Empress of Dorsa (The Chronicles of Dorsa)

39

“The Commander is taking her part of the army into Pellon first. Once she’s sure it’s truly safe, she’ll send riders to General Alric and General Ambrose,” Linna explained. “Brother Rennus wants her to dreamwalk to them, but the Commander doesn’t like using the shadow arts. Not unless she absolutely has to.”

“At least she has some common sense,” Akella said.

“Because she won’t use the shadow arts?” Linna replied, cocking her head.

“Aye. The very name should encourage one to stay well enough away.”

“Hmm.” Linna wondered if all Adessians were as suspicious of and opposed to the shadow arts, or if this was just Akella being Akella. People in Terinto were afraid of the shadow arts and those who practiced them, at least to a certain extent, but their fear was mixed with respect for the positive things seers and healers and other practitioners could provide. “Do we have time for one more round?”

Akella was perched on a tree stump, leaning forward, one hand around her middle. “Time, yes. But you seem to forget I was in the infirmary not two days ago.” She used the short sword as a crutch, pushing herself up. “I think… I think I’m rather done for the day.”

The ground squelched beneath their boots as they made their way back towards the camp. Most of the snow had melted the day before, when the sky cleared and the sun came out for the afternoon. Slushy grey patches remained here and there.

“The Empress hasn’t said so out loud yet,” Linna said, slowing her pace to wait for the limping Akella, “but I think she’s reconsidering sending us back to Port Lorsin – me and the chambermaids and the Wise Men, I mean.”

Akella nodded but said nothing. No sarcastic quip, no suggesting that maybe going home would be best for Linna. Lack of an opinion was unusual for her, silence even more so. Their three rounds of sparring must have been more difficult on Akella’s still-healing body than she’d let on at the time.

Either that, or she was faking the severity of her pain because Linna had beaten her all three times, and she wanted a good excuse for losing.

Linna smiled to herself. Akella might have been a step or two slower than usual, but that wasn’t really why she lost. Linna was wise to all the pirate’s tricks now – not just wise to them, but learning to use them herself. The Commander would be upset to see Linna deviating from the thirty-seven moves of the dance to do things like trip an opponent or fling a rock at them. But the truth was, those tricks worked.

The Commander. If all went well, Linna would see her again in less than a week’s time. More importantly, perhaps, the Empress would see her again. The Empress always seemed… better in the Commander’s presence, somehow. More relaxed. Less likely to make rash decisions. And given the way the Empress had blown up at General Ambrose and Brother Rennus a few days earlier, Linna thought she definitely needed the Commander’s steadying presence.

Linna and Akella reached the entrance to the tunnel that led from the copse of trees and into the camp just as Mother Eirenna, goddess of the dawn sun, was starting to yield her power to Father Eiren, god of the daytime sun. Usually they reached this spot behind the camp’s western wall much earlier, when the sky was still more pink than blue, but Akella’s slow pace had made them late. It was still early enough that the patrol on the other side of the palisade would be at the sleepy half-strength of the night guard, but still. Linna always worried they’d get caught, and today she was more worried than usual.

“Stop worrying. We’re not going to get caught,” Akella commented, as though reading Linna’s mind.

“I know.” Linna rolled away the large stone they used to hide the tunnel entrance and ushered Akella down the makeshift ladder – a tree branch with notches cut into it – before following herself. Linna hesitated a moment, knowing that what she was about to say would only encourage Akella’s attempts to turn her into a pirate. Then she said it anyway. “Not getting caught was the only way to survive when I worked for Lord M’Tongliss and his family. So I learned to be sneaky.”

“Did you now?” It was as if Linna’s admission had breathed life into the tired Akella – the hint of amusement her voice normally held finally returned. Akella grunted when she dropped to her belly to begin the crawl through the damp tunnel. “Maybe instead of going back to Port Lorsin,” she said over her shoulder, “you should join a crew. See a bit of the world.”

“I saw plenty of the world when I was with the tinkers.”

“No, you saw plenty of the Empire. But the Empire is not the world.”

They paused their conversation while they traversed the section of tunnel that went beneath the palisade itself. That part was a tight squeeze, because Akella said that when you dug beneath a wall, any kind of wall, the smaller the tunnel the better. The last thing you wanted was the wall above you collapsing – not only could it kill you, but a collapsing wall both ruined the tunnel and also alerted authorities to its existence.

“I don’t like ships,” Linna said, when they’d both gotten safely beyond the palisade. “I was seasick the whole voyage to Tergos. And the hurricane…” She shuddered. “I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

“Get yourself a rizalt who knows what they’re doing and you wouldn’t have to go through that. Those thick-headed Imperial captains sailed right into it.”

They were both speaking softly now, because they were well inside the camp and about to come up at the tunnel’s exit – a narrow alley between the back of the infirmary tent and palisade wall.

“Either way. I don’t want to join a crew,” Linna said. “My place is the palace guard.”

“Why?” Akella challenged. “Simply because the Commander is a guard? Even your precious teacher had her time in the Imperial Army first. You need knowledge of the world beyond your precious royal family to be effective.”

“I’m in the world beyond the palace and the House of Dorsa right now.”

Akella snorted. “No you’re not. You sleep on the bloody floor of the bloody Empress’s tent.”

Akella was right, in a way, and Linna didn’t have a good answer for why she didn’t want to leave the palace guard or the Empress. Well, she did have an answer, but then she’d have to talk about Del, and that wasn’t a subject she really wanted to explain to Akella. It might be after dawn, but it was still too early in the morning to be made fun of. Linna knew perfectly well that the feelings she had for her best friend only went one way.

They were at the second ladder now, the top of which ended inside a barrel with a false bottom. By standing on the top of the ladder and removing the false bottom, it was possible to peer out through the barrel’s cracks to see if anyone was in sight before moving the barrel and climbing out. Not for the first time, Linna couldn’t help but be impressed that Akella had managed to dig this entire tunnel at night, unseen, and by herself over the course of merely a couple of weeks. Granted, the tunnel wasn’t terribly long – probably only about fifty or sixty feet – but nevertheless, it was quite an endeavor for just one woman digging on her own. Akella must be part mole as well as part shark.

Akella rose from her belly to a standing position.

“Why do you think the mountain men cleared out of Pellon?” Linna asked.

Akella paused, one foot on the ground, one foot on the ladder. “A witch, maybe.”

“Witch?”

“The mountain men follow the shadow arts, don’t they?” Akella said. “That’s the whole reason the Empress brought me along on this fun little jaunt to the East. To hunt down the sorcerers in the Kingdom of Persopos who’ve been supporting the tribesmen. So I think a seer, or some other witch, told them they would lose if they stayed in Pellon, so they cleared out and regrouped. Better to let the Empire have their city back than lose a war to keep it.”

Akella removed the false bottom of the barrel while Linna thought about her theory. She supposed it made sense. But still. Pellon was strategically important – it was the whole reason that the mountain men had negotiated to keep it in the first place when they signed the peace treaty with the false Regent. For starters, it was the largest city in the East; before the war, its population had been close to fifty thousand people. It had gotten that large because it stood at the crossroads of several important trade routes.

Like a heart, Pellon was the endpoint of the artery that was the Emperor’s Road, bringing in goods from the western half of the Empire and pumping back out the agricultural riches that made the East so important. Besides the Emperor’s Road to its west, Pellon was also just one day’s journey by land to the Wo’Yushe River, which wound south through the Sunrise Mountains and emptied into the Adessian Sea by the town of Reit. Riverboats traveled up and down the Wo’Yushe, bringing luxury goods from the Adessian Islands from Reit up to Pellon and taking back things like meravin mushrooms and wheat. Meanwhile, Fontan, the East’s second largest seaport after Birsid, was less than a week’s journey south from Pellon on safe, well-maintained roads. On top of it all, the plains and gently rolling hills surrounding the city were some of the most fertile fields in the entire Empire.

So why would the tribesmen just walk away from Pellon without a fight? Seer or no seer, it didn’t make sense to Linna.

Akella came back down the ladder. “We’re going to need to wait a few minutes. Seems they’re packing up the infirmary today. Wise Men and Brothers running around everywhere.”

Linna frowned. “But the longer we wait, the more of them there will be. And I need to get to the Empress’s tent with her tea and porridge before she wakes up.”

Akella waved a hand at the ladder. “Then be my guest. But I’m not sure you’ll want to explain to her High and Mightiness why Wise Men caught you coming out of an illegal tunnel with the pirate captain.”

Akella had a point. Nevertheless, Linna shrugged and climbed up the ladder to see for herself.

She was right, of course. The infirmary was a flurry of activity, with Wise Men, Brothers, and a chambermaid here and there carrying crates and sacks out of the infirmary and stacking them on either side of the long tent. The infirmary, like everything else in camp, was preparing for the move north, which was coming in just two more days.

Linna was in the process of counting heads when the hairs rose on the back of her neck. Someone was watching her. That was impossible, though, because she wasn’t visible – her head was inside the barrel, and no crack in the barrel was large enough for her to be seen. She was probably just being paranoid because she was nervous about getting caught. But then she saw them – Brother Rennus and Udolf, apparently directing all the activity around the infirmary, and Rennus was staring directly at the barrel.

He sees me!Linna thought wildly, but in the next moment, a chambermaid went up to him with a sack in her arms, and the Brother looked away.

Linna went back down the ladder so fast she nearly fell.

“What’s wrong?” Akella asked.

“Brother Rennus,” Linna said. “I swear he was looking at me.”

She expected Akella to poke fun, to say something like, That’s not possible. You’re being ridiculous, but instead she said, “Let’s go. And we’re bringing the ladder with us.”

“Go where?”

“To the other end of the tunnel, obviously.”

Akella ushered Linna ahead of her. Linna dropped back down to her belly to crawl in the direction they’d come, wondering why they were going in the opposite direction of where they needed to go and how she was going to make it back to the Empress before she woke up.

A few feet behind her, Akella was striking the roof of the tunnel with the ladder, sending a rain of dirt down.

“What are you doing?” Linna asked, alarmed.