Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
It worked! By the grace of Fate, it actually worked!
The next day, we arrive on our side of Semita Ford barely four hours before the black and white flags of the enemy darken the horizon. Their marching thuds like thunder, their numbers stretching wide across the grassy hill as they descend towards the large, shallow ford.
When their approach halts, they start to set up camp.
I could sing and kiss Fate himself.
The ford is exactly as described in our briefing sessions.
The large, shallow river is barely ankle deep as it trickles across an ancient bed of gravel and stone it pulls from the jagged mountains to the north side.
The river loops back into a deep, fast-flowing river through the town of Semita downstream, which is practically overrun with thick forest after over a century and a half of complete abandonment.
What I didn’t expect was the huge temple carved into the mountain above the many small waterfalls. The white rock of the mountain has been chiselled into, although time has stolen the sharpness of its carving.
Looking to the east I see the vast number of tents of Nouis’s army and it sets my heart thumping. Nerves eat away at my skin and my pulse screams in my ears.
When will the scouts return? I can only pray they have good news.
Nouis’s army is truly something to behold. Stretching almost as far as my eyes can see on the other side of the clear ford, they rolled across the empty plains only moments ago.
Idris and I haven’t spent a moment apart all day.
But the moment those first black and white flags were spotted, he was barely five paces from me at any moment.
He hovers around me like a dark, indecent magnet threatening to drown me in a tide of fire.
The biting whispers stalk the dark corners of my mind.
His caustic gaze constantly seeks me out.
His touch both soothes and savages my fraying nerves, but it is better, so much better, than thinking about the monsters across the river.
The evening slips closer.
Perhaps it will be our last evening.
Idris and I stand, looking out over the ford again. I can’t help but turn my eyes to the east, hoping the troops we are waiting for will magically appear.
“They are something, aren’t they,” comes a voice behind me, dragging me out of my spiralling worry. I turn to see Giulia and Michelle approaching, hands tightly linked. Emilia and Serra are with them. Emilia’s lips are pressed into an unhappy line as she refuses to look to the west.
“They’re the largest army on the continent. They’re supposed to intimidate us,” Serra says, summoning all her bravado as she straightens her shoulders.
“You won’t be anywhere close to them,” promises Idris. “At first light, you should get on horses and get out of here. Your work is done. Thank you for your service.”
“You want us to run?” hisses Serra.
“I want you not to throw yourself in harm’s way unnecessarily,” I counter. “Are you going to disobey your Maestrus?”
Serra scowls at me in a way that tells me absolutely, yes, she will disobey her Maestrus and has no qualms doing it.
“We don’t want to get in the way,” Emilia says quietly, taking Serra’s arm. “There is nothing we can do now. Our contribution is over.”
“But still crucial,” Idris argues. “The war machines you built will really help level the playing field.”
Both girls nod unhappily.
“Don’t worry, we’ll keep a safe distance and go when we’re told,” promises Michelle. “But until then we’ll keep working.”
“Have you drawn all you want for the records?” I ask. She nods.
“Tucked in my bag,” she says.
“Idris!” Alfieri shouts. We both snap around to see him hurrying closer, Savino, Tahira and Royah by his side. They look grave.
My heart drops to my stomach, my blood curdles beneath my skin. I look up at Idris, and we exchange a knowing look.
Our reinforcements aren’t coming.
“How bad?” I ask as everyone draws closer.
“They won’t be here for three days,” says Savino. I close my eyes as vomit crawls up my throat.
“This facade won’t last three days,” says Tahira quietly.
“They won’t attack tonight, not with the fading light,” says Idris.
“Agreed. They’ll come at dawn,” Tahira muses solemnly. “They’ll use the night to get the lie of the land and form a strategy.”
“Which we should also do,” Idris says. I turn my back on his frantic discussion with Serra and look back across at the enemy.
My pulse clangs like the chimes of doom in my ears.
My breath catches on the nauseating sea of black and white, their flag giddy in the breeze as they frolic and mock the bloodshed to come.
I let out a shaky breath when a blistering hand takes my shoulder.
My head snaps around to Idris.
“Stay here, alright? I’ll be right back,” Idris promises. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I nod, offering him a weak smile. He points sharply at Royah, then at me before he, Tahira and Savino briskly walk away.
“Well, it was a good plan,” says Royah, giving me a friendly elbow. “Bought us extra time, crucial extra time. Now we can be fully prepared.”
“Seven thousand,” I whisper. Against less than three thousand men?
“Numbers don’t win wars,” Royah repeats, like a mantra. “Idris and Tahira are brilliant at this kind of thing. Trust them, they’ve been planning.”
“Have they ever faced odds this daunting?” I ask. Royah doesn’t answer that. I reach up to my throat, as though I could claw fresher, clearer air into my lungs by force.
I look over at my friends and their sombre faces stab through me like lightning. Fresh rage bubbles in my fingers and grates against my teeth.
This is Nouis’s fault. Yet again, he’s brought violence and carnage upon my friends. All he does is destroy. That vicious, nasty, plague of a man. Twisting minds and actions through his lies, a poison so insidious you guzzle it down like sweet wine until it’s far too late.
This is all Nouis’s doing. The cardinals have backed him. They should be at home, trying to elect a new Holy Patron. They should go back to Kavas and, with any luck, descend into their own self-cannibalising squabble for power.
Nouis is the lynchpin for all of this. If only I’d killed him that day at the dock. If only he were dead, then all of this could be avoided. This whole battle, this whole terrible thing is his fault. The army wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. This is a fight against a man…
I blink, sucking in a sharp breath as the fragments of an idea solidify in the back of my mind …
slowly at first, like the nervous first light of dawn.
But it warms the cold, dark fear that blankets my head, pushing it away as it grows.
Strength emboldens new strength as the pieces slot together and slowly banish my despair.
I look to my friends.
Serra is the first to catch my eye, her expression of horror giving way to suspicion as she narrows her dark eyes at me.
“What are you hatching?” she asks expectantly.
“It might not work. In fact, it probably won’t,” I say. “It’s leveraging a huge gamble.”
“You have something?” asks Alfieri, eyes lighting up at the prospect.
“Perhaps, but it’ll take all of us to work,” I say quietly. “And we won’t have long to set it all up.” I meet Michelle’s gaze, watching it harden into determination. Emilia raises her eyebrows, ready for the plan.
“Let me guess, Idris won’t approve?” asks Giulia.
“Idris will be key,” I counter. “He might hate it, it might be entirely mad, but it also might just work.”
“I’ll go get him then,” says Royah, walking away as fast as her injury will allow. “Then you can lay it out for us all together.”
“Wait, Royah!” I hurry after her. I grab her arm, pulling her up short. She meets my gaze frowning. I produce a letter from my jacket pocket and hold it out to her.
“I actually have a different job for you, but you can’t tell anyone. Remember I mentioned a gamble?”