Her hand tightened on his, and she drew him forward. He watched her stride into the wall of flaring light. Then followed.
Atri-Preda Yan Tovis, called Twilight by those soldiers under her command who possessed in their ancestry the blood of the long-vanished indigenous fishers of Fent Reach – for that was what her name meant – stood on the massive wall skirting the North Coast Tower, and looked out upon the waters of Nepah Sea. Behind her, a broad, raised road exited from the base of the watchtower and cut a straight path south through two leagues of old forest, then a third of a league of farmland, to end at the crossroads directly before the Inland Gate of the fortified city of Fent Reach.
That was a road she was about to take. In haste.
Beside her, the local Finadd, a willow-thin, haunted man whose skin seemed almost bloodless, cleared his throat for the third time in the last dozen heartbeats.
‘All right, Finadd,’ Twilight said.
The man sighed, a sound of unabashed relief. ‘I will assemble the squads, Atri-Preda.’
‘In a moment. You’ve still a choice to make.’
‘Atri-Preda?’
‘By your estimate, how many Edur ships are we looking at?’
The Finadd squinted northward. ‘Eight, nine hundred of their raiders, I would judge. Merude, Den-Ratha, Beneda. Those oversized transports – I’ve not seen those before. Five hundred?’
‘Those transports are modelled on our own,’ Twilight said. ‘And ours hold five hundred soldiers each, one full supply ship in every five. Assuming the same ratio here. Four hundred transports packed with Edur warriors. That’s two hundred thousand. Those raiders carry eighty to a hundred. Assume a hundred. Thus, ninety thousand. The force about to land on the strand below is, therefore, almost three hundred thousand.’
‘Yes, Atri-Preda.’
‘Five thousand Edur landed outside First Maiden Fort this morning. The skeleton garrison saddled every horse they had left and are riding hard for Fent Reach. Where I have my garrison.’
‘We can conclude,’ the Finadd said, ‘that this represents the main force of the Edur fleet, the main force, indeed, of the entire people and their suicidal invasion.’
She glanced at him. ‘No, we cannot conclude any such thing. We have never known the population of Edur lands.’
‘Atri-Preda, we can hold Fent Reach for weeks. In that time, a relieving army will have arrived and we can crush the grey-skinned bastards.’
‘My mage cadre in the city,’ she said after a moment, ‘amounts to three dubious sorcerors, one of them never sober and the other two seemingly intent on killing each other over some past slight. Finadd, do you see the darkness of the sea beneath those ships? The residents of Trate know well that dark water, and what it holds.’
‘What are you saying, Atri-Preda?’
‘By all means ride back with us with your soldiers, Finadd. Or stay and arrange your official surrender with the first elements to land.’
The man’s mouth slowly opened.
Twilight turned away and walked to the stairs leading down to the courtyard. ‘I am surrendering Fent Reach, Finadd.’
‘But Atri-Preda! We could withdraw back to Trate! All of us!’
She stopped three steps down. ‘A third fleet has appeared, Finadd. In Katter Sea. We have already been cut off.’
‘Errant take us!’
Twilight resumed her descent. Under her breath, she muttered, ‘If only he could…’
All the questions were over. The invasion had begun.
My city is about to be conquered. Again .
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The old drainage trench had once been a stream, long before the huts were knocked down and the overlords began building their houses of stone. Rubble and foul silts formed the banks, crawling with vermin. But there in my chest some dark fire flamed in quiet rage as I walked the track seeking the lost voice, the voice of that freed watery flow, the pebbles beneath the streaming tongue. Oh I knew so well those smooth stones, the child’s treasure of comforting form and the way, when dried, a single drop of tear or rain could make the colour blossom once more the found recollection of its home – this child’s treasure and the child was me and the treasure was mine, and mine own child this very morning I discovered, kneeling smeared on the rotting bank playing with shards of broken pots that knew only shades of grey no matter how deep and how streaming these tears. Before Trate
Nameless Fent
DREAMS COULD PASS BETWEEN THE BLINKS OF A MAN’S EYES, answered by wild casting about, disorientation, and an unstoppered flood of discordant emotions. Udinaas found he had slid down, was perched precariously on the ledge, his limbs stiff and aching. The sun had fallen lower, but not by much. Behind him, rising from a crumpled heap, was Feather Witch, the two halves of a broken tile falling from one hand to clatter on the stone a moment before sliding off into the brush and rocks below. Her hair disguised her face, hid the emotions writ there.
