webcrawl/APGTE/Book-6/tex/Ch-104.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-77-tribulation}{%
\section{Chapter 77: Tribulation}\label{chapter-77-tribulation}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``I agree that outliving your enemies is the greatest of revenges,
my friend, but we seem to have something of a philosophical difference
about how that is to be achieved.''}

-- Dread Empress Maledicta II
\end{quote}

There was a pond on the guildhall's grounds.

Like everything else in this cursed city, it was dead. The weeds in the
drab water had withered, the grass around the rim blackened. Even the
mud at the bottom looked darker than it should. But the water was warm,
having soaked in the sunlight of the day, and it was a pleasant
sensation when I soaked my bad leg in it. I left my boots in the dead
grass and looked up at the sky through dead branches reaching out like
fingerbones. Something ghosted across the tripwire of Night I'd woven
around the thicket, giving me a name before I ever saw a face. It was a
short list, the people who would be able to pass with so light a
presence. I clutched my silence tight, staring up at the cloudless blue
sky as I waited patiently.

``How very carefree,'' Akua said. ``I am surprised you did not send for
a bottle of wine as well.''

I chuckled, eyes staying on the blue.

``I still have duties this evening,'' I said, ``and drinking half a
bottle would make me want to take a nap.''

It was a tempting thought even knowing I did not have the time to spare.
Leaning back on the soft ground, my feet in the water and with a belly
warmed by wine? It'd be a pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon, even
one soon to be shadowed by war. I heard Akua come closer, wondering if
the way I'd heard a sound at all was a concession on her part. Back when
she'd still had hooks in the Night, her steps had made no sound and left
behind no trace. Now, though, who knew?

``Are you done making plans of war, then?'' she idly asked.

A little too idly, I decided.

``No,'' I said. ``We want you with us when we go for the Archmage.
Masego made paired stones.''

``You'd have no use of me,'' Akua said. ``I am without power.''

I blinked in surprise. I'd thought for sure that getting fangs of her
own was why she'd disappeared. Peeling my eyes away from the endless
blue expanse, I turned and found her leaning against a beech tree. It
was a long black dress she wore, with elaborate patterns looking like
sunflowers across it all the way to the straps that kept it fastened
against her collarbone. Her hair was styled in a manner I'd never seen
on her before, closely cut on the left and sweeping towards the right.
As was often the way when she preferred her thoughts obscured, her face
was unreadable. I cocked my head to the side.

``Are you?'' I asked.

She smiled viciously, all the more beautiful for the anger she bared.

``Is this when you speak of the powers of love to me?'' Akua asked.

``It's not a force to be underestimated,'' I mildly agreed.

It had kept the Dread Empire of Praes together for forty year, after
all, made it the most powerful it had been in centuries. Without Black
and Malicia, the genuine trust and affection between them, it would have
all collapsed years before the Conquest could begin. And without the
Conquest, neither of us would be here under the afternoon sun in faraway
Hainaut.

``You do not love me, Catherine,'' she said. ``In any sense of the word.
I am not your friend or your companion, I am the woman who
\emph{butchered} a hundred thousand of your people. I am the doom of
Liesse, the mother of the folly you have hung around my neck.''

Her fingers clenched.

``Let us not pretend otherwise,'' Akua harshly said. ``I tire of the
game.''

I studied her for a long moment, finding the anger boiling in her. The
confusion too, or perhaps the shame? Even when sentiment peeked through
clearly, she was more nuanced a woman than most.

``You know better,'' I simply said.

It wouldn't work if I were lying. If there was not a genuine affection,
a genuine attraction. I was not skilled enough a liar to be able to fool
her for long. She knew this, too, though she did not want to believe it.
But this wasn't really about me, I decided. It was about her. \emph{You
are afraid}, I thought.

``You made a choice, didn't you?'' I mused.

She flinched. My hands clenched, as I tasted the heady brew that was
triumph and grief so deeply intertwined as to be indistinguishable. I'd
done it. From here to the end, now, it was all writ.

``I sought the fae,'' Akua quietly said. ``Through eerie paths. And I
found what I wanted: one of them blinded by story, who would not see the
knife until it was too late.''

``Power through blood,'' I murmured.

Masego had firmly rejected the notion of making up for the loss of his
magic by acquiring another power, be it Night or something usurped from
some lesser god. \emph{It's not power I want}, he'd told me. \emph{It is
magic, Catherine, and for that there is no replacement.} Yet it was not
in Masego's nature to seek dominion, not the way it was in Akua's. For
all that they were both the children of two of some of the most powerful
figures in the Wasteland, they had been raised in fundamentally
different ways.

``Through murder,'' Akua thinly smiled. ``As much the transgression as
what is offered up. It would have been a\ldots{} beginning. Once I
devoured that strength, it would have been easier to gain more.''

``And yet you didn't,'' I said.

Her face closed.

``I still might.''

I half-smiled. She was always easiest to grasp when she was similar to
me, and when I had I ever been above threatening to cut my nose to spite
my face?

``And what would that prove?'' I asked.

``That I am not weak,'' Akua coldly said.

``You say that like there's only ever one way to be strong,'' I replied.

She hesitated. Once upon a time, she might have dismissed that. It was
too late now, though. She'd strayed too far from the invisible fences of
the Wasteland, seen the greater world beyond and the myriad strange and
terrifying entities that strode it. She had seen powers rivalling the
greatest of the Old Tyrants, not a single one having walked down their
path.

``There's only one way to claim the Tower,'' she said.

\emph{Praes has failed}, I could have said. Or, \emph{why would you want
to?} Or, \emph{why does your mother still rule you?}

``And will that satisfy you?'' I asked instead.

She did not answer, looking away. The silence stretched out until it was
so taut I feared it might snap.

``Your way,'' Akua finally said, ``it gives nothing. I came back
empty-handed.''

``Oh, I wouldn't say that,'' I murmured. ``You came back after having
made a choice, Akua.''

``Is failure a choice, then?'' she scorned. ``What great revelation did
I drag back with me, fleeing like a fearful child?''

I thought of a few moments stolen away before dawn, in the Graveyard's
wake, of the same woman now before me standing above Kairos Theodosian
with burning eyes. Of the words she had spoken then, addressed as much
to herself as to the Tyrant.

``That you are more than blood,'' I said. ``That you are more than what
they made of you.''

I saw something like hate in her golden eyes when she faced me, but for
who I could not tell.

``It wasn't you,'' Akua quietly said. ``So do not gloat, even where you
think I cannot see. It wasn't you at all, Catherine.''

I slowly nodded. Her face fell and she looked down at her hands.

``It's never just power,'' she said. ``In that much at least you were
right. I wanted to take from the fae and wield it as I once did sorcery,
but in the end\ldots{}''

She softly laughed, as if appalled at herself.

``All I could think of was those lessons with my father,'' Akua said.
``The \emph{joy} in him, when he shared magic with me.''

She looked away again.

``It would have been ugly, replacing that with a thimble of power earned
through cheap murder,'' Akua quietly said. ``Ugly all the way down.''

\emph{You told me about your cradle-sister, once,} I thought as I
watched her. \emph{A girl called Zain, whose throat your mother made you
cut when you were barely eight years old}. \emph{And you told me, after,
that your regret about that day was that you cut her shallow. That she
bled out slower than she needed to because your hand hadn't been
steady.}

``And so now I return to Hainaut, empty-handed and fool,'' she scoffed.

Deftly, I went rifling through the many pockets of my cloak until I had
what I looked for: two small stones, enchanted by Masego's own hand. Her
set of paired stones. She went still as I reached out, slowly prying her
fingers open and pressing them into her palm.

``You returned to us,'' I corrected.

And golden eyes searched me, looking for the lie and finding only truth.
I had meant every word. And I also thought: \emph{if you had to cut her
throat again, right now, your hand would tremble.}

Her fingers closed around the stone. I withdrew my hand.

I looked up at the blue sky, winning and lost.

---

``The city was made to be held,'' Sapper-General Pickler said. ``And if
simple force of arms decides this, it will hold. You have my word on
that.''

I cut into my slice of beef, chewing thoughtfully. I'd not necessarily
meant our shared meal to be about our duties, but I honestly couldn't
recall ever having a meal with Pickler where business wasn't touched on
at some point. I'd never taken it personally, of course. Pickler didn't
draw the line between duty and her personal life the way most people
did. To her it was the work that was the centerpiece of her existence
and all the rest was secondary. I sometimes wondered if that was why
Robber's long-lasting affections for her had never been reciprocated:
romance just wasn't something she cared enough about to ever put above
her tinkering.

Mind you, the goblin ways of romance were alien enough to me that even
if they \emph{were} engaged in a torrid affair I'd find it rather hard
to tell. For one, their culture typically drew no direct link between
being a romantic couple and being physically intimate. Sex was about
breeding and arranged by the Matrons to strengthen bloodlines or
alliances, nothing else. My understanding of it was that goblins didn't
really feel physical desire the way most humans or orcs did, so
the\ldots{} impulse just wasn't there. It was pretty much unheard of for
one of their kind to seek a brothel or a fling. It was more of an
abstract craving of the other person for them, an itch that didn't
require skin to be scratched.

It'd made me rather curious about exactly what it had entailed when Nauk
had been courting Pickler, considering he must have known at least as
much about goblins as I did, but I'd never quite dared to ask back when
we were at the College. And nowadays, what would be the point? He was
long dead, and that wound would never heal if I kept picking at it. It
wasn't mine alone, anyway. For all that Robber had once made sport of
Nauk at every occasion, considering him a rival for Pickler's
affections, I could not recall him ever speaking ill of the other man
since he'd died. Enemies or not, they had been Rat Company.

That still meant something, to the few of us left.

``It's different when the enemy doesn't break,'' I reminded her. ``The
ramp that gets them to the gate is a beautiful killing floor for your
engines, but the dead won't ever flee. It'll not be waves so much as
\emph{a} wave, uninterrupted.''

``The skeletons aren't the trouble,'' Robber said, unusually serious.
``We can handle the Bones and the Binds, Catherine. The constructs will
be a little trickier, but you finally let my people off the leash for a
reason.''

He bared needle-like fangs in approval. By that he meant I'd cleared all
sappers for use of our last goblin munitions, to their riotous cheering.
Goblinfire was still restricted, but officers of the rank of tribune and
above were allowed to request its deployment in a limited fashion. We'd
set aside part of the stock for that purpose, around a third. The rest
we had more interesting plans for than just propping up the defence.

``It's not Hannoven or Rhenia,'' I sighed. ``The Volignacs didn't count
on the walls cliffside being scaled, or things like beorns and wyrms
coming out to play. It's not the gate I'm worried about so much, it was
built expecting a fight. It's the rest.''

The city of Hannoven was, tales said, essentially a set of ever-taller
walls circling a lone mountain. It was widely considered one of the
greatest fortresses in all of Calernia even if it had fallen multiple
times to ratlings and the Dead King. Rhenia had fallen to neither and
was even more daunting a prospect to take: it'd begun as a fortress
carved into a cliff but then become a city almost entirely dug within a
mountain of solid rock that could be sealed up at will. Both of those
great cities had been built without any great weaknesses because the
people who'd built them had learned that Keter aways punished weakness.
But Hainaut just wasn't built the same, for all its striking presence.

It just hadn't had to withstand the same kind of sustained, brutal
warfare the Lycaonese cities had. Most of the time undead invasions
that'd crossed the lakes and pierced into southern Procer hadn't even
bothered to siege the capital, just gone around the plateau and let the
Volignacs hole up in their fortress-city up high. Princess Beatrice had
admitted to me that there might actually be some truth to the old
unpleasant rumours about some of her ancestors outright letting the dead
through when the principalities to the south got too troublesome to deal
with. I hoped none of the Lycaonese royals ever heard about that,
because it was the sort of thing they would take \emph{very badly}.

``There's not much to be done with walls atop a cliff,'' Pickler frankly
said. ``They built with quality stone and saw to the upkeep decently,
which passed solid defences on to us. I stand by what I said, Catherine:
we can hold this city, so long as Revenants don't pry it away from us.''

An expectant gaze followed.

``I won't say the Scourges will be easy meat, or even just the other
Revenants,'' I told her, ``but I believe we can win that fight. We
prepared, and we have gathered significant Named talent.''

I held no illusions that we'd win this without casualties, though. At
best we'd lose at least a band of five's worth, but I wouldn't be
surprised in the slightest if it were more. We were aiming to snap the
Dead King's finest blades, that deed wasn't going to come cheap.
\emph{And I'll bet one or two of the Scourges will get away whatever we
do}, I thought, \emph{so that they can come back to haunt us if our
armies ever make it to Keter.}

``If you say we can, then I expect we will,'' Pickler said, and I
started in surprise.

That was pretty effusive by her standards. She'd never been heavy handed
with praise, at least outside her fields of interest.

``I do wish we had Juniper and Aisha with us, however,'' she wistfully
added. ``Generals Bagram and Zola are skilled, but it isn't the same.''

Preaching to the Choir, there.

``Agreed,'' I murmured.

``Bagram doesn't even inspect kits personally,'' Robber told us, like
this was a great offence.

Way I heard it Juniper had picked up that habit from her mother, General
Istrid Knightsbane, but while Bagram had served as Istrid's right hand
for over a decade he did not seem inclined to continue the tradition.
Juniper famously had been, and the chewing outs she'd given recruits who
got sloppy were still legend among the old crowd from the Fifteenth.

``Juniper's doing better,'' I volunteered. ``Last word I got was that
she was now able to go several days without episodes.''

By year's end she should be fit for field command again, though I wasn't
signing off on that until Aisha agreed regardless of what the healers
might say. The Hellhound wasn't above bullying priests or mages into
saying what she wanted, but Aisha wasn't the kind of woman to let
herself get forced into saying a damned thing.

``The Peregrine shortchanged us, if it took this long,'' Pickler coldly
said.

``More like Malicia put her back into fucking with her mind,'' Robber
darkly replied. ``Another account to settle out before the knife is
sheathed, Boss. The old girl bled us a few times too many.''

``Praes will be settled,'' I evenly said. ``By treaties if I can, by the
sword if I must.''

A shiver went up my spine and for an instant I almost felt like someone
was looking at us. I pricked my ears with Night, but we were alone. My
sudden distraction had been missed by neither of the goblins, Robber
having already discreetly bared a knife under the table.

``False alarm,'' I said, shaking my head. ``The wait's driving me mad, I
think.''

``Won't be long now,'' Robber said. ``It's in the air, yeah?''

Pickler bared pale, sharp teeth.

``They have never fought a proper siege against our sappers before,
Catherine,'' the Sapper-General of Callow said. ``And after this, they
will never try to again.''

We drank to that, and the meal finished on the high note of Pickler
showing me her latest improvements on the contraption of leather bands
and steel that she'd first made for me years ago, the device that would
send a knife up against my palm if I flicked my wrist just right. They
helped me try on, and it was with a smile and a flourish that I revealed
a sharp little rib-sticker in goblin steel. It would do nicely, I
thought, watching my reflection in the side.

Gods knew I'd not lack use for it.

---

The moon was out in full.

It'd been days since anyone had glimpsed a single cloud above the
capital, day or night, and this high up the sights bared by that absence
were always striking. The rampart where I had gone to stand had become
my favourite for the way it have me a good look at both Hainaut itself,
the island of lights and flames that an inhabited city at night turned
into, and the vast expanse of sky above. The stars were visible in a way
that they rarely were when standing in a city this size, for the valley
around us was a ring of unbroken darkness. The dead saw the same be it
night or day, and the forges they used were hidden from our sight. If I
let my mind wander I could almost imagine that the city was just an
island drifting under the stars, the dark around us nothing but dark and
deep waters.

Shadows moved against the darkness, cutting out the lights wherever they
passed, but I was not afraid. I knew them too well for that. Two great
crows, whose feathers somehow seemed darker than the night sky itself,
circled slowly above. They were careful never to leave the sky above the
city, where wards made it difficult for the Dead King to attempt
anything against them, but that was the only concession to prudence they
made. I stayed beneath them, the warmth of the Mantle of Woe pulled
tight around me as I pulled at my pipe and let curls of smoke rise up
like some fleeting offering to my patronesses. They came to me when
they'd had their fill, and in Komena I found vexation at having been
denied something to hunt.

The Dead King had robbed the Sisters of any prey they might have sought,
killing everything that crawled or swam as far as the eye could see.
Their talons had not been red into too long for the Youngest Night's
taste. Sve Noc took to the rampart I was leaning against, each landing
on one of my sides in a smooth flurry of feathers, and I almost smiled
when I heard those sharp talons rake at the stone. There would be marks.
They seemed in no hurry to talk, so silence hung between us for some
time as I breathed in wakeleaf and spewed it out over the edge of the
wall. There was hardly even a breeze, tonight.

``The war does not go well,'' Andronike said.

My fingers tightened around the dragonbone pipe Masego had gifted me. I
forced them to loosen, even though what I had been told was nothing less
than deadly serious. It was not the war here in the south that the
oldest of the sisters would be speaking of.

``How bad?'' I quietly asked.

``We sent Vesena Spear-biter and its sigil into the lands of the dead to
ravage and draw attention from your own campaign,'' Komena said. ``All
souls were lost.''

I softly swore. The Vesena had never particularly impressed me even
before their last defeat, but they had been led by the Seventh General
and been one of the great assets of the Empire Ever Dark.

``Radhoste and Jutren were lost as well,'' Andronike said. ``The Dreamer
to a breach in the Gloom, Jutren to an ambush as it pursued.''

That made it the Sixth and Tenth General dead as well. Fuck, the finest
of the Firstborn were dropping like flies. I'd thought the northern
front halfway under control, what the Hells was happening? The goddesses
had never been shy about looking at my thoughts, so I did not need to
ask the question to get an answer.

``The Dead King has perfected his answers to Night,'' Andronike said.
``With every battle fewer of the Secrets work unimpeded. The war cannot
linger, First Under the Night.''

``If it lasts too long, we will die out,'' Komena harshly said. ``Our
losses are becoming too great and there are\ldots{}''

``Concerns,'' Andronike finished.

Not here, I would have been tasked to address them. That meant up north
again, and there were not many who might trouble the Sisters among their
kind.

``Kurosiv?'' I quietly asked.

``It is now the First General,'' Komena said.

That wasn't an agreement, not quite, but hardly a denial. I grimaced.
Kurosiv the All-Knowing had long been considered a leech by the two
Sisters, but not one that it would be easy to remove. It was only going
to get worse with time, though. The same stuff of which the apotheosis
of Sve Noc was made was what Kurosiv was now hoarding, and though that
made the drow powerful it also made the Sisters uniquely vulnerable in
some ways. I suspected that swallowing Winter had made them more
vulnerable in some ways. That power was not one used to being ruled by
the same face for too long, and now that it had been devoured by
goddesses of theft and murder expecting \emph{loyalty} out of it would
be naive.

``If we win here decisively, then we can have Hainaut secured by
winter,'' I said. ``After that, when the snows clear, it is Keter we
turn to.''

``We are aware,'' Andronike said. ``It is why we have come, Catherine
Foundling. This battle has our full attention.''

My heart skipped a beat and I set down my pipe, studying the crows
closer.

``You're not the same crows that were here before I left for the
Arsenal,'' I finally said. ``How much of you is actually here, Sve
Noc?''

The great crows laughed, the sound of it eerily like caws.

``Half,'' Komena said.

I froze.

``Of \emph{everything}?'' I hissed out.

``This battle,'' Andronike mildly repeated, ``has our full attention.''

They had said what they wanted to say, and so found no need to linger.
Without bothering with anything as petty as goodbyes, the Sisters
dropped off the edge of the rampart and took flight. With dark wings
they rose, cutting out even the insolent silver light of the moon as
they passed before it. I found my hands were shaking when I picked up my
pipe again. I filled it anew, more to have something to do with my hands
than hunger for another packet of wakeleaf. Half, Gods save us all. That
was\ldots{} Well, I didn't have to worry about any of the Firstborn here
being raised from the dead at least. The Sisters would nip that right in
the bud. And Night taken from the undead would form quickly and
smoothly, so there was that as well. It was still a heavy investment on
their part, to send half of their divinity so far from their seat of
power, and I was not quite sure what had driven them to it.

If Komena alone had come I might have called it recklessness, for she
was the more hardheaded of the two, but for Andronike to have committed
as well? It meant that they no longer considered the war up north one
they might feasibly win alone. They were betting on the Grand Alliance
because it was the only good bet left to them, not because they felt a
particular fondness for our collection of human realms. I let the smoke
calm me, thoughts following down the cascade of consequences that
Firstborn reverses implied for the war. It might make the dwarves more
reluctant to intervene, I concluded with a grimace. The Kingdom Under
wasn't interested in picking a fight with Neshamah on behalf of an
alliance that was losing, they'd made that much clear: a clear shot at
the Crown of the Dead was their prerequisite for sending in their own
armies.

With the drow front facing defeat and our three southern ones varying in
degrees of deadlock, we did not look like a good horse to back from the
dwarven perspective. Better for them to avoid all-out war with the Dead
King and instead concentrate on the strategy of underground containment
they'd been implementing for centuries. I breathed out the smoke, eyes
closed. Yeah, with that in perspective I could see why Andronike would
agree to investing so heavily here in Hainaut. We were highly unlikely
to win this war without dwarven involvement, and if we lost the battle
over the capital the chances of the Kingdom Under joining the dance were
pretty much nonexistent. They'd be rushing to finish their containment,
not sparing time for dying human petty kingdoms.

Gods Below, there was even more riding on the Battle of Hainaut than I'd
thought.

I stirred myself out of the contemplative daze I'd been falling into.
Hakram would still be awake, I figured, and I wanted to pick his brains
about this. Not only would his insight be welcome on the consequences of
the drow being driven back, but there might still be time to prepare
some last defences for Hainaut. An idea or two were beginning to
coalesce in the back of my head, and -- and the city light up, flares of
red light going up in the sky as trumpets sounded.

Hainaut stirred awake and from the corner of my eye I saw a patrol of
fantassins bearing torches run towards me, but it was not them I paid
attention to. Hand against the crenellation, I leaned over the edge of
the wall and looked down. And there they were, keeping to shadows as
they moved: pale skeletons beginning to climb the cliff, like a swarm of
ants going up a wall. And beyond them the entire sea of deaths stirred,
thousands upon thousands of corpses and monsters all moving as one.
Roars shattered the quiet of the night, a chorus of wyrms announcing
their presence and their hunger for the destruction to come, and below
great ladders of black iron were brought to the fore as Keter began
unleashing its preparations.

The battle for Hainaut had begun.