webcrawl/APGTE/Book-5/tex/Ch-089.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-59-review}{%
\section{Chapter 59: Review}\label{chapter-59-review}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``To repudiate what lies at the heart of Praes -- ambition, skill,
learning -- would be a mistake, yet to allow those traits to be
principle rather than tool has been the mother of a great many dooms.
The greatness of olden days must be put to modern purpose or see itself
turn irrelevant to the lay of Creation.''}

-- Extract from `The Death of the Age of Wonders', a treatise by Dread
Empress Malicia
\end{quote}

Afternoon soon drifted into evening, and it seemed for a moment as if
I'd found the Laure beat of affairs once more: too many things to do and
so little time to do them. The herbal brew Hakram had made me took the
edge off the pain just enough that if I remained still while seated it
didn't throb too badly, so I took full advantage of the relief when
seeing to the many duties that'd piled up while I slumbered. Still, I
did not regret having a physical need to sleep once more even if it ate
away at the hours I could work. It was a pleasurable sensation,
sleeping, but also one I'd found grounding in some ways. It was easier
to make mistakes when your thoughts ran uninterrupted for days and
nights, like a hound chasing its own tail. Sleep was a wedge in between
it, a way for thoughts to cool and distance to come down. I'd need
another night's sleep, I decided, before speaking of the Accords with my
father again. I'd not made nearly as good an argument for the banning of
ruling Named as I could have now that I'd had time to better gather my
thoughts -- no one touched by a Choir, for example, should be allowed
anywhere near a throne -- but I would not resume the back and forth
without rest and preparation. Besides, we'd both have demands on out
time for days to come.

Marshal Grem and the Legions-in-Exile had been parted from him for
months, simply getting the bare bones reports about months of campaign
in order would take at least a day. And he'd have more waiting,
especially now that scrying worked properly again. No, Black would have
busy days ahead and myself even more so. By the time I'd come down from
the barrow-top there was a mixed honour guard of legionaries and
Firstborn, dzulu from the Brezlej and Soln sigils, waiting for me along
with Adjutant. A full line of veterans from the First Legion, Marshal
Grem's personal command, was waiting for Black slightly to their side. I
offered them a respectful nod and got the same in return. Legio I
\emph{Invicta} had fought like lions in the Red Flower Vales, I'd been
told, facing down a charge of Lycaone heavy horse the White Knight
himself had led. I would not forget anytime soon that the
Legions-in-Exile were the same who'd fought in the defence of Callow.
For those that'd remained holed up in Praes while the wolves howled at
my gates I had no great fondness, but these? They'd bled for my home,
even though once upon a time they had also conquered it.

I claimed a comfortable seat in the First Army's war council tent,
hiding under the broad table how carefully I had to manage my leg, and
as Hakram stood by my side I sunk my teeth in the day's first work.
Casualty reports began it all on a high note. The Army of Callow and its
sister-legions from Praes had taken negligible losses in last night's
battle, and though Ivah came bearing the drow losses in Rumena's name it
revealed the losses there had been relatively light as well. Less than
two thousand dead, and though the Levantines had found a surprising
amount of success while killing Mighty -- my Lord of Silent Steps
mentioned that the warriors of Tartessos in particular had made an
impression -- most those killed had not been sigil-holders or even
rylleh but lesser Mighty. The Dominion has pulled out some sort of
enchanted or blessed lantern that'd interfered with the Night, and the
least of the Mighty had been struck hardest by it. Both the League and
the Alliance would have gotten significantly worse off from last night,
which was a damned wasted of soldiery on the eve of war to the north but
also a boon to my own diplomatic position. The situation of our supplies
was a great deal less promising, unfortunately.

The Hellhound had arranged baggage and foodstuffs for a long campaign,
as she'd originally believed it might be necessary for the army to seize
the principality of Arans to hold it against the Dead King's advance,
and the Southern Expedition of the Empire Ever Dark had been dragging
around the supplies I'd bargained for with the dwarves throughout its
Iserran fighting. We were not, by any measure, in danger of running out
of food or necessities soon. But the Army of Callow had been campaigning
for months now, and probably would have suffered from a steady trickle
of desertions were it not the middle of winter in hostile foreign lands.
Professional soldiers or not, my legionaries needed rest and recovery
before going into another fight. That would be difficult to arrange in
Procer, I suspected, and while the details of the use of the Twilight
Ways remained unknown to me I doubted they'd be much more efficient at
moving troops than the Arcadian paths. That meant bringing my soldiers
back to Callow would take them out of the war for at least the better
part of a year. I couldn't do that. Victory or defeat against Keter
might very well be decided by then.

The issues with the Firstborn were more complicated in nature, and I
ignored the irritated look on Juniper's face -- and the fascinated one
on Hakram's -- while Ivah expanded on them in Crepuscular. One
sigil-holder, the Mighty Zoitsa, and two rylleh from other sigils had
been slain in the fighting. The former Zoitsa Sigil would have begun
tearing itself apart over succession had General Rumena not personally
intervened and broken all the limbs of the two most prominent rylleh
aiming to claim the sigil. The other two casualties had prompted power
struggles as well, as the complicated weave of alignments and enmities
that made up the upper levels of a stable sigil was upset by the removal
of two high-placed killers. Those had, for now, been kept under control
by the own sigil-holders. But my decree that drow could not have killing
duels while we were on campaign was being tested sorely by the
situation, and the strain was showing. Rumena had politely suggested
that I come adjudicate the matters myself, which was enough to tell me
it was serious. It was almost never polite to me if it could help it,
and its command of the southern expedition gave it the right to settle
such disputes without my involvement in principle. If my presence was
being sought, then it meant neither the respect nor the fear General
Rumena commanded had been enough to settle the situation.

``I'll come after dusk,'' I said. ``Unless the general believes the
situation is so dire as to require my immediate intervention?''

Ivah bowed low.

``It is not so, Losara Queen,'' it said. ``The general has remarked that
containment will be more\ldots{} arduous after the coming of Night, but
under pale light all will be brought to order.''

In other words, Rumena was willing to run roughshod over the squabblers
while the sun was out but would have to get pretty hard-handed to keep
it all under control after Mighty started slinging Night around. Fair
enough. For all that it had been appointed general and commander of the
southern expedition by divine mandate, Rumena remained very much a first
among equal: there were limits to the orders it could give without
having to spill blood to see them enforced. Ivah left, and I marked the
whole situation as a cauldron I'd need to see settled before it tipped
over and burned everybody else. And Hells, this was just a single
sigil-holder and a pair of rylleh. How bad would it get when we started
taking real losses? Another method needed to be put into place, one that
didn't end up with Mighty turning on each other violently whenever one
of them died.

``What did the drow want?'' Juniper asked.

``They're having some internal disputes,'' I grunted. ``It'll be taken
care of.''

The orc eyed me carefully, then accurately guessed that if I believed
she needed to know more about that then she would. The conversation
moved on to the debate on whether or not the old Legion tradition of ale
rations being broken out after a victory should be indulged with so many
other armies camped around us. I argued in favour, for not even the
League would be foolish enough to think an evening of drinking would be
enough to save it if it resumed hostilities now, but Juniper dug in her
heels at it being an unnecessary risk regardless of the improvement to
morale. A compromise over shifts that'd allow at least half the army to
be on war footing at any time was being put together when Vivienne
joined us, a little over an hour before sundown. Wearing a practical
cloak and dress over boots and trousers, the heiress-designate to the
throne of Callow strode in looking pink-cheeked and well-rested. We
dismissed the general staff, after that, and she settled at the high
table by Hakram's side when he finally took a seat instead of standing
by my side like some grim green gargoyle.

``Indrani?'' I asked.

``Wandered off after we ate,'' Vivienne replied. ``You know how restless
she gets after a long sleep.''

From closer up than the former thief suspected, yes, though usually
having slept together beforehand made her slightly more mellow about it.
Knowing Indrani she'd be having a look at the League positions or
feeling out the half-there paths into the Twilight Ways. In the
overwhelming majority of situations she was more likely to be the danger
encountered than the one encountering danger, so I wasn't all that
worried about her safety. She'd drift back in to check on Masego before
too long anyway.

``She'll turn up,'' Juniper gravelled, unmoved. ``Damn hard woman, the
Archer.''

Coming from the Hellhound, that was high praise. I fished out my
dragonbone pipe and stuffed it, calling on the slightest touch of Night
as I passed my palm above the bowl. I breathed in lightly before looking
up, finding the other three gazing at me expectantly. A heartbeat
passed.

``I've only got the one pipe on me,'' I said. ``And I'm not sharing,
folks.''

Irritation for Juniper, resignation for Vivienne and some sort of rueful
amusement for Hakram.

``Yours talks with Lord Black,'' Marshal Juniper said. ``How did they
go?''

My brow rose and I glanced at Hakram.

``Everyone knows,'' Adjutant admitted. ``Even putting the matter under
seal would have changed nothing. Word began to spread before you were
even all the way up the barrow.''

Merciless Gods. No one who made jests about gossiping fishwives had ever
served a term in an army.

``The Exile Legions haven't withdrawn or begun to muster, so it can't
have gone too badly,'' Vivienne noted.

The Jacks were still hard at work, it was heartening to see.

``I have his backing for the Liesse Accords,'' I said. ``He's not
committing to a stance on the Tower until he knows more of what's
happening in the Wasteland.''

I caught a look between Juniper and Vivienne, which had me suppressing a
spike of irritation. From these two in particular, the impression that
things were being hidden from me would remain ill-received for some
time.

``The Observatory works again, though essentially crippled in
capacity,'' Vivienne volunteered. ``Fadila Mbafeno repaired what she
could, though she maintains that without Hierophant's personally
attention it is a fantasy to attain full functions.''

``But our scrying web is back,'' I flatly said. ``What have you
learned?''

``General Sacker moved east on the Blessed Isle,'' Juniper said. ``Our
man in Summerholm -- Legate Asadel -- requested that she evict the
Praesi refugees before taking up positions on the shore.''

Which, considering that we were feeding General Sacker's legion out of
Callowan granaries, was a request that'd carry a great deal of weight.

``Legate Asadel,'' I slowly repeated.

``Fifteenth,'' Juniper said. ``Taghreb, originally one of General Hune's
at the War College. He's loyal, Catherine. No reason to doubt that.''

There was always a reason to doubt that, I thought, though if you did
not learn where to draw the line such worries could only drive you mad.

``I take it the refugees declined to follow the orders,'' I said.

``They also called on Governess Abreha's protection, which was
granted,'' the orc continued. ``Household troops were sent to discourage
Sacker, but she picked out their positions and broken them in night
raids. Then she set the refugee camps on fire and ordered shot any who
fled west instead of east.''

I let out a hissing breath.

``Shit,'' I said. ``Tell me the announcement was enough, Juniper. Tell
me one of our own fucking legates didn't have a role in the
\emph{slaughter} of terrified civilians.''

``One caravan was butchered,'' the Marshal of Callow said. ``Two hundred
dead, we think. Children were spared. It was enough to get everyone else
running.''

I closed my eyes. Breathed in, breathed out. Why was it that the moment
I took my eyes off anywhere it all went to shit? No, I thought, that
wasn't fair. If Legate Asadel was a contemporary of Hune's and so the
rest of is back at the College, then he was no older than twenty-five.
His rank was high, for one his age, and while part of that might have
been talent it was also undeniably because we were running out of
College-taught officers and most the veterans of the old legions we had
left had loyalties too complex to be entrusted dangerous postings. I
could not put men and women still green around the edges and then become
furious when they made mistakes.

``Recall Legate Asadel,'' I said, opening my eyes. ``Move him to a
garrison where he can't do any damage and replace him with someone more
seasoned.''

``No one in Praes will raise a ruckus of the civilians, Catherine,''
Juniper said. ``By going into Callow they were abandoning Tower law.''

I saw Vivienne wince from the corner of my eye.

``Aye,'' I said. ``That's true. And also the finest argument I've heard
for Black's old dream of putting every highborn in the Wasteland to the
sword. Recall Asadel, Juniper. That's an order.''

She nodded.

``That won't be all,'' I said. ``Get on with it.''

``Governess Abreha deemed the attack on her household troops to be
treason, given her Tower-granted rank,'' Juniper said. ``General Sacker
replied that she was following orders from the Black Knight, supreme
commander of the Legions of Terror, and so therefore it was Abreha's own
interference with her operations that was treason. She lodged an
official protest with the Tower.''

``The Empress won't knife High Lady Abreha in the back so soon,'' Hakram
said. ``Not to Sacker, of all people, who has ties to the Matrons and
remains a close associate of the Carrion Lord. Malicia might need Abreha
either dead or disgraced, but if she throws her under the wheels now
then she might as well abdicate to the Black Knight.''

If a general's mere claim to be working at Black's behest when he was on
the other side of the continent was enough to make the Dread Empress
back down, then Adjutant was absolutely correct: she'd have effectively
stated herself to be less influential than one of her own right hand's
servants, and so by Wasteland standards she'd be meat on the plate. On
the other hand, could she really afford to throw to the side the
Legions-in-Exile? Given that she'd lost Foramen to the Confederation of
the Grey Eyries and her coastlands were a bloody wound, I'd argue not.

``The Empress is considering the petition,'' Juniper said. ``But has yet
to act on it. General Sacker seized the western shore of the Wasiliti
and dug in. It's been a standoff with Governess Abreha ever since.''

I grimaced.

``We need to find out who General Sacker answers to,'' I said. ``It best
be Black, because if it's the Matrons we have trouble on our hands.''

The fledgling goblin nation south of the Hungering Sands could only
benefit from enmity between Praes and Callow deepening, since history
had made it clear that the Tribes could only fail if they attempted to
stand against the Dread Empire on their own. An embittered Callow, on
the other hand, would have a vested interested in keeping the
Confederation standing as a thorn in the Wasteland's side. And
considering my kingdom had largely adopted the war doctrines introduced
by the Reforms, we'd keep needing goblin steel and munitions only they
could produce. They'd have good we wanted, and we'd share a common enemy
-- alliances had been built on less. Unfortunately for the Matrons, they
were planning their schemes blind. They had no real idea of what went on
this far west, and they would not be aware of anything related to the
Accords. They were fighting last century's war, not this one, playing a
game of Good Queens and Dread Empresses when that was the very manner of
existence I want to strike a match over. If they were brought into the
talks, I suspected they'd sign. If nothing else, the clause establishing
that a signatory nation attacked by a non-signatory one could call on
the aid of all other signatories would get them interested. Either as a
deterrent for a non-signatory Praes, or because Praes \emph{had} signed
and they could not afford to be on the other side of that rule.

Yet they were blind, at the moment, at a lot of damage could be done by
an assembly of vicious old goblins matrons pursuing what they saw as
their own interests.

``Vivienne,'' I finally said. ``Anything to add?''

She bit her lip.

``There are rumours,'' she said, ``that Malicia is calling near every
highborn in Praes to the Tower.''

My brow rose.

``Why?'' I asked.

``I don't believe anyone knows aside from her,'' Vivienne admitted.
``The usual rumours are there -- the edict making it treason to claim
the Name of Chancellor is to be ended, she seeks another Black Knight or
a spouse -- but there's nothing certain. Whatever she's planning, though
there's a lot of expectation.''

``Given the recent string of disasters, such a great assembly of
highborn would either see her deposed or her reign secured for many
years by a great victory,'' Hakram opined. ``She's rolling the dice on
her reign.''

\emph{Malicia doesn't roll dice}, I thought. \emph{She only ever plays
when she believes she'll win for sure.} Sometimes she was disastrously
wrong about that, as she had been at Second Liesse, but no one was
without blind spots and I suspected in some ways Black was hers. This,
though? This was Wasteland politics and she'd danced around these
well-dressed killers without missing a step for decades. If she was
acting now it was because she had something in the works that'd secure
her hold on Praes. She would not expose herself to the wolves of the
Imperial Court for anything less, in my eyes. I breathed out.

``Send an official messenger to the Carrion Lord, then,'' I drily said.
``Requesting a sharing of intelligence concerning Praes tomorrow. Odds
are he'll know more than us.''

Vivienne nodded, I noted, instead of Juniper. Interesting, that the
Hellhound would recognize her as the higher authority in diplomatic
matters even when those matters involved Black and the Legions. It was
the implicit mark of a respect I'd been well aware did not exist when I
left for the Everdark.

``We need to determine where the army's headed,'' Juniper bluntly said.
``We're wearing thing, Catherine. Your return and a win did wonders for
morale, but it's been a long winter and we fought through most of it.
Even if it's up north we're headed, I want winter quarters raised and a
rotation of leave for soldiers. The edge will grow ragged otherwise.''

``I can't give you an answer to that before the diplomacy's been worked
through, Juniper,'' I replied just as bluntly. ``And for that I need to
sit with the Pilgrim, and likely Arnaud Brogloise -- if not the First
Prince herself through scrying link.''

Whatever the Hellhound would have answered to that I was not fated to
know, for before she could speak the Advisor Kivule was introduced. My
eyes moved in surprise to Akua's veiled silhouette even as she entered
the tent and bowed.

``The Hierophant is awake, Your Majesty,'' the shade said.

I rose to my feet, ignoring the throb of pain from my leg.

``Meeting adjourned,'' I said, and they all knew better than to gainsay
me on that.