“Something has to change, Siris,” she said. “The world, the people in it . . . Well, sitting around with my nose in a mug, not looking at anything happening around me—that’s not working for me anymore. So we’re going to fight instead. You’re going to lead, and I’m going to . . . well, do whatever the hell it is I do.”
Siris nodded, meeting her eyes. “You’ve changed.”
“It’s been over two years.” She looked back at him, defiant at first, but then relaxing. He found himself remembering the days—short though they had been—that he’d spent with her. Days he had sincerely enjoyed.
Her hands rested a few inches from his own. She moved one closer to his.
“I’ve changed too,” he warned. “Those years in the prison, they were . . . difficult.”
“I can believe it. I wasn’t expecting things to just pick up where they left off. Hell, you’re still Deathless, and . . . Well, what I did wasn’t about us. Not entirely, at least. It was as much about those people down below.”
“Thank you,” Siris said, resting his hand on hers. “Thank you for coming for me. You don’t know what being trapped in there was doing to me, Isa. I don’t care about your reasons. Just . . . thank you.”
She nodded.
“There’s a problem, though. I’m not good at leadership.”
“Sure you are. They—”
“I’m not, Isa. I grew up isolated, treated as a doomed Sacrifice, forced to practice swordsmanship instead of spending time with others my age. I know nothing about leadership.”
She frowned.
“Everything I know about being a leader,” he said, “comes from somewhere else. Other instincts. Not me—or at least, not the me I want to encourage. If I’m to lead here, I’m going to be relying upon the methods of our enemies.”
“We can’t fight a war with brave songs and good intentions, Siris. You’re our weapon. They forged you, yes, but we can use that.” She hesitated. “And I trust you.”
Hell take me . . . He met her eyes again. Then, making a decision, he slipped a paper off the stack—the map with the facility he’d been looking at earlier.
“Then we’re going to strike here,” he said. “How soon can the men be ready?”
“Immediately.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
LESS THAN a week later, Siris crept along the shelf of rock, following Isa and two members of her strike team. He tried not to look over the ledge’s side to his left, or at the sheer drop there.
He wasn’t certain what would happen if he died falling off that cliff. He couldn’t awaken at the rebirthing chamber near Saydhi’s lands, the place where Isa had taken him over two years ago. That had been destroyed by the Worker.
Perhaps his soul would find another rebirthing chamber. More likely, he’d end up lying broken on those rocks below until his Deathless body regenerated and he woke up. But a third possibility worried him more than the other two—the possibility that he’d be reborn as a child again, as he’d done so many times during his centuries as the Sacrifice. He had grown accustomed to—though not particularly comfortable with—this life as a Deathless. Losing his memory again, his identity, frightened him.
It frightened the Dark Self even more.
Isa held up a gloved hand ahead, and the team stopped. The two other men with them—Isa had introduced them as Dynn and Terr, expert scouts—were as silent as she was. Siris was amazed at how they could move without their steps making sounds on the rock.
Siris wasn’t as good as they, but fortunately he wasn’t some lumbering lout either. Apparently, Ausar had been reasonably accomplished at stealth. Perhaps thousands upon thousands of years of life left one reasonably accomplished at just about everything.
Isa moved on ahead alone, leaving Siris with Dynn and Terr, all three crouching on the ledge. A cool wind gusted over them, and Siris settled himself to wait, one gloved hand against the mountainside to his right, the other gripping the edge of the pathway to his left. He could feel the sharp rock of the ledge through his glove; the thing felt frail to be supporting all four of them.
Their week of travel had brought them high in the mountains, away from what passed for civilization in the God King’s lands. Siris’s breath puffed in front of him. He wore his helm strapped to his back, and was clothed in supple leathers with a tight chain shirt. The bulk of their raiding force—almost a hundred strong—waited below with Lux, closer to the front of the stronghold. Hopefully, traveling at night and eschewing cookfires had allowed them to approach unnoticed.
The sky was starting to dim; they would attack at dusk, as Lux had suggested. It would be light enough for his troops not to need torches, but late enough in the day that the guards might be drowsy from long hours on duty.
As they waited for Isa to return, Terr turned to Siris. Lanky and mostly bald, he had an oval face and an angular nose. He wore assault armor, tight chain and a breastplate, manufactured light and strong, Deathless style.
Terr looked Siris up and down. These two scouts had spent most of the trip scouting ahead. “You really don’t look like much, you know,” Terr said softly. “Without the helm. Just a regular guy.”
“Thank you,” Siris said.
Terr cocked an eyebrow. Not the answer he’d been expecting, apparently.
“Is it boring?” Terr asked.
“What? Waiting?”
“No. Life. Being thousands of years old. Doesn’t it get dull, after a while?”
“I don’t remember any of it,” Siris said.
“Nothing?”
Siris shook his head. “Not before this life.”
“A Deathless with no experience. What good are you, then?”
“Draw your sword and I’ll show you.”
“Hush, you two,” Dynn said, glancing back at them. He immediately blushed. “I mean, hush, Terr. And Lord Deathless, if you don’t mind.”
Siris smiled at the way Terr rolled his eyes; there seemed a familiarity between the two of them. Brothers, he decided, though they didn’t share much family resemblance.
Isa prowled back to them. “No guards on our direct path,” she said. “But be careful anyway. They have guards on the tops of the fortress, and the Deathless like to set daeril guards hiding in the least expected of places.”
They continued forward, rounding the mountain cliffs, approaching a stronghold set into the snowy heights, like a slab of iron deposited from orbit.
Orbit, Siris thought. I barely know what that means. A word from the old days, uncovered in his mind like las
t fall’s leaves.
Their path led around to the back of the iron fortress. Lux and the others would be making their way up the main incline, but with those murder-holes in the face of the fortress, charging the front would be suicide. They needed to get the gates open and hopefully distract the archers inside.
Siris and his team buckled themselves together with ropes, then began a careful scale up and around to the upper back of the fortress. Siris spotted a few guards on the ramparts, walking back and forth, but they mostly kept their eyes forward. Hopefully, in the dusk, they’d miss the small figures climbing along the cliff face.
Not enough guards, Siris thought. The Dark Self knew. There should have been more up there.
“This feels like a trap,” he whispered to Isa as they scaled down the rock face, shadowed by the setting sun. They came down to another ledge.
She nodded, but said nothing more. The four of them rounded the back of the fortress. They didn’t go to the ramparts—that would be suicide. Instead, they made their way to the back right corner of the fortress, about halfway up its side. Steel walls blocked their way into the building. A small window just above—far too small to slip through—indicated there was a room here.
The brothers hung back as the rear guard, leaving Isa and Siris to cover the last distance to the fortress on their own. They kept low, beneath the window. Once they arrived, Isa peeked up, then ducked back down. She nodded. The room beyond was empty.
Siris took a deep breath, pulling out a glove and gauntlet, with a ring affixed to the finger. He slid it on, then made a fist.
“You sure you can handle this?” Isa asked.
“Sure. I’ve used the other rings. How hard can this one be?”
She gave him a flat look. “I’ve seen entire villages sucked into one drop of Incarnate Dark, Siris.”
“What . . . Really?”
“Well, all right. One village—run by one of the lesser Deathless, looking to elevate his position. And I kind of sold the ring to him. But he did ask me to retrieve it.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “It was long ago, before I stopped taking jobs from Deathless. This one thought . . . well, I told him not to play with the stuff. He wouldn’t listen to a mere mortal, and he paid well, so I got it for him. I left just before he activated it.”