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i_read_whatSo last time, things kind of went to hell in a handbasket. We've got a lot of dead minor characters, Oreska's trashed, the Cockerel is worse, Nysander's out cold, and Alec's nowhere to be found
I remember this being the time when things are going to take a sharp turn into dark and disturbing. Let's see if my memory holds up!
This chapter starts us with Micum. He's got a message sphere from Magyana, so it's time to say goodbye to his very pregnant (very understanding) wife and go. He does - teleportation is really useful. Magyana, exhausted, fills him in on what happened to the Oreska. She doesn't know about Seregil and Alec yet.
Valerius, with Nysander (there's a bit more detail about his condition - burns on chest and side, unconscious, but optimistic prognosis) provides more info. Specifically about Seregil and the Cockerel. Micum doesn't let him finish, but rather runs off to find Seregil who is in dramatic shape.
Seregil stood leaning against the mantel, dressed in what appeared to be borrowed breeches and shirt. A great drift of maps and scrolls lay spread out around one of the armchairs, as if he’d been sitting there going through them earlier. There was a wine cup on the floor beside it, but as he looked up, Micum knew his friend was far from drunk. His pale face was nearly expressionless, except for his eyes. What Micum saw there sent a black stab of dread through him.
Micum confirms that Alec had filled him in about the prophecy, he feels guilty for not stopping Alec from going back. Valerius, though, can do something helpful: using the dagger with the lock of Alec's hair, he can confirm that Alec's still alive.
Seregil's a bit too busy being dramatically frantic and guilty to take comfort in that.
Seregil’s face seemed to crumple in on itself like a parchment thrown on a fire. “I did this, Micum,” he gasped raggedly, clutching his head in both hands. “I brought this down on them, led the bastards to them. They were—“
Micum said nothing, simply put his arms around his friend and held him tight as Seregil shook helplessly with harsh, strangled sobs. In all the time Micum had known him, he’d seldom seen Seregil weep, and never as violently as this. Whatever he’d seen at the inn, whatever had been done there, it had wrenched something from his very soul.
“You couldn’t have known,” he said at last.
“Of course I should have!” Seregil shouted. Jerking away, he stared at Micum with wild, desolate eyes. “All the years they protected me, kept my secrets. Slaughtered! Slaughtered, as if they were animals, Micum! Then the shit-eating carrion scum—They cut off—“
I'm being mean to Seregil here. This is legitimately really traumatic. He eventually cries himself limp in Micum's arms. Once he's calmer, Micum gets more details about Alec. Seregil has put a lot together about what happened, which is useful because we didn't see it either:
Seregil held up the black and silver dagger, which he’d been clutching through the whole outburst. “It’s his. They left it for me so I’d be sure to know they had him. From the looks of the room, they killed the others, and then waited for some length of time, hoping we’d show up. I found his sword under a table. He gave them a fight before they brought him down; there was blood on the edge of the blade.” He took a deep breath, fighting for control. “I showed this to Nysander when I got here this morning. I think he knows where they’re headed. He was trying to tell me when he fainted, but I think I may have figured it out.”
So Seregil's got a map of the Plenimaran peninsula. It's labeled with Nysander's special writing system, so Micum can't read it. Seregil can, having been his apprentice. There's a mountain, named Kythes, which is labeled "Yothgash-horagh" or Sky Pillar Mountain. Since Nysander had said something about a temple under "the pillar of the sky" before he passed out, Seregil thinks this is the place.
It is well beyond enemy lines. But Seregil thinks that all four of them are going to need to be there at some point.
Seregil has also figured out that they came for the coin he found, and likely some other things that Nysander had stored. They go off to see if Nysander's awake. Micum, notably, tries not to think of the dead that he'd found in his past mission to the Fens (not sure if I ever mentioned that in these reviews, but he'd found some really fucked up shit there), and what it might mean that Alec's been kept alive. Eek.
Nysander turns out to be still asleep. They don't know when he'll wake. And there's more news:
“What about Thero?” Seregil asked sharply.
“He’s gone,” snorted the drysian. “They’ve searched high and low. He’s not among the dead, nor anywhere in the House or the city. My guess is, he’s with whoever it was attacked here last night.”
That can't be good. Ylinestra was on Mardus's side, wittingly or unwittingly. Did she turn Thero? Seregil thinks so, calling Thero a "traitorous bastard".
To be honest, given how Thero's been treated by Nysander throughout this series, I'm not sure I entirely blame him. I mean, this is a bit extreme, granted. But I can't deny that I'd have probably snapped a lot sooner.
I'm a #TheroApologist, I suppose.
“He knew Nysander’s ways, his habits, not to mention something of the Oreska defenses. There’s more than iron grates guarding the sewer channels under this place. He let them in! Bilairy’s Guts, he let them in!”
“We don’t know that,” Micum warned but Seregil wasn’t listening.
“He knew whenever I was around, and where I lived!” White with anger, Seregil slammed a fist against the wall. “Agrai methiri dos prakra, he betrayed all of us. I’ll feed him his own balls when I find him. Lasot arma kriunti!”
There's no betrayal like brotherly betrayal. Micum figures if Thero was in on it, Ylinestra might have been too. She's not gone though - her body is in the vaults, among the enemy dead.
Of Oreska: eight wizards, seventeen apprentices, twenty three guards and servants are dead. Okay, Thero, that might be a little too far... Twenty-seven of the enemy are dead. No prisoners. As soon as Mardus and the dyrmagos-lich-lady disappeared, the remaining folks keeled over dead.
Seregil wants to see them. He's taken down to the vaults. Apparently no one had known about Nysander's hideyhole. An apprentice wizard shows Seregil where they broke in - a breach in the wall that leads to the sewers.
Micum admits that Thero could have known about this. He could have guessed, or Nysander could have told him. Hah, fat chance. Seregil actually agrees with me about that part. Nysander is a dick.
Seregil goes in the vault, noticing the black walls, magical symbols, and a shit ton of melted silver. Seregil mentally compares it to the box he'd been given to carry the crown, from his ill-fated field trip at the beginning of the book. He notices the displays, where coin, crown, and something else is missing. The something else has clearly been here a very long time.
Seregil touches the outline left on the display and has some sort of fucked up vision trip moment:
A single clear, attenuated note broke the silence surrounding him and for as long as it lasted he knew nothing else. It pierced him, bathed him, dancing along on the threshold dividing pleasure from pain. Gradually other notes joined the first and they had form, long heavy forms that gradually wrapped together like the strands of a great rope.
And he was one of those strands, twisted tight and drawn along with the rest toward some destination. It was not fear that shot through him now, but an horrific elation. Other sounds gradually filtered in from beyond the umbilicus, and these were different. Removed. Not of the flow. Countless black-feathered throats raising a deafening collective cry that swelled to a roar of diseased laughter, then faded away as the flow passed on. Human screams, voices crying out in every language of the world. The clash of battle. Impossible explosions.
He burrowed deeper into the umbilical bundle but the intrusive sounds followed, rising to an awful crescendo before they faded as quickly as they had come. Silence, gravid with a sense of immediacy.
At last another sound crept in between the strands; Seregil knew this sound and it inexplicably filled him with a greater dread than all the rest. It was the heavy rumble of ocean surf.
Yeah, that's probably not good. Fortunately, Micum snaps him out of it. After though, Seregil knows that the missing item was a bowl. Good to know. The chapter ends with our boys processing it.
--
Chapter Thirty-Four starts with Beka. From father to daughter. She's woken from sleep by battlehorns. They're called to arms. They're at half strength, which is not great. But there is a regiment of Plenimarans coming. So they're going to have to fucking go.
Captain Myrhini tells them where to go, and they do. Beka takes charge of her "turma" pretty smoothly, though she (and the narrative) definitely remind us that this group is among the youngest of the regiment, and while well trained, haven't seen any real action aside from that bandit skirmish. This is a big deal.
They ride, plowing into the ranks of infantry. One of the sergeants goes down under his horse, they can't stop though. Beka defeats an attacker and helps a Corporal. Flewelling isn't a Salvatore style action writer, so she just tells us that the battle rages on - no quarter for dead or dying, and the combatants are so filthy that it's hard to tell friend from foe.
The Skalans hold the line though, and eventually the Plenimarans give way. Woo.
Beka's got a gash on her thigh. Apparently she hadn't noticed it in combat, but fainted across her horse's neck when the fighting was over. She's getting it stitched and bound in the officer's tent. Klia appears and she has three captains remaining: Myrhini, Ustes and Perris. They're all a bit dented, except Klia, though Beka knows Klia was in the thick of fighting.
Myrhini compliments Beka's turma and gets the update: Beka's turma has four dead, including that poor Sergeant Portus, with thirteen unaccounted for. She'll go and track them down though. Apparently one of the dead was a dude, Rethus, who had been the first to stand with her during the bandit fight. Aw.
Klia comes over and asks Beka how this regiment might have appeared out of nowhere. It's more a rhetorical/test question than a serious one. Beka comes up with the answer that Klia's other advisors do: they came out of the hundreds of little valleys in the area, as small groups with no fires. Then mass at a central point. Klia agrees and intends to send Beka's turma out scouting the hills tomorrow. She offers more riders, but Beka thinks a smaller force will be faster and quiter.
Beka finds some of her people in the hospital tent. One really bad one is a soldier named Aulos, who had his belly hacked open. His twin brother pulled him off the field, but there's not enough abdomen to stitch together. He's basically dying, but he keeps clinging to life. The twin, Kallas, asks permission to "spur him on" and Beka has an orderly brought over - said orderly opens the poor guy's artery so he can die.
Eek.
Beka sends the folks who can ride to help Kallas bury his brother and to find the rest of the turma. She praises them and they accept. Aw.
Outside, the dead are lined up on the ground. Beka is then called over to Sergeant Mercalle in the next hospital tent. She'd been thrown and trampled, but she'll live. She gives Beka some praise and words of advice. Basically, care for the men but not too much. Beka tells her that when she gets back to Skala, if she needs anything, she should go to Micum. Aw. Mercalle is okay though, she has some daughters.
So more military reunions and updates. Nothing terribly notable. Beka has fourteen men able to act, including one dude who lost an eye, and poor grieving Kallas. She explains the job, rallies them up, field promotes someone into being a sergeant (Braknil is okay and doing fine, yay) and otherwise just does awesomely through adversity.
This chapter ends here. No sign of Alec yet. I admit, I'm a little worried about him...
I remember this being the time when things are going to take a sharp turn into dark and disturbing. Let's see if my memory holds up!
This chapter starts us with Micum. He's got a message sphere from Magyana, so it's time to say goodbye to his very pregnant (very understanding) wife and go. He does - teleportation is really useful. Magyana, exhausted, fills him in on what happened to the Oreska. She doesn't know about Seregil and Alec yet.
Valerius, with Nysander (there's a bit more detail about his condition - burns on chest and side, unconscious, but optimistic prognosis) provides more info. Specifically about Seregil and the Cockerel. Micum doesn't let him finish, but rather runs off to find Seregil who is in dramatic shape.
Seregil stood leaning against the mantel, dressed in what appeared to be borrowed breeches and shirt. A great drift of maps and scrolls lay spread out around one of the armchairs, as if he’d been sitting there going through them earlier. There was a wine cup on the floor beside it, but as he looked up, Micum knew his friend was far from drunk. His pale face was nearly expressionless, except for his eyes. What Micum saw there sent a black stab of dread through him.
Micum confirms that Alec had filled him in about the prophecy, he feels guilty for not stopping Alec from going back. Valerius, though, can do something helpful: using the dagger with the lock of Alec's hair, he can confirm that Alec's still alive.
Seregil's a bit too busy being dramatically frantic and guilty to take comfort in that.
Seregil’s face seemed to crumple in on itself like a parchment thrown on a fire. “I did this, Micum,” he gasped raggedly, clutching his head in both hands. “I brought this down on them, led the bastards to them. They were—“
Micum said nothing, simply put his arms around his friend and held him tight as Seregil shook helplessly with harsh, strangled sobs. In all the time Micum had known him, he’d seldom seen Seregil weep, and never as violently as this. Whatever he’d seen at the inn, whatever had been done there, it had wrenched something from his very soul.
“You couldn’t have known,” he said at last.
“Of course I should have!” Seregil shouted. Jerking away, he stared at Micum with wild, desolate eyes. “All the years they protected me, kept my secrets. Slaughtered! Slaughtered, as if they were animals, Micum! Then the shit-eating carrion scum—They cut off—“
I'm being mean to Seregil here. This is legitimately really traumatic. He eventually cries himself limp in Micum's arms. Once he's calmer, Micum gets more details about Alec. Seregil has put a lot together about what happened, which is useful because we didn't see it either:
Seregil held up the black and silver dagger, which he’d been clutching through the whole outburst. “It’s his. They left it for me so I’d be sure to know they had him. From the looks of the room, they killed the others, and then waited for some length of time, hoping we’d show up. I found his sword under a table. He gave them a fight before they brought him down; there was blood on the edge of the blade.” He took a deep breath, fighting for control. “I showed this to Nysander when I got here this morning. I think he knows where they’re headed. He was trying to tell me when he fainted, but I think I may have figured it out.”
So Seregil's got a map of the Plenimaran peninsula. It's labeled with Nysander's special writing system, so Micum can't read it. Seregil can, having been his apprentice. There's a mountain, named Kythes, which is labeled "Yothgash-horagh" or Sky Pillar Mountain. Since Nysander had said something about a temple under "the pillar of the sky" before he passed out, Seregil thinks this is the place.
It is well beyond enemy lines. But Seregil thinks that all four of them are going to need to be there at some point.
Seregil has also figured out that they came for the coin he found, and likely some other things that Nysander had stored. They go off to see if Nysander's awake. Micum, notably, tries not to think of the dead that he'd found in his past mission to the Fens (not sure if I ever mentioned that in these reviews, but he'd found some really fucked up shit there), and what it might mean that Alec's been kept alive. Eek.
Nysander turns out to be still asleep. They don't know when he'll wake. And there's more news:
“What about Thero?” Seregil asked sharply.
“He’s gone,” snorted the drysian. “They’ve searched high and low. He’s not among the dead, nor anywhere in the House or the city. My guess is, he’s with whoever it was attacked here last night.”
That can't be good. Ylinestra was on Mardus's side, wittingly or unwittingly. Did she turn Thero? Seregil thinks so, calling Thero a "traitorous bastard".
To be honest, given how Thero's been treated by Nysander throughout this series, I'm not sure I entirely blame him. I mean, this is a bit extreme, granted. But I can't deny that I'd have probably snapped a lot sooner.
I'm a #TheroApologist, I suppose.
“He knew Nysander’s ways, his habits, not to mention something of the Oreska defenses. There’s more than iron grates guarding the sewer channels under this place. He let them in! Bilairy’s Guts, he let them in!”
“We don’t know that,” Micum warned but Seregil wasn’t listening.
“He knew whenever I was around, and where I lived!” White with anger, Seregil slammed a fist against the wall. “Agrai methiri dos prakra, he betrayed all of us. I’ll feed him his own balls when I find him. Lasot arma kriunti!”
There's no betrayal like brotherly betrayal. Micum figures if Thero was in on it, Ylinestra might have been too. She's not gone though - her body is in the vaults, among the enemy dead.
Of Oreska: eight wizards, seventeen apprentices, twenty three guards and servants are dead. Okay, Thero, that might be a little too far... Twenty-seven of the enemy are dead. No prisoners. As soon as Mardus and the dyrmagos-lich-lady disappeared, the remaining folks keeled over dead.
Seregil wants to see them. He's taken down to the vaults. Apparently no one had known about Nysander's hideyhole. An apprentice wizard shows Seregil where they broke in - a breach in the wall that leads to the sewers.
Micum admits that Thero could have known about this. He could have guessed, or Nysander could have told him. Hah, fat chance. Seregil actually agrees with me about that part. Nysander is a dick.
Seregil goes in the vault, noticing the black walls, magical symbols, and a shit ton of melted silver. Seregil mentally compares it to the box he'd been given to carry the crown, from his ill-fated field trip at the beginning of the book. He notices the displays, where coin, crown, and something else is missing. The something else has clearly been here a very long time.
Seregil touches the outline left on the display and has some sort of fucked up vision trip moment:
A single clear, attenuated note broke the silence surrounding him and for as long as it lasted he knew nothing else. It pierced him, bathed him, dancing along on the threshold dividing pleasure from pain. Gradually other notes joined the first and they had form, long heavy forms that gradually wrapped together like the strands of a great rope.
And he was one of those strands, twisted tight and drawn along with the rest toward some destination. It was not fear that shot through him now, but an horrific elation. Other sounds gradually filtered in from beyond the umbilicus, and these were different. Removed. Not of the flow. Countless black-feathered throats raising a deafening collective cry that swelled to a roar of diseased laughter, then faded away as the flow passed on. Human screams, voices crying out in every language of the world. The clash of battle. Impossible explosions.
He burrowed deeper into the umbilical bundle but the intrusive sounds followed, rising to an awful crescendo before they faded as quickly as they had come. Silence, gravid with a sense of immediacy.
At last another sound crept in between the strands; Seregil knew this sound and it inexplicably filled him with a greater dread than all the rest. It was the heavy rumble of ocean surf.
Yeah, that's probably not good. Fortunately, Micum snaps him out of it. After though, Seregil knows that the missing item was a bowl. Good to know. The chapter ends with our boys processing it.
--
Chapter Thirty-Four starts with Beka. From father to daughter. She's woken from sleep by battlehorns. They're called to arms. They're at half strength, which is not great. But there is a regiment of Plenimarans coming. So they're going to have to fucking go.
Captain Myrhini tells them where to go, and they do. Beka takes charge of her "turma" pretty smoothly, though she (and the narrative) definitely remind us that this group is among the youngest of the regiment, and while well trained, haven't seen any real action aside from that bandit skirmish. This is a big deal.
They ride, plowing into the ranks of infantry. One of the sergeants goes down under his horse, they can't stop though. Beka defeats an attacker and helps a Corporal. Flewelling isn't a Salvatore style action writer, so she just tells us that the battle rages on - no quarter for dead or dying, and the combatants are so filthy that it's hard to tell friend from foe.
The Skalans hold the line though, and eventually the Plenimarans give way. Woo.
Beka's got a gash on her thigh. Apparently she hadn't noticed it in combat, but fainted across her horse's neck when the fighting was over. She's getting it stitched and bound in the officer's tent. Klia appears and she has three captains remaining: Myrhini, Ustes and Perris. They're all a bit dented, except Klia, though Beka knows Klia was in the thick of fighting.
Myrhini compliments Beka's turma and gets the update: Beka's turma has four dead, including that poor Sergeant Portus, with thirteen unaccounted for. She'll go and track them down though. Apparently one of the dead was a dude, Rethus, who had been the first to stand with her during the bandit fight. Aw.
Klia comes over and asks Beka how this regiment might have appeared out of nowhere. It's more a rhetorical/test question than a serious one. Beka comes up with the answer that Klia's other advisors do: they came out of the hundreds of little valleys in the area, as small groups with no fires. Then mass at a central point. Klia agrees and intends to send Beka's turma out scouting the hills tomorrow. She offers more riders, but Beka thinks a smaller force will be faster and quiter.
Beka finds some of her people in the hospital tent. One really bad one is a soldier named Aulos, who had his belly hacked open. His twin brother pulled him off the field, but there's not enough abdomen to stitch together. He's basically dying, but he keeps clinging to life. The twin, Kallas, asks permission to "spur him on" and Beka has an orderly brought over - said orderly opens the poor guy's artery so he can die.
Eek.
Beka sends the folks who can ride to help Kallas bury his brother and to find the rest of the turma. She praises them and they accept. Aw.
Outside, the dead are lined up on the ground. Beka is then called over to Sergeant Mercalle in the next hospital tent. She'd been thrown and trampled, but she'll live. She gives Beka some praise and words of advice. Basically, care for the men but not too much. Beka tells her that when she gets back to Skala, if she needs anything, she should go to Micum. Aw. Mercalle is okay though, she has some daughters.
So more military reunions and updates. Nothing terribly notable. Beka has fourteen men able to act, including one dude who lost an eye, and poor grieving Kallas. She explains the job, rallies them up, field promotes someone into being a sergeant (Braknil is okay and doing fine, yay) and otherwise just does awesomely through adversity.
This chapter ends here. No sign of Alec yet. I admit, I'm a little worried about him...