It was a long road through the remainder of the capital districts. The land surrounding the City of Lanterns had been known as Oxfields in the generation or so since the Marshall and the Ox Empress had risen to prominence. I wasn’t sure what it would be called going forward; I supposed it might be absorbed by Wolfswood, Dreadwolf’s official province just to the west, or maybe the Prime Minister had other plans for it.

  Either way, right now I was more concerned with what lay east of the capital districts, namely, my father’s lands, the Plains of the Falcon.

  One of three Imperial provinces officially underneath my father’s protection, the Plains of the Falcon might not have been the largest holding, but it's lands were bountiful, well-developed, and solidly defended. Plus with four walled cities in addition to three rivers deep enough for naval ships, the Plains were as strategic a holding as they come. I had grown up in its provincial capital, Iron Tower, a relatively small city compared to the others throughout my father’s domain, but powerful and nearly unassailable. That was our destination now, and if we could reach it, we would be safe long enough to array our strength against the Gray Wolf clan.

  To River’s point, the problem was getting there. As usual, despite this not being an actual battle – in fact, I would do just about everything in my power to avoid a fight with such a small, vulnerable band – I arrayed my thoughts like a battle plan and shared them with my companions as we rode. It was of particular importance that Windstopper understood my priorities, as his focus was often split between what River told him to do and the actual orders I gave him. River would tell him to defend me at the expense of all others, but I would not hear of it.

  ***SPARROW’S BAND MISSION BRIEFING: FLIGHT TO IRON TOWER***

  Primary Objective: Reach Iron Tower to assemble the Silver Falcon clan for war against Dreadwolf.

  Secondary Objective: Defend our lady.

  Bonus Objective: Windstopper survives and is capable of joining the ensuing fight.

  Bonus Objective: Sparrow survives and is capable of joining the ensuing fight.

  Bonus Objective: Brass Bell survives and is capable of lending her aid to the ensuing fight.

  Fail State: Sparrow’s little band is eradicated.

  I knew I still had official orders outstanding from my father, which was to gain allies in preparation for war. A few days ago, it might have felt like I had nearly perfectly executed upon those orders from over a year ago, winning Noble Lion, White Stallion, River and then perhaps even Brass Bell as allies. But after everything had been thrown into chaos in one night at the palace, I would not know the state of those alliances until we were back in Iron Tower and the banners had been summoned.

  Everywhere we turned, as we travelled, there was destruction and anarchy. The wolves had apparently run rampant in the Oxfields countryside, and as we crossed into my father’s territory we saw that it had fared no better. Where fields should have been tilled and sown, only bloated corpses grew. Where the road got thicker in more populous regions, columns of smoke frequented the horizon. Packs of dogs scavenged among abandoned towns, and packs of men clung to the shadows of the forest just beyond our vision, often disappearing like smoke at the first flash of sharp metal.

  We opted to avoid the major cities between the City of Lanterns and Iron Tower, and at the first chance we got, we picked up another pair of dagger-axes for Windstopper – actually he snapped the heads off of a pair of forgotten halberds when we crossed over the fresh site of a skirmish – and a suit of lamellar mail for River to wear beneath her furs.

  She objected, of course, to wearing a dead man’s armor but if she wanted me to wear my breastplate beneath my traveller’s grab, I also wouldn’t chance a rebel’s stray arrow taking her from me.

  Brass Bell, for her part, demured. The Gray Wolves had never disarmed her and she still had a pair of thin daggers, as well as a pilfered crossbow sitting across her saddle.

  We were perhaps another two days outside of Iron Tower, when we heard the song.

  A group of villagers, filthy, freezing and soot-stained, carrying seemingly everything they owned on their backs, was going the opposite direction along the same road as they sang, in low, somber, stricken voices:

  A window for my mother;

  A poison cup for me.

  A dagger for my lover;

  Three graves where all can see…

  The remainder of the song, fading on the wind as the peasants passed, hinted at the dimming and then snuffing of a shining light.

  “Do you know that song?” I asked my companions, once the villagers had passed. Imperial concubine, middling village chief, and lowly soldier with no courtesy name before he had met me – between the three of them, they covered the gamut of backgrounds. If the song had been circling courts, or taverns, or workers’ fields in the days before our failed assassination, surely one of my companions would have heard it before. They all shook their heads.

  “Damn. That’s the third time I heard a song from the peasants that seems to imply knowledge of an Emperor, or former Emperor. I wonder if…”

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  But Windstopper, having thought hard for a minute, suddenly brightened. “Oh. Yes. I Have Heard It Before,” he said.

  “You have? Where?”

  “I Had A Dream About It Last Night.”

  “Then you must have heard it somewhere. Try to think.”

  “No. That Was The First Time.”

  “It can’t be.”

  “I Am Certain. The Emperor Sang It To Me And I Woke Up Knowing The Words.”

  “Which Emperor?”

  “The Older One. I Guess He Is Not The Emperor Anymore. But Emperors Are Supposed To Be Emperors Until They Are Dead…”

  I studied Windstopper for another long moment as he seemed lost in thought as to this contradiction, and then I turned to River. She was the closest thing I had to Swaying Willow at the moment. In fact, she was better. Where the old minister would have focused on the esoteric components of a person’s Mandate from Heaven, River was entirely focused on its practical application, namely: ‘how could this Mandate be used to kill me or my enemies?’

  I said to her, “Do you think…”

  “Windstopper’s Mandate has nothing to do with dreams. No,” said River.

  “Right, his gift is strength,” I agreed.

  “Simple,” added Brass Bell, “but effective.”

  “But someone else’s…” River mused.

  Windstopper’s eyes flicked to each of us in turn.

  “But who’s Mandate could put a song in someone’s head?” I asked. “Not just someone… a whole countryside. Well, peasants anyway as it seems to have missed us.”

  “What makes you think the whole country is singing it? As far as we know, one of those refugees has a latent gift. They might be as puzzled by the manifestation of the songs as anyone else.”

  “I first heard a song like that north of the Blue River, after retrieving the Emperor from a farmhouse. And again when…”

  “When Emperor Shining Light abdicated for his half-brother,” River nodded. We had spoken about the events of that night at length, and she seemed to have an uncanny memory for even the most inconsequential details. Either way, her watchers in the capital would have reported every little thing about the Emperor’s departure and the beginning of his exile. “I think you have all the information you need. Not just to guess, but to be nearly certain of the answer.”

  I nodded, speaking my conclusions aloud. “Shining Light manifested a Mandate on the morning he and his little half-brother were saved from the eunuchs, but no one recognized it for what it was. He sings songs in his dreams and everyone hears them and knows them.”

  Again, River agreed. “They sing with his voice. Knowing that, we also know he is now dead along with the Ox Empress. Unless, of course, a window, a dagger, and a poison cup are mere metaphors. I am told the boy, Emperor Shining Light, had a handmaid who was meant to grow into his own Empress. It seems she met the same fate as her would-be husband and mother-in-law.”

  “Surely not,” Brass Bell said. “Dreadwolf had them removed from the equation. Surely he would not go so far as to…”

  She trailed off as she realized her thinking was wishful. For a man who would go so far as to dethrone an Emperor and appoint his own, what was killing one.

  “To think,” River mused, “we could have had an Emperor who could make his will known directly to the people. We could have had a leader who was one with every single person in the Land Under Heaven.”

  “Instead,” I added, “we have a wolf, and a boy who can summon bugs. We would have been better off if the Marshal had finished off the eunuchs himself and never summoned the wolf to the capital. At least Oxblood would have been a more honest despot.” I glanced over at Brass Bell, wondering at how much the rest of the Empire knew about that night.

  “Alas,” Brass Bell chimed in, “so ends the Tan Ox clan.”

  I looked at her strangely. Hadn’t Brass Bell’s pendant said that she was a member of that clan. I had gotten the sense that she was from some minor offshoot, but still…

  Brass Bell cut me off before I could give voice to the thought. “If there are any left alive, they’ll bury that lineage deep. If they’re lucky, there will come a time when they can once again claim kinship to a Grand Marshal and an Empress. But in all likelihood, even that memory will be lost in time, and that noble blood will be diluted beyond mentioning.”

  I hated this sort of doomsaying. I hated these sorts of hypothetical scenarios where you were left to wonder if something so unforgivable as the extermination of a clan and the effective loss of a noble bloodline could have been avoided. Most of all, I hated bemoaning the bad decisions, however well-intentioned, of others as if they were our own. “The Marshal never would have held the country together for long. A year maybe, or perhaps two.”

  “Perhaps a year or two more was all that was needed,” said River. “It seems we were mere days away from having an Emperor of actual power on the throne before the wolf came to take it. How long before Shining Light could have learned the rules of the court and people of talent could have marshaled around him. A year might have done it.”

  “Maybe so,” I admitted, “but in any case the Marshal would have fallen from grace eventually and that would not have gone well. He was too rigid in his traditions, too unyielding in his sense of honor. He knew what needed to be done with the eunuchs but he lacked the conviction to go against his own comfort, and for that the country now suffers. He knew what the country needed, but he placed too much faith in the rank of his sister and the sanctity of the Imperial command. For that, he failed to keep his head.”

  “You sound like you could have done better,” said River, challenging me.

  “What’s important is that we learn from history, not imagine reshaping it. What good is pretending we were born thirty years earlier so we could have been real players in this past conflict at the height of our power and at the height of the ranks?” I was speaking mostly for myself of course, since River and Bell both had real rank. “The next thirty years are ours. If we make mistakes, let them be our own.”

  “And,” said Brass Bell, putting a hand to her temple as if a migraine were coming on, “what if this road was a mistake?”

  “The road?” My mind was still on Imperial politics.

  “Ach!” Brass Bell doubled over in the saddle.

  “Your Mandate!” said River. “Sparrow, listen to her. We need to move.”

  I cast about. The fields were fallow and hid no dangers. The road was long and straight and I could see it for a dozen or so li. But between fields and burnt out villages, there were thick stands of trees, growing thicker as we traveled, almost into true forest. Shadows flitted within and I did my best to cout them. I stopped bothering after a dozen.

  “Bandits?” River asked, supporting Brass Bell in her saddle.

  “Or wolves. I can’t tell. There are too many of them, anyway, and I won’t risk our lives on these odds. Off the road. I know a place where we’ll find refuge. Fly! Now! If we hurry we can make it before they catch us.”

  We turned our horses and kicked them into a gallop. I led the way, saber bared, and Windstopper brought up the rear. He had been the slowest to turn but once his ox got up to speed, I don’t think any bandit would risk getting close to him. If it became a fighting retreat then so be it. We didn’t have to make it very far, if my memory of a map from almost a year ago was correct.

  “You have an ally in these parts?” River shouted over the beating of hooves and the rattling of Windstopper’s cart. She no longer held Brass Bell in the saddle, but she rode close in case the pain caused the Mandate-stricken woman to keel over.

  “Not an ally,” I said, as we followed a much smaller trail into a dense section of forest. “An uncle.”