confident that righteousness must prevail. Without being eager to go. He had gone because it was expected.
Kedle was sure she would not see him again. That if only one Khaurenese fell out there, that one would be her Soames.
Brother Candle told Socia, 'Here's your chance to be a big sister. Help the girl handle this.'
Raulet Archimbault's attitude was as bright as his daughter's was bleak. 'The boy will catch up. He'll be fine. He knows the evacuation plan. Hell, he may get there before we do.'
Getting there was an exercise in profound misery. More so than the flight from Patriarchal captivity. Though enemy patrols were fewer, the risk of butchery at their hands had worsened. The Khaurenesaine would suffer terribly for its defiance.
The band of Seekers was large enough to defend itself from brigands and small troops of Patriarchals. And had several times. A third of the company perished on the road. Night things tracked them all the way, first to Albodiges beside frozen Lake Trauen, then onward along the precipitous trail up the Reindau Spine to the fortifications called Corpseour.
News overtaking the band was disheartening. Connectens in general had plunged to the bleakest, most hopeless of despair.
Kedle's baby came early, while they were on the road. It was not an easy birth. The women feared she would not survive the bleeding. There was a worse fear among the men.
The birth drew the Night like a corpse draws flies. Even the learned, like Brother Candle, could not fathom why. He suspected, though, that it was just curiosity about intense pain and emotion.
The baby, named Raulet after his grandfather, was healthy enough. And arrived without birthmarks, a caul, deformities, teeth already developed, or other evil portent. To the great relief of the travelers.
Corpseour had been built along a knife edge of a ridge. Near vertical drops fell away to both sides. The path up from Albodiges was the only approach. That was watched over by outworks capable of laying down heavy missile fires. Corpseour had existed as an ultimate refuge since before man learned to write. It had been used a hundred times across the ages, though not since the disorders following the collapse of the Old Empire. Maysaleans had been refurbishing the fortifications for some time. Defenses had been improved. Stores had been laid in. Most of all, cisterns had been deepened and expanded. Each time an Altaian stronghold had fallen in the past, the cause had been thirst or treachery. Little could be done to prevent treachery. That last tiny seed of lust, greed, or terror hidden deep inside a man's secret self, that made him willing to betray, just could not be known till it quickened. It might exist in every soul, awaiting the right conditions to sprout.
The overarching strategy of the Seekers was to outlast their enemies. Sublime V had passed away. Without a Patriarch of his obsession driving a Connecten Crusade the wider interest should fade. Arnhand and Santerin were preoccupied with one another. Santerin had the upper hand. Charlve the Dim was said to be in the early stages of dementia. Meaning there should be little threat from the north.
The Patriarchal Office for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy ought to wither and die, too. It had no backers amongst the leading candidates for succession.
Cold and miserable as he might be, Brother Candle thought hope might return with the distant but inevitable spring.
Practicing his secondary profession of watcher atop the wall, Brother Candle stood in the highest lookout of Corpseour and surveyed his harsh new world. Mist filled the valley to the east. Snow clouds concealed everything beyond. That direction showed nothing but unreadable gray. Visibility was little better to the west. What was not covered in snow was weathered gray stone or scattered, weary green vegetation. A couple of villages lay partially obscured by wood smoke not moving because the air was deadly still.
Socia joined him. The girl looked tired and older than her years. Incessant dejection had ground her down. 'What are you looking at?' There had been nothing different to see since they arrived. Just a little more snow every day.
'The future.'
'Pardon?'
'All our tomorrows look like that.'
'You do need to go off to one of your Masters' secret places for a spell.'
'Want to know a secret, Socia? There are no secret places. Unless you count hideaways like this. They exist only in imaginations of those who fear the Path.'
'There's somebody down there.'
Specks of humanity marked the trail. Maybe refugees. Maybe someone bringing news. Maybe just men who made the climb each day to clear the trail of ice and to bring yet more water up to the cisterns.
'There's still spring,' the old man said. 'A new year always holds promise.'
There was the hardest part, these days. Encouraging others when he had so little optimism left himself.
20. Artecipea: The Unanticipated Crusade
The Captain-General was reviewing inventory lists payrolls. Scut work was the biggest part of his job. 'How the hell do one hundred fifty-eight crossbowmen use up eight barrels of bolts in one engagement?'
'They kill a lot of people,' Titus Consent replied. Sounding mildly amused.
He was, Hecht knew. Consent thought he was becoming a miser.
'Sure. But you'd think they'd get more of the bolts back after the dust settled.'
'They probably missed twenty times for every hit. Those bolts aren't going to be recovered. Unless you put a thousand men out to glean the battlefield.'
'Phooey. I'll make the Khaurenese buy me fifty new barrels when we take the city.'
Consent smiled without being amused. It was an open secret: The Connecten Crusade had run its course. When elected, the new Patriarch would discontinue the war gainst heresy.
Reports had the balloting deadlocked. None of the Five Families could muster even a significant minority backing for their Principate. All they could agree on was unity against the non-Brothen candidates. Neither the Brotherhood of War nor the Society had backed a candidate yet.
Principate Delari had garnered the second biggest plurality in the initial poll, to his complete consternation. Hugo Mongoz was the front-runner, a compromise candidate who could be counted on to die soon. An interim figurehead to fill a role while the Collegium worked out a real succession. The Five Families could stomach Hugo Mongoz for a year or two.
'Messenger from Antieux,' one of Hecht's lifeguards announced.
'No doubt Ghort whining for more money. Send him in.'
A road-weary, dirty, damp courier entered, accompanied by Redfearn Bechter. The room was the warmest in the fortress, Camden ande Gledes, which stood a scant twenty miles from Khaurene. It commanded both old roads from the east.
Bechter presented a one-sheet estimate of the damage suffered by the Khaurenese and their allies. The fallen numbered more than fifteen thousand. Thousands more had been captured. The fools had fielded an army with no centralized command. Hecht had given them no chance to overcome that disadvantage.
'Good, with the Navayans. Some important catches there.'
Bechter nodded. Hecht turned to the courier. 'Yes?' The man behind the mud was one of Ghort's most trusted.
'The Colonel wants you to know he's been recalled. The City Regiment has been ordered back to Brothe. Never mind that they're in pay. The orders came from the city senate but were signed by Bronte Doneto. Colonel Ghort says the senators are scared there'll be major disorders after the election.'
Hecht surveyed his staff, saw raised eyebrows. 'Does that mean they expect another foreign Patriarch?'
'Colonel Ghort said, 'When he asks if they're going to pick a non-Brothen, tell him the guy in Viscesment, Bellicose or whatever, is running a strong fourth. And he's ex-communicate. '
'I see.' Hecht reflected. 'How soon will he move?'
'He's already started. The orders gave him no wiggle room
Doneto knew Ghort.
