The Stealers' War (6 page)
Two more soldiers marched down the corridor and Carter wondered if he was dreaming when they stepped aside. His father, Jacob Carnehan.
Alive. Safe. Here!
‘Sweet saints, is it really you?’
‘I’m no mirage,’ said Jacob, thumping his legs by way of proof. ‘It’s damn good to see you, Carter. I’ve been in Hadra-Hareer a while, but on fairly thin sufferance it has to be said. I wasn’t allowed to send word to you that I had arrived, let alone visit you.’
‘You have to get them to release me,’ begged Carter, fighting down the urgency in his voice, struggling to stay coherent. ‘I need to get to Midsburg. I’m on a mission for Prince Owen.’
‘I know all about your mission. I’m sorry, but it’s failed. Lady Cassandra’s not in Rodal anymore. And the siege of Midsburg is over. The city fell within days to Bad Marcus and his Vandian friends. It was like a wall of sand trying to stand against the tide. Most anyone who got out alive is in Hadra-Hareer right now.’
Carter rocked with the terrible news. ‘Then the war’s over? We lost?’
‘I didn’t say that. Prince Owen is alive and here inside the city. The National Assembly’s army is dispersed across the north of Weyland and fighting the usurper’s forces. Not in formal regimental actions, but ragged hit and run raids. Burning southern supply columns, blowing bridges and slitting royalist throats at night, then withdrawing into the forests and hills before the usurper’s skyguard show up to pound our boys.’
‘Oh, that’s good news,’ announced Beula lounging from her bunk. ‘So the north doesn’t have an army anymore? It has a band of bandits. As if we didn’t see enough of them before the rebellion started.’
Jacob stared coldly at the woman. ‘This is your pilot?’
‘A pilot needs a kite to be called that, old man. Right now, I’m just Prisoner Number Two on this cursed mission.’
‘I wouldn’t pay much attention to Flight Captain Fetterman,’ said Carter. ‘She’s still a little miffed that our greeting in Rodal was nearly being stoned to death.’
‘Our welcome wasn’t much friendlier,’ said Jacob. ‘Rodalian politics got a lot more fractious when the Vandians decided to use Palden Tash’s neck as an example of what happens when you sass the Imperium in public. His murder had the desired effect. No nation in the Lancean League wants anything to do with the rebellion, except maybe Rodal. Half the Rodalians wants to avenge the insult to their nation’s honour. The other half wants to leave Weyland’s civil war well alone; allow us to murder each other until we run out of bullets.’
‘Maybe they should, at that,’ said Carter. ‘I thought you were dead or at best rotting in chains inside the usurper’s dungeon.’
‘I got a taste of Bad Marcus’ hospitality, but our friend Sariel had other ideas,’ said Jacob. ‘He sprung me out. Not that his help doesn’t come with a price, but I’ll tell you about that later.’
That sounds ominous
. ‘You’re going to get me out of here?’
‘
Us
,’ said Beula, pointedly.
‘I’m working on it.’
‘Damn, but it’ll be good to see Sheplar, Kerge and Tom again.’
‘They never reached the capital,’ said Jacob. ‘Lady Cassandra was seized in a nomad raid and carried away into the plains. Sheplar and Kerge went after her. Nothing’s been heard of them since.’
Carter winced.
Lady Cassandra and her house sweated me and mine as slaves inside the empire’s sky mines. Maybe her ending up keeping a bunch of savages’ goats fed and watered is just the world’s way of levelling the score. Damned if I’d wish such a fate on Kerge and Sheplar, though
. ‘Well, those two survived the worst of Vandia. What’s a few barbarian horsemen compared to taking on the Imperium? Did Tom make it out of the siege?’
‘He came down with a bad case of working for the usurper,’ said Jacob. ‘He didn’t recover from it, I’m happy to say.’
Carter couldn’t keep the shock from his face. ‘Tom betrayed us?’
‘He was never with us . . . one of the king’s intelligencers all the time. He arrived at Northhaven with the usurper’s orders to rescue Lady Cassandra. Tom Purdell was the reason Bad Marcus knew what the rebellion was doing every step of the way. Purdell tried to assassinate Prince Owen. Missed by an inch, although he murdered Assemblyman Gimlette in the attempt and left Anna Kurtain badly wounded.’
‘Son of a bitch!’ Carter thought of all the times he had helped his brother guildsman. The travails and troubles they had shared together.
And all that time he was really Bad Marcus’ man
? The scale of the betrayal left Carter sick to the stomach.
‘Purdell’s dead?’ said Beula. She seemed to be having as much trouble believing what she had heard as Carter.
‘Flight Captain, I’d have to say he most surely is,’ said Jacob. He turned to speak to the Rodalian soldiers in their mountain tongue. Carter knew his father had spent many years in a church monastery inside Rodal, and he jabbered proficiently enough in the guards’ language. About the only word Carter recognized was his father frequently invoking the name of Nima Tash, the local noblewoman who had saved them from a lynching. The conversation developed into a heated argument before one of the guards set off down the corridor. Jacob pointed his hand down the passage. ‘Let me introduce you to the person who was good enough to stick a bullet in Mister Purdell’s treacherous heart.’
A figure pushed her way into the prison corridor, a woman who hadn’t been out of Carter’s thoughts for the best part of a year. ‘Willow!’
‘Carter!’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘I’ve been waiting so long for this. Every day being turned away outside the prison.’
How long has she been here
? ‘It’s so good to see you alive.’
‘Alive, but . . .’ Willow’s pulled her coat aside so that Carter could see it had been warming a pregnant belly beneath. Carter’s heart sank and he tried to keep the look of surprise from his face. Of course Viscount Wallingbeck would have consummated his forced marriage to Willow as quickly as possible. The viscount wanted to get his hands on the Landor dowry as much as Benner Landor wanted a titled son-in-law; as much as his conniving new wife wanted to clear the house’s succession for her own child. And nobody wanted a penniless low-born son of a pastor in the way.
Nobody except Willow
.
‘Please forgive me,’ said Willow.
‘I’m the one who needs forgiving,’ said Carter. He reached through the bars and clasped her hands in his. Every bit as warm and soft as he remembered. ‘I should have been there protecting you. I travelled all the way down to Arcadia to prevent you from marrying that southern bastard, but when the war broke out, I was swept north; Bad Marcus’ armies hunting after us like a cat after a rodent.’
‘I never married Wallingbeck, at least not legally,’ said Willow. ‘My infernal family drugged me until I could barely stand, then presented me with a marriage certificate from a bribed priest with a forged scrawl on it instead of my signature.’
‘Parliament might be in exile, but our assemblymen have declared Owen the lawful monarch,’ said Jacob. ‘He’s annulled the whole shambles.’
‘But he can’t annul this,’ said Willow, sadly rubbing her pregnant belly. ‘The viscount forced himself on me. I wouldn’t have—’
‘You never have to explain anything to me, Willow.’ said Carter. ‘Not for this, not for anything. I failed you as completely as a man can. I meant to rescue you, but here you are, saving me from imprisonment in a Rodalian prison instead.’
‘The lady’s getting mighty practised in it,’ said Jacob. ‘If it wasn’t for Willow’s steady aim, I’d have a meat cleaver through my skull courtesy of Tom Purdell and his gang of traitors.’
‘That animal Purdell deserves to burn in hell,’ said Willow. ‘Along with my family for forcing me into the viscount’s hateful hands. And may Leyla Holten be waiting at the bottom of the gallows steps to receive her punishment first.’
Willow spat the words with a vehemence quite unlike her.
What’s surviving this bloody war done to her
? ‘You’re free,’ said Carter. ‘Back with me. That’s all that matters now. Just get me out of here and I swear I’ll never let you down again.’
‘We’re pushing to get you released,’ said Willow. ‘There’s to be an election for a new First Speaker. There is a pro-war faction and an isolationist faction at each other’s throats over the future of Rodal. Nima Tash wants revenge for her father’s murder and is on Prince Owen’s side. She’s our best chance of getting you out of here. Her family’s enemies are opposing your release just to tweak her nose.’
‘Miss Tash arranged for Prince Owen’s official asylum here. But the isolationist faction is led by a politician called Temba Lesh,’ said Jacob. ‘He’ll cut you loose all right. Cut us all free and prod us across the border at the end of a bayonet, straight into the hands of Bad Marcus’ army.’
The guards started to jabber in Rodalian, while Willow and Carter’s father were pushed back down the corridor, Willow trying to reach back to Carter’s outstretched palms.
‘I’ll see you free of this place,’ called Jacob Carnehan. ‘Just wait.’
Waiting is all I can do here
. ‘I know you will.’
‘I love you, Carter,’ shouted Willow.
‘I—’ but Willow had been led out of sight.
And I love you
. He clung on to the memory of her face, her red hair, her pretty earnest eyes.
Willow’s escaped from our enemies. That’s all that matters. The war and the rebellion can rage on, but as long as I have her, I have my own peace
.
Beula snorted when she heard the heavy wooden door swing shut down the corridor; silence except for her barbs. ‘I always wanted to be a pawn in a contested election. So much more entertaining than flying.’
‘My father will keep his word.’
One way or another
. Carter hoped that Nima Tash and her allies prevailed, because otherwise their Rodalian captors would find out exactly what his father was capable of. Jacob Carnehan had crossed a world and faced down the Imperium to free his son. What he had become scared Carter because there was very little left of the man who had been his father an age ago.
‘So that’s the great Jacob Carnehan. Or should I say the outlaw
Jake Silver
? Still alive after all this time. Is it true what the southern papers say about him?’
‘I try not to read their lies.’
‘That he’s a wanted killer who escaped across the sea to the Burn. Led mercenary armies over there and killed more souls than the plague.’
‘We’re all outlaws now, as far as the usurper is concerned.’
‘Ain’t that the truth. But some of us a little more so than others. Is your pa’s brother really that murdering pirate, Black Barnaby?’
‘All I can say is that he never came to dinner at Northhaven.’
‘That’s having a black sheep in your family, all right. Well, this is surely what I would call a turn up for the books,’ said Beula. She seemed determined to spoil Carter’s joy at seeing Willow again. ‘You fly all the way out here for the enemy emperor’s granddaughter, and you end up letting her slip through your fingers. Instead, you discover your own girl complete with another man’s bun warming her oven.’
‘If that’s your maternal instincts coming out, you can keep them.’
‘Oh, I chose flying with the skyguard over a family. If you want my advice, you should ditch the rich girl and let her raise her brat on the viscount’s tab. Head out for a country without a dog in this fight. Hellin has got more than enough bogs for a wanted man to hide in until the rebellion’s long forgotten back home.’
‘That’s your advice?’
You should take it yourself. A swamp would suit your nature.
‘You’re hardly much of a judge of character,’ said Carter. ‘You broke out of a prisoner-of-war camp with Thomas Purdell.’
‘Yes, your
good
friend. And I also escaped with Assemblyman Gimlette,’ said Beula. ‘Who, from what your father said, helped prevent Prince Owen from being assassinated.’
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath for a medal when we get out of here.’
Fetterman laughed. ‘What the hell would it be worth anyway? The war is over, Northhaven. Midsburg’s fallen. The hostage we were sent to bring back from here is now a saddle serf with a horde of blue-skinned barbarians. King Marcus holds the nation under his little thumb and we’re bottled up in exile with a country full of rice-eating mountain goats who might yet decide to hand us back to hang in Weyland if the wind blows the wrong way. And there’s a
lot
of wind in Rodal.’
And a lot of it in this cell, too
. Willow was free and safe and would soon be by his side again. If that was as good as it got, Carter would live with it and offer up a prayer of thanks every morning.
Luckiest damn man in the nation
. It’s just that this foreign bolt-hole wasn’t his country. And by the sound of it, neither was Weyland.
SHADOWS IN THE DARK
Leyla Landor gazed up at the dark sky, full of glittering stars as cold as the night air. She had just left the hotel with Duncan stretched out sleeping between the silk sheets. It was hard work keeping your options open. If Benner was by chance hit by a cannon ball in the dying days of the rebellion, then Leyla might be required to convince his dolt of a son to marry her far faster than the propriety of a widow’s weeds might demand.
Yes, all in all, hard work. And what is the rest of this night’s business but keeping my options open. Or perhaps, choking them off ?
Leyla stood waiting in Midsburg’s business district, three-storey office buildings with dark windows unlit by lantern or candle, a district that would stand emptied of clerks at this time of night, even if its workers weren’t languishing in chains somewhere awaiting their just punishment for failing at the game of rebellion.
A shadow emerged from a dark passage between a warehouse and a shipping agent. Nocks’ reedy voice sounded as irritatingly dissatisfied as always. ‘You could have picked somewhere outside the city walls, eh. What’s left of them standing at any rate.’
Light from a public oil lamp fell on the squat man’s face. The scar split the hard, mean features like a river, but Leyla never had a problem looking him straight in his glinting rodent eyes. Nocks was a murderous, uncouth killer, but he was very much her creature. Not out of love or even his fumbling lust which she occasionally satisfied, but out of grim necessity. King Marcus had passed the care of this mongrel wolf to Leyla, and Nocks complemented her own skills well enough. A little brawn to flex alongside her cunning and wiles.
‘Nobody’s looking for you very hard,’ said Leyla. ‘I’ve seen to that.’ ‘So, you’re still the king’s eyes in the north. But what about me?’ ‘King Marcus is travelling up here to stamp his authority on the retaken prefectures,’ said Leyla. ‘And I can tell you that he is less than happy at the ease with which Jacob Carnehan and the pretender Owen Hawkins managed to escape the siege and flee north.’
‘You can’t hang that failure on me,’ said Nocks.
‘Oh, I am well aware,’ said Leyla. The cold corpse of the king’s assassin, Thomas Purdell, discovered in Midsburg among his dead agents spoke volumes of how that particular debacle had ended. ‘But you are still to hang if the law catches up with you. For trying to murder my darling husband’s son.’
‘On your orders, you sly bitch.’
Leyla slapped him hard, but the squat brute hardly moved. It was like striking granite. ‘You answer to me, Nocks. The very day you forget it, you will find the court gallows waiting for you.’
‘Then maybe I’ll sing a little song of my own before I stretch, eh?’
Leyla stroked his face, a touch of silk to remind him how harsh the leather could bite by comparison. ‘You’re a cold-blooded butcher, Nocks. But you’re not an unintelligent one. The realm isn’t large enough now to escape from King Marcus should you turn against him.’
‘You’d know all about that.’
‘I am more than the king’s mistress now.’
And I will be more yet, through careful planning and application.
‘But not if you continue to fail me.’
‘Duncan Landor got lucky. I was about to put a bullet in the boy’s back when his friend Paetro turned up and stopped me.’
‘Yes, that idiot Captain Purdell couldn’t even slit the Vandian’s throat successfully. Although I understand Paetro’s body now carries more scars than skin. Purdell’s fondness for torturing his victims rather than a quick, efficient finish always was the man’s weakness.’
‘A good scar reminds you to be more careful next time,’ said Nocks, rubbing the split in his face.
Yes, you’re a living advertisement of that
. She knew he blamed the rebel pastor Jacob Carnehan for his wounds . . . a loathing as deep and passionate as any man felt.
‘Scars aside,’ growled Nocks, ‘I’d still rather have the imperial bastard Paetro planted rotting under the dirt.’
‘I have turned your failure into what success I could,’ said Leyla. ‘Paetro returned with news of Willow Landor’s betrayal of him – helping that infernal outlaw pastor escape; how easily Willow broke her oath and betrayed the royalists to join the rebels. It was a simple enough thing to convince Duncan that your attempted murder of him was just another part of his wayward sister’s schemes.’
‘Well bugger the lot of them. I need a royal pardon,’ said Nocks. ‘I had to flee Weyland once before, one step ahead of the executioners. I’m too old to sign up across the sea in the Burn as a mercenary.’
‘And a pardon you shall have, my loyal little beast. Just as soon as you’ve redeemed yourself.’
‘You still need me to slip a dagger in that prig Duncan Landor’s back? I’d be glad of the job, but he knows me well enough to never let me close again.’
‘Duncan’s demise is already arranged,’ smiled Leyla. ‘The commander of the Imperium’s expeditionary force, Prince Gyal, has been made aware that Duncan is cuckolding his empress-to-be. While the rebellion is crushed, I expect Duncan to be assigned some very dangerous missions in the thick of the fighting. Just as many as it takes to give him a hero’s funeral.’
‘So what do you need me to do? Stand over the rich boy’s grave and clap as his coffin’s lowered into it?’
‘The House of Landor has
two
heirs who stand to succeed before my son. I removed one of them by turning Willow Landor into Lady Willow Wallingbeck. But when the viscount divorces Willow for fleeing the marriage nest I kindly prepared for them, the silly girl will become an heir to the Landor fortune again.’
‘You want Willow dead?’
‘I want her
destroyed
for her treachery. She’s hiding in exile with her rebel friends. Bring her back to me. Willow must give birth in her husband’s estate. I owe Viscount Wallingbeck the squalling brat of an heir I promised him. After that, the gallows for high treason will be a fitting fate.’
‘Willow’s in Northhaven?’
‘Not anymore. Rodal. The rebel leadership has taken refuge inside the Rodalian capital,’ said Leyla. ‘The borderland is full of rebels and refugees fleeing the advancing southern armies. Remove a rebel uniform from a corpse and you’ll be able to pass over to the other side in the confusion easily enough.’
‘Well, you are Willow’s step-mother,’ laughed Nocks. ‘Dare say you know best.’
I do try hard to arrange a convenient end to matters
. Leyla noticed the deadly look in her odious little manservant’s eyes.
Hatred, not lust
. ‘I need the scandal of Willow’s betrayal erased. Settling scores with Jacob Carnehan and the pastor’s son can be attempted in your own time. Although I suspect King Marcus and his imperial allies will finish the job long before you get around to it.’
‘Those two are an itch that needs scratching,’ growled Nocks.
‘If it helps, think of the agony Carter Carnehan will endure after you abduct his lady-love and return her for chastisement. And if Carter pursues his unsuitably high-born woman south, then no doubt Father Carnehan will follow his son as he did before. Wouldn’t you prefer the chance to finish your business with the Carnehans personally, rather than hearing second-hand of how they died on the sharp end of a royalist bayonet?’
Nocks nodded and Leyla knew she had her little beast back on the leash again. She reached behind his neck and scratched the back of his hairy, thick neck.
Yes, I always know best
. ‘Isn’t that better?’
Duncan hadn’t visited the town he had been born in for years. The young Weylander had imagined a variety of greetings upon his return to Northhaven, and every one of them had all been happier than this. He fought desperately to hold on to the reins of his horse as it panicked, rearing wildly into the air with a hail of burning timber coming down around him. A fireball expanded out from where the bridge across the White Wolf River had been up until a few seconds ago, the horsemen crossing it incinerated along with their gun carriages. Duncan barely had time to take in infantry columns staggering away from the inferno, blue uniforms shredded or ablaze, before a volley of fire opened up on the road from the woodland to their left.
That would have been me if I had been at the head of the column.
‘Take cover!’ yelled Duncan. He didn’t wait to see if the high and mighty officers of the Army of the Boles were heeding his advice. Duncan’s battle-trained mare recovered its nerves, and he spurred her towards the cover of a drainage ditch and low stone wall running along the wheat fields on his right. He pulled her down behind the stones and a granite marker indicating the town of Northhaven waited a mile away. It was topped with the arms of the House of Landor. The irony of its presence was reinforced when ‘Colonel’ Benner Landor came sprinting towards Duncan, just ahead of a hail of bullets, his father’s steed left fallen across the Northern Trading Road.
Look, Father . . . we can die on our own land
.
‘Bandits!’ Benner Landor yelled towards the trees. ‘Filth! You’ll hang for this. I’ll see every one of you swinging from a tree!’
Duncan pulled his pistol out from its holster and fired blindly into the tree-line. Branches wavered in the volley of counter-fire, but it might just have been the chill wind making the leaves sway. ‘I don’t think they know who you are.’
‘On my own acres,’ growled his father, as though the shame of being ambushed here was worse for the powerful Benner Landor than any of the wounded soldiers lurching away from the river’s fast-flowing rapids.
All the way down the road their regiment took cover where it could, returning fire into the woodland. Behind walls. In ditches. Lying flat in wheat fields. Their ambushers could be inside the trees or the thick bush below or they might have already retreated, vanishing into the wilds like malicious tree sprites. Duncan was glad that Paetro and Helrena had stayed with the Vandian fleet, the Imperium’s great ships landed in river flats to the east. Legionaries were felling trees for miles around, constructing fortified landing fields, camps and barracks for their forces.
Nobody from the Imperium to witness my countrymen’s incompetence
. This was still an army of hastily-formed amateurs. Bullets cut down fleeing southern soldiers trying to gain the field wall.
Nope, our bushwhacking friends haven’t pulled back yet
.
An officer came crawling towards them, using the cover of the wall, pieces of flint flying from the stone above his wide-brimmed hat. Hugh Colbert was Northhaven’s prefect. He’d worn the additional title of General of the Army of the Bole easily when it seemed like advancement under the king’s patronage. Less easy now, though, with the politician crawling behind a field wall crumbling under heavy fire. Mud from the soggy ditch concealed the three gold-embroidered stars and wreath on the high collar of his blue double-breasted coat, but it couldn’t hide his temper.
‘I was told our path into Northhaven had been scouted and declared clear of marauders,’ barked Colbert.
‘It was,’ said Benner Landor. ‘The skyguard flew over this road only two hours ago.’
‘And the pretender’s supporters move at night,’ said Duncan, fighting to keep the exasperation from his voice. ‘Rarely in numbers large enough to count from the air.’
‘Move our cannons behind the wall!’ yelled Benner Landor down the road. ‘Load for grapeshot.’
Duncan’s father appeared content to benefit from shelter denied his artillery-men. Out on the road soldiers struggled to hold the horses steady as nearly invisible snipers aimed shots at gunners and the trains of horses bearing each artillery piece. The royalist army’s heavy pieces had been crossing the bridge, leaving the survivors with relatively light gallopers and six pounders.
Small mercies. We stand a chance of getting them behind cover.
Bullets whizzed like angry hornets through the air. They were starting to be lost in gun smoke coming from the southerners, rifles loaded with shot after shot and emptied into the woods. Ammunition carriages were dragged off the road and unceremoniously dumped around the artillery, left halted in the mud as wagoneers forced their horses to lie down. Some soldiers loaded their cannons even as the artillery pieces were manhandled back behind the flint wall, charges and ammunition canisters rammed into place, and then the cannons bucked, discharging deadly clouds of grapeshot into the woods. Birds erupted for the sky as tree trunks splintered, their calls lost beneath the explosions. Duncan’s ears rang from the detonations. The nearest cannon was less than twenty feet away, rocking in the mud ditch, thick waves of dark, acrid powder smoke pouring out of its dark iron barrel and enveloping Duncan’s position. Its crew didn’t bother cooling the barrel with water; they rammed another load into place, trimmed the fuse and set the sixpounder off again.
With the noise of the artillery fire, Duncan only noticed the cavalry company cantering behind the artillery when it was nearly on top of him, its riders and mounts seemingly unconcerned by the cannons’ thunder. He groaned as he noted the officer at the fore was Viscount Wallingbeck.
‘Hold your fire!’ called Colbert, his command shouted on and passed down the wall.
‘Chased down many a fox through woods far thicker than this,’ Duncan’s brother-in-law hooted. ‘And rebel vermin don’t dig warrens to escape into.’ Viscount Wallingbeck spurred his horse forward, hurdling the wall and galloping towards the dark pines, yelling as his carbine tore bark off the trees. The nobleman was followed eagerly by his company, shredding their way through the undergrowth with heavy steel cavalry sabres and from the sound of it, riding down anything they encountered below their mounts’ hooves.
‘Forward the cavalry!’ came the infantry’s cries from behind the wall.
General Colbert’s infantrymen rediscover their spirit quick enough when someone else shows up to do the dying for them
.
‘Noble blood,’ said Benner, approvingly. ‘Quality of birth shows through every time.’
Pity it didn’t rub off on the viscount’s wife.
It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that Willow Landor was one of the rebels just aiming pot-shots at them from the woods.