These were the ways they would die the next day while Valyn and the others slipped silently away, making for the river while there was still time.
51
Adare had just risen to descend from the Unhewn Throne when the soldiers marched into the Hall of a Thousand Trees. There were dozens of them, then scores, then hundreds, so many that they forced back the assembled bureaucrats and courtiers, herding them into the empty space beside the throne through the sheer weight and volume of their presence. Their uniforms were clean but threadbare, ripped and restitched a dozen times over, their armor dented from blows no amount of polish could ever scrub away. Most carried spears; every twentieth man held the insignia of the Annurian legions on a long staff.
None of the men brandished their weapons. They entered in silence, assembled in neat ranks, and then just stood there, spear butts planted on the stone floor, all eyes fixed rigidly forward. There was no shouting. There were no threats. There was no violence or spilled blood. The whole display was so orderly that they might have come at Adare’s own command. There was just one problem: she had issued no such command.
The last Adare had heard, the Army of the North was still in Aergad. That was the report from Ulli and Jia Chem. According to the messengers, the legions were supposed to be holed up in the old stone city, holding a ruined bridge while the Urghul rode south unopposed. To find them here, now, in Annur itself, should have been as much a relief as it was a shock. More than anything, Adare needed bodies for the walls, experienced soldiers rather than Kegellen’s loose knots of killers and thieves. An army of trained legions, veterans blooded in the furious northern battles, men who understood the Urghul and how to fight them-it was something close to the miracle for which she had prayed each night. And yet, when she stared out over those rigidly assembled ranks, she felt her heart go cold.
This is wrong, a small voice whispered. Dangerous.
She half reached up to pat the lacquered wooden pins holding up her hair-gifts from Kegellen-then forced her hand back down. The hairpins were poisoned, but Adare wasn’t about to kill an entire Annurian legion with a pair of hairpins. Slowly, warily, she settled back into her seat atop the throne.
She’d been sitting atop the ’Kent-kissing thing all morning, trying to hold together the fundamental governance of the city while other people-Lehav, Nira, and Kegellen, mostly-made final preparations for the coming battle. It was amazing how even in the face of invasion the most basic functions of Annur still needed tending. There was trash to clear out and grain to distribute, docking disputes to resolve, and foreign emissaries to placate. Most of it was handled by an army of ministers, bureaucrats, and scribes, of course, but all of those men-and they were mostly men-turned to Adare to solve the difficult questions, and so, as the city readied for war, she had spent half the morning adjudicating idiotic disputes. It didn’t feel heroic. It didn’t even feel useful, but any one of the small crises, untended, could erupt into its own conflagration, and they already had plenty of conflagrations.
And this unexpected army, Adare wondered, studying the troops below. Is it water to stop the burning, or another fire?
At the base of the throne, the crowded ministers shifted nervously, then began to whisper. The fact that the legions had entered the palace unannounced, with no forewarning, suggested that they had marched straight into, then through the city. The fact that they had entered the palace at all meant that the guards on the gates had been sufficiently impressed or cowed to allow their passage. Meant that someone had cowed them.
“Who commands here?” Adare asked, heart thundering against her ribs. She ran her eyes along the line of soldiers, searching for the kenarang, for il Tornja, for the man who had taken her son. It was the only answer: he hadn’t disappeared, he had been leading his legions south, sneaking past the Urghul, arriving in Annur just in time to reinforce the walls. “Where is il Tornja?” she demanded.
Instead of il Tornja, however, another soldier stepped forward. “The kenarang is fighting on another front, Your Radiance,” he said. “The command is mine. I am General Van.” He saluted. Saluted, but did not kneel.
Adare narrowed her eyes, studying this unknown commander. He was middle-aged and weather worn, tall, taller than her, though he seemed to slouch strangely to one side. His leg, she realized after a moment. Instead of a boot, instead of a foot, his right leg ended in a bright steel point. Whether he lost the foot in the northern campaign or much earlier, she had no way to tell. It seemed impossible he should have marched all the way from Aergad on that steel spike, but then, it seemed impossible that any of them could have made the trek on foot faster than the mounted Urghul.
“Where did you come from, General?” Adare asked carefully. “We were led to believe that the Army of the North had taken up the defense of Aergad.”
He shook his head. “A ruse, Your Radiance. We were moving south almost as soon as we had crossed the Haag.”
“Still, to cover so much ground so quickly…” She shook her head. “The legionary messengers arrived only days ago, and they were on horseback nearly the whole time.”
“Horses need rest, Your Radiance. Ships do not. For months, the kenarang has been assembling a fleet near the headwaters of the Haag, as far north as the river remains navigable. We took those ships directly to the west coast of the Neck. From there, it is a short march overland.”
Adare only half listened to the end of the account. Like fabric snagged on a nail, her mind was caught on those two words: for months. They meant that il Tornja had been assembling his fleet even when Adare herself was still in Aergad, assembling it without telling her, planning, once again, for contingencies she could neither understand nor foresee. Had he known, back at the winter’s end, that he would need these soldiers in Annur two seasons later? When he looked at the madness of all the vast world, what pattern did he see?
“You say the kenarang is fighting on another front,” Adare said. “Where?”
Van shook his head. “I don’t know, Your Radiance, nor do I need to know. My own orders were clear.”
Once again, Adare considered the assembled soldiers. Not a man had moved. If they were so much as breathing, she couldn’t hear it. The whole thing could have been no more than a measure of martial respect, and yet, they could have paid their respects outside the Hall of a Thousand Trees. There was no need for them to have entered the throne room itself.
“And those orders,” Adare asked slowly, “were what, exactly.”
“To return to Annur,” Van replied. “To fortify the walls…”
A breath of relief swept through the ministers and bureaucrats at the throne’s foot. A few started cheering. For the first time in days, it seemed possible that they might all actually survive the coming month. Adare, however, kept her eyes fixed on the general. He had fallen silent in the face of the commotion, but she could see in his hard eyes that there was more.
“And?” she asked, when her own ministers had finally fallen silent.
“And to secure the Dawn Palace and the Spear.”
It seemed so innocuous, an obvious part of the overall defense. And yet, the Dawn Palace had its own guards. Guards that Adare herself had reinforced with the Sons of Flame.
“I’m grateful for your arrival, General,” Adare replied carefully. “By all accounts, the Urghul are not far off, and your presence here may well save this city.” She shook her head. “But there is no need for legions in the Dawn Palace. They would be better deployed on the outer wall.”