webcrawl/APGTE/Book-6/tex/Ch-062.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-44-cliff}{%
\section{Chapter 44: Cliff}\label{chapter-44-cliff}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``I am only seen when blind}

\emph{And dawn always kills me}

\emph{My omens can be divined}

\emph{But my gifts are all empty.''}

-- Taghreb riddle
\end{quote}

Neustal had been little more than a tower by the road, once upon a time.

It had since become the end of the grounds held by the living in the war
for Hainaut, that little crumbling watchtower raised into a stout keep
by the sappers of the Army of Callow. From it the fortifications of the
Grand Alliance spread out like spiderweb, filled with steel and people
and wood. Hainaut was too large for a wall to be raised across its
entire lowlands, at least by human hands, but we'd done the next best
thing: a series of trenches to defend in depth, as deep as we could dig
them. The defensive line was not straight, no single stroke of the quill
on a map, but instead just as chaotic as a coastline. The trenches bent
and twisted to reach fortifications already standing or avoid swamps, or
hard stone or hills.

Even if we'd raised a wall across all this land, we wouldn't have been
able to defend it. It'd simply too long to be manned with the numbers
we'd need to turn back a proper attack by the dead, our forces spread
thin where Keter would concentrate as will. Instead we had the trenches
and the knots, the strongholds along the line where troops were massed
and kept vigilant. Patrolling along the desolate length of the trenches
companies went with carts carrying along an ingenious Lycaonese
invention, what they called the \emph{holzburgen}: the parts of a small
wooden fortress made easy to assemble with nothing more than nails and
sweat, cleverly using the carts themselves as walls.

When too badly outnumbered by raiding undead the patrols would fort up
and send up signals should scrying be scrambled, bringing in the second
line of defence. Further south, along scrying relays, we had established
large mobile reserves that could be mobilized without prior warning.
Each counted a vanguard of horsemen and kept several mages capable of
opening a gate into the Twilight Ways, which meant most of the time our
people arrived in time to relieve the patrolmen. We rotated which
soldiers were assigned to the reserve as well as the location of said
reserves, lest the Dead King be able to map out our ability to respond
to his attacks.

The reserves had been half-emptied when I'd had to hastily assemble an
army to deal with the undead plague that'd emerged behind us, but they
had since been filled anew. Not for long, though. We would be moving
into the lands held by the dead, soon, and to get the knockout blow we
wanted we would need as many soldiers as we could field. Already many
were here, and the stronghold splayed out below felt like a living,
breathing creature: a great beast of old with a thousand hands and feet,
twisting and turning and bleeding out fires from its skin.

As the wind passed through my hair, I let the thoughts pass through me.
Neustal's roof was lead, and sharply angled so that rain would slide
off, but there was just enough room for someone to stand at the edge of
the ledge. It'd rained the night before, and the tiles were still
slippery, but my footing was sure. It was not my first time standing
here.

The moon was nearly full and glaring down at us all through the cover of
dark clouds, and there was a cloying humidity to the air that told me
more rain was coming. It was enough to frizzle my hair as it was blown
forward in strands -- the wind was at my back -- and have sweat bead the
back of my neck. The sensation was not unpleasant, feeling the wind flow
around the Mantle of Woe as I closed my eyes and slowly breathed in and
out. Try as I might, I could not reach it again: that elusive moment in
the Arsenal when my Name had stirred awake, when I'd felt my hold friend
bare his fangs again. I suddenly opened my eye. My ears did not tell me
she was here, though they did not need to: we were bound by something
altogether more intimate.

I said nothing, only taking in the sight of the dark plain and the
shifting moonlight that stretched out beyond the bustling walls of the
stronghold. Eerie as they were, the lowlands of Hainaut were beautiful
to behold.

``It is a strange habit you've picked up of late, dear heart,'' Akua
Sahelian said.

``Is it?'' I softly laughed. ``I've had stranger, I assure you.''

The shade stood at my side, undaunted by the heights. They weren't
something that could kill either of us, although\ldots{} I put my weight
in my good foot the slightest bet, felt the tile begin to slip, and my
stomach tightened. And in that moment before the drop, in that
instinctive fear that was ingrained in our hindbrain, I felt like I
could almost touch my Name. \emph{Almost.}

``You told me you feared heights, once,'' Akua said.

``I did,'' I acknowledged.

``Yet you confronted that fear,'' she said. ``Mastered it.''

``Mastery is a bold claim,'' I smiled into the dark.

I'd stood on the edge of the orphanage's roof, night after night, until
I could stand through the trembling. Until I no longer felt like
throwing up. And I'd beaten back the fear, eventually. And yet even
after all these years, in that blind moment before the drop, still my
stomach clenched. No, mastery was much too bold a claim.

``A strange habit, and a strange mood to match it,'' Akua softly said.
``I do wonder, Catherine, what fear it is that brings you to the ledge
this time?''

I did love it, against my better judgement, that sometimes she just
\emph{got it} without needing to be told a single thing. I hated it as
well, of course. It was like being naked, and while I was not shy about
my skin my thoughts were a different matter. I'd been warned not to let
Akua in, of course. Not to let her slither into my inner circle, else I
find I had made a nest of my bones for this most beautiful of snakes. It
was too late for that now, though. I'd already made my choice as to how
this would end, and there would be no turning back. Too many prices had
already been paid.

``I've been having this dream,'' I idly said, closing my eyes.

I extended my arms to the sides, like a Levantine ropewalker preparing
to cross above the pit, and without a sound found that the shade had
moved out of the way.

``I always stand on the edge,'' I said. ``But it's rarely the same.
Sometimes it's that roof from when I was a girl, but more often
something else.''

My arms had opened my cloak and so the wind traced slow fingers against
the hem, setting it aflutter.

``It's been that glacier at the heart of the Fields of Wend, with the
dark waters below,'' I said. ``It's been that drop into the tunnel to
Liesse, during the Doom. The walls of Keter. The end of the Laure docks,
on a moonless night. There's always a drop, and darkness below.''

I was awake. My eyes were closed, but I was awake.

``Then how do you know you're not asleep, right now?'' she murmured into
my ear.

The hair on the back of my neck raised. I smiled, slowly breathed out
and opened my eyes. I leaned forward, arms still extended, and risked
the edge of the ledge. My stomach clenched with that familiar streak of
ice, but still there I stood.

``In the dream,'' I confessed, ``I always fall.''

My feet grew numb as lead, and down into the dark I went. And never did
a scream leave my throat as I tumbled into the quiet stillness, the cool
peace of utter night.

``Not tonight, then,'' Akua murmured.

Damn her, I fondly thought, for understanding every part of it. She was
standing at my side, now that I'd brought back my arms to my chest,
pretending she had never gone behind me and spoken into my ear just the
way she used to when she was still but a spirit bound to the Mantle. We
both knew otherwise, but we left that truth untouched.

``Not tonight,'' I agreed.

Tonight my feet did not slip. My leg throbbed with pain but still I
looked up at the half-veiled moon, breathing out. In and out, calm. My
Name did not stir, though it felt frustratingly close.

``There is a place outside the walls of Wolof,'' Akua eventually said,
``where old stone were raised in a circle for some long-forgotten
ritual. Water flows beneath the earth, so great clusters of Wasaliti
lilies -- purple and pale -- grow there among the grass.''

She looked out into the night, faintly smiling.

``When the moon is at its highest,'' she said, ``you can lie among the
lilies and grass like a bed, and the shadows they cast look like the
great ribs of a giant.''

I studied her for a long moment.

``It's not a place of power,'' I said.

``No,'' she quietly said. ``I found it, as a child, and shared it with
no one. I have not been there in many years.''

A secret for a secret, I grasped. Had she known I'd spoken to no one
else of the dreams, or simply suspected? No matter. A secret for a
secret, I thought once more. It sounded like the way a Praesi would
think of\ldots{} well, that word was best left out of this. Too
dangerous for all sorts of reasons, the least of which the stories it
brought with it. The silence we kept clung heavy to the air, carrying
with it an offer. She had made it to me before, though rarely in too
explicit a manner, but it'd been a while since I'd been genuinely
tempted. Killian had taught me to value trust over the press of flesh,
bittersweet as the lesson had been to learn. If I turned my head to meet
Akua's eyes, it would be accepting the offer. Falling off the ledge,
just a little bit.

I leaned forward. The fear came, and I did not fall.

``We are who we are,'' I said without turning.

I was many things but a Callowan most of all, and she was the Doom of
Liesse. Forgiveness was not the stuff my bones were made of, and a
hundred thousand souls were still waiting for their long price.

``So we are,'' Akua Sahelian agreed.

Her tone I could not read. Disappointment? Frustration? Even long gone
form the Wasteland, she was still a daughter from that circle of
Creation's finest liars.

``Why did you come?'' I asked.

Safer grounds. Like a slap on a butterfly, my words tore through the
last remnants of what had been hanging in the air.

``One of the patrols came back mauled,'' she said.

I cocked a brow. Hardly unusual. Keter had gotten bolder in prodding out
defences over the last month -- the Iron Prince believed we were being
tested to see if we were building up to an offensive, and I tended to
agree -- so it was not the first time blood ended up on the ground. We'd
already begun to raise the numbers on the patrols, it was a good way to
blood our conscripts before the looming battles.

``Razin Tanja was on one of them,'' Akua said.

Not wounded, I decided, or she would have told me immediately.

``Hard losses?'' I asked.

``Near half,'' she said. ``The dead got to them before they put together
their wooden fortress.''

``It shook him,'' I said.

``So Adjutant's watchful eyes reported,'' Akua agreed. ``I believed it
might be of interest to you.''

``You were right,'' I said, taking a last look down.

\emph{Not tonight}, I thought. There would be a night, sooner or later.
Everyone got one. But it would not be tonight.

We'd see about tomorrow.

---

The Lord of Malaga was in his quarters, they told me.

We'd held Neustal long enough that what had once been a sea of tents
with palisades had become closer to a fortress-camp, barracks being
raised in stone and timber while smaller houses were raised in a sort of
separate officer's district. In those muddy `streets' nobles and career
soldiers from places spanning half of Calernia were made to rub elbows,
which had been fascinating to watch when it didn't end up involving loud
arguments. It would have been an exaggeration to say that the timber
house where Razin Tanja lived was part of a `Levantine quarter' within
the district, I reflected, but not a a claim entirely without
foundation.

For practical reasons -- being able to find officers easily, ease of
supply and security -- we'd gone along with the natural tendency of
people to stick to their own, so it was no surprise that warriors in the
colours of the Binder and Slayer's Bloods were all over the street when
I limped my way to Lord Razin's abode. A Binder asked me to present my
wrist before I was allowed in, so that she might ascertain I truly was
who I appeared to be. The Levantine mages might be rubbish at illusions,
but Binders dealt with blood from the moment they began in their trade:
what flowed through my veins was proof enough of my identity, as far as
they were concerned.

I was not announced in, though neither did I catch the young lord by
surprise. I'd half-wondered if he would be drunk by the time I arrived,
but he didn't look it -- morose, sure, but then I'd be the same if I'd
had to watch half my patrol get butchered by undead. He was seated and
did not rise when I entered, though he offered a nod.

``Black Queen,'' Razin of the Binder's Blood greeted me.

``Lord Razin,'' I replied, brow pulling into a frown.

He was bruised on the cheek, a purple shiner crusting around the edges.
It made him look younger, and more beaten down than one of the five most
powerful nobles in Levant should ever feel.

``Did your watchers not mention I am unharmed?'' he drily asked.

``Not wounded is what I got,'' I admitted without batting an eye.
``Though that hit on your face will het nasty if you don't attend to
it.''

``It has been cleaned,'' he dismissed.

``You have healers,'' I pointed out.

And even if somehow none of the Dominions could be stirred to heal one
of the head of the greatest lineages of the Blood, he could have
borrowed some from another army. The aristocrat smiled bleakly at me,
and I was once more reminded of how few battles he'd seen before our
first meeting in Iserre. There'd been an arrogance in him then that'd
been cut down to size since, I thought, though the remnants of it
lingered. Funny things, people. So fragile in so many ways, and yet even
the starkest of lessons found it difficult to change what lay at the
heart of us. Like hardy weeds in a garden, the worst of us was often the
most deeply entrenched.

``I am aware, Your Majesty,'' he said. ``This is a choice. The bruise
will fade, but the ache will be\ldots{} a useful reminder.''

I wanted to chide him for that indulgence, but how could I when my leg
still ached from standing atop the keep? Hypocrisy and I were not
unacquainted, but I tried not to seek her company. I claimed a seat at
his table, since it was clear he was not going to invite me, and it was
telling that a tired grunt was the most objection he was able to muster.

``What happened?'' I asked.

``That poor orc you strapped to a wheelchair will have the report by
now,'' he acidly replied.

He probably would. Hakram was doing his best to replace his missing
limbs with those of a hundred busy attendants, and Hakram's best tended
to see things through.

``And I'll read it,'' I said. ``But that's not what I'm asking. What
happened, Tanja?''

The young lord looked aside. Not to a window, for we had not made those
-- too dangerous, given the risks of infiltration -- but to a
tapestry-covered wall. It was a while before he answered me, voice
exhausted and raw.

``We didn't see them until it was too late,'' the Lord of Malaga said.
``The skeletons were far and slow, so we took our time. Even considered
duels.''

My brow rose. He knew I disapproved of those.

``My cousin Alis was with us, fresh from home,'' Razin said. ``We were
close, as children.''

His fingers tightened, almost imperceptibly.

``She is also without the Talent.''

A sting that'd followed him all his life, I knew, as the descendant of
the most famous mage lineage in Levant. Blood were raised to try to
emulate their ancestors in all things, so that they too might prove
worthy of the same Bestowal. It would have been hard on a youth,
understanding that even if he did everything right an accident of birth
meant he'd never be fully able to live up to his legacy. Someone sharing
that hardship would have been a dear friend.

``One of our riders saw our line's colours on the armour of one of the
skeletons,'' he said. ``Enamelled scale. The pattern was an old one but
undeniably Tanja, One of our own, snatched up during some crusade and
now fielded as a footsoldier!''

His smile spread, and grew bleaker.

``Alis has -- had -- no deeds to her name, Black Queen,'' Razin Tanja
told me. ``Levant is united against Keter, our people no longer fight
honour wars. She lost her finest warring years in obscurity. And so I
thought I could do this for her, give her\ldots{}''

``A duel that'd make her reputation,'' I quietly finished.

To Blood, honour and reputation often mattered more than gold. A grand
gift for an old friend.

``The skeletons were barely more numerous than us,'' Razin said, ``and
they would not have engaged wooden walls. I delayed to bait them, sent
out our horse to take the flanks at a distance to prevent them from
retreating when they got close.''

``It was a trap,'' I said.

``Ghouls had burrowed beneath the earth,'' the Lord of Malaga said. ``So
when the skeletons were close and we began to make the walls, they rose
in ambush.''

I let out a long breath. Shit. Yeah, that was classic Keteran tactics.
The ghouls would have done some damage, surprising the Levantines like
that, but there couldn't have been too many of them or the digging would
have been easy to notice. No, they'd been a unit sacrificed to prevent
the \emph{holzburg} from being raised before the skeletons closed the
distance. With numbers like that, the dead had never been going to win
the skirmish. The Dead King had just traded corpses for corpses, knowing
he could afford to bury us one patrol at a time. Rough night, going
through that. Especially if it got your favourite cousin killed, which
by the look on his face I was guessing it had.

``Alis?'' I asked.

``She died after having slain three ghouls single-handedly,'' Razin
said. ``Her deed was deemed worthy of being added to the Rolls.''

I remained silent. I'd not known her, so even commiserating with his
loss seemed like a lie.

``Go on,'' Razin bitterly said. ``Have you not warned us again and again
that there is no honour to be found in this war, Catherine Foundling?
That our ways are that of fools, when kept to in the shadow of the Crown
of the Dead, and that we must discard them or suffer loss.''

His teeth gritted.

``As I have,'' he said. ``As I might again.''

I could have excused him, I thought, spoken of good intentions and
everyone making mistakes. But I was not his mother, or his friend, and
what he had done should not be excused. So instead I leaned back into my
chair and sighed.

``I was sixteen,'' I quietly said, ``the first time I made a decision
that got people killed.''

His stiffened, dark eyes narrowing in on me.

``I'd killed before,'' I noted. ``But this was different. I didn't swing
a blade at them, it was just\ldots{} consequences.''

``What happened?'' Razin Tanja rasped out.

``I spared a man,'' I said. ``Not out of mercy, but because I needed him
to escape and cause great troubles. It's not only your people who make
their reputations by putting down lions on the loose, Razin. I spared
him when I could have taken his life, and because of that people died.''

I half-smiled.

``It could be said they hanged because they chose to scheme rebellion,''
I said. ``Or that they hanged because the Carrion Lord ordered they
would. The choice I made wasn't the only one that led us there.''

I traced the wooden surface with my fingers.

``But when I was made to look at those corpses hanging from the
gallows,'' I said, ``I knew it was on me. That the decision I'd made had
its hooks in all the others, that maybe I wasn't guilty but that I was
at least \emph{responsible}.''

God, there'd been a barmaid who'd flirted with me. The look in her eyes,
before the drop\ldots{} For the life of me I could not remember her
name, and it made me feel oddly ashamed.

``So what did you do, after?'' the Lord of Malaga asked.

I'd wept, that was the truth of it. Wept in an alley where no one would
see me, afraid and alone and a long way from home. And in the weeks
that'd followed I'd come close to abandoning my path, until my
confrontation with Akua had the Blessed Isle granted me\ldots{}
perspective of a kind.

``There is not panacea to this, Razin,'' I told him. ``You grow number
to the losses, eventually, but it never entirely goes away.''

``Some wisdom, this,'' the younger man scoffed.

``Remember tonight,'' I told him quietly. ``Beyond the bruise. Remember
the mistake, how it felt as it rippled out into the world and took
something dear from you. And use that to never make the same mistake
again, Razin.''

His jaw set, and slowly he nodded.

``There will be other mistakes,'' I said. ``Other defeats. Own them too,
Razin Tanja, use them to rise -- or you'll be mourning a great deal more
than a cousin.''

He chuckled, though the sound was mirthless.

``The more I gain, Black Queen, the more I am afraid,'' he said. ``What
was there to fear losing, when I had nothing?''

\emph{You and me both, kid}, I thought. Yet I had said all that I had to
say, and if there was someone who would ease his grief it was not me.
The most kindness I could offer was to leave and make room for them to
step into the space I was occupying. I rose to my feet, feeling my leg
throb and offered him a nod. He did not object to my departure.

``Black Queen,'' Razin of the Binder's Blood said, sending me off with a
sharp nod.

I hesitated, fingers lingering against the table.

``I'm sorry for your loss,'' I finally said.

The silence followed me out.

---

Hakram's people found me before I'd even made it out of the officer
district, before my feet had found a destination -- I felt too restless
for sleep, even this late -- and the news were whispered directly into
my ear. I thanked the messenger absent-mindedly, my thoughts already
racing ahead of me. Finally. It was about time he arrived. That they'd
not caught sight of him before he was already deep in the stronghold was
not unexpected, if hardly pleasant to hear, but his destination at least
was predictable. It was always the first part of any camp he visited,
unless prior demands on his time had been made. Night settled on me as a
veil as I limped out, not to make me invisible to eyes but to mask my
presence.

It was a weave taught to me by Andronike herself, a use of Night
inspired by a spell that'd once been a favourite of the Twilight Sages:
I would be seen as unremarkable, and details of me would be difficult to
remember. Adjutant had called it a \emph{poor man's Scribe}, which had
the benefit of being both amusing and pretty accurate. In the soldierly
parts of the stronghold I would not have bothered, for my face -- or
more accurately my mantle and staff -- was a key that opened gates and
lowered wards. But no stronghold as large as Neustal, whose span
occupied several tortured miles, could be filled entirely by soldiers.
We had cooks, launderers, sutlers and peddlers.

A few brothels as well, though after a few incidents were laundresses
were harassed by soldiers we'd confined them all to a particular
district. That way there could be no confusion as to what services were
by offered by whom, and there would be no qualms about flogging anyone
who didn't understand what `no' meant.

The Legions of Terror and the Army of Callow both forbade camp
followers, which these people effectively were, as they slowed marches
and drained as much resources as they provided. Here it would have been
a fool's errand to try the same, though, considering Proceran armies had
them in spades. I'd first believed the Lycaonese didn't, but it turned
out they just armed them like they did essentially everyone they could
afford to. These \emph{helfer} and \emph{helferin} only fought under
specific circumstances, and otherwise essentially served the same
purposes. The Levantines had brought few aside from warriors up north,
but their rank and file had been eager enough to partake of the creature
comforts.

If the civilians were to stay then there could be no question of them
staying outside the walls where they might would be vulnerable to raids
by the dead, so Neustal had whelped civilian quarters to stash them away
in. It was towards these I headed, limp and all. In particular towards
the long loghouse that was the busiest brothel in the stronghold, though
I did not take the entrance a patron would. I went to the back, and
slipped past the hired toughs guarding the entrance. The man who was
arguably the most famous hero of our age was smiling and laughing with
the brothel girls and boys as he deftly wove Light to heal their pains
and sicknesses.

The Grey Pilgrim looked utterly at ease around them, and more
surprisingly they around him. I'd started near enough the bottom of the
ladder to know that just because some smiling highborn was comfortable
around you didn't mean the feeling was reciprocated. \emph{Peregrine}
was the name they used for him, so they knew who he was, but for all
that they did not seem intimidated. And they really had no reason to be,
didn't they? Unlike kings and Named, they were not of that small slice
of the world that Tariq Fleetfoot kept a wary eye on. They really did
have nothing to fear from him.

Not unless their deaths would prevent a greater evil, anyway.

I waited until he was done. Unlike soldiers, these people wouldn't have
the benefits of priests and mages to call on for healing -- not by
right, anyway. If the Pilgrim wanted to do a little good here, far be it
from me to stand in his way. The night was long, and I was not yet
tired. They pressed a cup of wine on him before he left, which he only
half-drank, and when the Peregrine wandered back onto the streets I was
but a step behind him. There was no question that he had not known of my
presence, for even if he'd somehow missed the Ophanim would not have. He
did not turn or look at me, but something in his bearing acknowledged my
presence.

``There are others in need of healing,'' Tariq said.

``There's always people in need of healing,'' I replied. ``Hurt is
tireless.''

``Too often it is those who offer comfort, north of Levant,'' he said.
``It is shameful how the occupation is treated by some.''

``We're not targeting the brothels, Pilgrim,'' I sharply said. ``Or even
civilians. But I won't assign healers to these districts that would
instead be with patrols or manning our infirmaries.''

We already had too few, be they priests or mages. I'd not forbid any
volunteering their hours, so long as it did not result in exhaustion,
but I'd not command the death of soldiers fighting Keter to accommodate
people who'd come here knowing this was a war front. We were a
stronghold, not a town. I was not unreasonable for denying something
they had no right to ask for.

``Then do not deny me my works, Catherine,'' the Peregrine replied. ``If
I can allay suffering, I will.''

``No lack of that going around, these days,'' I grunted.

``Denial or suffering?'' he asked.

``No danger of either running out, I reckon,'' I shrugged. ``But they're
not why I sought you out. We're overdue a talk.''

He cast a searching look on me, and I was unsurprised to realize that my
veils of Night were nothing more than puffs of smoke to those eyes.

``You have held to your word when it comes to young Razin and
Aquiline,'' he said. ``I take it you now want them removed from your
care.''

``That'd be nice,'' I said. ``Though on occasion they forget to be a
pain in my ass, so I don't mind lending the equally occasional hand.''

``Headstrong youths can be troublesome, it is true,'' the Peregrine
said.

I eyed him, almost amused. How many decades had it taken him to get the
art down of saying something like that without even the faintest hint of
irony?

``So I've heard,'' I said. ``But your headstrong lordlings aren't why
I'm here.''

``Ah,'' the old man calmly said. ``It's to be that talk, is it?''

``Yeah,'' I grimly replied, baring my teeth. ``Let's talk about the
Wandering Bard, Tariq.''