Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga 3)

“Send them a warm greeting.”

As the burning arrows arced overhead into the wooden city, Lada turned to watch the peasants making their long walk toward a new home. One she had given them.

* * *

“How many dead?” Lada asked Bogdan five nights later, after hitting every major Turkish stronghold along the Wallachian border. Around her campfire sat Nicolae, Stefan, Bogdan, Iskra—the woman from the wooden city who had warned them and been taken on as a regional advisor—and some of her higher-ranked men.

Bogdan shrugged. “Two thousand Bulgars. A thousand Ottomans from the first fortress. Five hundred at the second. Anyone’s guess how many were in the city we burned. We shot at least a thousand as they tried to climb the walls to escape.”

Iskra grunted. “They came from all the garrisons around the city. Probably two thousand, two thousand five hundred.”

Bogdan nodded, ticking cities off on his fingers. “So in addition to that, we have hit Oblucitza and Novoselo, Rahova, Samovit, and Ghighen. The entire region around Chilia. All told, twenty-five thousand dead? Mostly Turks, though many Bulgars as well.”

Lada laughed in surprise. Such a number was unfathomable. At least to leaders like Matthias of Hungary, who wanted to play politics, to rule behind walls, to fight with letters instead of weapons. But she had known what she could accomplish with a few thousand men.

The Ottoman forces were scattered and lazy. Too used to being unchallenged. If the Ottomans had been prepared, Lada’s forces would have been slaughtered. But it had been easy enough to quickly cut their way up and down the border between Wallachia and Bulgaria. She had been lucky.

No. She had been smart. She knew she would not face such easy odds again, but she would be smarter than her enemy. Do the unexpected at every turn. This had worked once; it would not work again.

“Is it enough?” Bogdan asked, fingers still extended in calculating the volume of terror they had accomplished.

It would never be enough.

It was enough for now.

“Yes.” She heard Nicolae sigh in relief.

He dropped his head from shoulder to shoulder, rubbing his neck. “Do you want me to leave men behind?” he asked. “Are we expanding?”

“No, we are deterring. I have no interest in conquering. Only in letting others know the borders of Wallachia are inviolable. No one will attack my villages again. Not unless they want war.”

Nicolae grinned wearily. “I think that message has been sent.”

“Good. I have new messages to send now.” Lada stared into the fire, watching it devour the darkness around it.

Constantinople

RADU STILL FOUND PEACE in prayer. During the siege, he had missed mosques, missed praying in unison with his brothers all around him. It was a comfort returning to that routine.

He could not bring himself to go to the Hagia Sophia, though, even now that it was a mosque. He had too many memories there to truly lose himself to praying. Instead, he visited other mosques through the city. They were mostly converted Orthodox churches, though a few new mosques were being built. His brother-in-law, Kumal, joined him for most prayers, and, as promised, Radu also joined little Murad and Mesih in prayer.

Coming back with them from afternoon prayer, Radu was surprised to meet Mehmed. The sultan was so rarely in the streets. Radu bowed low. Mehmed gestured for him to join them. One of his Janissary guards dismounted, offering Radu the horse.

“Where are we going?” Radu asked, careful to keep his horse a step behind Mehmed’s for appearance’s sake. He had been in Constantinople for a week, and while in private they were as close as ever—when Mehmed had time to see him—in public Radu knew the importance of maintaining distance. Mehmed needed to be apart, needed to stand above. Radu would not disrupt that.

“Urbana has some new hand cannon designs she wishes to show me. I am certain she would be happy to see you, too.”

Radu snorted a laugh. “You do not know her very well, do you?”

Mehmed turned his head, smiling at Radu over his shoulder. “I cannot imagine anyone would ever be unhappy to see you.” His gaze lingered on Radu’s face. It felt almost as though he was watching for Radu’s reaction more than wishing to continue to look at Radu.

Mehmed did that more and more often lately. He would say some little shining thing, or touch Radu on the shoulder or the hand or even the cheek, always watching, studying. Cataloging what actions or words triggered which reactions. Radu did not know what to make of it. He offered Mehmed a smile now, which seemed to satisfy him.

Over their past week together, though, Mehmed had not spoken again of Lada. Whether he had discussed her “message” in private with other advisors, Radu did not know. But it seemed as though, for the time being, Mehmed was content to let the issue be buried alongside the bodies of the men Lada had sent back.

Envoys were often casualties of aggression between countries—Mehmed had killed Emperor Constantine’s envoy a year ago, Cyprian spared only because he had taken Radu and Nazira out of Edirne—but Mehmed had to be bothered by the loss and the intent behind it. Maybe he was planning something and thought Radu would object. Or maybe, with Constantinople so recently settled, Mehmed did not want to antagonize Lada until he absolutely had to.

Either way, the memory of what Radu had seen in the box stayed with him, wriggling beneath the surface of his skin. The spike. The face frozen in agonized death. His sister had done that. And she would have to be answered. When she was, Radu did not know how he would feel, or what he would want to happen.