Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

“When did you two become so poetical?” Maximilian said, but any humor in his voice

was overwhelmed by the shock of the sight before him.

Thousands, no…hundreds of thousands…of men gathered in encampments spreading as

far as the eye could see. The original rumor of a million men, Maximilian decided, was wrong.

There were far more, particularly when the numbers were engorged by settlers.

“The north will fall within weeks,” said Serge. “Days.”

“Thank you for your revised estimate,” Maximilian said, then he paused. “Shit! I cannot

believe this!”

Serge and Doyle looked at Maximilian with some surprise—the man rarely swore.

“Can we get around them?” Serge said.

“We have no time,” Maximilian said. “Getting „around” them will take weeks, and weeks

we don”t have.”

“Through them, then?” Doyle said, his voice soft.

“That is our only option,” Maximilian said. “Venetia, Ravenna, and I have some skill in

the arts of disguise…we will need all of that and then some luck, but we shall have to manage

it.”

“You don”t want to announce yourself to the nearest senior officer and demand to be

taken to Isaiah in the style of a king?” Serge said.

Maximilian gave a soft laugh, and indicated his grubby clothing, far the worse for the

wear and tear of his journey through the mountains and northern Isembaard.

“Who would believe this?” he said. “No. We do this secretively, and we do it as fast as

possible. Come.”

Manage it they did, but only at the cost of exhaustion for Maximilian, Venetia, and

Ravenna, as well as the drain of nervous energy on the rest of the party. StarDrifter and Salome

also battled continuing fatigue from the development of their wings—now large, twin raised

ridges hunching out almost four handbreadths from either side of their spines.

They managed it only with the aid of the Weeper. When one or more among Maximilian,

Venetia, or Ravenna began to flag while moving the group quietly through the ranks of the army,

then the Weeper began to hum, and bolstered not only the concealing shadowy cloak that the two

marsh witches and Maximilian had constructed, but its constructors” strength as well.

The days spent creeping through the ranks of what everyone had come to refer to as the

gathering storm drained emotional energy as well as physical and magical.

Everyone was appalled at the enormity of what Isaiah would throw at the north. No one

had ever seen anything like it, nor heard of it.

At night, when they crouched in whatever shelter they could find, relying on the Weeper

by that stage of the day to conceal them, they talked in low tones about what they had passed

through.

“StarDrifter,” Serge asked one night, “did you ever see the like during the wars you

witnessed in Tencendor?”

StarDrifter took some time to answer that, dredging up the memories of the wars with

considerable reluctance. “No,” he said eventually. “I saw seething Skraeling armies—and to

think that such are gathering again, to bolster Isaiah”s forces!—but nothing like this. No one in

Tencendor could have managed such sheer numbers of soldiers.” He shook his head slightly. “It

is inconceivable.”

“Salome?” Maximilian said. “Did Coroleas ever raise such a force?”

Salome gave a cynical laugh. “No, Maximilian. Coroleans practice war by stealth. The

single, highly paid assassin, with a dagger in a crowd of frivolity. A drugged glass of wine. Or

drugs administered by other means.” She sent a single dark glance at StarDrifter. “But not

armies. No. Never. We were far too indolent.”

“I wish BroadWing and his companions were with us still,” Maximilian said, “if only so I

could use their wings to report this nightmare. I am sure my fellow princes are still engaged in a

futile struggle with each other. Not looking south.”

“Or north toward the Skraeling homelands,” Doyle muttered. He turned to his friend and

fellow former assassin. “What do you think of the Isembaardians” weapons, my friend?”

Serge thought a few minutes, every eye in the group on him.

“They”re not intending much close hand-to-hand fighting,” he said. “Spears and arrows

predominate. I imagine Isaiah plans to send a storm of metal raining down upon the forces

opposing him, decimating them within an hour at most. Then, if needed, Isaiah could send in a

few swordsmen to finish off those still left alive.”

“If they could get through the bristling crop of spears and arrows littering the corpses on

the ground,” said Venetia. “Why do you men do this? Why propagate such vile death?”

“It is not us,” Maximilian said sharply. “All I want is my bride and child returned to me.”

“I apologize, Maxel,” Venetia said. “The question was rhetorical only, and born of my

fright and fatigue more than anything.” She looked at her daughter. “Methinks you should have

remained with the Lord of Dreams, Ravenna. I am sure that this”—she gestured vaguely at the

encampment of soldiers not fifty paces distant—“was not something to which you wanted to

return.”

“I returned because I was needed, Venetia,” Ravenna said, but she looked at Maximilian

rather than her mother as she replied.

A day later they arrived in Sakkuth.

Here they did not need to use magical disguise as much, for the city was bustling with

people, come to aid the gathering forces. Merchants, traders and craftsmen, prostitutes, cooks,

tailors—countless differing skills and hopes paraded on the streets every twenty paces.

StarDrifter and Salome did, however, need to keep cloaks hunched over their backs to disguise

their growing wings. Fortunately Sakkuth was in the midst of an unnaturally cold snap—even in winter the city rarely slipped below the balmy—and thus the cloaks caused no comment on the

streets.

By some miracle of comradeship, Venetia found them two small rooms in the basement

of a bakery. The baker”s wife was a covert witch-woman whom Venetia had met previously in

the borderlands of the Land of Dreams. They recognized each other instantly, and the baker”s

wife just as instantly intuited their need for shelter and rest. Her husband was not so enthusiastic

about a band of strangers occupying two of his bakery”s storerooms until Serge took out a bag of

coin and casually moved it from hand to hand; then he grudgingly agreed.

“And so it has come to this,” Maximilian said, sitting on a sack of grain and idly

swinging one leg back and forth. “A king, a talon, two witch-women, two assassins, and…what

would you call yourself, Salome?”

“The single sane member of this group.”

Maximilian smiled. “And the single sane one among us, hidden in the basement of a

bakery, in a strange land, surrounded by the largest army creation has ever seen, looking for a

woman and a child. What do you think our chances of success are?”

“Fairly high,” said the baker”s wife, who had just entered the room, “for the streets are

abuzz with the news that the tyrant himself is now entering the city. There are stairs inside the

bakery to the roof. You should have a good view there.”

Maximilian”s humor had vanished, and his face was now tight with emotion.

“To the roof, then,” he said.

CHAPTER SIX

Sakkuth, Isembaard

Axis was almost as astonished at the size and complexity of Isaiah”s forces as, had he

known it, were Maximilian and his party.

He”d never seen anything like it.

For the past week they”d ridden from the Lhyl where they”d left their riverboats, across

territory undulating with soldiers. Their encampments had stretched as far as the eye could see.

Axis had been as impressed with the tight discipline of the horde as much as he was with

its size. After what Ezekiel had told him about the chaos that had ensued after Isaiah had been

kidnapped on the Eastern Independencies campaign, Axis had more than half expected a mass of

undisciplined and slothful soldiers.

But perhaps they sank to such depths only once a tyrant”s throne was vacant, for the army

that Axis saw was under tight control and exhibited extreme discipline.

His admiration for the Isembaardian generals, as well as for Isaiah, notched up yet

another degree.

Sakkuth was everything Axis had expected. It was a stunningly beautiful, walled, and

multispired city constructed predominantly of pink and cream stone quarried in the FarReach

Mountains. As they rode through the main gates and into the wide avenue that led through the

heart of the city to Isaiah”s official palace, Axis wondered why Isaiah didn”t spend more time

here. Axis had been with him for a year, and yet not once in that time had Isaiah left Aqhat.

What kept him in Aqhat? The serenity of the river…or DarkGlass Mountain?

The avenue was crowded with people, mostly ordinary city dwellers going about their

daily business. Soldiers had crowded people back against the buildings in order to give Isaiah

room to pass, and in order to give him the room to pass in splendor.

Axis noted their response to Isaiah and his two hundred strong escort with as much