“I know what eight hours means,” Giselle said, weeping inside.
“Couple hours ago they fed him worms. Odine,” Long Paw said. “Way I see it, we have to find him and put him down before the Odine can read his memories.” He never took his eyes off her. “Sorry, lady. But that’s how I see it and I’ll need all the light horse to do it. And I’d want the same if it was me.”
“Yes,” she said tersely. Her gut writhed as if the worms had her. “As would I,” she said softly.
He saluted. “On me!” he roared.
Men began to fall in, cantering up over the fields. “You—” Long Paw began.
“I’m coming,” she said. She raised a hand to forestall him. “I’m the Duchess of Venike. I know what torture is. This is my command. Let’s get this done.”
Long Paw and Favour bowed in their saddles.
Alfred Gowp raised the little-used green banner. The horns sounded, and all across the south bank, men in green and brown raised their heads and then went for the flag.
The little headquarters group grew, and burgeoned. Word spread.
They were the men and women who went out and sometimes got caught. They knew what Kronmir faced. Men crossed themselves, or spat.
Loosened their weapons.
Petite Moulin licked a long dagger. “Let’s fuck them up,” she said in her Galle-accented Alban.
They rode in no particular order, and they killed every fugitive they passed, deviating only to overrun farmhouses. Their methods were ungentle, and a line of burning barns and small holdings marked their progress.
“The body you have provided is not acceptable,” the monster said.
The priest stood as far away from the prisoner and his possessor as he could.
“I require access to his memories,” the priest said.
“The body you have provided is ruined. Why are you so foolish? I need a better body than this. This one is broken and cannot even walk, much less fight or procreate.” The voice was mellifluous, like a choir, as if different men sang a harmony out of Jules Kronmir’s former throat.
“His memories …”
“Are very difficult to find. Because he has been abused. You make me bathe in filth for a meal not worth eating. Truly, mortal, you tempt me to …” The voice slowed. “There are horses coming in great numbers.”
The priest raised his cross between himself and the thing on the table. “If I promise you a better body later …” he began. Then he got a hold of his loathing and began the spell, the exorcism, or so he hoped, that would allow him to make a safe bargain with the possessor. The Patriarch promised them that these methods were sanctioned, but lately the priest had begun to have doubts.
The possessor’s voice cut across his prayer like a song in a crowded tavern. “Your promises are all lies, mortal. Tell your fiery master that if the will is treated like this again, it will focus on him. Tell him that.”
A door opened above them in the house, and there was shouting in a language that the priest didn’t know. He turned, motioning to the two men-at-arms who attended him, and they drew their swords.
The door to the underhall opened, and a tall blond woman came through. She had a crossbow, and she shot one of his men-at-arms from so close that the bolt went through his front plate, his back plate, and into the doorjamb behind him.
Behind her, a man in green emerged even as the woman produced a sword. She made the man-at-arms parry, a strong cut, and the second green-clad man shot him under her arm. Carefully. In the abdomen.
Another man, older, pushed past the dying men-at-arms even as Carlos ran at him with a heavy sword. The older man drew across his body, passing back; his arming sword seemed to flicker in the air, and Carlos fell to his knees, both of his hands severed.
The woman continued walking down the hall. She looked at the thing on the table once.
The priest fumbled for his sword.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“A fury,” she said.
Favour put a hand on her shoulder. “We need to … kill him. Kronmir. I’m sorry, lady. But he knows … everything. If the worms get it …”
Giselle seemed to surface through the thoughts on her face. The priest was still very much alive. “Yes,” she said thickly.
“Axe, Wha’hae,” Favour said.
Long Paw was standing over the man he’d behanded.
“Wait,” Giselle said. “I must try something.” She still had the priest at sword’s point.
“Somewhat that’s worth the fate of the fuckin’ world?” Favour asked.
She looked at him.
“Try it. I need an axe anyway.” They all knew how hard it was to “kill” the not-dead. And what lay inside them.
She let go her long sword with her left hand and wrapped an arm around the priest like a lover forcing a kiss, and then jacked him by his shoulder joint, hard. She dislocated his shoulder, at least. Then she took the middle of her blade in her left hand so that it forced his bent head farther down, locking his head against her steel.
He screamed.
“This is so fitting,” she said quietly. “Though I have no idea if it will work.”
She forced the priest, step by step, across the floor to where the broken shards of Kronmir lay in a terrible caricature of crucifixion on the torture table. “You were talking to this creature?” she asked the priest.
“I was ordered. Oh, by the Blessed Virgin, I was only—”
“So they talk,” Giselle said. “To you.”
“Please please please please … It is angry, it doesn’t want that body …”
“This body is ruined,” Kronmir said in the flat voice of the not-dead.
Giselle knew exactly what was speaking. She could feel it in her head, and see it in his eyes. His right eye; the left still showed the wound where … it … had entered.
She shifted her weight slightly. “Why don’t I give you this one instead?” she said.
“That is acceptable,” Kronmir said.
Then she forced herself to do it. She fought her terror of the Odine, and her revulsion at what Kronmir had been made. She forced the priest’s face down and down against the priest’s incredible, desperate strength with the inexorable arm lock and the keen edge of her sword. Down and down, inch by inch, until the priest’s face almost touched Kronmir’s like a pair of lovers. And the worms slithered out of Kronmir’s eye. She fought her revulsion while the worms emerged in bloody sinuous horror and took the screaming priest. His struggles stopped slowly.
Wha’hae, entering with an axe, turned away in revulsion.
“Acceptable,” said the priest, who suddenly stopped screaming. The voice was flat. “Much better. Only the shoulder is damaged. I will begin repairs.”
Giselle swept his legs before he could effect full control, and with two blows of her pommel broke his knees.
The not-dead did not cry out. But its arms lashed at her, and she kicked one, stepped past.
“This is not useful,” the voice said. “We are in pain. Stop this.”
“Take it,” she said. “Put it in a net, and take it to Sauce.”
“This is inefficient,” protested the priest’s body.
“Aye, lady,” said a very impressed Daniel Favour. “And Kronmir?”
“Leave me,” she said. It was kind enough, for an inhuman voice, and Favour wanted out of that room; he was a tough man, but this was too much for him.
“I’ll guard her,” Long Paw said. He nodded. The torturer was bleeding out on the floor.
Wha’hae broke the rest of the thing’s limbs with the haft of the axe. Then they bundled it into a hunting net. “About six hours before the worms have enough strength to attack a horse,” Hobb said to two other men, but they were all careful anyway, and as soon as they found a dozen of Conte Simone’s knights, with armour and visors, they handed the thing over with deep gratitude. Everyone feared the Odine. Like the plague.
But in the underhall, Giselle sat by the broken remna
nt of her friend. She talked to him for a while, and he didn’t respond. She never remembered what she said. Perhaps she spoke of her helpless passion for the empress, or about her first kitten, or her life in the woods. But at some point his right eye moved, and one of his hands spasmed.
Outside, on the road, the Patriarch’s fugitives were mostly allowed to run, but some were slaughtered, and she cared not. She sang some songs.
She hated herself, because she was so revolted by what had been done to him that she couldn’t touch him. But she was brave, and she overcame it. She took his hand. The one with three fingers cut away. The one that seemed to twitch.
She held it as she would have held a woman’s, and she was silent a moment.
His right eye fluttered open. Blinked. And a little life came into it.
“You,” he croaked, his voice as ruined as his body. The remains of Jules Kronmir took a deep breath and released it. “Dream. Bad dream.”
She couldn’t think what to say, except to pray to God for mercy.
“Report,” Kronmir said.
Something like a shock went through her. She kissed his hands.
“Will,” he said. “Not … Will.”
She shook her head.
He made a face, whimpered, and a little blood came out of his mouth. His good eye closed. Behind her, a door opened and closed, and she didn’t turn.
“Necromancer,” Kronmir said with enormous effort, pronouncing every syllable. “Necro … man … cer … is … rebel .…”
She listened.
“Odine. Will is …”
Father Davide, the company padre, was kneeling by her. His lips moved, and she could hear his words as he sang, In nomine Patris …
Kronmir’s attention went briefly to the cross in front of his face. “Damned,” he said clearly.
“N-n-no m-man is d-damned except …” Father Davide concentrated. “B-b-by his own will,” he said softly. “Evil is a choice.”
Kronmir’s lips twitched, and he made a horrible sound. Then his right eye snapped open. It met Giselle’s.
“Love you,” he said. Then he gave a shudder, and he screamed. Giselle pushed the priest away and leaned down to Kronmir.
“Will not Necromancer,” he said clearly.
“You did not tell the Necromancer?” she asked.
“I think he is saying that the will is not the Necromancer,” Father Davide said without a stutter.
Kronmir’s one eye looked at the priest and blinked.
“I know,” Kronmir said. “Ahh,” he said. He seemed to smile.
Even as Father Davide held the cross in front of his eyes, Giselle lost her ability to leave Kronmir to suffer. She leaned down and kissed his lips, and then she passed her knife across his throat, and then she wept.
And Father Davide sat with her, his arm around her shoulders, as if they were old friends. Or perhaps for a moment, they were.
“Duchess is in a state,” Favour reported.
“Don’t blame her. No one trouble her.” Sauce shrugged at the loss of Kronmir, and a little at the strange intersections of men and women. “The Patriarch?”
“We missed him,” Favour said. He shrugged. “Sorry. We all went for Kronmir.”
“Right answer,” Sauce said. She was in her harness, and she hadn’t struck a blow, and thousands of men were dead. It all felt a little odd.
She’d won, though. A great victory; a master-stroke, even though it wasn’t her original plan. Conte Simone had done the right thing, emerging from concealment to cover the marines. Corner had done the right thing; Milus had done the right thing. Petrarcha and Tancreda had held the enemy sorcery.
Did that make it their victory? Or hers?
Prepared as she was for men to claim all the credit, that hadn’t happened, and her people all glowed when they saluted her, so she assumed she’d done well.
“Pity we missed him,” she said. “Will his army rally?”
“His army is dead,” Favour said. The man was virtually brown with the blood of others. The light horse had been savage.
Ser Milus nodded agreement and handed her a cup of red wine. “Some o’ the boys liked Kronmir,” he said. “Lot of dead after they knew what’d been done.” He shrugged at the inferred atrocity. “Cap’n ain’t around to hold anyone’s hand …”
Sauce was distantly aware that Gabriel might have acted to prevent a massacre, but Sauce was made differently and was fully aware that the Patriarch’s army, massacred, was a problem solved for the next few months at least.
Sauce shrugged. “I’d like the Patriarch’s head on a spike,” she said. “But I don’t always get what I want, so let’s talk Mitla.”
The silk door of the pavilion rustled, and the duchess entered. Her face was composed. Her eyes were red, but not exceptionally so.
Everyone rose to their feet and she smiled. It was a very brittle smile.
“Mitla,” said the duchess. “We have eighteen days.”
“We need at least thirteen to march back over the pass,” Sauce smiled at the other woman. Their eyes met.
“I’d like someone to track down the Patriarch of Rhum,” the duchess said. “I feel like we should tidy up as we go.” Her voice was light. “I am in a position to pay well.”
Favour nodded. “I’d be happy to get him,” he said. “So would Ser Robert.”
Everyone looked blank.
“Long Paw.”
Sauce shook her head very much the way Gabriel might have. “I’d like to get him, but there are bigger things at stake. Mitla’s behind nine miles of forts and trenches; any idea how to get him?”
Conte Simone bowed to her. “My lady, I assumed you had a plan.” He smiled. “So far, you always do.”
Sauce liked Conte Simone; for all his male vanity he was a bonny fighter. “I fight one fight at a time,” she said. “And I always drop the easy punter first.”
Everyone nodded.
“Punter?” Simone asked.
“Customer?” Sauce said. “Or, er … adversary?”
Giselle barked a laugh. She took a deep breath. “Mitla,” she said. “While we move food. We don’t need to beat him. If we hold the river line and keep open the road to Arelat, then we need do nothing more.” She looked at a set of wax tablets from her purse. “Captain Corner says that we should have our first convoy through here in two days. Let’s make Mitla dance to our tune.”
Sauce was looking at a map. She realized with a start that it was one of a sheaf of maps Kronmir had drawn himself. She also realized that Giselle knew who had drawn it.
She’s a tough girl, Sauce thought. She tapped her gapped teeth with a brass-bound pencil.
“I wanted him beat,” she admitted to her captains. “But fuck it. That’s just my pride. Duchess is right. Let’s start moving food. Milus, you dig in here.” She pointed at a town called Fornello. “Make it sturdy. You’re the covering force. Simone, you are with me, in reserve.”
“I very much enjoyed this ‘reserve,’” he said. “Good fighting.”
“I was hopin’ that this time it’d be a little more restful,” she said.
“I am hoping to see you favour us by breaking a lance on an enemy,” he said.
She licked her lips. “You callin’ me out?” she asked.
He looked startled. “No,” he said. “I assumed, as you are a knight, that you are … sad? … that you were not fighting.”
“Christ, are you sure you ain’t related to Tom Lachlan?” she said. “But aye. I like a scrap. No doubt we’ll find one. An’ since we’re coverin’ the road and not pushin’ north, Daniel, why don’t you take some of the lads an’ lasses and fetch us the Patriarch?”
“If the Patriarch is … roughly handled …” Simone said carefully. He fingered his elegant beard. There was blood under his nails. “It could … have consequences.”
“I would like to go with the party to catch him,” the duchess said.
Sauce looked at her and shrugged. “On your head be it,” she
said. “I need you here. Or I’d rather you were here. Kronmir should never have been where he could be caught, and that was my fault. Now I’m not happy to let you go, but you’re the duchess and I can’t stop you.” She turned to Simone. “I was no great friend to Kronmir but he was one of mine. The Patriarch …” She smiled in a way that made her ugly.
She thought of a man who had done her a wrong, long ago. And Cully’s hands on hers, and the blood. “I cover my debts. So does the duchess. The Patriarch will pay …” She gave a small shrug.
Daniel Favour nodded.
“They say you’ll go to hell if you kill the Patriarch,” the duchess said, as if contemplating the words.
“Oh,” Sauce said with a shrug. “I doubt God’s that stupid.”
“‘Vengeance is m-m-mine,’ s-s-saith the Lord,” quoted Father Davide. “B-b-but I agree that G-G-God is in f-fact not a f-fool.” The thin man wore only a robe and sandals and would not wear even a dagger. He was very different from Father Arnauld, and yet many already accepted him despite his stutter.
“I will share my vengeance with him,” said the duchess.
Sauce smiled. She rose. They all rose. She was human enough to savour her moment; triumph and power over others, love and respect.
A life she’d never even imagined having. She thought of them: the tormentors, the evil ones. The right bastards and the casual bastards, and how she had once felt. She looked at Giselle, and had a glimmer of what was in her head.
She smiled at Giselle. “Fuck it then. Go get him,” she said. “But I need you here, and it seems to me, sister, that you don’t actually need to get him in person.”
As they filed out of her pavilion, Father Davide remained. “Rev-v-venge is ugly,” he said.
Sauce shrugged. “We’re not choir boys, Padre,” she said.
He shook his head. “C-c-choir b-boys are not c-c-choir boys, C-C-Captain.”
“Listen, Padre. You will have my confession, and you know what we are doing.” Sauce shrugged. “It may be vengeance for some, it definitely is for Giselle. For me, it is strictly business. When they scrag the Patriarch, that’s one job done.” She looked away, poured them both wine, sat back. “You’d try this line on Gabriel?”