“For longer than I wish to remember, Archigos. I’ve just returned to Nessantico this day.”
The Archigos’ wrinkled, desiccated hand brushed Eneas’ bowed head, fingers pressing on oiled hair. “Then let the Blessing of Cenzi welcome you back to the city. Is there a particular blessing I can offer you, O’Offizer?”
Eneas lifted his head. The Archigos’ eyes were gray-white with nascent cataracts; his head had a persistent slight tremor. But his smile seemed genuine, and Eneas found himself smiling back in return. “I’m a simple warrior,” Eneas told him. “An offizier serves the orders he’s given. I’ve taken many lives, Archigos, more than I can count, and will undoubtedly take more before my service is ended.”
“And you want Cenzi’s forgiveness for that?” the Archigos said. His smile broadened. “You were only performing your duty, and-”
“No,” Eneas interrupted, shaking his head. “I don’t regret what I’ve done, Archigos.”
The smile collapsed, uncertain. “Then what…?”
“I would like to meet the Kraljiki,” Eneas told him. “He should know what is happening in the Hellins. What is truly happening.”
“I’m sure that the Kraljiki hears from the commandant-” the Archigos began, but Cenzi was talking to Eneas, and he spoke the words he heard in his head.
“Commandant ca’Sibelli is dead by now,” he said loudly. “Ask the Kraljiki what news has come from the Hellins. He will not have heard anything at all, Archigos. There is no news from the Hellins because there is no one left there to send it. Not anymore. Ask the Kraljiki, and when he says that the fast-ships haven’t come, tell him that I can give him the report that he needs to hear. I am the only one who can. Here-” Eneas placed a calling card with his name and current address on the rail. “Please ask him when you see him next,” Eneas said. “That is the boon and blessing I request of you, Archigos. Only that. And Cenzi requests it of you as well. Listen? Can’t you hear His voice? Listen, Archigos. He is calling to you through me.”
“My son…” the Archigos began, but Eneas stopped him.
“I’m not a soldier whose mind was addled by what he’s seen, Archigos. I was saved by Cenzi to bring this message to the Kraljiki. I give you my hand on that,” he told the Archigos, and reached out. Eneas heard Cenzi’s deep bass voice boom in his head as he touched the elderly man’s wrist: “Listen to him. I command it.” And the Archigos’ eyes widened as if he’d heard the voice, too. He pulled his hand away, and the voice died.
“Ask the Kraljiki for me,” Eneas told him. “That’s all I wish. Ask him.” Eneas smiled at the Archigos and rose to his feet. The other supplicants and the teni in attendance were all staring at him. Archigos Kenne gaped, looking down at his own hand as if it were something foreign.
Eneas gave them all the sign of Cenzi and walked from the temple, his boots loud in the silence.
Niente
The forces of Tecuhtli Zolin and the Tehuantin army were arrayed a careful bow’s shot away from the thick defensive walls of Munereo.
Three days of battle had sent the Garde Civile retreating inside the walls. Tecuhtli Zolin had been both aggressive and unmerciful in his attack. Commandant ca’Sibelli had sent a parley group to the Tehuantin encampment after the first day of battle, when Zolin had routed the Garde Civile from rich, high fields south of the city. Niente had been there when the parley group had arrived flying their white flag; he had watched Zolin order his personal guards to kill them and send their severed heads back to Commandant ca’Sibelli as answer.
They had attacked the main force of the Garde Civile at dawn the next morning; by that evening, they were within sight of the Munereo walls and the harbor, with the Holdings fleet at anchor there.
Now it was dawn again, and Tecuhtli Zolin had called Niente to him. Zolin reclined on a nest of colorful pillows; the High Warriors Citlali and Mazatl were with him also. Behind him, an artisan crouched over Zolin’s freshly-shaved head; next to the artisan was a small table crowded with dragon-claw needles and pots of dye. Zolin’s scalp had been painted with the spread-winged eagle that was the insignia of the Tecuhtli; now the artisan prepared to mark the skin permanently. He took a needle, dipped it into red dye, and pressed it into Zolin’s scalp: the warrior grimaced slightly. “The nahuallis’ preparations are finished?” Zolin asked Niente as the artisan quickly dipped the needle again and pressed it into Zolin’s head, over and over. Blood beaded and trickled down; the artisan wiped it away with a cloth.
“Yes, Tecuhtli,” Niente told him. “Our spell-staffs have been renewed-for those healthy enough to do so.” He lifted his own staff, displaying the carved eagles that circled below the polished, thick knob. “We lost two hands of nahualli in the battle; another hand and one are too wounded to be of use today. All the rest are ready.” Niente nodded to the two High Warriors. “I’ve placed them as Citlali and Mazatl have asked.”
“And the black sand?”
“It’s been prepared,” Niente told him. “I supervised that myself.”
“The scrying bowl? What did it say to you?”
Niente had spent much of the night peering into the waters, which had given him only murky and clouded visions, as well as exhaustion and a face and hands that seemed to have acquired a webbing of fine wrinkles overnight. Niente had found himself confused by the quick glimpses of possible futures. But he knew what Zolin wanted to hear, and he plucked one of those fleeting visions from his mind. “I saw you inside the city, Tecuhtli, and the Holdings Commander at your feet.”
Zolin grinned broadly. “Then it’s time,” Zolin said. He rose, nearly knocking over the artisan, who scurried backward as Zolin plucked up his sword. He patted his bleeding head, smiling. “This can be finished later. The battle can’t wait.”
They went outside the tent, guards straightening to attention as they emerged. From the small hill on which the Tecuhtli’s tent stood, they could see the army spread out below them, the haze of cook fires drifting in the still morning. The walls of Munereo rose high farther down the slope, and sun dazzled on the water of the bay beyond and to their right. Zolin gestured, and a trio of battle-horns sounded, the call taken up by other horns throughout the encampment, and Niente could see the entire encampment stir, like a mound of red ants stirred with a stick. The battle lines began to coalesce; the High Warriors on their horses exhorting the troops. On the walls of Munereo, the rising sun reflected from metal helms and the tips of arrows as the Holdings troops waited for the attack.
Their own horses were brought to them, and they mounted. Citlali and Mazatl saluted Zolin and kicked their stallions into a gallop as they rode away. “You’re with me, Nahual,” Zolin said. “Now!” He, too, kicked his steed, and Niente followed the Tecuhtli’s headlong gallop down the hill to where the troops waited on the slope, nearly level with the top of Munereo’s walls, the troops moving quickly aside to let them pass, their shouts of support and adoration following.
Before his deep enchantment of the Easterner, Niente could have ridden all day with anyone. Now, the pounding of the horse’s hooves on the ground struck Niente’s body like hammer blows. It was all he could do to cling to the back of the animal with trembling knees. Zolin rode to the center of the front-line Tehuantin forces, where the eagle flag had been planted in the middle of the winding road leading down to the western gate of Munereo. There, the hand of siege dragons waited. Zolin, from his horse, patted the massive carved and painted head of one of the dragons. “The gods have promised us victory today!” he called out to those around him. He pointed downhill to the waiting city. Their warrior-marked faces were turned up to him, and they cheered. Niente had to admit that Zolin had charisma that Tecuhtli Necalli had lacked: the eagerness on the face of the warriors said that they would follow him even into the depths of one of the smoking mountains. “Tonight, we will feast where the Easterners dined, and we will take their wealth and the survivors back to our own cities, and this land will be returned to our cousins who once held it!”