Chapter 17 Quil #2
Four days later, the Serran badlands stretched before them, a beacon in the dawn.
The normally pale rock glowed a deep red, even from a distance of miles.
Though the badlands were part of the Empire, most Martials and Scholars avoided the place, for few knew how to find food and water in those twisting canyons.
Which made it the perfect spot to hide thousands of soldiers and even more refugees. In a Sail, the shrub-choked gullies and shadowed rock slopes would be difficult to penetrate and impossible to traverse.
They were all the worse for wear, particularly Aunt Hel and Elias. Within seconds of Quil and the rest of his company arriving at the camp, the Blood Shrike appeared with a squadron of guards. She took one look at the Empress and cursed, her expression dark.
“I leave you alone for a few bleeding days,” she said, “and look at the state of you.”
“What news, Shrike?” Aunt Hel asked tiredly.
Quil only half listened to the Shrike’s updates on food supplies, casualties, and troop movements, fixing his attention on Aunt Hel.
Her magic always lent speed to her own recovery, whether it be from wounds or healing others.
But right now, she was glancing over her shoulder, nodding at the wrong times, waiting too long to answer the Shrike’s questions.
Perhaps she felt despair, like the rest of them. Quil had struggled to sleep, with Ruh visiting him in that cave, whispering to him as flame eyes watched them from the darkness. Help me, Quil. Use your magic. Quil saw Aunt Hel tossing and turning too, grappling with her own ghosts.
“Aunt?” Quil said to her quietly as the Blood Shrike turned to speak to someone else. “Are you all right?”
“Oh,” Aunt Hel said. “Fine. Or perhaps not. I don’t know. Lately, Quil, I—”
“Elias!”
As they reached the edge of the Empire encampment, Laia appeared, forehead creased in worry.
She took one look at Elias, still pale from his ordeal, and dragged him off to a makeshift infirmary, Sufiyan and Arelia in tow.
Only moments later, refugees from all over the Empire began streaming from their tents and campfires, surrounding the guard cordon.
“Prince, when will we return home?”
“Where are the weapons to fight them, Empress?”
“The children are hungry, Empress. Is grain coming?”
Quil found himself unable to meet the eyes of his people. How could he tell them the Ikfa was gone? How could he tell them that they now had no hope of getting their lands back?
Do not let them see your fear. Aunt Hel had given him this advice a hundred times. Else we lose the battle before it begins.
But the battle was lost. Without the Ikfa, they either surrendered—which Aunt Hel would never do—or they spent decades in long-term guerrilla warfare. They would become a lost people. A scattered people.
And they would lose their cities, their homes—all that was left of their lives—in the process. Unless they were willing to hand thousands of their Masks over to Aiz to murder and loot for Loha.
Enough, he told himself sternly. His people looked to him for strength. Not panic.
His aunt was inundated, turning to one person after another, her face growing more haggard by the second.
“Prince,” the Shrike murmured, but he was already stepping forward, taking Aunt Hel’s shoulders.
“Go get some sleep, Aunt,” Quil whispered to her. “I’ll speak with them.”
He thought she might refuse, but she accepted his offer with startling alacrity.
As half her guards spirited her away, Quil gave orders to the rest. Within ten minutes, the Blood Shrike was at his back, having escorted him to a fire where he ladled stew into the waiting bowls of a long line of Empire citizens.
He answered their questions about lost family members, the safety of the water, the location of medicine and food.
The casualty registrar might know if your family member is in another camp.
The water is safe, but you must boil it first. Your child needn’t go hungry.
If you go to the healer’s tent, you’ll find milk pouches.
Hours passed, though he didn’t notice until the Shrike tapped him on the shoulder.
“You need to rest too, my prince,” she said. “You’ve been riding for days.”
“One more.” Quil nodded to the gnarled old Scholar man who hobbled toward him, helped on either side by two Martials. One was a hulking fellow with a lantern jaw and the other was a young woman with a surly face. Neither looked to be related to the old man or each other.
The old man offered a silver bowl he’d clearly taken great pains to keep clean and untarnished.
“All right, Uncle?” Quil asked, glancing at the two who had helped him. Their appearance was so incongruous with the old man’s that he wondered if they were taking advantage of him. But he beckoned them forward and they both shyly offered their own bowls.
“New friends,” the old man rasped. “An extra helping for them and less for me, if you don’t mind, Your Highness.
Without them, I’d have been bird food in the Serran desert.
You know the old saying. Alone, swiftness.
Together, survival. Though”—he glanced down at himself—“don’t think I’d go very swift alone. ”
After he’d limped off, helped by his friends, the Shrike pulled Quil away and delivered him to a tent.
“I’m leaving guards outside,” she said. “You’re to sleep and if you can’t, let one of the guards know. Quick blow to the temple should knock you out for a few hours.”
Quil smiled and did as the Shrike bid. But despite his exhaustion, his sleep was restless, filled with dreams of Ruh, walking in circles around the cave where he was murdered.
I wish you trusted yourself more, Ruh said.
I wish I had trusted myself, too. Quil woke after only a few hours, feeling like he hadn’t slept at all.
Evening had fallen by the time Aunt Hel summoned Quil to her tent, pitched at the south end of the encampment, beneath a rocky overhang. He was hoping he’d have a moment alone with her, to ask her what she was going to say to him, earlier. Lately, Quil, I—
When he entered, the tent was full of people: General Dex Atrius and his beloved, Silvius, both speaking to Tas. The Blood Shrike listening to a group of Paters incensed about the loss of Ikfa, her face going from irritated to murderous.
“Ten marks says she throws a punch in the next five minutes,” Elias whispered from beside him. He’d appeared silently as a wraith, Laia at his side.
“Feeling better?” Quil asked him.
“Now that Laia has informed the entire camp that I’m not, in fact, immortal and have apparently not learned a single thing since the age of twenty?” Elias glanced at Laia, grinning as her cheeks went pink. “Much better, thanks.”
“Nephew.” At Aunt Hel’s summons, Quil joined her at a central table strewn with messages, maps, and a few cold mugs of tea. The Empress’s generals, advisers, and a handful of Illustrian Paters and Maters all crowded around.
Aunt Hel addressed the group. “The Ikfa is gone, destroyed at the behest of the Jaduna,” she said. “We cannot fight a war against the Kegari and the Jaduna, so we must find another way to bring the Kegari to heel.”
Mater Andricar pushed her way to the center of the room. She had, to Quil’s relief, survived the assault on Navium. She was bereft of her silks and jewels now, clad in a simple brown dress. But the shrewd gleam in her eye was familiar.
“Empress,” she said. “I hear the sky-dogs made us an offer.”
Aunt Hel’s face did not give her away, but her body stiffened. She’d known that news of the offer would leak out. But she’d expected that no Martial leader would deem it worthy of consideration.
“The offer is a slap in the face,” Aunt Hel said. “It requires us to sacrifice thousands of our own warriors to that monster.”
“Are soldiers not meant to be sacrificed for the good of their people?” Andricar said.
“In battle, perhaps,” Aunt Hel said. “Not handed over like chickens for slaughter.”
“We have six weeks until every city in our empire is destroyed,” Andricar said. “We must at least consider their offer.” At the protests of the other Gens leaders, her lips thinned. “Empress, we are on our knees—”
“Then let us die fighting on our knees instead of on our bellies, licking the boots of our killers!” Aunt Hel snapped.
“We are Martials. We do not bow to our enemy even as she slides her blade home. We grab her by the throat and look her in the eyes so she knows it was only chance that gave her victory. The Kegari offer is not sincere. We must fight.”
“There’s a mole in the Kegari leadership.
” The Blood Shrike spoke up. “He told us about the attack on Serra. He’s given us information about the locations of supplies, munitions, and food stores.
It would take time, but we can make life so hellish for the Kegari here in the Empire that their people demand that they leave. ”
“We’ve tried that,” Mater Andricar said, but Aunt Hel shook her head.
“Not in a premeditated way,” she said. “And not with a dedicated strike force. We’ve spent the past few months simply trying to survive.
Our play here would be offensive: We’d target the Kegari where it will hurt them the most, distracting them so they won’t see our true plan, which is to take out their leadership.
The Tel Ilessi. General Ghaz. Their clan heads.
Their military leaders. Missile builders.
Firepowder suppliers. Anyone essential.”
As they discussed it, and as most of the generals and Gens leaders sided with Aunt Hel, Quil’s stomach sank.
His aunt’s first instinct was always to fight.
But they weren’t up against a normal enemy.
Small strike forces on targeted attacks wouldn’t send the Kegari running for home.
They had nothing to return to. They were better off fighting for land here in the Empire than starving to death in the south. At least here, they had food.