Best Served Cold

T he southernmost range of the Urval Mountains, the spine of Styria, all shadowy swales and dramatic peaks bathed in golden evening light, marched boldly southwards, ending at the great rock into which Ospria itself was carved. Between the city and the hill on which the headquarters of the Thousand Swords had been pitched, the deep and verdant valley was patched with wild flowers in a hundred colours. The Sulva wound through its bottom and away towards the distant sea, touched by the setting sun and turned the orange of molten iron.

Birds twittered in the olive trees of an ancient grove, grasshoppers chirped in the waving long grass, the wind kissed at Cosca’s face and made the feather on his hat, held gently in one hand, heroically thrash and flutter. Vineyards were planted on the slopes to the north of the city, green rows of vines on the dusty hillsides that drew Cosca’s eye and made his mouth water with an almost painful longing. The best vintages in the Circle of the World were trampled out on that very ground…

“Sweet mercy, a drink,” he mouthed.

“Beautiful,” breathed Prince Foscar.

“You never before looked upon fair Ospria, your Highness?”

“I had heard stories, but…”

“Breathtaking, isn’t she?” The city was built upon four huge shelves cut into the cream-coloured rock of the steep hillside, each one surrounded by its own smooth wall, crammed with lofty buildings, stuffed with a tangle of roofs, domes, turrets. The ancient Imperial aqueduct curved gracefully down from the mountains to meet its outermost rampart, fifty arches or more, the tallest of them twenty times the height of a man. The citadel clung impossibly to the highest crag, four great towers picked out against the darkening azure sky. The lamps were being lit in the windows as the sun sank, the outline of the city dusted with pinprick points of light. “There can be no other place quite like this one.”

A pause. “It seems almost a shame to spoil it with fire and sword,” observed Foscar.

“Almost, your Highness. But this is war, and those are the tools available.”

Cosca had heard that Count Foscar, now Prince Foscar following his brother’s mishap in a famous Sipanese brothel, was a boyish, callow, weak-nerved youth, and was therefore pleasantly impressed by what he had seen thus far. The lad was fresh-faced, true, but every man begins young, and he seemed thoughtful rather than weak, sober rather than bloodless, polite rather than limp. A young man very much like Cosca himself had been at that age. Only the absolute reverse in every particular, of course.

“They appear to be most powerful fortifications…” murmured the prince, scanning the towering walls of the city with his eyeglass.

“Oh, indeed. Ospria was the furthest outpost of the New Empire, built as a bastion to hold back the restless Baolish hordes. Parts of the walls have been standing firm against the savage for more than five hundred years.”

“Then will Duke Rogont not simply retreat behind them? He does seem prone to avoid battle whenever possible…”

“He’ll give battle, your Highness,” said Andiche.

“He must,” rumbled Sesaria, “or we’ll just camp in his pretty valley and starve him out.”

“We outnumber him three to one or more,” whined Victus.

Cosca could not but agree. “Walls are only useful if one expects help, and no help is coming to the League of Eight now. He must fight. He will fight. He is desperate.” If there was one thing he understood, it was desperation.

“I must confess I have some… concerns.” Foscar nervously cleared his throat. “I understood that you always hated my father with a passion.”

“Passion. Hah.” Cosca dismissed it with a wave. “As a young man I let my passion lead me by the nose, but I have learned numerous harsh lessons in favour of a cool head. I and your father have had our disagreements but I am, above all else, a mercenary. To let my personal feelings reduce the weight of my purse would be an act of criminal unprofessionalism.”

“Hear, hear.” Victus wore an unsightly leer. Even more so than usual.

“Why, my own three closest captains,” and Cosca took them in with a theatrical sweep of his hat, “betrayed me utterly and put Murcatto in my chair. They fucked me to their balls, as they say in Sipani. To their balls, your Highness. If I had a taste for vengeance, it would be on these three heaps of human shit.” Then Cosca chuckled, and they chuckled, and the vaguely uncomfortable atmosphere was swiftly dispelled. “But we can all be useful to each other, and so I have forgiven them everything, and your father too. Vengeance brings no man a brighter tomorrow, and when placed on the scales of life, does not outweigh a single… scale. You need not worry on that score, Prince Foscar, I am all business. Bought and paid for, and entirely your man.”

“You are generosity itself, General Cosca.”