Chapter 19

It was a long and narrow road.

Past the woods, where the crags met the mountains, a tunnel dove into the rock. Angharad was too bone-tired to do more than stumble forward through it. There were lanterns and stairs, the winding of the road taking them back outside – on the side of the mountain, with only a ramshackle wooden railing in the way of the precipitous drop below – before going up in a jagged zig-zag. In the distance she saw an island darkened, a realm of monsters and darklings with the stars fixed far above in firmament’s crown. The wind moaned plaintively, shaking the railing, and never had she felt more like she’d reached some edge of the world.

Was that what it had felt like, for Mother?

No, it couldn’t be. Angharad felt no wonder, no joy. Only blood drying on her face, the cut on her scalp itching and the smell of the filth and dirt she’d squirmed against. Her limbs were made of lead, her head spun around like a weathervane. There had been no discovery here, no horizon reclaimed from the Gloam. She had just cut and been cut until she was made to crawl through shame and corpses. She had won in honour, or as close as her saber had been able to reach to that, but now it felt like such a passing thing. Angharad forced herself up the stairs, their hypnotic back and forth of angles going up the mountainside, but time slipped through her fingers like sand.

How long had she been walking?

Every lantern, every step felt the same and there was no sign of the promised sanctuary. Had Song not promised to wait for her? Yet here she stood alone. Angharad licked dry lips, but all it did was salt the bloody cracks. One more step, she told herself. Always one more step, until she reached the yellow lanterns and their promise of safety. She slipped, landing on her knees, but was too exhausted to let out more than a moan of pain. The wind echoed her, mocking. She turned to chide it, to let out something of the scream stills tuck in her throat, but her vision swam.

She felt her knees give and there was a burst of pain, then nothing.

—

Warmth and cool. A blanket above, but beneath her was stone digging at her back.

“- should be fine, she hasn’t lost so much blood she would die from it.”

Eyes fluttering open, Angharad let out a hiss of pain at the bright burn of the lanterns. She shaded her vision with her hand, finding her hand slow – as if she’d just gone through a great exertion. In many ways, she had.

“Ah,” a voice she recognized said. “Back with us, Lady Tredegar.”

Grey eyes looked down at her, the apprentice physician – if he was truly that – Tristan meeting her gaze as he wiped his hands with a dirty rag. He had, she noticed, a swollen black eye.

“I-” Angharad tried, but found her mouth felt full of cotton.

She swallowed, which helped a little.

“Where are we?” she got out.

“On the stairs to sanctuary,” Tristan informed her. “Where you fell unconscious. I had a look at you, however, and there is nothing to worry about. That cut on your head could do with stitches, but your wounds are rather minor.”

He paused.

“I assume your state comes from lack of sleep or contract overuse,” the Sacromontan said. “Either way, given some rest you should be back on your feet after a day or two.”

I do not have a day or two, she thought. The longer she gave Augusto Cerdan, the better the chances he would somehow wriggle away out of this. And what if he tried to call their duel while she was unfit to fight? None of this, though, was Tristan’s concern.

“Thank you,” Angharad croaked. “For the help.”

“Thank Yong,” Tristan shrugged. “It’s his herbero I used to disinfect your wounds and wash your face. It’s the cheap stuff from Estebra District, so it’s halfway to grain alcohol.”

The Pereduri sniffed at the air, brow knotting. Was that peppermint she smelled?

“Foul stuff,” Tristan sympathized. “But I’d recommend a swallow or two from the flask to get you fit to walk anyway.”

Angharad was beginning to reconsider her assumption that he was a physician. Or at least a proper one. He might have been like one of those shipboard doctors she’d heard about, whose only two remedies were maize beer and rum. Smiling, the man withdrew and was replaced by a familiar face: Lady Ferranda Villazur, looking ragged and red-eyed. The noblewoman offered her a hand.

“Up, Lady Angharad,” Ferranda said. “The faster we reach sanctuary, the faster we can rest.”

She took the hand but wriggled around to keep the blanket on her, adjusting it over her shoulders after Ferranda hoisted her up. Though clothed, she felt cold. Her vision swam for a moment, but a long breath later she was fine. Enough so that she could take in the sight of the people gathered further down the stairs. A ragged pair of middle age were the furthest down, the man of the pair holding up an old woman with a mangled leg on his back. Above them an old man leaned against the wall, and then there were a few she knew by name: Lan, the remaining twin with blue lips, and Yong, the soldier who she must thank for the use of his drink.

There was no sign of Sanale, an absence that had her heart squeezing in sympathy for Ferranda, and the last then should be – Angharad froze, then began reaching for a saber she no longer had. A hollow, they had a hollow among them. Had they made a pact with the cultists like Tupoc? Half the others immediately pointed weapons at her.

“She is not a darkling,” Yong said, tone even.

“She can speak for herself,” Sarai – for it could only be her – firmly told the Tianxi. “I believe your family are seafarers, Lady Tredegar, so you ought to know the name of Triglau.”

Angharad’s shoulders lost some of their tension.

“The northern colonies,” she slowly said. “You are of the peoples below the Broken Gates.”

“Not so broken, before your people came,” Sarai coldly replied. “Like many other things.”

Angharad coughed into her hand, embarrassed. In truth she knew little of the Triglau, for her mother’s travels had been to the east and not the north, but she did know a few things. For one, Triglau was the name for the endless petty chiefdoms of that land as well as the people themselves. Unlike the people of Malan, they had never grown past their tribal roots.

“I apologize for the discourtesy,” Angharad awkwardly said. “I assure you, not all of the Isles believe slavery without evil.”

“Splendid news,” Sarai replied with a politely savage smile. “Why, near half the Malani I’ve ever met have assured me the same. No doubt the slave trade will be ending any day now.”

There was a long, barren stretch of silence. Then Tristan snorted out a laugh, which was shoddily turned into a cough.

“I’ve just seen to her wounds, Sarai, don’t murder her right afterwards,” he said. “It’s very inconsiderate of my time.”

“Time we are wasting,” Lady Ferranda mildly said. “Shall we get moving instead of chattering like magpies?”

“Fucking finally,” the middle-aged man below bit out. “How light to do you think she is?”

He gestured at the old woman on his back, who Angharad only now noticed had a bandage-covered eye under broken spectacles.

“Felis,” the woman by him chided.

“I have been eating a lot of croquetas,” the old woman admitted.

Amusement spread, the earlier unpleasantness thinning. Tristan and Sarai took the lead – she only now noticed that the Sacromontan was limping, and one of his boots was wrapped with bandages – to begin the climb. Angharad was tugged forward by Lady Ferranda. The other woman leaned close.

“Stay on Sarai’s good side,” she murmured. “She’s joined to the hip with Tristan and he was Yong’s favorite even before we all came to owe him.”

Angharad slowly nodded. She then hesitated, not sure whether she should ask. Ferranda noticed and her face tightened.

“Sanale was caught by the airavatan,” she curtly said. “We nearly all died to it as well.”

“My condolences,” the dark-skinned noblewoman said.

A platitude, but she meant every word. Retainers that had been with you for long were as family, and Lady Ferranda was obviously taking his loss hard. Ferranda nodded, a tad shortly.

“What happened for you to end up alone and unconscious on the stairs?” she asked. “I thought you were to stay with the others.”

“Augusto Cerdan murdered his valet to flee from lupines faster,” Angharad flatly said. “Naturally, I challenged him to an honour duel.”

Ferranda’s eyes widened.

“Naturally,” she repeated, though her voice was a little strange.

“As a consequence, when we later encountered an ambush by Tupoc Xical and the cult of the Red Eye he betrayed us in an attempt to rid himself of me while running away,” she continued. “In doing so, he also threw away the lives of Isabel, Master Cozme and his own brother.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Tristan butting in, abandoning Sarai at the front as he slowed to stay just ahead of them.

“All these were caught by the cultists?” he asked, sounding surprised.

Though Angharad was miffed at both the presumption he could force his way into the conversation and the tacit admission he had been eavesdropping, she bit down on a sharp reply. She owed a debt for his treatment.

“No,” she replied. “As far as I know only Briceida, one of Lady Isabel’s handmaids, was captured. I fought to slow down the enemy before shaking them off but took some wounds in doing so. The others fled ahead and I lost blood. You then found me in the stairs.”

It was not reasonable, Angharad reminded herself, to feel abandoned by this. She had good as ordered them to leave her behind. And yet. Don’t be childish, she ordered herself. Both Tristan and Ferranda looked skeptical at the implication of her minor wounds having undone her so, but as both deduced the fuller truth had to do with a contract neither pressed the matter.

“You are not the only one who fought Tupoc and his men,” Lady Ferranda told her. “Lady Inyoni lost one of her own to him as well.”

That was sad news, but not without a silver lining. She would not be short on allies when she urged for them to string up the traitor and his brood.

“He betrayed one of his own subordinates,” Angharad said with open disgust. “He sold out Leander Galatas to the hollows when they complained too few had been delivered into their hands.”

Tristan’s brow knotted at the news. Had he been friends with the man?

“He is burning too many bridges,” the scruffy Sacromontan said. “He must still have something up his sleeve to think he’d get away with it.”

“Then let us end him before that,” Angharad said. “He should be made to stand before a tribunal of the rest of us the moment he steps out of sanctuary, do you not agree?”

The reactions were the opposite of what she had expected: Tristan’s face displayed some enthusiasm at the notion while Ferranda’s closed. She had thought the infanzona bolder than this and the man more cowardly. Why else would he have only browbeaten those weaker than him?

“It may not be that easy,” Lady Ferranda said. “The Trial of Ruins may well force our hand otherwise.”

I look forward to working with you in the second trial, Lady Tredegar, the pale-eyed traitor had smiled down at her. Angharad’s belly clenched in rage. Had he done it all knowing he would be able to wriggle his way out of consequences?

“How?” she asked.

How was he to trick his way out, and how could she make him choke on his trickery instead?

“That is a conversation that can wait until we reach sanctuary,” Ferranda firmly replied. “The next step can wait until this one is taken.”

Angharad grimaced but did not contradict her. Tristan returned to the fore, and after the Pereduri saw the look of grief Ferranda’s face when she asked about how their company had crossed the river she let the matter drop. Instead she inquired as to what still lay between them and the yellow lanterns, a change of subject the infanzona eagerly seized upon. It turned out, embarrassingly enough, that that Angharad had collapsed less than an hour away from the end of the trial. They went up the jagged stairs, then into another tunnel of bare stone that headed deep into the mountain.

The supports keeping the ceiling from collapse were made of wood or iron, but unlike the earlier railing they were in a fine state. The Watch kept them in good order.

“The maze is within a cavern, then?” Angharad asked.

“It is that in the same way that Vesper is a cavern,” Ferranda said. “You will see.”

Before long, Angharad did. The tunnel ended abruptly into a precipitous flight of carved stairs, but she hardly spared a look for those. Blowing wind threatened to put out their lanterns, but there was no need of those to see: from the ceiling of the gargantuan underground chamber hung great pieces of gold giving out a ghostly glow, slowly moving as if the world’s greatest crib mobile. Below it – and them -was spread out the Trial of Ruins in all its glory.

First a fort surrounded by yellow lanterns, dilapidated bastions guarding over a massive iron gate set in pillar of stone that rose all the way to the ceiling. But it was what lay beyond that had her breath catching in her throat: a city of broken shrines. It was as if some mad spirit had stolen a thousand ancient temples and mausoleums and tossed them into a haphazard pile that filled the entire chamber, making a mountain-maze of the lost and sacred. Angharad could see no path above, no more than if she were trying to climb a mountain within the mountain. They would have to go through the labyrinth to get on the other end of the chamber, not around it.

Behind her there were gasps and she was almost stumbled into, the toothless old man gazing at the sight with open wonder. He looked the most alive she had seen of him yet.

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“It is true, then,” Francho breathed out. “Shrines from islands halfway across the Trebian Sea, all drawn here by some god’s hand.”

“This place is known?” Angharad asked.

“In some circles,” the old man evaded. “It has long been said the Watch locks away on the Dominion gods that are too dangerous to let loose, but the rumour is dubious in provenance.”

The old man sucked at his gums thoughtfully. Angharad was polite enough not to wrinkle her nose in distaste.

“The scope of this does seem beyond even them,” Francho said.

Angharad could only agree, for there must be hundreds and hundreds of ruins here: how could any assembly of men bring these inside a hollow mountain through those narrow stairs they had earlier climbed? It would not do to block the way so the Pereduri began her way down the stone stairs. They were mercifully dry, but the slope steep and utterly without railing. Angharad took care in climbing down, until finally she reached flat and solid ground. She waited there with the vanguard until the rest of the company caught up, eyes peeled on the even stretch of stone ahead of them leading straight to the old fort encircled by yellow lanterns.

Sanctuary.

The proceeded only after everyone had gathered, the mood growing buoyant with safety just in sight. The fort was a sprawling thing, shaped as a square of tall walls with pointed bastions peeking out of the corners. It was also half a ruin, parts of the walls collapsed and only two of the bastions still whole. There were lanterns on the ramparts beyond the yellow ones outside, and in their glow the silhouettes of black-cloaked men armed with muskets could be seen. The ‘gate’ was a collapsed wall, guarded by a pair of bored watchmen who betrayed little interest when their company came in sight.

One of the two, a tall woman of Sacromontan look, counted them out loud.

“Ten, huh?” she mused. “Maybe it’ll not be a complete loss this year. With the others inside, you should have the numbers for the maze.”

The other watchman laughed at her words.

“Head in,” he told them. “You are now formally under sanctuary after having completed the Trial of Lines. Congratulations.”

A pause.

“There’s warm food and supplies ahead.”

No amount of rudeness could have prevented a swelling a joy after being told that.

“If you want to withdraw under our protection,” the watchman said, “find Lieutenant Wen.”

“Thank you,” Yong replied.

After a polite nod the Tianxi was the first to take the slender ‘gate’, the rest lining up to follow behind him. Angharad was fifth in line and went with a spring to her step: she was eager to see how her companions had fared without her. Yet as she made to enter the fort the watchwoman of the pair stopped her – laid a hand on her arm. Angharad frowned at her for the presumption.

“Angharad Tredegar?” the tall Sacromontan asked.

“Correct,” she coolly replied.

The watchwoman’s expression brightened.

“Good, we were getting afraid you wouldn’t make it,” she said. “There’s going to be an unreasonably pretty Malani by the cooking pots, Sergeant Mandisa. You’re to go to her.”

Angharad blinked.

“May I ask why?”

“Because we all like brandy,” the other woman drily replied. “Go on, then.”

Mystified at the nonsense reply, Angharad obeyed and caught up to Franchi as he entered a great courtyard. It was, she saw, the beating heart of this ruined fort. A wide open space of cracked paving stones led up to the rampart at the back and the massive iron gate set into it. Most everyone seemed to have made a home there, including the Watch: the blackcloaks had claimed an old barracks on the left side, its windows barred and stripes of dark paint marking it as off-limits. Besides them stairs went up to one of the still still-standing bastions, atop which great lanterns hung and someone appeared to have set up astronomical equipment.

On the opposite side of the courtyard the Watch had built out of old stables a series small ‘rooms’: stalls with planks for roof and curtains hung as doors. It would be a thin illusion of privacy but still more than Angharad had been graced with in weeks – months, even, moving between ships and inns since leaving the Isles. Further back stood what looked like a cross between a lumberyard and smithy, used only by a thick watchman chopping wood, but what drew Angharad’s eye was not at the sides of the courtyard but the very heart. Tables were set in a loose circle around a makeshift kitchen, with a shoddy brick oven and cooking hearth.

And rising from one of the tables to the right, abandoning steaming bowls of stew, were the companions she had parted ways with.