The Conqueror's Shadow (43 page)

THE HESITANT SUN MOVED
in fits and starts, rappelling down the western wall as moon and stars peeked through the dome of a rapidly darkening sky. The horizon, a mosaic of wavering tree lines and distant mountains, blazed orange, as if the gods planned to incinerate their previous efforts and start over from day one.

If it was a particularly impressive sunset, however, nobody noticed. No eyes watched westward from Pelapheron this eve, save a smattering of sentinels. Those citizens unable to fight from age or infirmity holed up in their homes, doors locked and windows shuttered. Many cried, many prayed, but all waited with a growing sense of desperation.

And as for the soldiers—the lords' garrisons, the mercenary platoons sent by the Guilds, and every inhabitant of Pelapheron able to swing a sword without disemboweling either himself or his neighbor—they all stood atop or behind the eastern wall. Nervously, they fingered weapons, holy talismans, or loved ones' tokens, peering intently into the growing darkness.

From the heavy shadows of the night poured a different darkness: a cancerous, liquid presence, a swelling wave rolling toward Pelapheron. Campfires glowed like fireflies, and even at this distance, the dull roar of thousands upon thousands of voices set the defenders' walls to quivering.

The Serpent had come to Pelapheron.

As the forces behind him dug in and made camp, one man stepped from the crowd. His blond hair cut short, the scars on his face crags of shadow against his pale skin, Valescienn approached the enemy. Two of his soldiers followed a pace behind, the leftmost carrying a lance on which a white flag of parley flapped in the nighttime air. The dark trio advanced until they stood just far enough from the wall to easily gaze at those atop it.

A plethora of hostile glares met their own. Arms crossed casually before him—though one still ached from Corvis's attack of months before—his voice rebounding from the walls, Audriss's lieutenant shouted, “I will speak with your commanders!”

“I
SHOULD GO,”
Edmund, Duke of Lutrinthus, told the older man before him. “This is my province. This is my duty.”

Edmund was a man on the precipice of middle age, and he wasn't about to plummet over without a struggle. The vain duke shaved his head bald at the first sign of his hair's natural thinning, replacing it with a wig far thicker and blacker than his own ever was. He tried every new remedy for wrinkles and sagging skin he could find like a desperate, aging courtesan. He insisted on wearing only the absolute latest styles—until today, when he'd donned a suit of engraved and fluted armor that had only seen ceremonial use before—and he absolutely refused to attend the other nobles' banquets without first brushing up on the most recent dances.

All of which would have made him, in the eyes of his current companion, an effete snob and not worth so much as a second glance, were Duke Edmund not also a brilliant administrator, a charismatic speaker, a shrewd negotiator, and a man who honestly cared for the welfare of his citizens. For all his personal egocentricities, his duchy was widely considered one of the best homes in all Imphallion for those of lower station.

What Duke Edmund was not, unfortunately, was anything approaching a skilled tactician. That was why he employed Sir Tyler, but Tyler, fleeing Orthessis with the final column of refugees, had been thrown from his saddle when his mount stumbled into a burrow. The knight had fractured a leg and cracked several ribs in the fall, and was in no shape to assist in planning or executing Pelapheron's defense.

Thus had another man stepped forward, a resident of Lutrinthus and simple landowner, though he had once been so much more. And when Nathaniel Espa, hero of the realm, former Knight Adviser to the regent, volunteered to take command of the defending armies, Duke Edmund was only too happy to hand over the reins.

At least until tonight, when he utterly refused to allow Duke Edmund to set one foot upon the battlements.

“You gave me command, Your Grace,” he said, rolling his shoulders in a vain attempt to shift his steel breastplate into a more comfortable
position. “That makes me the man Valescienn wants to speak to. And you, my lord, are too tempting a target. It would be disastrous for morale if you were to be cut down by an arrow.”

“Wonderful. So instead, you ask me to risk the one man who might salvage some modicum of victory from this vile mess! Is that any more strategically sound, Nathaniel?”

“They're less likely to shoot at me. And I'm not
asking
you.”

Edmund cast a glance heavenward. “Give a man a little authority, and see what he does with it! And you know full well that they may just take a few shots at
whoever
delivers the news we have for them!”

Espa raised a gauntlet. “I understand your concerns, Your Grace. But as long as I remain in command, the decision is mine to make. You have, of course, the authority to strip me of that command, but I don't think either of us really wants you to do that.”

The duke sighed, gaze cast mournfully at his steel-shod boots. “No, Nathan, I don't suppose either of us does. Are you quite certain of this, my friend?”

“I am.” Nathan forced a smile and clapped a hand on the duke's shoulder, his gauntlet ringing against the cuirass. “I'm off, my lord. Wish me luck.”

“WELL
, it's about bloody time!” Valescienn called when the line on the wall finally parted to allow a looming figure in ice-bright armor to step to the edge of the battlements. “We've only been waiting out here for the past …” He stopped as the man removed his helm. “You're not Duke Edmund!” he said accusingly.

“How astute of you to notice, Valescienn,” the other man shouted back. “You said you wanted to speak to the commander. That's me. If you wanted the duke, you should have asked for the duke.”

The blond soldier's lips curled in a silent snarl. “And who would you be, then, old man?”

“My name is Nathaniel Espa.”

Valescienn froze an instant. The two soldiers behind him muttered
briefly to each other, falling silent again only when their commanding officer cast a murderous glance over his shoulder.

Then, “Espa, is it? It's an honor to finally meet you in person, rather than from opposite sides of the assembled throngs.”

“As I recall, the last time you tried this my ‘throng' beat the stuffing out of yours.”

Valescienn smiled. “I have a lot more this time.”

“Go home, Valescienn! There will be no battle today!”

“Oh? And why would that be?”

“Because we've captured your commander, Valescienn!”

Valescienn blinked. “What?”

“Your leader. We have him!”

The scarred man cursed under his breath. There was no possible way they could have Audriss. None. But the Serpent's soldiers knew less about their master's true powers than Valescienn did, and they wouldn't be so sure. And Audriss
was
gone for the nonce. It was an irritating habit in his commander at the best of times, this tendency to up and vanish for hours or days at a time. He'd departed around midday yesterday and told Valescienn that he would rejoin them when Pelapheron had fallen and his other business was concluded.

But if the armies believed Audriss had indeed been captured—and his ill-timed absence would go a long way, in the minds of some, toward confirming that story—then taking Pelapheron might have become a much more difficult endeavor.

“Really?” Valescienn called back, determined to keep the qualms he felt from emerging in his voice. “I find that difficult to believe, Espa! I know exactly where Lord Audriss is right now.” The lie was directed more at his own men than the enemy. “And I can assure you, he's quite free and unthreatened even as we speak!”

He thought he was prepared for any response. Espa's sudden, mocking laughter proved him wrong.

“Audriss, Valescienn? I think we both know better! I mean your
true
commander!”

True commander? Jilahj the Mad take the old lunatic for one of his own, what the hell was he
talking
about?

“Behold, Valescienn!” Espa thundered melodramatically, holding over his head an object nigh invisible in the darkness. “Proof positive that we speak only the truth when we tell you that we have captured Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East himself!”

Something came spinning down from the parapet; Valescienn leapt back, in case this was some sort of attack despite the flag of truce. But what landed in the dirt with a thump was nothing but a shoulder plate of black steel, adorned with a smaller plate of polished bone.

Like a sleepwalker, Valescienn lifted the spaulder from the dust at his feet. Incredulously, he glanced at the two soldiers with him, but they looked even more puzzled than he.

“We'll have to get back to you on this,” he called to Espa, his voice as nonchalant as he could manage. Then, with a curt wave at his honor guard, he stalked back to his own camp.

His first urge was to contact Audriss immediately. This was an unexpected twist, to put it mildly. What, by all the gods, could possibly have given them the idea
Rebaine
was behind all this?

On the other hand, though he possessed the means to contact his lord and master, his instructions explicitly defined the circumstances under which he was permitted to use such methods. Unforeseen and bizarre as this particular twist might have been, it didn't really qualify as either emergency or imminent threat.

“General?” the man carrying the pennant asked quietly. “What were they talking about, sir? What's all this about Corvis Rebaine?”

Valescienn shook his head. “Nothing to worry about, soldier. I don't know what sort of herbs they've been smoking behind those walls, but I don't think it much matters. They're expecting us to turn tail and run, or at least dither aimlessly for a spell.

“Start spreading the word. I want no noise, no hint of preparation, but we attack at dawn.”

“WELL
, this is just fantastic,” Davro exclaimed almost before the tent flap flopped shut behind him. “What do we do now?” The winter wind
swept by outside, not quite powerful enough yet to howl, and a chill sauntered through the tent, wandering about casually in search of a place to settle down.

“The first thing
you
do,” Losalis told him, glancing up from the flimsy table on which lay various reports, “is duck. This tent won't keep the weather off us if you rip it open with that tusk of yours.”

“Tusk?” the ogre protested, crouching until he reached the corner in which he'd previously stacked several cushions. His single eye gleamed irritably. “This is a horn, Losalis. You see this big, round thing beneath it? That would be my head. My head, where the horn is coming from. You see this opening in my head, with all the teeth? That would be my mouth—where my horn
would
be coming from,
if
it was a tusk!”