dynastic marriage would not be necessary for you.”

I had misunderstood her.

“The marriage suits me marvelously well.”

“Ah. Well, then, a word of advice.”

“Cat,” said Rory, warningly.

I poked anyway. “Besides the bad fit, for the dash jackets are too loose and too tight in all the wrong places, the colors really do not benefit his complexion. Your attire is so exquisite in all ways that I cannot believe you have urged him to wear another man’s clothes.”

Her right eye half winked shut in a flicker of irritation. “He has promised to burn them all when the cold mage is dead.” With that she returned to the main group. Drake came to meet her.

Rory got to his feet. “Cat, will you ever learn to keep your mouth shut?”

“Burn his lovely dash jackets! Think of the disrespect to the tailors who cut and sewed them!”

“Cat.”

My volcanic ire subsided before it spilled over into gouts of red-hot stabbing. General Camjiata beckoned. On we rode through the long afternoon. Fortunately our pace was slow enough that at intervals Rory and I could dismount to walk instead of riding.

As twilight descended we entered the grounds of a lord’s estate with a long artificial pond graced with fountains and a terraced set of clamshell-shaped lawns leading to a stately house. Troops stretched out on the grounds, having not even erected tents. They leaped to their feet with cheers as the general’s entourage made its way to the big house.

The general stood on the steps and raised a hand for silence.

“I came ashore in a rowboat from my exile,” he cried. Back in the ranks, men called his words farther back yet, so all could hear. “You are the ones who had the courage and the vision to march! Let us not forget our ancient war with the Romans. Our grandparents did not forget! Our histories and songs do not forget! The bards remind us that from the northern shores of Africa all the way to the ice, we have all fought the Romans, sometimes alone, but on this day, together! We are the storm that will batter down the arrogance of our enemies! One sharp blow, and victory is ours!”

How they cheered, for his presence had a bonfire’s glory. It warmed even me, although I knew better than to be smitten by a forceful man’s vision of what could be if only he and I could come to an accommodation. Look how that had turned out, when Vai had courted me!

What had happened to the inhabitants of the lordly house I did not know, but a cadre of anxious servants set a hastily prepared meal before us in a once-magnificent dining room. Brass lamps were set out to replace richer fittings that had been looted. Young officers waited their turn to bring forward reports as the general and his staff ate through a leek soup, roasted mutton and turnips, pears stewed in wine, and several varieties of cheese.

“It will give me pleasure to burn this place down as we leave,” said Drake, looking at me as he said it, for the man did need to boast constantly as he tried to intimidate me.

I held Drake’s gaze as I speared a morsel of mutton, popped the meat into my mouth, and devoted my attention to enjoying its moist savor.

Camjiata glanced up from the dispatch lying at his left hand. “I am so relieved you enjoy your food, Cat. As for the house, it shall be spared for the hospital train. Lady Angeline, if you will remain behind to await the hospital, I know I can safely put you in charge of administering all. Your father asked me to make sure you stayed well back from the scene of battle, since you are pregnant.”

Pregnant!

Drake’s leering smirk turned to a lift of the chin as he contemplated this signal triumph. I opened my mouth to ask if it was truly Drake’s, since all knew that fire mages were indifferently fertile. Rory’s foot pressed down so hard on my toes that I yelped.

“What Cat means to say,” Rory said as he kicked my shin for good measure, “is how delightful she finds the prospect of actually being allowed to sleep in a bed. Me, too. For I swear to you, I hurt all over.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Especially my thighs, but not, alas, from any riding that would have pleased me.”

The general chuckled, ignoring the blush of one of his younger officers. “You two will accompany me to the library, where I will spend the night. Perhaps there will be a chair for you to sleep in.”

Several helpful orderlies dragged in a long couch on which Rory and I fit, curled up with our heads at each end and our feet commingling. I slept fretfully, for the general’s lamp burned all night as messengers came and went. Very late, I woke needing the water closet.

“As soon as we have placed our line across the field,” Camjiata was saying to a collection of officers, “we will commence bombardment with artillery.”

A short, thin man dressed in the white sash of the Kena’ani sacred band—the famous Elephant Barca—spoke up just as I wrapped the shadows around me and crept for the door. “If the Roman army arrives while we’re engaged with the Coalition, we’ll be crushed between them.”

“We will defeat the Coalition quickly, and pivot to hit the Romans while they’re still trapped in columns, before they have time to deploy across the field. The key is to draw out and then capture or eliminate their cold mages.”

A chill seized my heart. Had I made a terrible mistake in coming here, in leaving Vai behind? The thought took hold in my mind and would not let go. Anxiety muddled me, for although I found the water closet easily enough, I lost my way going back. Instead of returning to the library, I found myself at doors opening onto a stone terrace.

A solitary flame drew my eye. James Drake sat on a stool with five fire mages at his back, four catch-fires kneeling with heads bowed, and three people facing him like strangers brought before a prince.

“I will not lie to you,” said James Drake in a kindly voice I scarcely recognized. “No fire mage is ever safe. If you wish to be safe, then learn from the blacksmiths how to lock away your fire and hope it never escapes.”

“The blacksmiths would not have me!” said a stocky young man who stood with arms crossed belligerently.

“What of you?” Drake asked the younger of the two lads.

The youth was so thin he looked as if a breeze might blow him over. “We haven’t the apprentice fee to pay to the guilds, me and my people.”

“If I gave you that fee, would you choose a blacksmith’s forge? For I will make you risk your life, right now, if you wish to join my company.”

The lad stammered. “I wouldn’t mind the blacksmith’s guild. It’s an honorable life. In a few years I could give my parents a cow. Men will pay a bride price to marry my sisters, if I’m a blacksmith. My parents can’t afford to lose me. I’m the only son they have.”

“Very well.” Drake gestured. An attendant counted out coins into the lad’s hand as the boy gaped at this largesse. “Our kind are sorely ill-used here in Europa, the lands of our birth. Go with my blessing. Make a good life for yourself.”

As the lad hurried off into the night, Drake again bent his eye on the stocky young man. “Will you risk your life for a chance to join my company of mages?”

“I’m not afraid!”

“Better if you were. Fire knows no mercy. But very well. To weave fire, you must cast the backlash of the flame into another body. Otherwise it will burn you up from inside. I will raise an unlit candle. Put a spark to it. As you feel the answering burn from that combustion in your own flesh, throw it like a rope into the body of this catch-fire.”

A candle and two lamps burned at Drake’s feet. He blew them out. All sat in darkness lightened only by stars and a rising crescent moon.

“Be cautious,” added Drake. “Even the lighting of one candle can kill a fire mage.”

“I can light a candle!” boasted the young fellow.

With a snap the candle’s wick flared. Then, as in echo, the two lamp wicks began burning with a bright golden flame.

“Throw the thread of fire into the catch-fire,” said Drake. “Think of casting a line from a boat to the shore.”

The youth staggered, clapping a hand to his chest, and dropped to his knees choking. His face got very red. The lamp flames flared with such brilliance that I blinked. Then he toppled over, mouth open, tongue black, and a trickle of blood coming out of his ears.

Drake waved forward an attendant. “Dispose of him.”

Men dragged the body away as the others watched in silence.

“You never asked me,” said the third supplicant, a girl about Luce’s age.

Drake pulled off a glove. The skin was red and flaking, mottled with so many burn scars it was a wonder he could use his hands at all. He knelt and pinched out both flames. “I have nothing to ask you. The blacksmiths do not admit women to their guild. They teach them only how to lock away their fire. So either you will go home or you will try your luck.”

“Do you mean us to die?” she asked boldly. Maybe the darkness gave her courage.

“No, not at all. If you have the knack of casting off the backlash, I will train you to hone that skill and nurture your fire. But even the best-trained fire mage can die. And you must be willing to see others die, for if you make one mistake with your catch-fires, as you will, their bodies will be served as this man’s was.”

“My bridges are burned. My home will be here, or in the spirit world.”

She took in a sharp breath. The candle took flame. She sucked in a pained inhalation; I smelled a pinprick of ashy smoke. Light sparked in her eyes. Then a glowing thread spun out from her like an unwinding coil and streamed into the body of the nearest catch-fire. The man stiffened, arms rigid at his side, but the backlash was more trickle than roar.

The girl’s lips parted, and her eyes widened. Her hands raised to press at her mouth. The candle’s light danced along her pale skin. The rest of the world lay in shadow.

“Enough,” said Drake. “You have a light touch, as women often do. If you wish to walk this road, you may enlist.”

She dropped to her knees so abruptly I thought she was falling, but she was just stunned. The catch-fire relaxed as the backlash vanished. The candle burned on.

“Yes, that is my wish,” said the girl through tears.

“Remain here then, and assist with the hospital tomorrow. Under no circumstances attempt even to light a candle, not until we have had time to train you in the preliminaries.”

“Yes, my lord. Yes!” By the way she gazed raptly at him, I saw the cage he wove: He gave the fledgling fire mages a life otherwise denied them.

I fled to the library. It hurt to entertain the idea that Drake might be right about one thing.

Rory still slept. Camjiata sat alone at the desk, studying a map. He did not look up as I crept across the plush rug, for of course I was veiled in shadows.

“I can hear you moving about, Cat. Do you think I did not notice when you suddenly vanished? Dark Ataecina! Whence comes this shadow magic? Has the Hassi Barahal clan nurtured it close to their hearts all these years? Uniquely suited for a family of spies, don’t you think? Or is it only you, Cat? Not cold, not fire, but a creature as yet unclassified by the scholars.”

Fortunately, before I felt obliged to answer this salvo, all delivered in a cheerful tone, boots sounded in the corridor. I threw myself on the couch and pretended to be asleep as Drake walked in. The whiff of smoke made me choke.

“I have discovered another apt fire mage. Another girl.”

“You seem to prefer the girls, James.” Camjiata’s tone seemed distracted, but I heard the edge cutting beneath his genial disinterest.

“Girls are more malleable. More grateful, for I give them a status and independence they cannot gain elsewise. Thus they are the most loyal of all. Most of them, anyway. Not this one.” I felt the pressure of his gaze as he looked at me. I wanted to leap up and stab him, but Vai’s cautions and my promise to the radical cause stayed my hand. “Women are so grievously shallow-minded. If the arrogant cold mage weren’t so handsome and cocksure, she wouldn’t love him half as well.”

“Really, James, you must give up this unseemly obsession.”

“I care nothing for her. Angeline is far more beautiful and an equal to me besides. But she will lead me to him.”

“If you kill him, I will be seriously displeased with you.”

Drake laughed. “And then what? Then what will you do?”

Tension stung like the snap of air before a thunderstorm breaks.

“Do you want to find out, James?”

Noble Ba’al, but I had to admire the general’s self-assurance! Drake hesitated for so long I almost popped my head up just to enjoy the expression that surely soured his face. Rory prodded me with his foot. I stayed curled up.

“Without my help, your partisans would never have been able to break you out of your island prison.”

“I am aware of what I owe to you. But I am also aware of what you owe to me. You are a murderer, condemned by your own kinfolk in your own clan’s court of law.”

“They left me to burn after stealing my inheritance! Of course I acted to save myself!”

“Any justness in your actions does not change the fact that I brought you under my protection at considerable risk to my reputation.”

“You promised me an army to take back what is mine.”

“An army you shall have, once my victory is assured. How long do you think you will last without my support, James?”

“I am coming to question whether I need your support at all. My fire mages are loyal to me because they know I am the only one who will raise them up and defend them. They will never let any harm come to me. I used to think I needed your army, but now I wonder if all I need are powerful fire banes. Who would dare oppose me then?”

“A constant application of terror and grief is no way to rule.” Footsteps sounded in the corridor. “Here are my officers. Have your people ready to ride within the half hour.”

“I shall not be patient for much longer,” muttered Drake.

The instant the sting of Drake’s presence faded from the room, I kicked Rory’s shins and got up. The staff officers nodded at me; they had accepted our presence among them with the alacrity of youthful disinterest. After all, they had a war to fight. We made a meal of bread and cheese, and I was glad to have it for I suspected that many of the soldiers got nothing. Before the sun’s edge topped the horizon, the troops were moving north in their columns. The pops and cracks of gunfire signaled a skirmish far in the advance.

“This knife’s edge must be walked cautiously,” remarked Camjiata when he and I had a moment riding apart from the others. “You do understand, do not you, that if we lose this battle today, then all is lost?”

“Because the princes and mages will crack down so hard on dissent that it will be decades or generations before another radical movement has a chance to rise? Or because you’ll have lost control of Drake? Never believe I am selfless enough to sacrifice my husband on the altar of your empire.”

“Just buy me time, Cat. Do nothing rash.” He glanced toward where Drake rode amid his company of mages, then back to me. “Had you been my daughter, you would have been loyal to me.”

“Tara gave me the father she wanted me to have,” I said softly, but he could not hear.

The rising sun bent its rays over the landscape. The road sloped upward along a gentle rise. Rumbling booms shook the air. A frantic blaring of trumpets, as with warning calls, was followed by the crackling of gunfire, which at length subsided into an uncanny quiet that made me more nervous than anything that had come before.

We turned off the main road and entered a village empty of every soul except the soldiers moving through. On a prominence men had felled three trees that blocked the view northeast over the battlefield. Clouds bunched up in the north, dark with unshed rain. Closer at hand a dense mist concealed the high ground and thus the entirety of the Coalition army. Camjiata surveyed the mist through a spyglass.

“James, the mist seems unnatural. I expected to see Lutetia’s walls from here. Can you disperse it?”

“The mist is a fog created by cold magic. To create such an extent, across a full mile or more of ground, means many cold mages have coordinated their efforts.”

“Can your fire magic not vanquish this cold fog, James? I’m surprised to hear it.”

“I can do anything! But it’s not worth risking fire mages so close to the lines. The sun will disperse it in time.”

A smile teased Camjiata’s lips, as if Drake’s sullen defensiveness amused him, but I was sure I was the only one who noticed it. “Tell Marshal Aualos to order the artillery to begin a barrage into the mist. That will soften them and perhaps hasten the mist’s dispersal as well.”

Messengers came and went, one after the next. Sometimes they had to wait while Camjiata read dispatches and wrote replies for men ahead of them. Everything took so long as soldiers trudged into position and artillery was drawn in by horses. An hour passed, then another.

The battlefront expanded into the east, masses of men hidden by distance but also because the mist continued to hang low, not burning off even as the sun rose higher.

Finally the artillery began to fire in thundering blasts of sound. Smoke rose. I heard thumps, distant cries, the screams of horses. How must it feel to stand as death fell unseen out of the sky? How I hated this waiting! I was confident that Bee remained fairly safe in Lutetia, but where was Vai? How vulnerable was he?

Canyons of light appeared as cracks in the mist. Figures appeared and vanished like dreams of ghosts. With a rumble of hooves a troop of Coalition cavalry swept out of its misty concealment. Rifle fire from the Iberian line cracked as the infantry formed into squares to face the charge, but the horses did not crash into the square; instead, as the cavalry circled, all the rifles went silent. Out of this chaos of stillness and motion, crossbow bolts and longbow arrows flew with killing precision into the Iberian ranks. In the midst of the cavalry, despite the distance between us, I recognized Vai. I knew he would go with the first wave, put himself at risk in case the attack did not work.

Yet it did work. The desperate Iberians broke ranks to charge with their bayonets. As soon as the square’s tight formation began to disintegrate, a second cavalry charge swept out of the shredding mist and smashed right into the Iberian infantry. The lines boiled into a mass of confusion.

“A new variation on an old tactic,” remarked Camjiata to his staff. They were sweating. He was not. “Effective not just because the cold magic kills our rifles and cannon but particularly because their archers are superior to ours and naturally they have many more of them. James, if you place one fire mage in each square, can that mage then throw the backlash of their fire into the cold mages who are riding with the cavalry? Wouldn’t that kill the cold mage’s magic and leave the rifles free to fire?”

Drake brushed strands of red hair out of his eyes. The touch of his calfskin gloves left a smear of soot on his brow, but I did not mention it, for I did not like the way he looked at me. “Yes, it would, and it leaves the cold mages defenseless besides, for as long as they are acting as catch-fires, they are helpless. The best part is that the more powerful the cold mage, the more fire he can absorb and thus the more fire the fire mage can call. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Yet what can we most advantageously set on fire?” Camjiata mused. “The Coalition has many more cold mages than we do fire mages. Let your people set grass fires up the hill to keep the cold mages busy putting them out. I know you have been making some experiments with lending fire to artillery and rifles whose combustion has been killed by cold magic.”

“All of this my mages can do,” said Drake, but he seemed distracted as he scanned the field with a spyglass. Several of his wife’s soldiers always stood between him and me.

The last of the mist spun away to reveal the Coalition army deployed on the higher ground, rank upon rank of infantry. Smoke rose in billows everywhere. I could just barely make out the dark line of Lutetia’s walls in the distance. Thank Tanit the city was, for now, out of artillery range.

A staff officer had left several open bottles of wine on one of the tree stumps. I took a swallow straight from the bottle as I considered whether I should abandon Camjiata. I knew the general had to win, yet I was so afraid of what the fire mages might do. But what could I possibly do to safeguard Vai now that the battle had started? The cavalry company he had ridden down with had returned to the Coalition lines, and no doubt he had gone with them. I would never find him among the thousands and thousands of soldiers struggling in noise and smoke and blood.

Rory was pacing back and forth along the length of one of the fallen pines like a caged lion at the prowl. A crow sat on a branch, watching him. I hurried over and chased it off. He offered me an uncorked bottle from which he had been drinking.

I took a swig of a harsh sack, winced, and handed the bottle back to him. “This is awful.”

Had he been in cat shape, his ears would have been flattened to his head. “This is awful! This isn’t hunting. You creatures ought to settle your arguments in a better way. Couldn’t one general challenge another for the right to stand with the pride? Who can possibly eat all that torn meat? If it were even tasty, which man-flesh is decidedly not!”

“How do you know what man-flesh tastes like?”

He stiffened, and for an instant I was sure he was going to snarl at me.

“Rory! Answer me!”

He took a step toward me, so threatening I raised my cane. Catching himself, he took a step back, but by the way his lips gapped to show a hint of teeth, I could see he was on the edge of biting or perhaps of telling me the truth. And I was suddenly very sure that I did not want to know the answer after all.

Artillery fire boomed over us. I ducked instinctively. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“There! Look!” a staff officer shouted to be heard above the deafening rattle and shot.

I ran back to the command group just in time to see yet another cavalry charge from out of the Coalition lines. Smoke rose from the guns in billows. The churn of ground between the two armies was speckled with fallen men, injured horses, and the detritus of lost weaponry. This time, as Coalition cavalry closed with the Iberians, fire broke out in the trampled grass around them. One rider in the middle ranks collapsed as if shot. A second rider toppled from his horse. As more men fell and horses tumbled, the cavalry sheared off and raced back toward their lines. A storm of bullets rained after their retreating backs.

The fire mages had gotten their range.

Yet even in the face of these devastating casualties, still another Coalition troop galloped down toward the artillery. Riders and horses fell before the barrage, but this time where fire broke out it was quenched. The artillery went dead. With shouts, the Coalition troops closed. Grass fires sparked up and died. Men fought hand to hand, swords and bayonets flashing.

A young officer wearing the white sash of the Kena’ani Sacred Band rode up on a lathered horse, pushing in front of another messenger. “General! Captain Barca sends his compliments and this message: The first outriders of the Roman column have been engaged about five miles south.”

Camjiata glanced overhead to where the sun had almost reached the zenith. “We should have broken the Coalition army before now. Drake, why have your fire mages not crushed every cold mage on the field? You assured me that fire would easily defeat ice.”

“There are so many cold mages, and they’re working in concert in a way they did not before, not even at Lemovis.”

“No doubt they can learn from experience as well as we can,” remarked Camjiata as he took a spyglass from an orderly. “Matters grow urgent. Lord Marius need only hold his ground and not retreat until the Romans arrive, and then we will be crushed between anvil and hammer. Our frontal attacks are hurting them, but not fast enough.”

He examined the sprawling field of battle in all its churning confusion, so many thousands of men that it seemed the earth crawled. “There. See how the Invictus Legion holds its ground. We have to turn their flank, for a frontal attack will not break them.”

He angled the spyglass to the north. About half a mile away a fortified estate stood amid the green crowns of an orchard. I remembered passing the house and gardens with Lord Gwyn’s skirmishers, who had told me it was called Red Mount. The compound had two walls, an outer wall that ringed the orchard and gardens and an inner wall that fortified the stone house. The flag of the Tarrant infantry, Lord Marius’s own crack troops, flew from the main house.

A column of Iberian infantry had laid siege to the estate an hour earlier. As we watched, a skirmish raged. Fire scorched across the orchard. Defenders hiding in the trees raced for the inner wall to escape the flames, but even as they were running the flames were sucked right out, killed by cold magic. Crossbow bolts rained over the wall, pummeling the Iberian infantry as it tried to advance. The struggle within the walled orchard was not visible, nor from this distance could I hear the sounds of whatever desperate melee was taking place beneath the trees.

“How can it be we have not yet taken that estate?” demanded Camjiata of his staff. His temper flashed, as dark as storm clouds. “Can you not see that it anchors the western flank of the Coalition army? No wonder Lord Marius holds the field. He need not worry about this flank, and thus can keep his center strong and take heavy losses against our superior weaponry but smaller numbers. Drake, why have the fire mages you brag of been defeated yet again by cold magic?”

Drake had his own spyglass, which he turned toward the estate.

A second fire seared across the treetops. With a shout of triumph the Iberians swarmed forward. Yet once again the fire was sucked clean out of existence as quickly as if a god had inhaled it into immortal lungs. Bolts and arrows from within the estate’s inner wall poured down on the attackers, driving them back.

“There is your answer,” said Drake. “There must be several powerful cold mages inside the walls of the estate. Some are absorbing the backlash while others are killing the fire.”

“Then take care of this problem personally, James! Else I shall have cause to wonder if all your talk is nothing more than idle boasting. Probably it is the Diarisso cold mage, the one who is evidently stronger than you.”

Drake threw the spyglass angrily to the ground and his blue eyes actually sparked, but then he controlled himself and, without another word, stalked off.

Camjiata watched him reach the horses before turning to his staff. “Captain Tira! Let the Amazons take the estate and hold it against all counterattacks until the Coalition army breaks or you are dead.”

She nodded, as calm as if he had asked for tea. “It will be as you command, General.”

I ran over to the fallen pine. Rory had passed out, dead drunk, his head pillowed on the satchel. I unslung the basket from my back and tucked it into Rory’s embrace. The thought that Vai might be caught helpless within the compound as Drake poured fire through him while the general’s forces advanced filled me with a frantic desperation. Luce was fighting, too! But Luce had made her choice, and I had to respect her decision.

I raced back to the general. “Let me go with the Amazons.”

He stared as if I had sprouted snakes for hair and turned him to stone. “You truly fear your husband is the cold mage who defends the estate. You fear Drake can kill him.”

“Drake said it himself. When they are being used as catch-fires, cold mages are helpless and vulnerable. I can help you. I can creep in unseen.”

Anger did not knit his brow, but suspicion grew like a brewing storm. “Creep in and warn them? Is that your plan? If we do not take Red Mount, we will lose the battle. If we lose the battle, we lose the war. Do you understand me, Cat?”

For the radicals of this generation not to be stamped out and imprisoned and executed, Camjiata had to win. For Vai’s village to be released from clientage now instead of decades from now, if ever, Camjiata had to win. For Bee to have a hope of living in peace, Camjiata had to win.

And if Camjiata lost, and the mage Houses and princes won, I would probably lose Vai to the mansa in the end.

“I understand what is at stake.”

The ringing thunder of the artillery boomed around us, thrumming down into the belly of the world. Smoke gusted out of the wounded earth in murky clouds.

He studied me, and what he read in my expression I did not know. But he nodded. “Very well. Let the Coalition break, and the Roman army fall, and then you can have Drake and save your cold mage likewise. But not a moment before victory is mine.” He glanced over to where Rory was huddled in the shadow of the tree. “I’ll keep an eye on him for you. Strange. Why does he hate battle so? He did not strike me as a coward.”

“He’s no coward,” I snapped. “He just has a heart, unlike you and me, General.”