Lamentation

in through gaps in the roof and walls, and he found he couldn’t distinguish between the sounds of dripping water and what he thought could be footfalls in the puddles outside. Either way, he couldn’t stay here. He sat up slowly, holding his knife with a white-knuckled hand.

It had all happened so fast. Lysias had come for him with a squad of scouts in the middle of the night, pulling him from a deep sleep. “Resolute is dead,” the general had said grimly. “He’s left behind a letter that implicates you in the destruction of Windwir and the Androfrancine Order.”

Sethbert disentangled himself from the drugged prostitute that lay tangled in his sheets. “Who killed him?”

Lysias looked away. “He killed himself.”

He wasn’t too surprised by this news. Oriv had been drunku haem' most of the last few months, a weaker man than Sethbert had thought he would be. “Fine,” Sethbert said. “Burn the letter. Keep word of his passing quiet. We-”

Lysias shook his head. “It’s too late for that, Sethbert. Word is out. Your nephew has the letter.”

“Then tell my nephew-”

When the flat of Lysias’s hand struck Sethbert’s cheek it was a resounding crack in the quiet room. “I don’t think you understand why I’m here.”

Sethbert’s hand went to his face, feeling the heat where Lysias’s blow connected. His eyes narrowed. “You’re here to arrest me, then?”

Lysias smiled. “I am.”

Sethbert’s chuckle was a bark. “Then let’s go.” He scrambled out of the large, round bed and pulled on his trousers. Lysias watched, bemused, as he shrugged into his shirt. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, Lysias, but Erlund will see reason through whatever cloud of belly-gas you’ve squeezed into his lungs.” He looked to the portrait of his mother that hung on the far wall. “He’ll want the documents, I’m sure.”

Lysias nodded. “Yes, by all means.”

Sethbert looked around the room. At this point, the scouts had not yet drawn their weapons. They looked uncomfortable, their eyes moving from Lysias to Sethbert.

They’re still my men and they know it.

He gestured to one of the men and pointed to the large picture. “Bring down that portrait,” he said. He smiled when the scout went right to it without glancing first to Lysias for confirmation.

Behind the portrait, set firmly into the stone wall, was the round, hinged lid of a Rufello lockbox. “May I?”

Lysias shook his head. “What is the box’s cipher?”

Sethbert considered his options carefully, and finally recited the words and numbers slow enough for the scout to push the various tiles and knobs into place. With a click, the lid swung open.

The scout peered in, then turned to Lysias, his mouth tight. “Nothing, General.”

Sethbert felt his stomach lurch, and saw Lysias reaching for the hilt of his knife. Two of the scouts did the same.

Sheight='0em' width='1em' align='justify'›With a howl, Sethbert threw himself toward the window, catching the heavy curtains and pushing the thick cloth ahead of him to shield him as the glass and latticework shattered. Plunging into the midnight rain, he leaped from the small balcony and into the Whymer Maze below.

That had been hours ago. He’d used the passages beneath the maze-the ones his father had shown him when he was a boy-and made his escape. The tunnels dropped him into the more colorful quarter of the city, where he’d rolled a drunk for his tattered clothing and a pair of shoes that were too tight for his feet.

At first he’d thought to stow away on one of the boats in the harbor, but with the blockade he was certain to not get far. And it would not take long for Lysias to spread a net for him, putting guards up at the city gates and along the river bridges.

In the end, he crawled into the sewers and followed them out of the city. Then he worked his way along the coastline until he found the barn.

He stood slowly, mindful of the blisters on his feet and the sharp pain in his ribs and shoulder from last night’s hard landing in the garden.

He’d hoped to sleep here, but his mind wouldn’t stop racing. Where would he go? What was left for him now? And where had the document pouch gone?

Less than a handful knew about the Rufello box. And its cipher had been passed from father to son for generations. No one else could’ve possibly known.

Unless.

It had to be Li Tam’s bitch-whore of a daughter. But it made no sense. If she had the cipher, why hadn’t she taken the documents months ago? She’d shared his bed enough, the pouch tucked safely away. Why would she wait so long? And certainly, if she’d read those documents, she’d understand full well what kind of hero Sethbert truly was.

She’s a thousand leagues away, some saner part of him interjected. She’d been gone for months now, working in the far northeast with that damned fop Rudolfo and his paper Pope.

If not Tam, then another Androfrancine lap-slut. But who it was-and how they broke into the ancient lockbox-mattered little. What counted now was survival. Because with the documents now gone, it was clear to Sethbert that there was no place for him left in the Named Lands. They would hunt him down wherever he fled. The weight of that realization caught in his throat.

The Gulf would be at the mercy of the iron armada, cutting off any escape south to the Isles or west to the Emerald Coasts. But east, Sethbert thought, there was a line of small fishing towns along the forested shores of Caldus Bay. Perhaps from there he could steal a boat far frul aButom Li Tam’s blockade and follow the ragged edge of the Keeper’s Wall south, around the Fargoer’s horn and into the Churning Wastes.

Sethbert went to the barn door and looked out. He saw nothing between the field and the river’s edge. The sun was bright, and the few rain clouds left in the sky were drifting slowly east.

Stomach gurgling with hunger and fear, Sethbert followed the weather.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo rode south alone over the protests of his men. Had Gregoric been alive, he would have never gotten away with it. He’d have disobeyed directly, or at the very least followed from a distance under magicks. Even Aedric might have intervened in some way, but he was already south. The new first captain was working with the Rangers of Pylos to shore up Meirov’s eastern and western borders and keep her neighbors’ problems in their own backyards.

So he rode alone, his horse magicked for speed and stamina, and he leaned into the slanting rain. He’d sent word before he’d left, carefully coding notes to Jin Li Tam, his head physician, and Aedric. And Petronus had informed Vlad Li Tam on Rudolfo’s behalf, asking him to keep watchful eye on the Delta’s waterways for the renegade Overseer, and letting his future father-in-law know that he rode to rendezvous with Aedric. He meant his Wandering Army to hunt Sethbert, and he meant to parade that murderous pig-bugger through the towns of the Named Lands on the long route back to the Ninefold Forest.

He smiled at the thought of it, and whistled his horse faster. If he pushed, he’d only need four days. With the magicks his horse could take that abuse, but no more. Once he reached Aedric and his men, he’d have to trade out for a season. He patted the horse’s side. With all he’d been through since Windwir’s pyre, this one had earned a break.

We all have.

Hours behind him, the last of the gravediggers’ camp was down by now, and the caravan no doubt wound its way northeast. He could have brought some of his men, but he’d not wanted to leave the Pope any more exposed than he already was. Even if the war was all but over, he couldn’t afford to take any risks with Petronus’s safety.

But deeper than that, something else prompted Rudolfo to solitude. He’d felt a darkness gnawing away inside of him, stirred to life that night he ran with Gregoric on his shoulder. And when that that cloud came over him he found that he couldn’t abide anyone’s presence.

He was certain it had something to do with the Francine’s Fivefold Path of Grief. And he would walk those paths again and again until he finished. It wasn’t as if he were a stranger to them. He’d been down these routes