“Do you think he meant this to happen?” he asked Basrahip one night after they’d finished a meal of chicken and rice. Peasant food, but more than the soldiers had.
“I do not know, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said. “And he is beyond all asking now.”
The leather walls of the tent popped and boomed in the wind. Outside, there were no trees, but a forest of stumps. Everything had been harvested for the fires of the army months before. The farms stripped, the animals slaughtered, and the countryside left bare. Even the low brown grass of winter seemed dead beyond reclaiming. It looked to Geder like the empty plates left after a feast. A world that had been eaten. He couldn’t imagine how it would be coaxed to bloom again in spring. The burned farmhouses would sow no seeds, the unturned fields wouldn’t raise up grain or fruit. If there had been cattle or sheep, they were dead now, or else spirited underneath the mountain at Kiaria. The war had left wounds on the body of the land that would take years to heal, and even then there would be scars. Geder found himself wanting badly to be away.
Basrahip sucked thoughtfully on the bones of the birds, stripping the last slivers of flesh from them. His plate was a pile of pink sticks in a jumble.
“I was thinking,” Geder said. “It might be wiser to go on ahead. We’re almost to Suddapal. If we took a dozen of the strongest men and rode fast, we’d be on the outskirts of the city in two days at most.”
“If you would like,” Basrahip said.
“But do you think it would be safe?”
Basrahip turned his calm gaze on Geder and smiled.
“It will not matter if we fall now. Even if we do, others will come and carry her banner. The will of the goddess is alive in the world. You are her chosen and I am her basrahip. And even we are—” He paused, looking around him. He picked up a thin, rubbery bone. “Even we are as this before her.”
“Yes,” Geder said. “I don’t actually find that as reassuring as you might expect.”
Basrahip laughed as if Geder had made a joke.
That night, Geder sat up, unable to sleep. The only sounds were the wind and the moaning of his suffering men. He’d read reports of winter campaigns, and they had all sounded unpleasant, frankly miserable, but they hadn’t prepared him for this. Sitting at his camp desk with a small lantern, he watched his breath ghosting. He didn’t like to think of it, but perhaps Ternigan’s treachery was only partly to blame. Almost all the men of fighting age had spent most of a year in Asterilhold before they went to Sarakal, and now Elassae. Even with the will and power of the goddess working for them, there were limits to how much work a body could do. It was clear now that Ternigan, whether through incompetence or malice, had done the army terrible damage. There was a part of Geder that wanted to send them all home, to let them rest. Only that would leave the heart of the Timzinae conspiracy still safely in their stronghold.
But perhaps there would be a way to send some home, at least. If they reduced the number of men in the field to only enough to keep the forces trapped in the stronghold from escaping rather than trying to assault the inner doors again, for instance. And there were more priests now, so that if the Timzinae decided at some point to accept parley—
When he heard the first shout, he thought it was only some guardsman, drunk and overly merry. Then another came. And another. The night was alive with voices. He rose from his desk, his heart fluttering in his chest. The unmistakable sounds of weapons came through his tent walls. He grabbed his sword and ran out more from fear than courage.
Outside the tent, the camp was in chaos. To his left, down a gentle slope, the tents of his army were being knocked askew. He saw his own men flailing desperately at the dark bodies of Timzinae. To his right, a half dozen enemy soldiers were by the makeshift corral. The gate was knocked down, and they were whipping the beasts out into the night. His personal guard were all around his tent in a circle, their blades at the ready.
“What are you doing?” Geder shouted at them. “We’re being attacked! Go help them!”
Someone screamed from the encampment, but Geder couldn’t tell who or where. The pounding hooves of the escaping horses was growing louder. His guard didn’t move.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Geder screamed. “Don’t just stand there! We’re being attacked.”
The riders came out of the darkness. Three men on horseback, barreling into the rough formation of his guard, swinging soot-black blades. Geder lifted his blade and danced away.
“That’s him,” one of the riders shouted. “The fat one. That’s Palliako.”
“To me!” Geder shrieked. “Assassins! To me!”
His guardsmen outnumbered the riders four to one, but the mounted men had the advantage of height and power. Geder kept backing away into the barren lands. There was nothing to use for cover, no stand of trees or deep-cut ditch to hide in. His lungs burned with fear and cold. He could see a group of his sword-and-bows running toward him, and he tried to get to them and the safety of their weapons, but it was too far. He heard the pounding hoofbeats coming. He turned, lifting his blade with a cry of despair. The great black beast sped toward him, the rider standing high in his stirrups, a sword in his upraised hand that seemed to blot out the stars.
The impact came from the side and sent Geder tumbling out of the path of the charge. In the moonlight, the brown robe looked like a paler shade of night. The priest stood before the attacker with no time to so much as dodge.
“Basrahip!” Geder screamed, realizing as he did that it wasn’t the high priest, but one of the new initiates. The blade came down, taking the new priest in the jaw and spinning his body as he fell. Blood spattered horse and rider, and the swordsman leaped from his saddle toward Geder. The moonlight shone on tight bronze scales.
A Jasuru. Geder felt a stab of confusion and outrage. Why would a Jasuru want to hurt him? He’d only made war on Timzinae. He fumbled for his sword.
The Jasuru stopped and clutched at his eye. Behind them, the horse he had been riding began to scream and kick. Geder’s sword-and-bows arrived at last, pressing themselves between Geder and his attacker, but the Jasuru had dropped his sword and started clawing at his eyes. He couldn’t be certain, but Geder thought there was blood on the man’s fingers. The black horse screamed again, bucked, and ran madly away into the night.
“Stand away,” Basrahip said. “Do not approach. The hand of the goddess is upon him now.”
“Fuck,” one of the soldiers at Geder’s side said. “Can she do that?”
The Jasuru fell to his knees and began to scream low in his throat. He thrashed, clawing at his arms and neck. Geder looked around. His personal guard had pulled one of the other riders from the saddle and were savaging him. The other seemed to have fled. Basrahip stood at Geder’s side, the one remaining initiate behind him. The Jasuru screamed again. Basrahip raised his hands and walked toward the screaming man.
“You feel the hand of the goddess, sinner,” Basrahip said. “Your days of lies are ended. Say now, who sent you?”
“Get them off of me!” the Jasuru howled. “Please God, get them out of me!”
“You have no hope but me,” Basrahip said. “Listen to my voice. You have no hope but me. Who sent you?”