Berin could feel the excitement, the nervous energy palpable in the air the moment he stepped into the tunnels. He weaved his way underground, following Anka, Sartes by his side, passing guards who nodded with respect, rebels who hurried every which way. He walked through the Watcher's Gate and felt the turn the Rebellion had taken.
Now, it seemed, they had a chance.
"This way," Anka said, waving to a lookout. "The others await us."
They walked down corridors of bare stone that looked as if they had stood forever. The Ruins of Delos, deep underground. Berin ran his hand along the smooth stone, admiring them as only a smith could, and marveled at how long these had stood, at who had built them. Maybe they even dated back to the days when the Ancient Ones had walked, long before anyone could remember.
And that made him think, with a pang, of the daughter he had lost.
Ceres.
Berin was yanked from that thought by the clang of hammers on metal, by the sudden heat of forge fires as they passed an opening. He saw a dozen men toiling away as they tried to produce breastplates and short swords. It reminded him of his old smithy, and brought back memories of the days when his family hadn't been torn apart.
Sartes seemed to be staring, too.
"Are you all right?" Berin asked.
He nodded.
"I miss her too," Berin replied, putting a hand on his shoulder, knowing he was thinking of Ceres, who always lingered by the forge.
"We all do," Anka chimed in.
For a moment the three of them stood there, and Berin knew that they all understood how much Ceres had meant to them.
He heard Anka sigh.
"All we can do is keep fighting," she added, "and keep forging weapons. We need you, Berin."
He tried to focus.
"Are they doing everything I instructed?" he asked. "Are they heating the metal enough before quenching? It won't harden otherwise."
Anka smiled.
"Check for yourself after the meeting."
Berin nodded. At least in some small way he could be useful.
***
Sartes walked by his father's side, following Anka as they continued past the forge and deeper through the tunnels. There were more people in them than he could have believed. Men and women were gathering supplies, practicing with weapons, pacing the halls. Sartes recognized several of them as former conscripts, freed from the army's clutches.
They finally came upon a cavernous space, set with stone plinths that might once have held statues. By the light of flickering candles, Sartes could see the leaders of the rebellion, awaiting them. Hannah, who had argued against the attack, now looked as happy as if she'd proposed it. Oreth, one of Anka's main deputies now, leaned his slender frame against the wall, smiling to himself. Sartes spotted the larger bulk of the former wharf hand Edrin on the edge of the candlelight, while Yeralt's jewels shone in it, the merchant's son looking almost out of place among the rest as they laughed and joked among themselves.
They fell silent as the three of them approached, and Sartes could see the difference now. Before, they'd listened to Anka almost grudgingly. Now, after the ambush, there was respect there as she walked forward. She even looked more like a leader to Sartes, walking straighter, appearing more confident.
"Anka, Anka, Anka!" Oreth began, and soon the others took up the chant, as the rebels had after the battle.
Sartes joined in, hearing the rebel leader's name echo around the space. He only stopped when Anka gestured for silence.
"We did well," Anka said, with a smile of her own. It was one of the first Sartes had seen since the battle. She'd been too busy trying to arrange to get their casualties away from the burial ground safely. She had a talent for seeing to the details of things that had blossomed in the rebellion.
"Well?" Edrin asked. "We smashed them."
Sartes heard the thud of the man's fist against his palm as he emphasized the point.
"We destroyed them," Yeralt agreed, "thanks to your leadership."
Anka shook her head. "We beat them together. We beat them because we all did our parts. And because Sartes brought us the plans."
Sartes found himself pushed forward by his father. He hadn't been expecting this.
"Anka is right," Oreth said. "We owe Sartes our thanks. He brought us the plans, and he was the one to persuade the conscripts not to fight. The rebellion has more members, thanks to him."
"Half-trained conscripts though," Hannah said. "Not real soldiers."
Sartes looked around at her. She'd been quick to argue against him taking part at all. He didn't like her, but it wasn't about that in the rebellion. They were all a part of something bigger than themselves.
"We beat them," Anka said. "We won a battle, but that isn't the same thing as smashing the Empire. We still have a lot ahead of us."
"And they still have a lot of soldiers," Yeralt said. "A long war against them could prove costly for all of us."
"You're counting the cost now?" Oreth countered. "This isn't some business investment, where you want to see the balance sheets before you get involved."
Sartes could hear the annoyance there. When he'd first come to the rebels, he'd expected them to be some big, unified thing, thinking of nothing but the need to defeat the Empire. He'd found out that in a lot of ways they were just people, all with their own hopes and dreams, wishes and wants. It only made it more impressive that Anka had found ways to hold them together after Rexus died.
"It's the biggest investment there is," Yeralt said. "We put in all we have. We risk our lives in the hope that things will get better. I'm in as much danger as the rest of you if we fail."
"We won't fail," Edrin said. "We beat them once. We'll beat them again. We know where they're going to attack and when. We can be waiting for them every time."
"We can do more than that," Hannah said. "We've shown people that we can beat them, so why not go out and take things back from them?"
"What did you have in mind?" Anka asked. Sartes could see that she was considering it.
"We take villages back one by one," Hannah said. "We get rid of the Empire's soldiers in them before Lucious can get close. We show the people there what's possible, and he'll get a nasty surprise when they rise up against him."
"And when Lucious and his men kill them for rising up?" Oreth demanded. "What then?"
"Then it just shows how evil he is," Hannah insisted.
"Or people see that we can't protect them."
Sartes looked around, surprised they were taking the idea seriously.
"We could leave people in the villages so that they don't fall," Yeralt suggested. "We have the conscripts with us now."
"They won't stand against the army for long if it comes," Oreth shot back. "They'd die along with the villagers."
Sartes knew he was right. The conscripts hadn't had the training that the toughest soldiers in the army had. Worse, they'd suffered so much at the hands of the army that most of them would probably be terrified.
He saw Anka gesture for silence. This time, it took a little longer in coming.
"Oreth has a point," she said.
"Of course you'd agree with him," Hannah shot back.
"I'm agreeing because he's right," Anka said. "We can't just go into villages, declare them free, and hope for the best. Even with the conscripts, we don't have enough fighters. If we join together in one place, we give the Empire an opportunity to crush us. If we go after every village, they'll pick us apart piecemeal."
"If enough villages can be persuaded to rise up, and I persuade my father to hire mercenaries…" Yeralt suggested. Sartes noted he didn't finish the thought. The merchant's son didn't have an answer, not really.
"Then what?" Anka asked. "We'll have the numbers? If it were that simple, we would have overthrown the Empire years ago."
"We have better weapons now thanks to Berin," Edrin pointed out. "We know their plans thanks to Sartes. We have the advantage! Tell her, Berin. Tell her about the blades you've made."
Sartes looked around to his father, who shrugged.
"It's true I've made good swords, and the others here have made plenty of passable ones. It's true that some of you will have armor now, rather than being cut down. But I'll tell you this: it's about more than the sword. It's about the hand that wields it. An army is like a blade. You can make it as big as you want, but without a core of good steel, it will break the first time you test it."
Maybe if the others had spent more time making weapons, they would have understood how seriously his father meant his words. As it was, Sartes could see they weren't convinced.
"What else can we do?" Edrin asked. "We're not just going to throw away our advantage by sitting back and waiting. I say that we start making a list of villages to free. Unless you have a better idea, Anka?"
"I do," Sartes said.
His voice was quieter than he intended. He stepped forward, his heart pounding, surprised that he had spoken. He was all too aware that he was far younger than anyone else there. He'd played his part in the battle, he'd even killed a man, but there was still a part of him that felt as though he shouldn't be speaking there.
"So it's settled," Hannah started to say. "We-"
"I said I have a better idea," Sartes said, and this time, his voice carried.
The others looked over at him.
"Let my son speak," his father said. "You've said yourselves that he helped to hand one victory to you. Maybe he can keep you from dying now."
"What's your idea, Sartes?" Anka asked.
They were all looking at him. Sartes forced himself to raise his voice, thinking about how Ceres would have spoken, but also about the confidence Anka had shown before.
"We can't go to the villages," Sartes said. "It's what they want us to do. And we can't just rely on the maps I brought, because even if they haven't realized that we know their movements, they will soon. They're trying to goad us out into the open."
"We know all this," Yeralt said. "I thought you said you had a plan."
Sartes didn't back down.
"What if there were a way to hit the Empire where they don't expect it and gain tough fighters into the bargain? What if we could make people rise up with a symbolic victory that would be bigger than protecting a village?"
"What did you have in mind?" Anka asked.
"We free the combatlords in the Stade," Sartes said.
A long, stunned silence followed, as the others stared at him. He could see the doubt in their faces, and Sartes knew he had to keep going.
"Think about it," he said. "Almost all combatlords are slaves. The nobles throw them in to die like toys. Most of them would be grateful for the chance to get away, and they can fight better than any soldiers."
"It's insane," Hannah said. "Attacking the heart of the city like that. There would be guards everywhere."
"I like it," Anka said.
The others looked at her, and Sartes felt a rush of gratitude for her support.
"They wouldn't expect it," she added.
Another silence fell over the room.
"We wouldn't need mercenaries," Yeralt finally chimed in, rubbing his chin.
"People would rise up," Edrin added.
"We'd have to do it when the Killings were on," Oreth pointed out. "That way, all the combatlords would be in one place, and there would be people there to see it happen."
"There won't be more Killings before the Blood Moon festival," his father said. "That's six weeks. In six weeks, I can make a lot of weapons."
This time, Hannah fell silent, perhaps sensing the tide turn.
"So we're agreed?" Anka asked. "We'll free the combatlords during the Blood Moon festival?"
One by one, Sartes saw the others nod. Even Hannah did, eventually. He felt his father's hand on his shoulder. He saw the approval in his eyes, and it meant the world to him.
He only prayed that his plan would not get them all killed.
