Holy Sister (Book of the Ancestor 3)

On receiving directions from some minor officer Kettle began to lead them briskly through the outskirts of the main Scithrowl force. Nona hobbled after her with one arm over Bhenta’s shoulders for support, her head down so that the blackness of her eyes would not draw comment or attention.

The smell of the place was overpowering. Smoke from the battle at the walls drifted back to mix with that of countless cook-fires and communal blazes, along with the pervading stink of latrines, the aroma of unfamiliar stews bubbling in cauldrons, the odour of close-packed humanity, of draught horses, cavalry, penned cattle and pigs, stray dogs, a shanty town of camp followers to the rear. It was as if a vast city had been turned out into the fields, given weapons and dressed in armour.

Although Kettle was discreet about it Nona could see that she was noting every detail and the telltale furrow between her eyebrows meant that she was sending to Apple all the information their shadow-bond would allow. Nona could only imagine what Apple might be sending back. Demands for her return? Pleading? Threats, even? Or did Mistress Shade have the discipline not to distract a Grey Sister with her personal fears even when that Grey Sister was Kettle and the mission could very well be one that allowed no return?

Turning sharply behind a latrine trench sheltered by a wall of woven sticks, Kettle snatched up an empty water barrel and thrust it at Nona. ‘You’re all better now. Hold this over your “wounds” and walk with purpose. We need to get into that fancy tent and, if it seems worth the risk, kill whoever we find.’

They came around the back of the latrine, still under the casual gaze of countless eyes, and Kettle turned their path a few degrees towards the distant pavilion. As they progressed both Kettle and Bhenta acquired burdens, a pile of blankets for Kettle, a heavy coil of rope for Bhenta. Apple always stressed the authority that a simple burden conveys upon the person carrying it.

At each point at which their path was blocked and they had to move aside or go around, Kettle ensured that they emerged on a heading more closely aimed towards their goal. Nona noticed that both of the nuns also managed to dump their entire supply of deadwort into two separate communal water barrels. If the slightly acrid taste went unnoticed the first victims wouldn’t start to die for hours yet, giving plenty of time for more to join them on the casualty list.

‘This isn’t going to be easy. If there’s anyone of real note in there then they will have guards every bit as well trained as we are.’ Kettle breathed the words as they walked, pitched just for their ears.

‘Distraction?’ Bhenta muttered.

‘Has to be.’ Kettle nodded.

A line of hard-eyed soldiers in brighter and less ragged uniform than the regulars stood a perimeter around the pavilion. Kettle didn’t approach close enough to be warned off. Another of Apple’s maxims, Make one sure move, nothing tentative.

‘The catapults?’ Kettle spoke directly to Nona across their thread-bond. ‘Can you do it?’

‘Yes.’ Nona had never mastered the ability to work fire beyond the snuffing of candles and making figures dance in the hearth flames. But the great clay pots in which the flaming oil was being lobbed … those were something she could reach out and touch with her rock-work. Especially this close to the Ark with her bloods singing to its tune.

‘Not too close. We don’t want the pavilion catching. It could scatter our targets.’

The pavilion’s exit ran beneath multiple awnings hung between poles carved from a dark wood that Nona didn’t recognize. Anyone emerging from the tent would find themselves looking out over the row of catapults some fifty yards away. Kettle led them on a circuitous route, approaching the pavilion from the side. As they closed the distance she and Bhenta drew shadows to them, a subtle gathering that kept the darkness to a mist barely rising above the trampled grass while it flowed behind them.

Nona paused and stared at the catapults, frowning in concentration. A series of defensive ranks were arrayed before the great camp against the remote possibility that Emperor Crucical’s armies should sally forth. Beyond those ranks lay several hundred yards of churned earth. Then came the sea of armed humanity surging around the base of Verity’s walls, weathering rocks and arrows as they waited their turn at ladder or scaling chain. To the left, annoyingly just out of the catapults’ line of fire, the first of half a dozen vast siege towers had just met the wall.

Nona reached out with her rock sense for the feel of fired clay, hunting the roundness and fullness of the containers. The catapults launched without rhythm, each firing when ready, the faster crews slowly overhauling the slower.

The sensation of finding her goal was like that of suddenly remembering a name that had eluded her. How could she ever not have known it? She selected a pot that had already been hefted into a catapult’s throwing cup by the rope netting sewn around the clay. The top of the pot was shielded from the wind by a perforated copper housing, and the wick within had just been lit. As Nona watched, the man who worked the lever took position. A moment later the throwing arm snapped up, the twisted hides releasing their tension with a throaty twang. The arm slammed into the arresting bar, jerking the whole back end of the wheeled framework from the ground. The pot sailed on, still rising.

Nona slowed the world, ground her teeth together, clenched her fist, and the pot shattered. Flaming oil spread, slowed, and fell upon the heads of a division of Scithrowl archers all busy lofting their own missiles towards the walls of Verity.

The shadows that had been gathered now wound up Nona’s legs, wrapping her with a cold dark thrill. While all eyes turned towards the flames and screams ahead of the catapult line the three nuns sped forward, swift and indistinct. They kept low and passed between two soldiers guarding the tent. Nona pushed at the man facing them with whatever marjal empathy she had: you don’t see us.

Kettle slit the pavilion’s billowing side, low down, and all three of them slid through in a trice on knees and elbows.

Nona understood their mistake the moment she came through. The interior was a single space lit by shifting colours as the sunlight penetrated the walls. The ground was uncovered grass. Five figures in the mottled white tunics of softmen stood around a man seated in a plain wooden chair at the centre. Softmen were dangerous enough on their own, assassins as deadly as the Noi-Guin, versed in their own martial arts and peculiar variants of shadow-work. It was the man at the centre who caught Nona’s attention though, even before she was off her knees. Sigils sewn in threads of silver and of gold overwrote the black velvet of his robe. Dozens of them. Such expense might be lavished on a king or queen, but here in this empty tent it meant only one thing. The whole thing was a trap designed to draw in the best assassins the enemy had. The man was clearly a mage, waiting here to ensure that none of those lured in would escape again. Either the Scithrowl had learned from their long haul across the Corridor not to signal where their battle commanders slept, or they had been deliberately stupid, sacrificing leaders, or perhaps even simply using actors, in a game of bait-and-switch. They must have known that the best of the empire’s assassins would strike in the last days and hours before they reached the emperor’s walls.

To their credit, Kettle and Bhenta rolled smoothly away on either side, coming to their feet while unleashing a barrage of throwing stars. Sadly the distraction that had allowed them to enter unobserved from the outside had simply let the softmen know that something was coming. Each of them held a pair of pain-sticks, thin iron rods about two feet in length. The sigil at the end, activated by shadow-work, caused such agony that even a light brush against exposed flesh would leave the victim screaming on the floor. The artefact that Thuran Tacsis called the Harm had been fashioned along the same principles.