The Providence of Fire

48

The armies arrived too late.

Not too late to fight the Urghul-there was fighting aplenty when the legions and the Sons of Flame finally caught the horsemen between them, streets washed in blood, men and women locked in furious battle just about everywhere Valyn looked-but too late to make a difference for Gwenna and Talal.

The vanguard of il Tornja’s army arrived a little over an hour after the two Kettral set off the starshatter, killing half of Balendin’s prisoners and maiming most of the rest. It was a horrific, gruesome spectacle, bodies and parts of bodies strewn about like meat in an untidy abattoir. Valyn had watched one man cradling his own severed leg as though it were a baby, weeping into his lap until he bled out and died. Of Gwenna and Talal there was no sign. It was possible they’d escaped, or been crushed beneath the remnants of the wall. Valyn had scanned the bloody ground for them, sweeping the long lens back and forth, staring at corpse after corpse, his heart growing heavier and heavier inside his chest.

The blast worked. That much was clear. It didn’t kill Balendin, didn’t even seem to hurt him, but it severed his connection with his well, and, as he turned in shock to stare at the rising smoke, at the mangled wreckage of his prisoners, the two bridges sagged, then collapsed into the dark water beneath, carrying dozens of riders with them.

Not that that ended the fight. If anything, the violence redoubled with the collapse of the bridges. Thousands of Urghul had forced their way onto the westernmost island before the spans went down, twice that number remained on the eastern island, and the far bank teemed with the rest of the enormous force. The trapped riders fought with a renewed savagery, understanding that their only hope of survival lay in a crushing victory, and the Annurian forces, outnumbered and exhausted from their march, reeled beneath the assault, struggling to form up in the unfamiliar terrain. It looked altogether possible that, despite the fallen bridges, despite the arrival of the imperial armies, the Urghul would still win.

Then il Tornja arrived on the roof of the signal tower.

Valyn had taken up the position initially because it offered the best sight lines over the town. From the tower, he could see both armies, consider their deployment, then choose the best angle of attack when the time came. That the kenarang might use the ’Kent-kissing thing as his command center had seemed too much to hope.

Valyn had watched, gut tight, as il Tornja rode down the muddy street, guards behind and before him. It was tempting to take the shot then. To kill the general in the midst of so much swirling chaos seemed almost trivial, and Valyn went so far as to level the wound-up flatbow and sight in on the man’s forehead. It was Laith who stopped him. Laith and Gwenna and Talal. As far as Valyn knew, all three of them were dead somewhere in the twisted wreckage, all to hold back the Urghul. Finishing the battle was il Tornja’s job, and Valyn would be shipped to ’Shael before he undercut his Wing’s sacrifice. He eased his finger off the trigger. Adare said the man was a genius, and judging from the madness below he was going to need to be.

For most of the morning, Valyn lay still, hidden on the roof of the tower just a few feet from the kenarang, listening as he wove his inscrutable web. Despite a lifetime of military training, most of the orders made no sense at all to Valyn. Il Tornja abandoned points he could have held and held points he should have abandoned. He would send a runner with one message, then, moments later, contradict it with another runner or a signal arrow. He sent directives to let cornered Urghul escape, and more than once he gave direct orders that led to the capture of his own soldiers. And he killed men, killed them by the scores and by the hundreds, sacrificing entire units to Urghul traps that he could see clearly from the rooftops, sending men into fights they couldn’t possibly win, demanding that they hold positions they couldn’t possibly hold. It was insanity, utter insanity. And it worked.

Valyn had no idea how, but as the sun labored steadily higher, the Annurians began to win. There was no single victory that could account for it, no stunning charge or heroic stand. At least, not if you ignored the circle of death that surrounded Annick and Pyrre for hour after hour until they were pressed back behind a building and Valyn lost sight of them. In fact, he was hard-pressed to make any sense at all of the individual scenes of brutality and suffering playing out below.

He could, however, see the larger pattern as it emerged. The Annurians were pushing back the Urghul. Nothing startled the kenarang, nothing shocked him. Not the collapse of an entire company of archers, not the Urghul pressing up against the tower itself, not even Adare’s unexpected arrival on the tower roof. Valyn tried to catch the man’s smell. The world was awash in mud and blood and terror, but from il Tornja-nothing. He smelled like stone. Like snow. Like emptiness.

When the kenarang finally announced that the battle was over, all Valyn could do was stare. Men still screamed and died in the streets below, buildings still burned, steel still smashed against naked steel. It looked anything but over, and yet he could hear il Tornja rising to his feet below, could hear the messengers and signalmen departing down the stairwell, the trapdoor clattering shut behind them.

So, he thought, breathing out a slow, even breath, it is time.

He put his ear to the roof, listening to the people below. Adare and il Tornja continued to talk, and he could hear the Aedolian breathing, the grating of his armor as he shifted in place. The attack would have to be quick and brutal. Unfortunately, the kenarang had moved to the other side of the floor below. Valyn considered changing position before he struck, but the roof was warped and creaky. Any movement now would give him away. Striking from his current position would mean going through the Aedolian, but Valyn could cut his way through a guardsman. He would have preferred not to kill the man, but he would have preferred a lot of things.

The time for setting up and second-guessing was over. Just a few feet below and a couple paces distant stood the man who had murdered his father, the one responsible for the slaughter of Kaden’s monks, for Amie’s murder, and Ha Lin’s. Valyn felt as though he’d been waiting forever, but the waiting was over. He took a deep breath, bared his teeth, and went.

The Aedolian managed to block the first blow, getting his armored forearm between his neck and Valyn’s knife at the last moment. The man was smart. Instead of reaching for his own sword, a reaction that would have given Valyn the space and time necessary to finish him, he pressed forward, counting on his armor to block the knife, trying to bring his weight to bear as he lunged for Valyn’s throat.

“Adare,” he shouted roughly, eyes wide, lips turned back in a snarl. “Get back! Get down.”

Someone had trained the Aedolian well. Most fighters instinctively limited their attacks, taking only the shots from which they thought they could recover safely. This man hurled himself forward with one intention only: clobbering Valyn back brutally enough to buy time for Adare to escape. It was a bold, brave attack. It was suicide. Valyn pivoted, knocking the Aedolian’s hands clear, slipping inside his guard, driving the small dagger up into the unarmored space beneath the armpit. He twisted it hard, then spun away, pulling it free.

The guard collapsed, blood drooling from his lips, eyes glazing. Valyn tossed the knife to the ground behind him, drew his double blades, and fixed his eyes on the man across the fire pit.

If the kenarang was shocked by the attack, he didn’t show it. Before Fulton’s body hit the floor, his own blade had whispered from its sheath. He held it level between them in a type of hybrid low guard Valyn didn’t recognize. Il Tornja’s eyes flitted to the dead guardsman, to the trapdoor behind him, then back to Valyn. Valyn could smell Adare’s grief and panic, could feel it deep in his lungs. From Ran il Tornja, however, there was nothing. He might have been made from the stone beneath his feet. The man looked calm, ready, which suited Valyn just fine. This was better than a bolt in the heart. He was looking forward to shattering that calm, to taking the bastard apart one finger at time.

“Valyn hui’Malkeenian,” the kenarang said. His voice was smooth as brushed velvet.

Valyn opened his mouth to respond, but Adare shoved her way forward, putting herself between them, arms stretched out as though her slender hands could hold back the blades.

“No, Valyn!” she screamed, staring at the crumpled body of the guard. “Oh sweet ’Shael, Fulton!”

“He’s dead,” Valyn said, his own voice flat, emotionless.

“No,” Adare said, stepping across the fire pit, collapsing to her knees beside the Aedolian. “No! Why?”

Valyn didn’t look down, but he could hear her scrabbling pointlessly at the man’s armor behind him, as though she could find the wound, could stanch the flow of blood.

“He might have been part of it,” Valyn said, stepping forward. “A part of the plot. The men who came for Kaden were all Aedolians.”

“He wasn’t part of anything,” she wailed. “All he did was try to keep me safe!”

“Well, he knew what he was signing up for.” Maybe the man was guilty. Maybe he was innocent. It didn’t matter. A lot of innocent people had died already.

“You’ve made a mistake, Valyn,” il Tornja said, not lowering his guard.

Valyn took a half step to the left, and the kenarang turned with him, adjusting the angle of his blade. Valyn moved right, two steps, and again il Tornja adjusted, the movements subtle but precise. So. The man could keep his cool during an attack, and he knew how to fight.

“I’ve made plenty of mistakes,” Valyn said. “But this isn’t one of them. You murdered my father. You ripped out the heart of Annur, and I’m going to rip out yours.”

“He just saved Annur!” Adare spat. “This fight, this battle, this whole fucking thing … we won because of him!”

“And now that we’ve won,” Valyn said, keeping his eyes on the kenarang, testing his responses to changes in guard, posture, “we are finished with him.”

“And what about you, Valyn?” il Tornja asked, cocking his head to the side. “Where have you been while we battled back the Urghul?” He gestured toward the fighting still raging below. “What role did you play in saving Annur?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“And while you waited,” Adare snarled from behind him, “people died. Were you huddled up there the whole time? This is about more than your own personal vendetta.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Valyn said, trying to still the sudden trembling in his hands, “about watching people die.” Memories of the night before filled his mind, of Laith fighting on the bridge, of the flier falling, spears buried in his flesh. “While you’ve been primping and playing emperor, I’ve been fighting my way across this whole fucking continent-”

“You were sent here,” Adare protested, “by Long Fist. By the bastard who just attacked the empire.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Valyn said. “I’m here. And I’m going to kill your pet general.”

“In fact,” Il Tornja said, “you may decide that it does matter. When you know the truth.”

“What truth?” Valyn snarled.

More than anything, he wanted to be finished talking, but talking gave him time to probe, to test, to study the kenarang’s responses. Il Tornja was a swordsman as well as a general, that much was already clear. If Valyn was going to kill him, to be sure of killing him, he needed to know more. Somewhere behind him, Adare was still sobbing, still trying to stanch the hole in Fulton’s flesh. Valyn blocked out her cries.

“You left the truth behind long ago,” he said, moving as he spoke, studying il Tornja’s response. “Left it when you killed my father.”

“This is bigger than your father,” the general said.

“Save your breath. Adare already fed me this line. We need you to defeat the Urghul, to defeat Long Fist…”

“And have you paused to wonder,” il Tornja asked, “just where your friend Long Fist has been during this whole bloody battle?”

“Elsewhere,” Valyn spat. “Who cares?”

“You might, if you hope to save Annur.”

“We saved it already. Right here. The Urghul are broken.”

Il Tornja smiled, a careless, easy expression. If he was nervous to be facing one of the Kettral, he didn’t show it. “It might be more accurate to say that I saved it. Put up your blade for a moment and I’ll tell you why. I’ll explain where Long Fist is.”

Valyn tested a low feint. Il Tornja stepped aside easily.

“He is in the Waist,” the general said.

“That’s impossible,” Valyn said. “Unless he has a bird, he couldn’t have made it out of the northern atrepies.”

“He has something better than a bird,” il Tornja replied slowly. “He has the kenta. I take it you’ve heard of the Csestriim gates? From your brother perhaps?”

Valyn tried not to stare, tried to keep his mind loose, ready. When the attack came, it would come fast.

“What I learned from my brother is that only the Shin can use the gates. I don’t know much about Long Fist, but he’s obviously not a monk.”

“No,” il Tornja said. “He is a god.”

“Horseshit,” Valyn spat, lunging forward, committing to the attack this time.

Il Tornja knocked it away.

“Unfortunately not.”

“A god?” Adare asked, voice high and tight.

“Meshkent, to be precise.” The kenarang raised his brows as he watched Valyn.

“Sweet Intarra’s light,” Adare breathed.

Valyn shook his head, fury at his sister’s stupidity flaring up inside him. “He’s lying, Adare. Meshkent…” For a moment words failed him. “What the fuck would Meshkent be doing here, taking part in some border dispute?”

“He hates you,” il Tornja said simply. “Your empire. Our empire. Before Annur, there were a hundred tribes, a thousand spread across Vash and Eridroa making daily offerings of violence and pain to their bloody god. Your ancestors banished the practice.”

“No,” Valyn said, clenching his teeth. “No. I’m through with this, with hearing your excuses. You killed my father.”

Il Tornja nodded, but raised a conciliatory hand. “Let me explain.”

“Explain?” Valyn spat, almost choking on the word. “Explain? So you can poison my mind the way you did my sister’s? So you can turn me into your fawning little puppy? So you can explain to me how my father needed to die for the greater good of Annur? So you can tell me tales about some ’Kent-kissing god you claim to be fighting? Fuck you, and fuck your explanation!”

He struck just before the last word, lashing out with both blades in a double vane. It was just another test, another probe, but il Tornja turned it aside easily.

“You can’t win, Valyn.”

Valyn laughed at that, a sick, dead sound, even in his own ears. “Really?” He jerked his head behind him, where Adare still crouched over the corpse of the Aedolian. “That poor shit was one of your best. He was in full armor, and I killed him with a belt knife. You know how to handle your blade, but I’m Kettral.”

“Valyn,” Adare pleaded. “We need him. You don’t know everything. I didn’t tell you everything!”

“You can tell me when he’s dead.”

He struck again, open fan sliding into horns twisting through the milling stone, one form becoming the next, his body more certain than his mind. Again, il Tornja blocked the attack, his one blade matching Valyn’s two, and again Valyn stepped back. The man was better than good, in truth, as good as the best bladesmen back on the Islands. Valyn hadn’t expected that, but it hardly mattered. He felt strong, ready, his slarn-tainted blood hot in his veins.

“I’ll find an opening,” he said. “Sooner or later.”

“You can’t, Valyn,” Adare insisted, just at his ear now.

“Watch me,” he said grimly.

Il Tornja’s eyes darted to the left, to Adare, but before Valyn could turn, the knife plunged into his side, hot and freezing all at the same time, stealing the words.

For a moment he just stared, unable to make sense of the feeling. How … he thought, staring at il Tornja, trying not to lose his hold of his own blades, trying to keep his feet as his whole body began to crumple.

Adare, he realized as she wrenched herself away sobbing, taking what felt like half of his guts with her.

“You can’t kill him, Valyn,” she screamed. “I need him.”

She went on shouting, Valyn’s own belt knife still clutched in her hand, her knuckles white where they weren’t sticky with his blood. She was screaming and screaming, something about murder and loyalty and the empire, her face twisted with grief and fury both.

Doesn’t make sense. The thought drifted through his mind. I wanted to save her.

Before he could follow the idea, it broke apart like cloud on a windy day.

Shock. He was going into shock.

He tried to focus on the pain, to understand it. It gave him something to concentrate on, which helped to keep him from drifting into unconsciousness. Below the lung, a part of him thought. Below the lung, or I’d be gurgling at each breath. He dropped a sword and pressed the fingers of his free hand into the wound, almost fainting as pain lanced his side. She got past the muscle, though. Probably in the liver. Soldiers sometimes survived stab wounds to the liver. Not often. Legs like water beneath him, he staggered back almost to the lip of the tower.

“It’s over, Valyn,” il Tornja said, shaking his head. “Drop the other sword, and we’ll patch you up.”

Valyn shook his head weakly, clutching desperately to his remaining blade.

“No,” he murmured. “It’s not over.”

“You can’t fight, Valyn,” Adare said, stretching out a bloody hand toward him, her eyes red, cheeks wet with tears. “Just put down the sword.”

“You can’t win,” il Tornja said.

“I don’t have to,” Valyn replied.

The kenarang hesitated, then shook his head. “Meaning what?”

“Kaden,” Valyn breathed.

Il Tornja nodded slowly. “Where is he? Is he determined to see me dead, the way you are?”

Valyn shook his head weakly, a smile stretching his lips. “Kaden is nothing like me,” he said. “He isn’t angry. He isn’t rash. He is level as the sea before a storm.” His legs trembled beneath him. “Kaden will not trust anyone. He will not make mistakes. He will wait as long as it takes and then, someday, when you are tired or relaxed, when you forget to bolt the door, when you’re out riding, or signing papers, he will come for you. He’s not like me. He will not fail.”

The kenarang’s lips tightened.

“Valyn,” Adare said. “You don’t understand. It’s not too late.” She took a step forward.

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

He had one more play left, one final thrust before he collapsed. With a roar, he hurled himself forward, hacking up and across. It was a desperate attack, and il Tornja treated it that way, knocking Valyn’s blade aside, then flicking out with his own sword, a casual, almost contemptuous motion. Valyn jerked his head back, but too late, too late.

The blackness came before the burn, a darkness as absolute as anything in the pit of Hull’s Hole. Then the fire, a searing line slashed across his face. His eyes, he realized dimly. The kenarang had slashed his eyes, blinding him.

Valyn stumbled, half fell, then pushed ahead with what meager strength remained, a single step into the darkness, then another, on and on until there was no more stone beneath his feet, until he was dropping helplessly, hopelessly toward the cold, dark water slapping at the rocks below.