“So you never saw him exhibit these great powers your people speak of?” she asked when I had related a few of the myriad tales told about Al Sorna in the empire.

“He is just a man, Mistress,” I replied. “Greatly skilled and cunning, it is true. With the kind of keen insight that many might mistake for some form of magic. But I saw no real evidence he could read minds or commune with beasts, or the souls of the dead for that matter.”

“When he comes to face my beloved husband, will he display this cunning, do you think? Some clever design to save this city from destruction.”

There was a sardonic lilt to her voice confirming my sense of a deep fatalism to this woman, an impression that there was no novelty to what she witnessed here, the outcome preordained, inevitable and not entirely relished. “I expect so, Mistress,” I replied.

“A great strategist then.” She laughed a little. “I’ve met a few of those. One of them was so convinced of his own genius he sent fifty thousand men to burn in an oil-soaked swamp. Tell me, if Al Sorna had commanded the Realm Guard against my husband, would the outcome have been the same?”

The question was dangerous, as she must have known, and any answer I gave potentially fatal. “Such a thing cannot be judged, Mistress.”

“Oh, I think it can, especially by a man so well versed in history and all its battles, as you.”

Her tone was insistent, I had to answer, knowing any flattery of her husband would be recognised, and unappreciated. “The Battle Lord was overconfident,” I said. “And saw no reason to suspect treachery from an ally. Al Sorna would not have been gulled so easily.”

“And what of the weight of numbers against him. You said yourself it was a decisive factor.”

“At the Lehlun Oasis, Al Sorna was able to turn the course of the entire Imperial elite with only a few hundred men. If there is a path to victory here, he will find it.” She raised an eyebrow and I realised my mistake, adding “Mistress,” with my heart thumping and fresh sweat chilling my brow.

“I was starting to wonder if you would ever forget yourself,” she said.

“Forgive me, Mistress . . .” I babbled but she waved me to silence, returning her gaze to the smoking city. “Is there a wife somewhere, my lord Verniers?” she asked after a moment. “A family waiting for you back in Alpira?”

This reply required little thought, I had voiced it many times. “I have always been too preoccupied with my work to allow for such distractions, Mistress.”

“Distractions?” She turned to regard me with a smile. “Love is a distraction?”

“I . . . wouldn’t know, Mistress.”

“You’re lying. You’ve loved someone, and lost them. Who was she, I wonder? Some studious girl awed by the great scholar? Did she write poetry?” She pouted in mock sorrow. But for my all-consuming dread, the hatred I felt in that moment would have caused me to pitch her over the side and laugh as she drowned.

I chose the safest course, I lied. “She died, Mistress. In the war.”

“Oh.” She winced a little, turning away. “That’s very sad. You should get some rest. My beloved husband will have more slaughter for you to record on the morrow, no doubt.”

“Thank you, Mistress.” I bowed and strode to the steps leading to my cabin, trying not to run. Her husband’s innate cruelty was frightening, but now I knew by far the greatest danger on this ship came from his wife.

? ? ?

I slept for perhaps two hours, dreaming my dreams of chaos and blood as the nightly epic of the Realm Guard’s defeat returned yet again. The Battle Lord’s face when he saw them turn to charge his own flank . . . Brother Caenis trying to rally those who fled . . .

On waking I forced down the gruel that had been left at my door and spent some hours converting my notes from the previous day into a suitably misleading account of the Volarian assault, being sure to note the careful preparations the general had made for a prolonged struggle within the city walls.

I was called to the deck a short while later, finding he had convened a council of war, his senior officers standing around the map table as he listened to a report from the division commander. “We had some success with burning them out, Honoured General,” the man said, fatigue and grime etched into his face. “But they were quick to adapt, creating breaks between the streets, preventing the fires from spreading. Also, much of the city is constructed from stone, it doesn’t burn so easily. And the men . . . fire knows no friend, it claimed almost as many of ours as of theirs. Morale is . . . poor.”

“If your soldiers are so keen on shitting themselves,” the general replied, “we have overseers aplenty skilled in the art of flogging obedience into reluctant men.” His gaze swivelled to the nearest unfortunate, a Free Sword commander with smoke-blackened features and a recently stitched cut on his cheek. “How about you? Hand out any floggings yesterday?”

“Four, Honoured General,” the man replied in a hoarse voice.

“Then make it six today.” His gaze roamed the table in search of more prey. “You!” He jabbed a finger at a man clad in the garb of the engineers who serviced the ballista and mangonels. “My little trick with the prisoners. Did you try it?”

“We did, Honoured General,” the man confirmed. “Fifty heads cast over the walls, as you instructed.”

“And?”

The man faltered and the division commander spoke up. “The enemy have prisoners of their own, Honoured General. They threw fifty heads back at us over the barricades.”

“The witch’s doing,” the commander of a Varitai battalion muttered softly.

The general’s eyes blazed at him, his finger shooting out like a spear. “This man is demoted to the ranks. Get him out of my sight and make sure he’s in the first charge today.”

He fixed his gaze on the map as the miscreant was led away. “Against all sense and history,” he murmured. “When the walls fall the city falls, and the victors reap the reward of plunder and flesh. It has always been thus.” His head came up, eyes finding me. “Is that not so, my scholarly slave?”

It could be a trap or just a sign of his ignorance. In either case I had no time to ponder a careful lie. “Forgive me, master, but no. There is a historical parallel for this current . . . difficulty.”

“Parallel,” he repeated softly, straightening to bark a laugh, heartily echoed by the relieved officers. The general spread his arms, eyebrows raised. “Then educate us ignorant Volarian fools, oh great Verniers. When and where for this parallel?”

“The Forging Age, Master. Near eight hundred years ago, the wars that forged the Volarian Empire.”

“I know what the Forging Age was, you Alpiran wretch.” He glared at me in suppressed rage and I experienced a certainty that my continued existence owed much to his wife’s influence. “Go on,” he rasped when his anger subsided.

“The city of Kethia,” I said. “For which the modern province of Eskethia is named. It was last to fall to the Imperial host, holding out for the better part of a year before the walls fell, but the battle didn’t end. The city’s king, a renowned warrior and, legends say, great user of magics, inspired his people to feats of endurance beyond imagining. Every house became a fortress, every street a battlefield. It’s said despair and terror gripped the Imperial soldiery, for surely this city would never fall.”

“But it did,” the general said. “I’ve walked the ruins of old Kethia myself.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. “The tide of battle turned when the Council appointed a new commander, Vartek, known to history as the Spear-point, for he always led his men into battle, always the first to meet the enemy line. His fearless example dispelled his men’s fears. It took weeks of fighting, but Kethia fell, all the menfolk killed and the women and children taken as slaves.”

Silenced reigned, the general staring at me in frozen fury. I kept as still as I could, my face impassive. Readers should understand that my words were not courageous, I had intended no insult in the obvious implication they held. I had merely obeyed the command of my master by voicing historical fact, at least as far as the sources relate it.

“Honoured Husband.” Fornella had appeared on deck, dressed in a simple gown of white muslin, a red satin shawl over her shoulders. She went to her husband’s side and placed a wine cup next to his hand. “Have another drink, true-heart. Perhaps it’ll distract you from the ancient doggerel my expensive slave offers.”

Slowly the general lifted the wine cup and drank, his gaze remaining fixed on me for long enough to ensure knowledge of impending and severe punishment. “How many slaves have we taken in this province?” he asked, turning to the divisional commander.

“Not so many as from the others, Honoured General. Perhaps three thousand.”

“Five hundred heads tomorrow then,” the general told the engineer. “Have them blinded first. Exact some pain before the beheading, within earshot of the barricades, make them call to their families. Any of ours they behead in answer are no loss. Only a coward becomes a prisoner. If they’re still fighting the day after, make it a thousand more.” He drained the wine cup and tossed it aside, grinning at me. “See, slave? I too know how to provide a fine example.”