The Stealers' War (13 page)

Owen stared at Jacob as if he had gone insane. ‘And the long guilds will place the guild-mark on the whole nation, withdraw entirely from Weyland.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m counting on. Bad Marcus can only move so many troops around using his skyguard. The rest have to travel by sail and rail. When the Guild of Rails stops running trains across Weyland, we’ll sink ships to block the northern harbours and make the usurper march every step of the way.’

‘A body cannot survive without arteries,’ said Nima, her look of shock a mirror of the prince’s.

‘Right now, it’s the usurper’s flesh all the way to Arcadia,’ said Jacob.

‘And after the war ends?’

‘That’ll be a good time to mend fences and sow a new harvest.’

‘I will not destroy my realm to save it!’ shouted Prince Owen.

And with me in control of the northern army, you won’t have to. You’re too weak to rule and too strong to be ruled, my prince. That’s what I’m in command of the army for
.

‘There is a name for such a wicked strategy,’ said Nima. ‘A scorched earth policy.’

‘I learnt my trade in the Burn,’ said Jacob. ‘How do you think the lands across the ocean picked up their nickname?’

‘I forbid it,’ said Prince Owen. ‘And the assembly will never permit it.’

We’ll see
. ‘You’d be surprised what the assembly will support. Take Augustus Sparrow for example.’

‘The speaker of the house is a good man.’

‘Your good man’s working real hard to arrange a royal marriage between Weyland and Ortheris.’

Owen recoiled in shock.
No, I didn’t think he’d told you
. The prince made to stand up, but Anna stopped him. ‘I am not a piece of royal chattel to be bartered away.’

Jacob pointed over the table towards Anna. ‘Marrying a commoner is for peace-time, Your Highness, when the newspapers need to be kept happy with stories of pleasant royal progresses. If Ortheris could be convinced to support the rebellion, we’d open up a second front at the other end of the country. There’s a lot of soft underbelly down in Gadquero and Ranelen. Under-defended prefectures with the southern army getting rowdy up here. You want to be King of Weyland, you’ll put your people’s needs before yours.’

‘You dare to lecture me?’

‘I dare to point out,
Your Highness
, that we need to do whatever we have to, to beat the usurper and send the Vandians packing back to their far-called empire. If you don’t have the stomach for it, you might as well pardon the usurper for assassinating your parents, gift him your throne and head off into exile somewhere a lot further away than Rodal. Southern end of the Lanca is nice and civilized, I hear. Good climate. You hide far enough away, your uncle’s knives probably won’t even track you and Miss Kurtain down there.’

Owen glared at him. ‘What you suggest is insane. You would put an end to our kingdom to save it.’

‘I know what Bad Marcus is willing to do to hold on to the throne. I’ve had a bellyfull of it. I need to know what you’re prepared to do to take it from him.’

‘I will talk to the assemblymen and you will have your answer.’

Jacob shrugged and stayed seated as the prince and his bodyguard left the chamber.

‘You should not talk to Prince Owen like that. It is dishonourable for a master to be spoken to in such a way by one of his servants,’ said Nima.

‘The boy was a Vandian slave in the sky mines for most of his life,’ said Jacob. ‘He should know better than anyone how hard it’s going to be to beat Bad Marcus and his imperial allies.’

‘He is trying to do the right thing for his people.’

‘This is a war, Miss Tash. Hard and dirty and grim. It’s bloody and ugly and I wouldn’t trade a single rusty bayonet for the prince’s good intentions.’

‘I see how the cost of it weighs on him,’ said Nima.

‘I do too, and not only for the prince. You’ve traded sides in this mountain parliament of yours to support war over peace. There are plenty in Hadra-Hareer calling you worse names than they call me. If it had been you supporting staying out of the war rather than that old man, your father’s vacant seat would be yours by now. You’d already be Speaker of the Winds.’

‘Power has no meaning to me, beyond how it is used to help my people,’ said Nima.

‘It seems I’m surrounded by honest, well-meaning folks,’ said Jacob. ‘After Prince Owen escaped from Vandia, he made similar noises instead of slipping a dagger in his uncle’s back. He hesitated and here we are. Blood feud and civil war.’

‘Prince Owen chose to seek justice rather murder.’

‘No, he chose murder. A whole nation’s worth rather than getting his hands dirty with just the one.’

‘I wish Sheplar Lesh was back here with the Vandian girl,’ sighed Nima. ‘We could end the murder. We could use the Lady Cassandra as a bargaining chip to open negotiations with the Imperium. If we handed her back to the empire as a sign of good faith . . .’

Jacob snorted.

‘You find my words amusing?’

‘The emperor doesn’t give a shit about his missing granddaughter, beyond the slap in the face of imperial power her being held as a hostage represents. We could hand Lady Cassandra back smiling and happy, or we might send her back one finger a time in a diplomatic bag, and Vandia would press ahead what it’s planning to do here all the same.’

‘But you took her hostage? If you think that, in the name of the spirits,
why
?’

‘Lady Cassandra’s mother is Princess Helrena. Daughter to old Emperor Jaelis himself. It was the slavers working for her who buried my wife and stole my son. I wanted to give the woman a little taste of what she gave me.’

‘Merely for revenge?’ Nima shook her head slowly, sadly. ‘Sometimes I do not see why Sheplar followed you to Vandia.’

‘Sheplar didn’t follow me, he followed his honour. He was charged with protecting Northhaven and that duty flew as far-called as the taken. Same reason he’s out there in the steppes, trying to hunt down the little lady.’

‘If what you believe is true, Sheplar and his gask friend are risking their lives for nothing.’

‘Man has a code. I wouldn’t call that nothing.’

‘And what do you have, Jacob Carnehan of Northhaven? Or should I ask that question of General Quicksilver?’

‘A reputation, Miss Tash. Never defeated on the battlefield, no matter what the odds or who the enemy.’

‘You lost at Midsburg.’

‘Oh, that was the prince and his old field marshal’s battle. I can only claim the few slit throats that Temba Lesh seems to take such offence at. But at least the right side is dying now.’

‘I do not care for your methods or your reputation. Skor Khrom,’ muttered Nima, ancient words to ward against ancient evil.

‘Nobody ever does. Until a couple of thousand bad sons-of-bitches with blades and guns turn up like evil always does. Then I’m everyone’s friend; until the very last day of the battle, when memories get awful vague on who it was who won the day and put the villains under the dirt. I’m the wretch that buries the night-soil, Miss Tash. You and Prince Owen can be as sniffy as you like about it, but I’ll ask one favour of you. Let me bury the shit good and deep for you before you start holding your noses.’

Jacob followed the path to its end. There had been a wooden handrail to the right, once, protecting travellers walking the winding mountain trail from falling into the cloud cover drifting below. Now, much of the path lay broken, vanished from rock slides and erosion. Half an hour’s careful trekking from Hadra-Hareer. The single-storey pagoda perched at the end of the narrow track was in a better state. An open stone turret with a wooden roof decorated with elaborate carvings. Jacob could hear the wind thrashing against it like a drum as he approached. The man inside was holding on to the stone wall, his eyes fixed on the peaks opposite.

‘This is not a path that many foreigners find comfortable walking,’ said Temba Lesh. ‘It is treacherously icy. If you misjudge the winds’ timing, they will catch you and throw you into the air like a hound playing with a bone.’

‘I spent a good few years in a monastery at Geru Peak,’ said Jacob. ‘I’m almost part mountain goat now.’

‘I have heard of the place,’ said Temba. ‘Your monks do not find many converts here. Our spirits of the wind blow louder than any call from the strange saints buried inside your religious texts.’

‘Don’t tell anyone, but they never really looked too hard. Geru Peak was a place you went to be with your own thoughts, mostly. Just the mountains and the sky and the sea.’

‘Strange things wash up on the tides below their cliffs.’

‘Don’t they just,’ said Jacob.
Like a half-dead war leader escaping his former trade.
‘Although a lot of what you hear down that way is just stories.’

‘Where we stand now holds a tale,’ said Temba. ‘Would you like to hear it, before you try to convince me again to sacrifice my countrymen in your hopeless foreign war?’

‘Why not?’

‘This place is called the Pagoda of Chesa and Senge. It features in one of the ancient legends. They were two lovers, whose families disapproved of their relationship. Senge, the boy in the tale, was set a series of impossible feats to achieve, to win the hand of Chesa. Neither family wanted a union, and they thought the unachievable nature of the tasks would ensure his failure. Senge defeated countless enemies – the Great Krul Michka, Spear of the Steppes, wicked wind spirits, many ghosts, as well as hordes of strange creatures from the high mountains. He did this with Chesa’s secret help, however. When Chesa’s assistance was discovered, she was sentenced to death by her own mother. So Senge defied both families by rescuing Chesa from her home in Hadra-Hareer. The two lovers fled here to this pagoda, pursued by soldiers from both families. They prayed to the winds to save them, but the winds could only summon enough force to rescue one lover. Senge prayed for Chesa to be saved. Chesa prayed for Senge to be saved. The winds blew them both high into the air, and rather than allow one to live heartbroken without the other, both were impaled on the same peak and their souls joined with the wind so they could live together in eternity. That is where the Che’senge Wind comes from. If you listen quietly, that wind sounds like the boy and girl whispering to each other.’

‘And I feel a lesson blowing in behind that old tale . . .’

‘You may beat the odds and even achieve the impossible, but trying to live solely for another leads to misfortune. In the end, the mountain breaks everything.’

‘Family before self, nation before family and pride before a fall. The mountain breaks everything,’ said Jacob. ‘You said the same in your council chamber. I must have heard those words a thousand times when I was in the monastery in Rodal. It’s a good saying, mostly because it’s true. Every Rodalian city a fortified citadel hanging off the crags, most of your streets buried deep below the rocks. Some on heights so high attackers need air masks to assault them. Gales driving strong enough they make hurricanes a breeze by comparison. Thousands of miles of winding canyons and hidden valleys and towering bluffs with countless ambush points. Rodal, always the indestructible Walls of the League.’

‘And we will not abandon those walls to venture out and die in a fight that’s not ours,’ said the old politician.

‘You won’t have to,’ said Jacob. ‘I know that Rodal’s not a country. I always knew that. It’s a killing ground.’

‘King Marcus will not venture here. Neither will his imperial allies.’

‘They just need the right encouragement,’ said Jacob.

‘You are a most dangerous man. A killer.’

‘I tried to be a better man,’ said Jacob. ‘I left. I changed. I hid.’

‘There are many things a man may hide from,’ said Temba. ‘His true nature is sadly not one of them.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Jacob.
But I tried so damn hard, didn’t I?

‘I understand your wife died in the slavers’ original raid on Northhaven?’

‘Mary Carnehan was her name,’ said Jacob. ‘Lord, how I loved that woman.’

‘You must have, to have attempted to change for her.’

‘I had already changed when I washed up back in Weyland,’ said Jacob. ‘I’d had my fill of fighting for rulers who made Bad Marcus look like a charity warden. I just wanted peace. To be left alone. The peace of church vows and a quiet life. I guess I stayed changed for Mary and our family, though. When Mary died, it didn’t take long for me to dig up my pistols and my old habits.’

‘You still have a son to live for.’

‘Interned inside a cell in the city.’

‘When you leave Rodal, Carter Carnehan will leave alongside you, that I promise. Pellas is a world without end. There’s always somewhere else you can travel to.’

‘You can never run away,’ said Jacob. ‘It took losing my wife and old life to teach me that.’

‘But you can,’ insisted Temba. ‘Your only anchor is the weight of revenge. Cut it free.’

‘If the skels’ slave raid had just been a random attack,’ said Jacob. ‘I might have been able to walk away from Mary’s slaying. But discovering Bad Marcus sold my last surviving child like he was no better than poultry at market . . . finding out Marcus was responsible for burning my town and murdering Mary for Vandian gold? My own king. The same government that was meant to protect us. How could I possibly walk away from a sin as black as that?’

‘Sins are for the gods to punish, not men. You chose to live by a vow of peace once before. You may do so again. The way out is yours.’

‘Saints and God,’ said Jacob. ‘They made me into a hammer. They gave me the times that forged me. Now, all I’m being sent are nails. I’m meant to be here.’

‘Not in Rodal,’ said Temba Lesh, leaning out over the ledge and feeling the cold air against his face. ‘No. Not here.’

Jacob shrugged. ‘Your heart is in the right place, Temba Lesh. Just like Prince Owen. Working for peace when the times only want to give you war. Thinking there is a deal to be done. That the usurper can be eased out of his stolen throne by reason and right alone.’

‘Follow your leader’s example,’ said Temba. ‘That is my suggestion. Seek the way of peace.’

‘I tried it the prince’s way,’ said Jacob. ‘I got a civil war instead of a quick coup and a bullet in the back of Bad Marcus’ ugly head. I followed Prince Owen a second time and left a quarter of the National Assembly’s army dead in the smoking ruins of Midsburg.’