Wrath of Empire

Chapter 62

Styke found Colonel Willen late the next morning as he rode through the gate of the curtain wall surrounding New Starlight. The camp appeared in much the same order as the night before, with everyone relaxed and playing games to pass the time, but Styke thought he could sense a tension among the men that hadn’t been there before.

“Styke,” Willen greeted him, riding up and falling in beside Amrec.

“Willen,” Styke returned with a nod.

“Where is your Palo man?”

“Jackal? He’s with my scouts.”

“Good, good. My sister sent some of her best out last night, and more this morning. General Dvory assures us that the Dynize have abandoned the area, but I think having some of us out there will put the men at ease.” Willen seemed anything but at ease. His jacket was unbuttoned at the collar and he looked like he hadn’t slept well, with hair mussed.

“Has Dvory emerged?” Styke asked, nodding to the citadel.

“He has not.” Willen grimaced and shifted in the saddle as he spoke. “Just messages. It seems that Lady Chancellor Lindet’s orders have left the general staff in some confusion. They will remain in deliberation until they have come to a consensus as to what to do next.”

Styke considered Dvory’s assurances, as well as the lack of communication. He did not trust the bastard before, and he certainly didn’t trust him now – but what could he be playing at? There was a whole field army here, holding a powerful fortress on the tip of the Hammer. He had put the army – who clearly were still loyal Fatrastans – in an excellent defensive position. If Dvory planned betrayal, what could he gain out here?

“So I can’t talk with him yet?”

“You can’t,” Willen replied apologetically. “I’m sure that we’ll have some sort of decision by the end of the night. Dvory is a persuasive man – the brigadiers will be lined up behind him before too long.”

Styke nearly voiced his suspicions that Dvory was planning some kind of treachery, but decided to bite his tongue. Willen was an army man, and Styke doubted that he’d take well to an officer being slandered without evidence. But what evidence was there? Willen seemed nervous about the lack of communication, but he wasn’t falling apart. “Did you ever find out if the Dynize spiked the cannon when they left?”

“Oh, I did at that. The cannon were not spiked. I’ll confess, that has given me some confusion. It’s the first thing we would do if we abandoned a fort to the enemy.”

“Yeah,” Styke muttered. “Me too.” Louder, he said, “Are you familiar with this place at all?”

“Some. I was stationed here for a few months just after the war. My sister pulled some strings to get me transferred to Little Starland.”

“I don’t suppose you know of any way into the citadel?”

Willen tapped the side of his chin. “I don’t. But …” He laughed to himself. “Actually, I do. There are a few sea gates out on the breakers. You can only reach them during low tide. The garrison uses them to clean detritus off the breakers and access the lighthouse out past the bay.”

“Tunnels?”

“Dark, dangerous, and very wet.”

“Can they be reached without a long swim?”

Willen considered this. “Might be. The north sea gate comes out on the mainland, but it’s right into the rocks. Even at low tide, those breakers get hit hard enough to wash a man out to sea.”

A bell rang high up in the citadel, turning Styke’s head. He searched for the source of the sound, only to find it hidden from him by one of the towers. He breathed in deeply, the scent of the sea filling his nostrils. “Is there a storm coming in?”

“Might be,” Willen replied.

“I’m going to check. Thank you for your help.”

Styke snapped the reins gently, allowing Amrec to carry him away from Willen and toward the northern shore of the Hammer. He kept his eyes on the walls of the citadel as he approached, searching in vain for any sign of life.

The bell, he realized, had awakened something in him. He couldn’t determine what, but there was a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his recent uneasiness. No, he felt a certainty – the certainty of a storm on the horizon or the violence of a battle – and with this certainty was a sense that he must act quickly. He forced the feeling down and proceeded to where the citadel met the earth and plummeted down into the ocean. Tying Amrec to a bush, he searched the underbrush until he found a narrow groundskeeper’s trail that led down along the rocky cliff and then skirted the edge of the citadel all the way to the ocean. Fetching his carbine and knife, he headed down the trail.

It was a difficult walk, but by no means impossible. He passed a narrow bridge leading out to a low gun platform, sitting exposed and empty with three twelve-pound cannons protecting the harbor. He continued on and soon found his boots crunching along the gravelly shoreline. There was a narrow beach here, protected by the breakers, the sound of the ocean crashing against them drowning out anything else he might hear. He followed the beach along the foundation stones of the citadel and around one of the towers, then climbed up and over a boulder until he had a plain view of the docks beneath New Starlight.

The docks were not expansive – large enough, perhaps, for a handful of oceangoing vessels. They were tucked into a beach much like the one Styke had just crossed, protected from the open ocean by a stretch of man-made breakers. On one end of the beach a path led up into the citadel.

Styke looked for a way to reach the docks. A small boat might do it, if he could find one. Willen had been right about the ocean, though, and it was clear that even a strong swimmer would get dashed against the breakers at the base of the citadel. He eyed those breakers, following them along the course of the steep shoreline until he spotted a grate about fifty yards from his current vantage point.

The sea gate that Willen had told him about.

Styke was about to climb down to the breakers when something caught his eye. There was a ship coming in quickly, sailing in from the west. Styke squinted into the wind and was shocked to see that it flew the sunflower yellow of the Fatrastan flag. Settling back onto the boulder, he watched it come closer.

It was only when the ship was almost to the docks that he spotted more on the horizon. Ten, twenty. Maybe even more. There were frigates, transports, and ships of the line, all of Kressian design. He leaned forward, enthralled, wishing he had his looking glass with him. He had thought that the Dynize owned this coast, and as the lead ship came up to dock and dropped anchor, he tried to figure out how a fleet this size could materialize on the other side of the continent from Landfall.

There was a scrape of metal on stone, and Styke looked around sharply, searching for the source of the sound. He thought he heard voices on the wind, but when he could not find them, he turned his attention back to the ship coming in to dock. The minutes slowly ticked by and the wind picked up, the sky growing darker despite sundown being several hours away. Men scrambled through the rigging of the ship, rolling the sails, and a plank was rolled out.

Styke was just about to turn around and leave when he saw a familiar figure appear on deck.

Lindet.

“Oi!” he shouted, waving both arms. There was no response, and no one on the ship seemed to notice, his voice buried by the sound of the waves on the breakers. He looked once more for a way to the docks and didn’t find one. Irritated, he hurried down from his boulder and across the hidden beach to the groundskeeper’s path.

Lindet was here. No wonder Dvory and the Third had been in a hurry. This was some kind of damned rendezvous. All those ships out there – that was probably all that was left of the Fatrastan fleet. They’d picked up Lindet from the coast off Redstone and brought her down here to meet with the Third, where she could take command and sweep the Hammer clear of Dynize, just as Willen had said.

Styke almost laughed at himself for being such a fool. Dvory’s secrecy was damned well explained away by this: Lindet didn’t want anyone to know that she was taking the fight to the Dynize personally until she was on hand. He tried to figure out how this changed his own plans. The moment she discovered his presence, she would attempt to commandeer the Mad Lancers. If she found out about Ka-poel, that would … well, Styke wasn’t going to let her find out about Ka-poel.

He was about halfway up the path when he passed the narrow bridge leading to the gun platform, and froze in place at the sight of some fifteen men – having appeared from seemingly thin air – working over the guns. They cleaned the barrels, brought ammunition up from a cache in the floor, and pointed to the distant ships. It wasn’t the men themselves that startled him so much as their appearance.

Every one of them wore a turquoise uniform, a morion-style helmet, and a smooth breastplate. They had red hair and ashen freckles.

Styke changed directions in midstep and hurled himself across the bridge. He was among them before they even saw him, his knife flashing, and within the minute, he was coated in their blood and gore. Heart hammering, Styke looked toward the beach, only for his view to be obstructed by the corner of the citadel.

Goddamn Dvory was a traitor. This was Lindet’s rendezvous, and Dvory had turned it into a death trap.

Somewhere far above him, there was a flash in one of the citadel towers and then the report of a coastal gun. More followed quickly, and Styke was suddenly all too aware that the Third Army was now sitting at the base of an enemy citadel, whose guns were being manned by Dynize. He wiped the blood from his face and began to run.