“They are ready,” said Brother Chernov, brimming with pride, his gray-flecked beard nearly bristling with excitement.
Ready to die, I suppose, Aleksander thought, but let none of his frustration show.
He clapped Chernov on the back. “Onward to revelation.”
The big man trailed him as they walked the camp together. Aleksander had no way of knowing where the Fjerdans would attack, so he’d brought his followers—and they were his now—to the area north of Adena to await word of battle. But they’d insisted on journeying west into the Fold to spend their nights in communion with the Starless One. I’m right here, he’d wanted to shout. He had no choice but to oblige them in a pilgrimage to the holy sands.
He didn’t care for it. It was, in part, a question of practicality. There was no shelter on the Fold, no plants to forage, no game to hunt. All they had to eat was the hardtack and dried meat they’d brought with them, a few barrels of flat beer, and the water in their canteens. They slept on hard ground with no trees or rocks to take the brunt of the winter wind. And yet, his companions were jubilant. They held services every sundown, and during the days, they alternated praying and training. They were going into a battle, after all, and though Aleksander did not intend for them to do much fighting, they needed to look like they knew what they were doing.
“Where did you come by such military knowledge, Yuri?” Brother Azarov asked as Aleksander put the pilgrims through another round of sprints. He’d been a soldier himself before he’d deserted to join the ranks of the Starless.
“During my time with the Priestguard,” he lied.
Yuri had never so much as held a gun. He’d been happiest confined to the library.
“We need more weapons,” he said.
Chernov’s furry brows rose. “Why? When the Starless One—”
“We don’t dictate the arrival of the Starless Saint. We have to be ready to defend ourselves.”
Are they all so eager to die? he wondered.
They believe, came Yuri’s reply. They believe in you.
All for the best, but war was war.
“There’s a cache of weapons at the old fort east of Ryevost,” Brother Azarov said. “I was stationed there for a time.”
“You think they’ll still be there?” Aleksander asked.
“If the Starless One watches over us, they will be.”
Aleksander had to fight not to roll his eyes. If he remembered correctly, the old fort had been all but decommissioned and used as an ammunitions stockpile.
“We’ll go there tonight,” he said.
“After services.”
“Of course.”
After nightfall, they hitched a wagon to two of their horses and traveled to the old fort. Getting past the guards was easy enough. The only challenge had been summoning shadow to cloak their movements without revealing his power to Brother Azarov.
But their luck had quickly turned.
“This is it?” Aleksander asked, looking at the crates of decrepit weapons. He picked up one of the old, single-shot rifles. “We might as well try to slap them to death.”
“The Starless One will protect us.”
Aleksander studied Brother Azarov in the dark room. “You’re a soldier—”
“I was a soldier.”
“Very well. You were once a soldier and you would walk onto a battlefield with nothing but your faith to protect you?”
“If that is what our Saint requires.”
Aleksander should be glad of that faith, that all it had taken was a bit of shadow play to get these people to march into a war with him. So why was he left uneasy?
Will you protect them?
He could. He would if need be. His powers had returned to him. He could form nichevo’ya to fight on his behalf. His pilgrims could enter the field with picks and shovels and they would still emerge victorious.
And yet, his mind was troubled.
They packed up the few weapons that looked like they might be of use and rode back toward Adena in silence. Since they had the cart, they would meet with Brother Chernov and some of the others outside the village to help them transport supplies from the market.
Aleksander couldn’t help but think of the first army he’d built. Yevgeni Lantsov had been king then, and he’d been at war with the Shu for the entirety of his reign. He couldn’t hold the southern border and his forces were stretched to their very limit. Aleksander had gone by a different name then. Leonid. The first Darkling to offer his gifts in service to the king.
His mother had warned him not to go. They’d been living near an old tannery, the stink of the chemicals and the offal always thick in the air.