Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [144]
Elass nodded, nothing daunted. ‘And if I extend the invitation to all your folk here, so that they may join me in this venture, be we however few, be the enemy so many? I am sure that there are some here who will do what must be done, even without your leadership to guide them. Or perhaps there is some other reason whereby you might agree to lend us your skills.’ She pointedly did not look to Tynisa, but Lowre knew exactly what she meant. Join me or not, the girl is mine now. She would stand in a fire if I told her my son would applaud it. So, Cean, what does she mean to you? Is she a mere distraction that you will let go easily? If she does mean something, will you let her go off to war while you remain behind? Another name to add to your list of the fallen, Cean?
The Prince-Major gave a long sigh, looking older than he had ever done before: just a frail old man, now. The messenger beside him put a concerned hand on his arm. ‘Oh, I’ll come,’ the old man agreed at last. ‘My counsel you shall have, even though you may not like it. I shall bring my few followers to join your new grand army. I shall not plan your battles for you, though, Princess Salme Elass. I have enough blood on my account already.’
It was the smallest of defeats, now that he had agreed to lend his name to her offensive, but for a moment Elass found even this thwarting response hard to bear. So the great tactician, the hero of Masaka, would just watch idly, would he? Did he fear that his skills might have rusted from disuse? Or was he looking forward to laughing at the mistakes of others? Anger rose inside her, but she fought it down and was all calm once more. ‘We will be honoured by your presence, my Prince,’ she told him. ‘I shall hold a muster of all those who will lend their strength to mine – within a tenday I shall hold it. I shall look out for you there.’
Twenty-Five
The barge brought them to within sight of Suon Ren and offloaded them – two Wasps and an unconscious Beetle girl – without comment. The vessel’s crew had spoken barely a word to them throughout the long journey, but had just as obviously been glad to have them aboard. They had treated the two renegade Imperials as though they were guard animals of proven ferocity. The horror of the Twelve-year War would resound in Commonweal minds for decades yet to come.
Che had not been comatose the whole way. She woke sporadically, clawing at the air, talking feverishly, staring about her. Thalric then made it his business to get some water into her, and sometimes even food. She would wander about the barge, bumping into things, flinching from objects invisible. She spoke to him, too, but it was seldom him she actually saw. Often she would explain something at great speed, something mystical that the two Wasps could not follow. Sometimes she was trying to flee from something, and had to be restrained from simply flying off the barge. Once . . .
Once she was being tortured, or under threat of it, and Thalric knew with a sick feeling that, this time of all of them, she saw him for who he was.
He wondered at what point he had changed, that he no longer considered just abandoning her.
Some nights, as Varmen slept, Thalric would sit and gaze down at her, as she trembled and twitched in the grip of whatever affliction had befallen her. His feelings of despair, during those lonely hours past midnight, were nothing he would ever admit to in the light of day.
The journey from the Commonweal’s borders to Suon Ren had proved steady and untroubled, and in Thalric’s mind was a simple thought, What now? They had come here at Che’s behest, for reasons to do with her foster-sister, yet it seemed unlikely to him that Tynisa was now within a thousand miles of them. Che seemed to have picked Suon Ren randomly from a map of all the places she had ever heard about and, now they were here, she was in no state to capitalize on it. Thalric himself did not know the plan. I don’t mind making my own way, I don’t mind receiving orders, but this in-between business is no use at all.