Empire of Ashes

Chapter LXVI - Devil May Care

Hours on the boat melted into days. Everything blurred together. Occasionally, we would pass another vessel, and Kingfisher would order every single man onto the deck in case they were looking to pick a fight. No one ever dared.

Every day at dawn and dusk, we would clear a patch of deck and spar for an hour. Fendur would fight Tem while Anlai watched and called out everything his left-hand was doing wrong. They made some progress, and by the end of the week Tem was able to keep up with one of the assassins for half a minute before he 'died.'

I did not manage to improve my sword-play much, since Anlai was still sidelined, but I was able to teach Melia a few tricks. It was more to keep us busy than anything, since neither of us would need to swing a sword again, gods willing. Between sparring sessions, I was taught Cambrian with increasing urgency. The northerners began speaking it around the barge, and it was not long before I could hold a conversation, albeit slowly.

We crept our way towards Belmery. The time we had left dwindled to a day, then a morning, then an hour, and then at last we turned a bend in the river, and I could see the grey city walls looming above the horizon. They were curved into a massive circle, encompassing the entire city, with watchtowers dotted every quarter league.

Melia and Glyn stared with wide, astonished eyes. Anlai let out a low whistle and Fendur swore under his breath. None of us had ever seen anything so big, and besides, Belmery was an unusual sort of city. It was built on a hill, so there were three distinct layers, each one looming higher than the last. The keep topped it all like a crown.

I snuck a glance at Tem, who wasn't even looking at Belmery. His eyes were on the summer sky and the birds wheeling above our heads.

"Hard to attack," I murmured. "They could shoot down at you the whole time, and with all those interior walls, it would be like sieging three separate cities."

"It has only ever been captured twice, and both times they were starved out," Tem replied. He still wasn't looking at it. His gaze had dropped towards the south-west. Towards Cambria.

"Forget starving them. I would poison the moat and the river — thirst is quicker than hunger by far."

"There are natural wells inside, albeit not enough for the entire population," Tem told me. "But you are thinking like a general, Lyra, and that is how the Anglians took Taiga from us."

"And is that how Sami will take it back?" I asked.

He looked at me, finally, if only to shake his head. "There are too many of our own people inside those walls. She is more likely to foster an uprising and have them open the gates for her."

"Like we did in Canton..."

"Yes."

I couldn't help worrying for her. For all we knew, Sami could have died in the siege weeks ago. It was dangerous work, particularly if she had snuck into the city. Her skill with a blade wouldn't matter if she was outnumbered ten to one, and she didn't have Iyrak to watch over her like Tem did.

A few more minutes and we were approaching one of the river gates. There were soldiers to search the boats as they entered. If I had to guess, I would imagine they also collected a steep entrance fee to subsidise their miserable wages.

"This is where you disembark," Kingfisher told us, gesturing to the soldiers ahead. "Unless you want the king to know your whereabouts within the hour."

He didn't know who Temris was, of course, so he wouldn't be able to sell the information to the highest bidder. He only knew that we were trying to travel unseen. But I was sure he could guess at the truth. Temris Ragnyrsbane was the only Cambrian most of these men had ever heard of.