Gilded Serpent, page 33
He rolled his shoulders so that his back cracked, then lifted the candle to stare at where the Via Hibernus intersected with the Via Mortis, which was the route through the Sibernese Teeth. The mountain range was long and narrow, passable—in theory—in a matter of days, which was why Empire couriers used it. But only in the warmer months. And the men who undertook the journey were experienced climbers.
“Where are all the Sibernese?” Teriana asked, her head bent over the repairs she was making on her clothing.
“Mostly, they’re on the coasts or south of the Teeth where the weather isn’t as foul,” he answered. “Only a few live on the plains during winter, and they’re nomadic. They have to be with such scarce game.”
“Don’t they have trouble with the wolves?”
“Yes.” He scribbled a calculation on the wall with a bit of charcoal and frowned. “But they keep wolfhounds that run the packs off.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and come across a group of them. We’ve got coin, and I’ve a few hair ornaments that I’d part with for something different to eat.”
“Hope that we don’t.” He set down the charcoal. “They might let you live, but I’d be dead the moment they determined I was Cel. Doubly quick if they figured out I was with the legions.”
“What are you talking about?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teriana look up from her mending. “Sibern’s been a Cel province for what, two hundred years?”
“One hundred eighty-four.”
She snorted. “Right. Specific dates aside, that’s quite a few years of peace, no? And wouldn’t there be a reward for them assisting you of all people? You are fairly important, last I checked.”
Marcus hesitated. The situation in Sibern—and in several of the other provinces—was not something the Senate wanted known. But given that the animosity of the Sibernese people toward Celendor was a very real threat to him—and to Teriana by extension—he decided to answer. “There is no peace. Not in the interior, at any rate. They know helping a legion officer would net them a small fortune in gold. They’d still feed me to their dogs if they got the chance.”
“We traded down the eastern coast of Sibern last year,” Teriana said. “I didn’t even hear a whisper of dissent.”
“Not surprised. The coast has a heavy legion presence, and the larger cities are more … integrated with the Empire. It’s the places that only see the legions and the Empire administrators once or twice a year that are the problem.”
“How so?”
“It started with them refusing to tithe their second-born sons, or rather, claiming that there were no second-born sons.” Sitting on an upturned log, Marcus tossed another piece of wood in the stove, wanting to be comfortable as he aired the Empire’s dirty laundry. “They refused to keep birth records, hid the boys or pretended they were the children of families with no sons. Sibern’s not the only place it’s happened—the Bardenese have turned evading child tithes into an art.”
“Why is it that no one has ever heard of this?” Teriana’s eyes were a brilliant blue; Curious, he thought. And something else.
“Because the last thing the Senate wants is anyone finding out that evasion is possible,” he said, watching her expression. “It’s in the Empire’s best interest to have its people believe its power is absolute and uncontested, so any rumors to the contrary are vigorously quashed.”
Teriana’s brow furrowed, but she said nothing.
“But in Sibern, the Empire erred in how it handled the situation. Or rather, the legatus dealing with it erred and the Senate had to go along with his decision in order to keep from looking foolish. Or worse, weak.”
Extracting a whetstone, he ran it along the blade of his knife, waiting.
“Well?” she finally demanded. “Are you going to tell me what he did?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Obviously I can guess,” she retorted. “But what good is you being a walking encyclopedia of facts if you aren’t going to give me the full story?”
“As you like.” He sheathed the weapon, stretching one leg out in front of him. “So in circumstances of tax evasion, what one does is to go into the town or village or hamlet and have one of the Empire’s administrators estimate how much tax is owed, and then take it. By force, if necessary. Obviously the administrator estimates high, and the legatus in charge will usually turn a blind eye to his men taking a bit more to supplement their own income. The result is that the evaders end up paying more than they would’ve had to if they’d been law-abiding, thus dissuading them from repeating their crime.”
The blue of Teriana’s eyes dimmed to grey. “The Thirty-Seventh do much of this sort of labor?”
He made a face. “Hardly. It’s for legions on the verge of retirement or weak ones that can’t handle a real fight. Anyway, the idiot of a legatus in charge thought that he’d be clever and apply the same practice to the Sibernese evading the child tithes.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m quite serious. In the places that didn’t provide any children, he took all the boys who appeared the correct age, regardless of their birth order. He took them even in places where it was quite feasible they didn’t have any boys to tithe that year. Rounded up four times the number of boys Sibern usually tithes and delivered them to Campus Lescendor.”
“My gods…”
“The Senate couldn’t precisely go returning boys without admitting what had caused the problem in the first place,” he said. “So they kept them. And since then, the resistance to the tithes in Sibern has only worsened, along with the refusal to pay taxes. Violence against the legions has increased, whole patrols going missing only for their heads to be found staked up for their comrades to find.”
It was a bloody mess was what it was. For the number of men it would take to collect the boys and the taxes, it would cost the Senate more than it would receive in revenues. But they couldn’t risk ignoring it lest the problem spread.
“When did this happen?”
“About six years ago,” he answered, doing the math in his head. “The boys they took—those that survived, anyway—will just have graduated from Campus Lescendor.”
Teriana rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Doesn’t the Senate ever stop to consider that arming hundreds of boys with a valid reason to hold a grudge against them might not be the wisest idea?”
Every boy sent to Lescendor had a valid reason to hold a grudge against the Senate, but fear was a powerful motivator. “For that to be the case, they’d have to see us as human beings, not as numbers. And I assure you, the majority of senators do not.”
Shaking her head, Teriana returned to her mending. “Your people are awful.”
“The Senate is not the sum of the Cel people,” he countered. “It’s a few hundred men. Even if you count the patrician class, we are talking about perhaps ten thousand out of four million.”
“It’s those four million people who allow those few hundred men to rule them.”
“Those few hundred men control a military with over two hundred thousand soldiers, so I’m not sure allow is the correct term.”
The noise she made was noncommittal, but then she said, “If they did rise up and the Senate ordered you and yours to quell them, what would you do?” She lifted her face to meet his gaze. “Would you fight your own people? Would the rest of the legions?”
He was saved having to answer by the sound of something heavy walking outside the shack.
“Wolf?” Teriana whispered, rising to her feet.
They hadn’t had much contact with the creatures since the two packs had clashed, the Revenge Pack, as they’d taken to calling it, having been driven back. The new pack, plus those whose territory they’d passed through, would occasionally sniff around the shacks, but they showed none of the dogged determination to get inside as the Revenge Pack.
Holding his finger to his lips for silence, Marcus listened to the sound of the animal’s tread. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. A slow plod over the snow of a much heavier beast than a wolf.
“Bear,” he muttered. “Damn thing should be hibernating by now.”
“It clearly doesn’t agree,” Teriana said under her breath. “What do we do?”
Marcus tossed several pieces of wood in the stove, building the fire.
In response, the bear let out a loud grunt and leaned against the door of the shack.
The heavy beams holding the door in place groaned, and with them watching in horror, the brackets began to give, the nails sliding out of the wood.
“Shit!” Marcus flung himself at the door to brace it, knowing that it would do little good. But the second his shoulders hit the wood, the animal grunted and ceased its pushing, returning to its slow saunter around the shack.
Heart hammering in his chest, Marcus moved to Teriana’s side, both of them rotating as they tracked the bear’s progress.
It circled the shack twice, then stopped. A loud crack of wood split the silence.
Teriana held her breath, waiting.
“Please tell me that wasn’t—” Marcus broke off as the sound of chewing filled the air.
* * *
Dawn greeted them with clear skies, a foot of fresh powder, and the shattered remains of the icebox that contained their supply of wolf meat. Or rather, had contained it, for the bear had devoured every last morsel.
“One less thing to carry, I suppose,” Teriana muttered, then started in the direction of the distant mile marker of the Via Hibernus, her feet sinking deep into the fresh snow.
Marcus didn’t move. All they had to eat was the wolf meat that had been intended for breakfast and the few handfuls of grain that had been in the supplies at the prior shack. And against his will, his gaze shifted from Teriana to the Teeth in the distance.
He’d read about them, but words on the page did not do the mountain range justice. Unlike other places he’d been, where ranges were made out of peaks and valleys and it was possible to find passes that led through them rather than over them, the Teeth appeared like shards of shale standing on end, all razor-sharp ridges and narrow ravines that he knew dead-ended against sheer walls. There was no pass through them. The Teeth were a maze that consumed men like it were a sentient beast.
Which was why the route through them wasn’t on the ground.
It was dangerous, but they could be on the far side of them in days. And on the far side there were forests and rivers, which meant food. On the far side, there was civilization.
“Teriana!” he called. “This way.”
Then he started south, eyes on the first mile marker of the Via Mortis.
The road of death.
61
KILLIAN
He and Lydia sat atop the horses he’d taken from the stables—he was unwilling to risk his own to the blight—waiting for Sonia and Finn to arrive with supplies.
The silence sitting between them was the most uncomfortable he’d ever experienced, but he could think of nothing to say to break it. Part of him wanted to argue with Lydia that to come with him was folly, but another saw reason in her words that Malahi might need her help. Though in his heart, he knew the reason he’d agreed to it was because he was afraid to let her out of his sight again.
“What is your plan for finding her?” Lydia asked softly, wiping rain drops from her face.
“If it’s corrupted tenders who are creating the blight, it stands to reason that following it back to the source is our best chance of finding them. If we’re lucky, that’s where Malahi will be as well.”
“Do we know where the source is?”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “Somewhere in Derin. Royal Army scouts never pressed past the wall, but they did report that the blight flowed through the gates of the fortress, so that’s where we’ll go first.”
Already he felt sick about having to go there. To the location of his defeat and the place this war had begun.
“How long will it take us?”
“With you along, who knows.” His tone was harsher than he’d intended.
“Don’t hold back on my account.” Her voice was cool. “I’ll keep up.”
Mercifully, Sonia appeared, carrying supplies in a laundry bag under the guise of doing her washing in the stream. Finn soon approached from the opposite direction carrying the same. Killian had made a show of berating him for shirking his duties earlier, but it was still a ruse with more holes than a sieve given that it was pouring rain.
Dismounting, Killian took the bags and distributed the supplies between his saddlebags and Lydia’s. Then he turned back to his friends, unsheathing his sword and accepting the one Sonia carried in exchange. “I’ve left orders for my soldiers to march to Serlania tomorrow. Assuming they obey, you ride with them. If my orders are somehow overturned, you will leave anyway.”
Sonia nodded. He knew she wasn’t pleased, but he also knew she’d do it. Finn, however … “You’re to take my horses home for me, is that understood?” He glared at the boy. “And if anything happens to them…”
“You’ll hang me naked from my ankles in the middle of Serlania’s grand market and pay orphans to throw horse shit at me, I remember.” Finn glowered at him. “You’ll have to stay alive if you’re to carry through on that, you know.”
“Count on it.” Pulling Finn close, he said, “Good luck. May the Six ride at your side and keep you safe.”
Then he mounted his horse and dug in his heels, heading away from them at a gallop. A heartbeat later, he heard Lydia follow, her horse’s hooves splattering in the mud.
He kept the speed for as long as reasonable as they headed north, keen to get away from the eyes of Rowenes spies, though he suspected they’d soon be replaced with scouts of darker allegiances. The land north of here and east of the wall was broadly abandoned, the prevalence of blight and the creatures the Derin army had brought over the wall with them rendering hundreds of square leagues uninhabitable. But the rumor was that there was some traffic back and forth through the broken gate and burned-out fortress that had once guarded the wall.
How they were crossing back and forth through the towering peaks of the Liratora Mountains remained unconfirmed, but Killian had strong suspicions that Rufina was making use of xenthier much as did the Empire Lydia hailed from. Either way, he intended to find out.
They rode through the day without exchanging a word, both of them eating in the saddle, stopping only to water the horses at the small streams and ponds they encountered, the water running high.
It wasn’t until the sun began to set did Killian start looking for a place to make camp. And for something for dinner.
Retrieving his bow, he kept an arrow loosely nocked, eyeing the underbrush. Motion caught his attention, and in one swift movement, he shot the arrow. Dismounting, he led the horse over to the brush and retrieved the pheasant he’d killed, holding it up. “Hungry?”
They tethered the horses near a small stream, Killian stretching the tent canvas between trees to serve as a tarp. While Lydia gathered wood for a fire, he plucked and dressed the pheasant, making liberal use of the spices he’d had Finn include in the supplies. Starting a fire, he spit the bird over top and left it to cook while he retrieved water from the stream.
When he returned, Lydia was no longer wearing her healer’s robes, having changed into a plain woolen dress with a high collar. Sitting next to the fire, she used a comb to part her hair, then extracted her tiny knife.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, turning the pheasant before mixing water with cornmeal in a pan and setting it over the fire.
“Covering this.” She tapped the half-moon tattooed on her forehead. “Probably better if no one knows I’m a healer, no?”
She started cutting strands of hair, and after she nearly sliced her forehead open twice, Killian reached over to take the knife. “Let me do it. You keep an eye on dinner.”
Kneeling in front of her, he combed her hair down over her face, then began cutting it off just below her eyebrows. It felt like silk beneath his fingers, and her breath was warm against his throat. “There,” he muttered, eyeing the glossy fringe that now concealed her tattoo. Instead of softening her face, the style accentuated her sharp cheekbones and the straight line of her nose, the green of her eyes seeming deeper than it had moments before. That a change of hairstyle could make a girl look dangerous seemed ridiculous, but it had. Dangerously beautiful. “That should do it, although once we’re into Derin, you might avail yourself of a scarf.”
“Thank you.”
He shrugged, then gathered up the fallen strands of her hair, tossing them in the brush for the birds before moving on a little farther to gather berries from a bush. They’d need their supplies for when they were farther north, so for now it was better to live off the land. By the time he returned, dinner smelled near to finished. He carefully split the berries between two plates, divided the cornmeal cake and pheasant between them, and sprinkled salt over the food before handing Lydia her share.
Frowning, she tentatively picked up a piece of pheasant and took a bite, juices running down her chin. She chewed, then said, “This is good. Very good. Where did you learn to cook?”
“Picked it up over the years,” he answered between bites. “The downside of being born wealthy was that I developed a fairly refined palate that wasn’t well satisfied in army camps. Most soldiers can’t season food to save their souls, so I decided to learn to do it myself.” Popping a few of the berries into his mouth, he said, “You can’t cook, can you?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Not well.”
Which he suspected meant not at all. “Dish duty for you, then.”
“I’ve never done dishes, either.”
