“Yes, yes! What are you getting at?”
Chies would have to talk his way past the men on the gates, who had orders to send guards with him when he went out. No, of course he’d go out the bolt-hole from the laundry, the one he thought nobody else knew about. That would save him a run around the stables, too. Twelve gods!
“Getting to, my lady. We are getting to the final payoff. Two years ago we finally had as many collars as Stralg did and were training faster than he could bring men over the Edge. That was the turning point. He’s limited by the Ice on the other side, you see. Their seasons are more extreme over there, and-”
“So you think you can beat him?”
“He’s beaten now. He knows it. The problem is to kill off the survivors with as few collateral deaths as possible. You heard about Miona?”
She shivered. “Conflicting stories.”
“Believe the worst of them,” Cavotti said grimly. “Stralg billeted a host in the town. We surrounded it and torched it. You know how peasants burn the stubble and the vermin run out with their fur-”
“Please!”
“He lost seventeen or eighteen sixties. That was two years’ reinforcements gone in one night.”
“And how many civilians died?”
“All of them, basically. It was not a small town.”
“Atrocity!”
“Regrettable. But for Stralg it was the beginning of the end. Hardly a sixday goes by without a battle now. Piaregga, Reggoni Bridge
… two sixties here, three there. I am nibbling him to death, my lady! He cannot stand these losses. We can match him body for body and still get stronger.”
Horrible! Horrible! “What do you want of me?” she yelled. Why was Cavotti talking so much? It was almost as if we were waiting for the Vigaelians to get there and kill him. Chies belting along the alley, almost at the barracks…
Cavotti pulled a face. “I want to stop Celebre becoming another Miona, of course. It’s my home, too, and the smell of burning babies isn’t something you ever forget. Look at your maps, lady of Celebre. His escape route to Vigaelia goes past your city. He’s falling back as slowly as he can, but we’re driving him, and very soon now he will have to make a stand. Where better than here?” The big man’s raspy voice rose to fill the hall: “He has about three-sixty-sixty left. How do you feel about that many ice devils occupying your city, Mistress? For half a year while the Vigaelian winter has the pass sealed?
Gods! “No!” A mere dozen was more than it could stand now.
Chies must be at the barracks by this time, yelling for the flankleader. Werists moved like birds. It was their speed that made them so deadly. They’d come straight over the walls.
Cavotti smiled, exposing more tooth enamel than humans should have. “Then join us, my lady! Give me the signal, and I’ll slip my men into Celebre before the garrison knows what’s happening. I swear that I can control them. They’ll behave. They’re patriots, Florengians all, and they despise the Vigaelian scum. They want to show they’re better.” He thrust out a great paw, like a bear’s. “Shake on it! Sixty-sixty of my men in Celebre and we’ll deny it to Stralg. We’ll cut him off from his base and bleed him to death on the plains.”
Shake? She would not touch his murderer’s hand if she were drowning. Piero was dying reviled, childless, and detested. “Never! You would make this city a battlefield. Don’t you understand that my husband has been labeled coward and lackey and lickspittle all these years because he gave up his own happiness and mine just to save Celebre from sack? It worked. This city survived when most didn’t, although many people still won’t admit he was right. And now you would have me throw that all away?”
The Werist glowered at her angrily, then paused a moment as if listening. “I must go.” He hauled off his cowl, exposing Weru’s brass collar. Below such classically perfect features it seemed even more of an obscenity than usual.
Would the Vigaelians believe Chies’s fantastic story of Cavotti in the palace? But he didn’t need to say the Mutineer’s name, just that there was a Florengian Werist. They knew Chies, they’d trust him.
They must be on their way by now.
“Your husband did as he saw right, lady, to stop Stralg from sacking the city as he’d sacked Nelina. But I am offering you a garrison to defend you. At your invitation.”
“And who rules Celebre then? The dogs would be worse than the wolves.” What of the hostages Stralg held, her children? “Stralg showed fifteen years ago that Werists can run up stone walls like rats.”
“Not when those walls are defended by other Werists, my lady. I didn’t dare storm Miona with him in there.”
“No, you burned it! And he would burn Celebre. No! No! Never! Begone! If I weren’t certain that Chies had gone to summon Stralg’s men, I would do it myself. Leave!”
Somewhere in the palace something bayed.
The Mutineer snorted. “Oh, hear that! That’s shocking! Take that beast’s name, Packleader. Well, it’s been a joy talking to you, sweet lady. We must do this more often. Put it to your council and send me a signal if you change your mind. The best landmark in the city is the canopy on the temple of Veslih. I expect it’s all covered with bird droppings?”
“Go!” She could hear something coming, many things. “Go! Go! Go! Go!”
“Needs cleaning. If you change your mind, put up a scaffolding around the tholos as if you’re going to clean it. That’ll be the signal. We’ll move in.” The big man clasped her shoulders and moved her aside as if she were a child. “Now, I really must dash. Don’t stand in the opening, woman; you’ll get run over.”
He grabbed her hand to kiss it and was gone, racing across the terrace.
Then she guessed where he thought he was going, but that way was blocked. “There are knives on the weir!” she screamed.
She turned to the noise inside. Three… four… great beasts bunched in the doorway of the presence chamber, snarling and spitting, claws screeching on the tiles. She caught a fleeting glimpse of brass collars half-hidden by silver manes as they flashed across the hall, out through the opening, going almost too fast to see, going so fast she felt the wind stir her robe. More scraping claws and bestial baying as they saw their prey, then they were all gone in flying leaps over the balustrade.
MARNO CAVOTTI
heard the warbeasts’ fury as he dived from the parapet. He very nearly dashed his brains out on a floating tree trunk, which was not part of the plan. It must have blown down within the city itself, because the Puisa River entered Celebre through siphons under the north wall. Floating debris remained in the pool outside, while any would-be intruder who tried to swim through the tunnels would be swept against bronze gratings and drowned.
He surfaced, rolled over on his back, and floated. Even if the Vigaelians had followed him in, they would not find him now. The world was silent when his ears were submerged, but stars were starting to show through the clouds, so the storm had gone. If he could just pull off this escape, he could rank his trip a complete success. Hoodwinking an aging, pompous pedant and a terrified bereaved mother was no great feat to brag of, but news of his visit here, far behind Stralg’s lines, would fan the flames of freedom.
The river left the city over a weir, dropping into a narrow, walled canyon. The current was very fast, and the lip of the weir was armed with bronze blades to discourage exactly the feat he was attempting. This defense was effective, but frequently claimed swimmers who ventured too close, usually young boys, who were either gnashed into gobbets or drowned in the gyre in the canyon. Cavotti knew all about the weir because it had killed one of his cousins.
The river that night was much higher, faster, and colder than usual, and turgid as soup after the storm. Very fast. There was the spire of the Temple of Cienu already. He began his change, sending prayers to Weru, asking the god of storm and battle to arrange that the rain had raised the flow high enough to carry him over the knives.
Weir gone. The sky tilted above him and he was falling. The gyre was vicious, turning faster than any man
