Gilded Serpent, page 12
“It’s good that you couldn’t kill a child.” She couldn’t even imagine doing so herself.
Amarin laughed, and there was a coldness to it. “That had nothing to do with it. Celendor’s legions slaughtered my people’s children, and I would have been glad to return the blow. No, the reason I didn’t kill him was that I believed it would be a waste of my one opportunity. That they were all mad fools to think this boy such a powerful weapon. That I was better to use the access being his servant would give me to take a life that would make a difference.”
“But you didn’t.” She scowled, anger flooding her. “You, what? Developed so much affection for Marcus and the other boys that you gave up on Sibal? On rebellion?”
“Far from it,” he answered. “As I looked for an opportunity to strike my blow, my ambition only grew. Especially when I realized that the Senate had been right about him. And it was then I resolved that my blow would not fall upon a single man, but upon the Empire. And that my weapon wouldn’t be a blade.”
Teriana’s heart skipped, but before she could press Amarin further, sandals thudded against wood, and Marcus said, “We do have stools, you know.”
Scrambling to her feet, she muttered, “Uncomfortable stools. When you build your fortress, you should really invest in better furniture. With cushions.”
Quintus stepped from behind Marcus. “I hear you and me are to be tight as ticks again, Teriana.”
“If you’ll all excuse me,” Amarin murmured, “I’ll see to securing dinner.”
“Thanks, Amarin,” Quintus said. “I could use some grub. It has been a day.”
Marcus glowered at him. “I already regret this decision.”
The jaunty salute Quintus gave in response made Teriana’s chest tighten, because there was no humor in his eyes, only a haunted hollowness, this all an act to cover his grief.
One of the men on duty chose that moment to step into the tent, immediately looking to Marcus. “Your presence is required, sir.”
“I’m in the middle of something. Get Felix to deal with it.”
“It’s the tribunus who is asking for you, sir. He said to tell you that a magnolia has bloomed, but that the blossom is wilting quickly.”
All the blood drained from Marcus’s face. “Stay with her,” he said to Quintus. “I need to go.” Then he all but bolted from the tent.
Turning to Quintus, she asked, “What in the underworld was that about? Do you know the code?”
“Yeah,” he answered, expression thoughtful. “It means things are about to get interesting.”
22
MARCUS
Heart galloping, Marcus stepped outside the command tent to find Felix standing in the rain with the guards, his face unreadable. “He’s in medical.”
“How bad are his injuries?”
“He’s a dead man.”
And would only be the first of many.
Grimacing, Marcus strode through camp as fast as he could without running, both him and Felix ignoring the acknowledgments of the men.
The medical tent was only dimly lit for the sake of the men in it trying to sleep, but the surgery at the far end blazed bright with lamplight. Racker’s distinct form was bent over a body on the operating table, his assistants scurrying about.
Pulse loud in his ears, Marcus crossed the tent, his eyes fixing on the naked man sprawled across the table. He was bleeding from several wounds, but what was going to kill him was the gaping hole in his belly. Racker’s hands were bloody up past his elbows as he fought to slow the man’s bleeding.
The path-hunter’s bleeding.
For there was no denying what this man was. He had golden Cel skin, which was marked with the tattooed code of the unmarked xenthier stem the Senate had paid him to venture through.
“He say anything useful?” Marcus moved to the man’s head. The path-hunter’s eyes were rolled back, but he was muttering under his breath. Bending low, Marcus listened. It seemed the man was asking for his wife. Possibly children.
“Not since I’ve had him.” Racker took a clamp from one of the medics assisting him, fixing it over a spurting artery. “He’s been mostly unconscious. The men who brought him in have his gear, though.”
Which would have all the information they needed, except where the stem had deposited him. With this rain, retracing his steps would be difficult, which meant potentially months of searching for the terminus stem. If they ever found it at all.
Let him die with the answer.
The thought reared in his head, but only for an instant. Then Felix stepped next to the table, along with Titus, who was rubbing his eyes as though he’d been woken from a heavy sleep. The other legatus grimaced at the sight of the path-hunter’s injuries. “That’s not the work of a blade.”
“Obviously,” Racker muttered, then he elbowed Titus aside. “If you’d make space, sir. It’s rather more important that I be able to see than for you to have the opportunity to gape.” Then his eyes flicked to Marcus. “Well?”
“Rouse him.”
The Thirty-Seventh’s surgeon said nothing, only reached out a hand, and one of the other medics handed him a needle, along with a vial. Without hesitation, he injected something into the path-hunter. “Get what you need from him quickly. You’ll only have a minute or so before he bleeds out.”
Then the path-hunter’s eyes snapped open, and he screamed. Bending over the table, Marcus caught hold of the man’s arms, meeting his panicked gaze. “Be easy. You are with your countrymen, and we will take care of you.”
The man’s chin gave a shuddering jerk.
“I’m Legatus Marcus of the Thirty-Seventh,” he said. “And you are in a legion camp located within the Dark Shores of the West.”
“I found you,” the man breathed. “I mapped a path across the world.”
“That you did,” Marcus kept his voice calm. Soothing. “What’s your name?”
“Nonus.”
“How long since you crossed?”
“Two days. I think. I lost count.”
Which meant Cassius hadn’t stopped with the first group he’d sent through the unmapped genesis stems. He’d sent more, and in all likelihood, it had been to their deaths.
The man shivered violently, only Marcus’s grip keeping him steady. “Did you travel the entire time?”
“Yes.” All the color was gone from the man’s face. “I ran until I reached the river. And then I swam. But it kept chasing. Relentless, it was.” He reached up to grip Marcus’s tunic. “And it wasn’t alone.”
Despite the heat, prickles of cold ran down Marcus’s spine. “What direction did you come from?”
“West.” The man’s grip tightened. “Deep in the jungle.”
“The stem was near a river?”
“Yes.” The path-hunter was shuddering, his skin icy beneath Marcus’s hands.
“Time’s almost up,” Racker said. “Thirty seconds, if that.”
“How wide a river?” Marcus pressed. “Were there falls?”
The path-hunter’s eyes rolled back in his head, then abruptly regained focus. “My girls. You’ll make sure they’re given the gold? That they’re taken care of?”
Marcus nodded, because it was the only comfort he could give. “You have my word.”
“Tell them I love them,” the man whispered, then he exhaled one last breath and went still.
Marcus stood staring at the man’s lifeless eyes. Dead before his time, and all for the sake of gold. All for the sake of giving his children a better life, never mind that his actions could well lead to the deaths of thousands. Of tens of thousands.
How many lives had been taken with love as the perpetrator’s defense?
“What was that?” Felix asked.
Realizing he’d spoken aloud, Marcus muttered, “Nothing.” Letting go of the path-hunter’s shoulders, he reached up and closed the man’s lids, then turned to find Felix holding a pencil and a scrap of paper. “Did you get that all down?”
“For all the good it will do us.” Frowning at the number tattooed on the dead man’s arm, Felix copied it on the paper. “This is going to be a nightmare to find. And obviously the wildlife is a threat.”
“But at least we know it’s there.” Titus’s voice was drenched in triumph, and he slapped the dead man’s shoulder like a comrade’s, jostling the body. “Somewhere, within a few days’ journey of our camp, is a xenthier path connecting us to the Empire. Which means we are halfway to having the reinforcements we need!”
The only thing they needed reinforcements for was conquest.
“It does us little good without a return path,” Marcus answered. “We have no way of even informing the Senate that one of their hunters was successful, so contain your enthusiasm.”
“But Teriana—”
“The Senate will not send us more men without land routes here and back again, Titus. Viable routes that don’t require whirlpools and boons from sea serpents.”
“But—”
“I’m not allowing our only route back to the Empire to sail away just to deliver a message. This is a large step for us, but our work is not done.”
Titus stared at him, brow furrowed and eyes seeing more than Marcus wanted, so he added, “Go spread the word. Open up casks for a third of the men and let them celebrate.”
“And to toast the fallen,” Racker said. “This man fought hard to reach us.”
Titus inclined his head. “To the fallen.” He saluted before exiting the tent, and a chorus of cheers rose a moment later.
“I’ll have a tracking party head out at dawn,” Felix said. “Not sure what sort of trail they’ll find with this rain, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Maybe.”
“Meet you back at command?”
At Marcus’s nod, Felix saluted and strode out of the tent, leaving Marcus alone with Racker and the corpse.
“You know what did this?”
Racker’s gaze was clinical as he touched the dead man’s injuries, fingers delving into the wounds. “Big cat, I’d say. But who knows what sort of creatures hunt the interior.”
“I’ll speak with Ereni. See if she might have answers.”
Racker made a noncommittal grunt, but that concerned Marcus less than the tremor that stole over his head surgeon’s hands. Hands that Marcus had never seen shake, no matter how catastrophic the trauma. Hands that without, the Thirty-Seventh would have seen twice the discharges that it had.
“He couldn’t be saved,” he said, watching the surgeon closely. “It might not have been kind to put him through that for the sake of so little information, but it wasn’t what killed him.”
Racker’s black eyes fixed on him, full of the purest form of condescension that Marcus deigned to opine on a medical matter. “Thank you for your insight, sir.”
“Something is troubling you. If not this man, then what?”
Silence hung across the tent, broken only by the faint coughs and moans of the injured men on the cots beyond.
Finally, Racker spoke. “I thought we’d have more time.” He shook his head. “I hoped we’d have more time.”
Marcus hesitated before answering. “We aren’t back under their thumbs just yet.”
“But soon enough.” Racker waved a hand at him. “Get out of my surgery, sir. I’ll see what I can learn from the body and have a report back to you at dawn.”
23
TERIANA
“A path-hunter has been brought into camp.”
Teriana’s stomach hollowed, the world swimming in and out of focus. “What?”
“One of the Senate’s path-hunters is here.” Quintus exhaled. “Which means that there is a way from the Empire to the Dark Shores that doesn’t involve a Maarin ship or sea monsters.”
“Oh.”
He took a look at her, then went rooting around in the cabinets, coming out with a bottle of wine. “Atlian,” he said. “Amarin hides the expensive stuff for when we have senators in the command tent.”
“Senators?”
“Yeah.” He pulled the cork, then filled two tin cups, handing her one. “Soon as we have viable routes mapped, they’ll send one, and I can tell you from experience that he’ll be a right pain in everyone’s asses. Though I suppose you’ll be gone at that point. And I’ll…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“Right.”
He sat on the stool next to her, then caught hold of her wrist, lifting the cup to her mouth. She dutifully took a mouthful of the smooth red liquid, then another. “We’re a bad influence on you,” he said. “Teaching you to drown your woes.”
“I’m a sailor,” she said softly. “I was born a bad influence.”
Quintus laughed, taking a sip from his cup, eyes fixed on the lamp at the center of the table. They sat in silence together for a long time, drinking the wine. Just after they finished the bottle, the camp filled with shouts and laughter, and then Marcus returned, officers following on his heels. Quintus stood. She did not.
Marcus’s clothing was soaked, and rainwater ran in rivulets down his face. Retrieving a towel, he scrubbed it over his hair and dried his hands, not so much as acknowledging her before saying, “Let’s have a look, then.”
Kneeling before one of the chests that contained maps and other important documents, he moved the pieces of the combination lock, and the mechanism opened with a clunk. He extracted a rolled-up map and a bound ledger, taking them to the opposite end of the table from where she sat, where he unrolled it. Servius used markers to weigh down the corners. “His number?”
Felix handed over a sheet of paper. Frowning, Marcus referred to a page in the ledger, then flipped through the book, pausing when he reached a page near the back. “Bardeen.”
Bardeen was on the southeastern edge of the Empire. The Quincense did a fair bit of trade along the province’s extensive coast during the summer; the winters were too cold for her mother’s blood.
Felix leaned over the map, then rested his finger on it, giving a slight shake of his head. “Shit. That’s near where we were camped when we laid siege to Hydrilla.”
“It was discovered last year,” Marcus said, reading from the page. “Underground, after an excavation. Senate had sent sixteen hunters through it, last our records were updated. Who knows how many they’ve sent since, but surely more than just our corpse.”
Gibzen snorted. “Will make it easier to find on our end if there are corpses scattered about it.”
Marcus made a noncommittal noise. “I expect they are scattered throughout the jungle, but still, it’s surprising that none made it out alive.” Glancing toward Servius, he said, “Offer a reward for information about any foreigners having stumbled out of the jungle over the past year.”
“Wouldn’t they have come to us by now, if they’d survived?”
“Things change. Let’s see if a reward will lure them out.” He was silent for a heartbeat, then he said, “And offer a reward for any information about known xenthier stems in the area. Titus, start recruiting volunteers to train as path-hunters so that they are ready when we find a genesis stem. Make sure they are clear both of the dangers and of the reward they’ll receive if they are successful.”
Titus nodded, and though his face was expressionless, Teriana could see the glee in his eyes. He wanted to be reunited with the Empire.
“Gibzen, you will head the search for the Bardeen stem’s terminus. Racker will provide his report on what he’s learned from the body in the morning, but I want you underway before then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Rising to his feet, Marcus surveyed the group. “I’ll withhold congratulations until we can claim success on our end. Adjourned.” Then he turned to Quintus. “Be back in this tent at dawn.”
“Yes, sir.”
Everyone left, leaving Teriana alone with Marcus. He sat back down on a stool, resting his elbows on the table and rubbing his temples with his thumbs. Then he said, “Are you all right?”
Unfreezing from where she’d sat during the discussion, she moved across from him, eyeing the massive map depicting the entirety of the Empire. It was covered with dots of various colors, most of them red and green. There had to be hundreds of them. Xenthier stems.
“What do red and green mean?” Her voice rasped, and she wished she had a glass of water. Or a bottle of rum.
“Unmapped xenthier stems. Green for geneses. Red for terminuses.”
There were so many. So very, very many.
“I shouldn’t let you see this.” He coughed, and she winced at the slight wheeze to his breath. “It’s treason.”
As were so many other things he’d said and done. Except things had changed. Now those who’d punish him were within reach. “Then maybe you should put it away.”
He stared blindly at the map, then nodded and rose. Rolling up the map, he stowed it and the ledger back in the chest, the lock clicking loudly as he secured it. Picking up a bottle sitting on top of the chest, he jerked out the cork and took a large mouthful. “I’ve had this headache ever since we took Aracam. It just throbs and throbs and I can’t think.”
“Rum won’t help that.”
“Probably not.” He took another mouthful, then set it on the table between them. “Even the best-laid plans go awry when the game changes. I know that well, and yet…”
Outside, the volume was increasing by the second, the men shouting and cheering and laughing. Marcus turned his head, listening to them, then he said, “If we find the xenthier, your people will be freed. You’ll have your freedom.”
“Freedom that comes with a steep price.” For when Cassius had his paths, Marcus and his legions would not be left to sit idle in Arinoquia. It meant war against the West. And against her.
“I don’t know what path to choose.” He exhaled a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what to do.”
Neither did she. For everywhere she looked, all paths led to blood.
24
LYDIA
Lena and Gwen walked with her back to the temple, word that the High Lady had sent them ensuring they were given rooms in the dormitories. Not that space was a premium given how few healers remained. And once they’d dropped off their things, the three of them moved into the library.
