himself, and tossed a corner of his robe about his lap. ‘They left Al-Khos only yesterday.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Creed.
‘It would seem that Kincheko has been quibbling over the matter of releasing his reserves to us.’
Creed grasped for his forehead as though in pain. For some moments he composed himself, letting the import of the news sink in.
‘I’ll have his damned head for this.’
‘Not if I have it first,’ Vanichios replied, and Creed saw how incensed he truly was behind the cool facade of his manners.
The general straightened in his chair, his armour and the ancient stuffed leather both creaking. He fixed Vanichios with a stare. ‘We can’t hold this city. Not without the heavy cannon they’re meant to be bringing.’
Vanichios’s gaze was just as firm. He gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head.
‘We have the guns you sent us,’ he said.
‘Those field guns won’t be much use in the siege that’s coming. I was only hoping to keep them out of Mannian hands.’
He could see that Vanichios already knew this.
Creed blew out a breath of frustration and looked about the hall. He followed the smoke from the fire pouring up to the domed ceiling, filtering out through its circle of blackened chimney slots or recoiling from sleety gusts. Trees were growing up there, purple-leaved nightshades sprouting from the walls themselves and hanging out over the hall. Below their high canopy, his men sat or lay resting across the littered floor. Others were still coming in, collapsing wherever they could find a clear space on which to sleep.
‘Four days late,’ he mused, without looking at Vanichios. ‘What prompted him in the end?’
‘I threatened Kincheko to a duel if he did not send them.’
‘Hah!’ exclaimed Creed. ‘He must be a worse blade than you, then.’
Together they smiled in the midst of their troubles. Vanichios even flicked the scar on his cheek, mock indignation on his face. They laughed aloud, drawing the attention of the men around the chamber.
‘It’s good to see you are well and still in one piece,’ said Vani-chios, with warmth. ‘Truly, I mean that. We have left this reunion much too long, and now…’ he waved a hand in the air. ‘Now we are neck-deep in trouble, with no time to catch up at all.’
Creed wiped a tear of laughter from his eye. Yes, it was good to be here, he realized. Good to be speaking again.
War could be many loathsome things, yet it cut through the ordinary nonsense of life like nothing else. Creed was reminded of the decency of this man before him, his humanity towards those less fortunate than himself when even Creed would see nothing but wretchedness. A result, he always supposed, of the fact that Vani-chios had grown up as the youngest of four brothers, the lowest position within the traditional pecking order of a Michine family.
Vanichios had outlived his father and his brothers, and he’d found himself the lord of Tume after all; the last thing he’d ever wanted to be, Creed knew. Yet he wore the role well, Creed thought now. It fitted him.
Vanichios leaned forwards to narrow the distance between them. His voice was gentle as he said, ‘I sent my condolences. I hope you received them in time.’
‘Yes,’ said Creed, blinking. ‘I appreciated your words.’ He remembered that now. A letter had arrived after his wife’s funeral. In his black grief he had ignored it, and somehow over time it had become lost.
‘I wept, when I heard the news of her passing,’ Vanichios said bravely, then looked away quickly, as though to stop himself from saying more. He had loved Rose deeply himself.
Creed patted the arm of his chair, not knowing what to say in return. How poor he was at these things.
A puddle was gathering on the floor beneath him, his greatcoat shedding its melted sleet. Droplets plopped into it loudly. ‘They’re right on our heels, old friend,’ he declared. ‘We need to burn the bridge now, before they can storm it.’
Vanichios drew his hands together beneath his chin. Again that tiny nod of the head, his lips pursed.
‘That should hold them off for a few days at most until they string a new one across. After that…’ Creed shook his head, thinking on his feet. It was the talent he most relied upon. ‘We must begin a full evacuation of the city,’ he decided. ‘And we must begin it now.’
The Principari’s left eye twitched. ‘You really think our situation is as bad as that? I heard rumours that the Matriarch was dead.’
‘Rumours, aye. We don’t yet know for certain. Either way, they’ll want Tume before they push on for Bar- Khos. It’s too risky for them to leave us here at their backs.’
Vanichios inhaled, filling himself up with it. ‘This citadel has stood for three hundred years, Marsalas. I have five hundred men in my Home Guard. Sound men, men who will fight hard.’
‘This citadel was built for different times. For armies with ballistae and tub-thumpers. With the Empire’s cannon, they’ll have the gates down in a matter of hours. You know this, old friend.’
‘That is hardly the point,’ said the Principari. ‘Tume has been my family’s home for nine generations, Marsalas. I cannot simply desert it.’
‘If you don’t, you’ll die here.’
A lively silence fell between them.
‘I should never have allowed them to take away the city’s guns all those years ago,’ Vanichios mused. ‘We would not be in this fix now, if only I had stopped them.’
‘Then the Shield might have fallen. This is hardly the time for ifs and buts.’
‘The Shield may yet fall. It’s under heavy attack even as we speak. General Tanserine is hard pushed to hold Kharnost’s Wall.’
It was Creed’s turn to wince. Tanserine was the soundest defensive general that they had. If he was struggling to hold, the attack must be as bad as they’d ever seen.
The doors of the hall swung open, allowing a gust of sleet to enter. A breeze blew across the nape of his neck.
Men cursed and shouted to close the door. For a moment, as the new arrivals struggled to close them, the sound of cannon could be heard in the distance, the army’s pitifully few guns firing onto the shore.
‘We must hurry,’ commented Creed, though he found that he was unable to rouse himself.
‘Yes,’ agreed Vanichios, not stirring either.
In exhaustion, Creed looked around him, seeking to call out for Bahn. But then he recalled that Bahn was not with him this time. That Bahn was dead.
He rubbed his face and eyes as though shutting out the world for a welcome moment. Grief for the men he had lost lay waiting at the back of his mind; but there was relief too, that his plan had worked, miraculously, that somehow he’d led them into battle and led them out again without losing them all.
The sensation of it was so powerful it made Creed’s fingers tremble, his eyes smart with emotion.
‘Are you all right, Marsalas?’
‘I’m just tired,’ said Creed, feeling lost for a moment. Old.
‘War is for young men,’ Vanichios offered, ‘and fanatics of self-worship bent on conquering the world.’
‘That it is.’
‘Well, piss on all of them,’ the Principari declared, and his eyes gleamed with a sudden proud fierceness.
It was a look that took Creed back fifteen years and more, and it brought a lump to his throat, and sharp affection in his heart.
He realized that his old friend was preparing himself to die.
Ash pulled his cloak over his head, though it irritated the stitched swelling of his wound. He was trying hard not to cough for the pain that it caused him. The zel plodded wearily along the wooden boardwalks of Tume, and he lolled with the rhythm of it, half asleep, half awake, aware of all that was happening in a dreamlike, disjointed way.
The Diplomat walked ahead with the reins held in his gloved hand. Around the young man, thousands of people were thronging the boardwalks, carrying what they could as they headed towards the canal that ran parallel to the main thoroughfare. Boats of all sizes were setting off into the lake, or rocking deeper in the water as they filled with people and belongings. A horn was blaring incessantly from the nearby citadel, and bells tolled from the temples, only adding to the sense of urgency.