Allesandra nodded. “I remember. It was just a tiny thing, but it clawed Whitepaw’s nose so badly that he ran away with his tail tucked, and there was blood everywhere and the healer had to sew Whitepaw’s nose back together again. And the kitten made Skitters yelp and bleed, too, before Skitters finally got it and shook it to death.” Allesandra looked at the jewel of the city set in the night landscape. “Oh,” she said.
“I understand what you mean, Vatarh,” she said. “I do.”
Karl ci’Vliomani
From the balcony of the Archigos’ residence, it was possible to believe that there was no war looming. From that vantage point, the lights of the Avi curled past the brilliantly-lit dome of the Archigos’
Temple. The breeze was cool from the northwest, ruffling the edges of the ferns in their pots, and the Nessantico herself was strangely silent.
Karl knew the calm for the chimera it was. He’d been gathering
together the Numetodo in Oldtown, and on the North Bank, where the first thrust of the Firenzcian assault would take place, there was no calm at all. From the outskirts of Oldtown, one could look out and see not only the campfires of the Garde Civile, but the more distant fires of the Hirzg’s army. There, the citizens were panicked, and it showed.
Twice during the day, Karl had witnessed riots in the main streets, both violently put down by the Garde Kralji, as the citizenry stormed butcher shops and bakeries looking for food (and conveniently broke into any adjacent taverns as well). Heads were broken, the cobblestones grew slick with blood, and the mood turned uglier as the sun itself retreated to the west.
A constant stream of people and carts flooded the Avi a’Parete: soldiers, Garde Civile, various chevarittai and the occasional war-teni all heading east, and everyone else moving west. From what Karl had been told, both the Avi a’Nostrosei and Avi a’Certendi, as well as the Avi A’Sele, were packed with refugees from the city, carrying as much of their belongings as they could.
Only here, on the South Bank, did the city seem to retain any semblance of normalcy, and even that was the thinnest of veneers. Underneath the calm surface, there was a boiling, nervous energy.
Karl stood beside Ana as they both leaned on the balcony railing.
He could feel her warmth against his side, but though he longed to do more, he did not. The ghost of Kaitlin stood between them as they stared out into the night. “I wish you would leave the city, Ana,” he said.
“And I wish the same of you,” she answered. “And you know neither of us can do that.”
“Everything will change in the next few days. Six months ago, I would have left the city and not cared at all who lived or died here. Now it scares me, Ana-because of you. Because of us.”
She gave a barely perceptible nod. She didn’t answer otherwise, didn’t move.
“There hasn’t been enough time for your war-teni to learn enough. We can hope they’ll be able to employ the Ilmodo a little faster than before. That’s all.”
“If they don’t fail in their spells entirely, the way I did,” Ana said.
He felt her shiver. “I worry about that, too. This has shaken their faith. What good does speed do if they’re no longer effective? I wonder if I’ve actually harmed the city’s defenses rather than helped them.”
“They have you as an example, and the Numetodo in the city will be there to help,” he answered. “We’ll do what we can to shield the warteni, and they can always use the Ilmodo as they did before. Ana, stay with me tonight. .” he began, but she turned to him and the look on her face stopped his words.
“No,” she said. “I won’t. You’ve made a promise to another; I won’t help you break it.”
“Then, after. . I will write to her, tell her. .” He realized he was deliberately avoiding saying Kaitlin’s name aloud, and he wondered why.
“Don’t talk of ‘after,’ Karl,” she said. “We don’t know that there will be an ‘after.’ There’s only now. This moment, then the next and the next. That’s all we have right now. If there’s an after, we’ll figure out then what that might mean for us, or if there even
She walked back into the apartments. Karl didn’t follow her. He stood at the railing of the balcony, and listened to the city and to his conscience.
War
Sergei ca’Rudka
The battle began with spell-fire and a sword thrust to the belly of the city.
All that morning the Firenzcian army approached: a steady advance that edged ever closer, a great arc slowly pressing down toward the forces Sergei had placed around the city from nearly Nortegate to the banks of the A’Sele.
The defensive line was dangerously thin. Sergei didn’t have enough men; despite Sergei’s persistent urgings, Kraljiki Justi had refused to allow the entirety of the Garde Civile and war-teni to move forward.
Instead, the Kraljiki wrapped battalions of Garde Civile and his most loyal chevarittai around himself as a protective cocoon: inside the city walls. Sergei had been given orders by the Kraljiki not to engage unless necessary, and so the defending forces grudgingly gave ground to the advancing ranks. There were occasional skirmishes, brief flurries of combat punctuated with the challenges of the Firenzcian chevarittai.
Some of the chevarittai of the city couldn’t resist the challenge and went out to meet their cousins-a few ca’-and-cu’ of both sides bloodied the ground prematurely as a result.
By Second Call, the tension had become nearly unbearable. The army of Firenzcia was a thunderhead looming near the city, like a silver-and-black cloud issuing tongues of lightning and growling with low thunder, the wind cold and vicious and rising.
The storm, inevitably, broke.
Sergei sat astride his horse on a small knoll a mile outside the old city walls, up the Avi a’Firenzcia along the River Vaghian. His leg ached, and his back was stiff, but he forced himself to ignore the nagging pains. Several flag-and-horn pages waited near him to relay orders and A’Offizier ca’Montmorte was at his side. From the knoll, Sergei could see the front ranks of the opposing force. The banner of the Hirzg and the Red Lancers was being flown prominently: Jan ca’Vorl was out there, somewhere close. In front of Sergei, the two armies were separated by a muddy field, the once-ripening crop of wheat prematurely harvested and the remainder trampled under the hooves of the chevarittai and the boots of the Garde Civile and conscripts as they’d retreated to their present position in the western tree line.
Sergei had stopped the grudging retreat-if they backed any closer to the city, the fighting would be taking place among the houses and buildings that had grown up outside the original walls. Their spines were to Nessantico’s outskirts; the offiziers had re-formed the lines.
Seeing them waiting, the Firenzcian army had halted, but Sergei didn’t believe they would remain there for long.
The sun fell directly on the field. The light did nothing to warm them.
“If I were Hirzg Jan, I would wait,” ca’Montmorte said. “It’s already past Second Call. He should establish his lines, call his offiziers together for consultation and settle the troops in for the night. I’d continue the advance at First Call tomorrow.” Ca’Montmorte nodded at his own advice. “That would give us time to bring more conscripts from the city and have the Archigos send up the remainder of the war-teni. The Hirzg doesn’t know that we don’t have the entire Garde Civile waiting in reserve.”
Sergei shook his head. “I know the man, Elia. The Hirzg is a decent tactician but a mediocre strategist-if there’s any strategy here, it will be the Starkkapitan’s. Ca’Vorl’s most dangerous in the midst of a fight, but he has no patience. He also knows he has the advantage. No, this is what he wants and he will have it now. I’d wager that he intends to sleep tonight inside Nessantico, and we’re in his way. He’ll attack. He won’t wait.”
Ca’Montmorte shook his head. “That would be foolish.”
“Wait,” Sergei told him. “I know the man. .”
