They file onto the plain slowly, raggedly, leaking from the city like blood from a wound. Occasionally, above the ranks, a horse sways like a midnight drunkard, its rider slumped on its back, skin half-cloth, half-bone.
Shroudweaver tries to take count as the crews of the other ships form up on the rise behind him, their bodies pressed low to the dry grass. Companies form up and split off into parties of ten, twenty.
The scouts have misjudged, badly. His eyes run over the bodies blackening the grass in front of Luss. They are outnumbered, two-to-one at least. Perhaps a thousand, he guesses, assuming there aren’t more left within the walls.
Arissa ducks low next to him, her hands loosening a dagger in its sheath, her eyes thin, as she performs the same grim calculations.
‘Shit. Shit. Your new friends better come through on this. Are they here?’
It’s four weeks since they’d received the first message. Shroudweaver startled awake by a voice on the wind as soft and as solid as if it lay on the pillow next to him. That voice had introduced itself as Skinpainter and it claimed to represent a splinter faction within the Empire – rebels.
That was the first Shroudweaver had heard of them. He’d had no idea how they’d found him, or why they’d chosen him out of all the other ears in Hesper. There was something in Skinpainter’s tone though, something low and urgent. Bring the Empire to bay at Luss, they’d said, and you won’t fight alone.
Shroudweaver had taken it to the Fallons who’d heard him out soberly. They’d paused his tale briefly as an elderly woman rolledin with fresh drinks, bending low to catch her muttered words, before beckoning him onwards. He’d pretended not to notice the pattern her fingers drummed on the cups, or the careful way she arrayed them on the table.
A week later, they’d mobilised.
The voice on the wind had sounded pleased. Relieved even.
Shroudweaver had been unsure about it all. Now it’s three weeks later – twenty ships, five hundred men, a city silenced. And he’s still unsure.
‘Are they here?’ Arissa’s voice is sharp as a wasp.
Shroudweaver squints towards the city. Shipwright nudges his shoulder and hands him a spinner that’s buzzing faintly. ‘Think about seeing, Shroud.’
Shroudweaver takes it, and does as he’s told. His vision clears like mist burning off in the morning. Not perfect, but each body sharpening in contrast to its neighbours. His teeth hum with the effort, and he counts as he hunts for some hint of where their allies might be.
He sees ranks upon ranks of silent soldiers, some blonde-haired, clutching long leaf-bladed spears, stretched tower shields. Their life evidenced only by the racing pulse at their throats and the shifting of their eyes.
In front of them, the people of Luss, or what remains of them. Their flesh is dried and paper thin, torn by sea winds and the teeth of dogs, their cheeks hollow and burrowed through. The elegant robes of their merchants fallen to shreds, hung around their emaciated bones. The dancing legs of their criers still stumbling on broken feet, ceremonial stones gleaming on darkly bloodstained lips. Beyond them gather other dead, many only given away by the fraying silver threads that run from their trapped souls, fracturing at the touch of their cold skin.
Shroudweaver hands the spinner back, relaxes as his muscles untense and his vision clears. ‘That’s a lot of soldiers. How much do you pay your scouts, Arissa?’
She digs the point of a dagger into the soil, twists it. ‘Not enough. But my guess is, they’ve reinforced since we last sentriders out.’ She frowns. ‘No matter. We’re committed now. Shipwright, form the lines.’
Shipwright turns, gesturing to the troops drawing up behind the rise. Positions are prepared. Wicked crossbows are cradled and strung. Bundles of gull-feather quarrels staked out neatly. Fifteen of those airborne in a minute would buy them some breathing space.
Arissa straightens her back surveying the lines, and grunts. ‘I might have known they’d be expecting us.’
Shipwright looks at Arissa. ‘I don’t know, my Lady. Thell’s not so far. This might just be what they do.’ She tightens the strapping on her hands, flexes it experimentally. There’s an ache in her wrists. The spinners are taking their toll. ‘We just don’t know enough.’ Arissa flashes her a smile, and she feels it run electric down to her stomach. This is really not the time.
‘Declan thinks we should try and parley. Suss them out. Thoughts?’
Shipwright makes a face. ‘If you wanted our thoughts, you would have asked a little earlier.’
Arissa sheathes the dagger, grinning. ‘True.’ She motions, and horses are brought up the embankment. Strong grey beasts, like cut marble come to life. ‘Still I’d appreciate the validation.’
Distantly, the criers of Luss yowl like dying cats, wet, feral and looping over the intervening plain and its scattered ruins. Echoing over the dregs of what Luss once called its Summer Town, now reduced to broken bricks and splintered tile.
Shipwright frowns. ‘We’re low on cover out there. As good as dead if they decide to take us out now.’ She pauses, ‘And I hate horses.’
Arissa swings a leg up over the charger, smiles down. ‘Why? Not enough sails?’
Shipwright mounts, unsteadily. ‘Not enough space.’
Shroudweaver saddles up, nudges his horse closer to them. ‘Do they have horses where you’re from?’
Shipwright glares at him. ‘Shut up. I don’t need to be humiliated before I die.’
