The King's Blood(120)

He walked the perimeter with the captain on duty. The barricades had been set three and four streets out from Klin’s, proclaiming the squares to be territory of Dawson’s men, but under the constant and shifting attacks they were being eaten away like sandcastles at the change of tide. Where once they had been walls, they’d degraded into hills, or worse, mere collections of refuse, some stacked on each other, but hardly enough to slow an advancing force.

“We can’t keep holding where we’ve been, my lord,” the captain said. “The men don’t say it, but they know. And once they know, it’s hard to feel much enthusiasm for rebuilding. We need to pull in a way, eliminate two or three places that we have to defend.”

“And the attack?” Dawson asked. “I’m sorry, my lord?”

“The attack. How do we take this to them?”

The captain’s cheeks ballooned out as he considered the question.

“We’ve got hunting patrols out. Four of them in rotation, looking for the prince and the Lord Regent. And those priests you wanted.”

“It isn’t enough,” Dawson said. “We’re sitting here like criminals waiting for the magistrate’s blades. The men need glory. Pull back the barricades, and place archers on the rooftops in the new positions. Tell the men to rest tonight. In the morning, we take the fight to the enemy.”

“Yes, my lord,” the captain said, but there was no joy in his voice. After a moment’s hesitation: “Lord Kalliam, which enemy are we speaking of?”

“Palliako and his Keshet cultists,” Dawson said.

“Yes, but Lord, that’s who we’re hunting now. If you mean instead that we’re going to draw arms against Ternigan’s men or Daskellin’s or some such, that changes the look of things. It may not be easy to arrange this well.”

Dawson could hear how carefully the man was choosing his words.

“They have been attacking us,” Dawson said. “And we’re curling up and taking the blows. It’s no way to win a fight.”

“Yes, my lord. I mean no, sir, it isn’t. But they aren’t the enemy. All of us know men on the other side. We served with them. Fought beside them, a lot of them under your command. It’s not the same as marching on Asterilhold or Sarakal. These are Anteans we’re be fighting. It’s not the same.”

“They’re the servants of the priests now,” Dawson said. “They’re corrupted.”

“Yes, my lord. It’s just hard to see that when you’re looking at a man who maybe saved your life in Asterilhold. It’s not as though those men crossed us personally. They’re only following what their lords are telling them to do, sir.”

Just as we are, hung in the air between them. Dawson heard the warning in it. It wasn’t only hope that was fading, it was also loyalty. The glory of battle required an enemy they could hate, and apart from the priests and Palliako, Dawson didn’t have one. He wondered whether the others— Ternigan, Daskellin, Broot—were suffering the same problem. He hoped they were.

“Thank you for your candor,” Dawson said crisply. “Let’s have those barricades remade. If we can defend the position with fewer men, we can send out more hunting parties, yes?”

“Yes, Lord. I believe we could do that.”

“We’ll do that, then.”

The sun moved slowly in the great arch of sky above the city. Dawson found himself resenting it. It and all the stars hiding behind its skirts. The Kingspire caught the light for a moment, flashing like a bolt of lightning that didn’t fade. He could imagine Palliako up there in his secret rooms, looking down at Dawson, at the city. That was where to go. If there was an attack to be made, a final assault, it would be to root Palliako out of his perch on the Kingspire. To haul him off the Severed Throne and put Aster there in his place. Already the boy would be a better king than Palliako…

A voice boomed out. The echoes bouncing from the can-yon walls of the buildings made the words indistinct, but the timbre of it was familiar. Dawson’s gut went tight as he walked and then trotted to where the new barricades were taking shape. His men were divided: half went on piling logs, tables, upended carts in the street, building defenses against the blades of their countrymen, and half stood silent, hands on their bows and swords, ready to push back when the new assault came.

But it didn’t come. No melee. No blades.

In the square they had just withdrawn from, a siege tower stood on massive wooden wheels, pushed by a company of slaves at the back. Fifty swordsmen at least marched at its base, but didn’t call the charge. At the tower’s head, almost as high as the roofs themselves, an archer’s house stood, its thick wooden sides proof against incoming arrows and bolts. But instead of archers leaning out from its window to rain down upon them, there was the grey cone of a caller’s tube. The words booming out from it were the deep, rolling voice of Basrahip, the high priest of the spider goddess. Geder’s puppetmaster.