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By the close of the day he was feeling better again. He would open the next day by destroying the rest of the towers. He’d switch tactics, sending the cavalry around to flank the Acacians while concentrating the catapults in the center. The orbs of pitch were ru
But overnight it seemed Aliver’s army replenished its numbers. New recruits must have poured in to replace the fallen. The army the Acacians fielded the third day looked little diminished from what it had been on the first. It didn’t make sense that they could so swiftly incorporate the new additions, but they placed them on the battlefield the very day of their arrival. Somehow, they fought with the discipline and grace of veterans.
And his downpour of fire? It poured down, rightly enough, but it had even less impact than in the days before. One tower, directly hit, buckled beneath the impact, flared into flame, and then…well, then the blaze went out, as if a breath of wind had extinguished it. Even as Maeander stared, the structure seemed to regain its footing, to rise back into shape. It smoldered, blackened, but it survived. By the time he called the day closed he felt he was fighting at a standstill. Instead of reveling in victory he felt himself floundering. He was not wi
The first day had confused him slightly. The second confounded him. The third worried him. He entertained the thought for the first time that perhaps Aliver had been blessed by some form of sorcery. He had thought all such things long dead, but what other explanation could there be? Nothing else made any more sense. With this realization came the first tingling of doubt. It appeared like an itch at his elbow, a nagging sensation that he just could not get rid of. If he scratched it with reason, it vanished, but only until he pulled his fingernails away. Then the itch crept across his skin again. He didn’t like it at all.
The Numrek had not arrived. Where were they? What game were they playing? The league was still readily available, but it would be four days before they could resupply the pitch orbs. His men were starting to look worried around the eyes. A messenger from Hanish arrived, demanding news. He had the man sequestered in a tent, guarded.
That evening he came to a decision. He was going to try something Hanish had cautioned should be used only as a last resort. They had a weapon they had not yet revealed to anybody. It had been a gift from their allies across the Gray Slopes. Not a disease this time but another thing unheard-of in the Known World. He did not like revealing their secrets if it was at all possible not to. But the situation they faced, Maeander’s gut told him, was just that sort of dire circumstance.
He sent a messenger to Aliver, proposing a two-day break in the fighting. Let the morrow be a day spent clearing the field, tending the wounded, and let another follow to honor the dead. Aliver agreed. With the delay in place, Maeander next contacted the vessels that carried the secret cargo, docked, as they were, in the harbor of Bocoum. He needed the antoks, he said. Bring them to shore and ready them.
CHAPTER
Cori
After learning what she had that strange night, all her old assumptions had to be revised. Her servants had once been faceless, nameless beings at the periphery of her vision. But from that first morning she saw them differently. She could not help but study their faces, wondering what they knew that she didn’t. What did they think of her? To whom did they owe loyalty? She took to watching them, observing their demeanor in various situations. She tried to gauge which of them were more disposed to her than others, which wore resentment barely disguised, and which looked like they could be manipulated. And then she had begun to cultivate them accordingly.
It had paid off. The servants were not as loyal to the Meins as she had assumed. It almost seemed as if they had been waiting for her to wake up and conspire with them. She learned that many of them believed Aliver’s return was fated. A male servant had told her that Rialus Neptos was in the palace. Another had informed her of Larken’s death. When a girl named Gillian brought her word of Sire Dagon’s arrival on the island, Cori
She left her quarters in the gray light of predawn, working her way through the palace silently, by memory, carrying no torch or candle. She had dressed carefully even earlier. She wore a light blue dress of a silken material, one that framed her collarbones and neck to flattering effect. Leaguemen were men, after all.
She had come to understand that the palace was a sort of prison for her now. Neither Hanish nor anybody had ever said this, but she had not been off the island for several weeks. The few times she had mentioned possible trips, Hanish had brushed her off. Recently, Meinish guards’ eyes followed her with a different sort of attentiveness than before. She watched their demeanor as she approached the edges of the royal grounds or when she ventured near the council chambers. She never pushed it far enough that any guard had impeded her, but she became quite sure Hanish had put her under surveillance. There was an invisible boundary thrown up around her. Her skin crawled with awareness of it.
The area of the lower palace reserved for the league, however, was largely a privately run compound. She passed into it without drawing attention to herself. Presumably, Hanish had never considered that she would have any desire to communicate with the league. Once through its gates, she did not have to contend with Meinish guards at all. She did, however, have some difficulty convincing the Ishtat officers to send her request for an audience to Sire Dagon. In the end she managed it only by threatening them with Hanish’s anger, pointedly suggesting that it was the chieftain himself who had sent her to see the leagueman. This won her a meeting, although only a few minutes were promised.
Entering Sire Dagon’s office, she found him already shuffling through papers with his long fingers. He glanced at her with a distracted air, as yet giving her only half his attention. “My dear princess,” he said, “what can I do for you? Please be brief with me, as my time is regretfully short. You have some…communication from Hanish?”
The princess was not as nervous as she had imagined she would be at this moment. She knew that the grip of her dilemma should be enough to paralyze her with fear. At times she had found herself standing still, staring off into nothing. She often thought back to the past, to her father, to her mother, to her short-lived exile on Kidnaban. But she was not the same now as she had been as a child. She felt increasingly disco