22
They sat staring at one another for an interminablelength of time, their eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets as they took in the magnitude of their discovery. Then, all at once, it clicked into place.
They blurted out their conclusions simultaneously:
“The Governor—”
“The Old Ones—”
“You start,” Roy insisted.
“No, go on, darling,” Percival said. His eyes widened. “Theimplications, Roy—”
Roy nodded enthusiastically. “I know, I know. All right, one moment. Let me get my thoughts into some sort of order.”
But where to start? There was a heap of questions unanswered, a profusion of theories unconfirmed. Foremost, though: what kind of affliction was the Blight? Was it a disease? A result of prolonged exposure to trauma? Some sort of magic (which, despite what he’d experienced for close to three months, Roy was still loath to acknowledge, since “magic” was what small minds pointed to when they couldn’t find the real cause)?
Roy stood up and paced in front of Percival to keep his mind working, all the while crossing his arms to stop them from trembling. Finally, he started with what he truly knew:
“I have seen one of the Blighted Droves before.”
“Yes?” Percival said, excitement and fear warring with each other in his voice.
“Yes. When I was escorted to the Basilica. At the time I thought her eyes were bloodshot, but in hindsight... it’s completely possible she could have been Blighted. She had this crazed way about her, like... like she’d lost her mind.”Lost it?he thought.Or had it stolen from her?“I think I dismissed it because the Droves have always loved violence and madness. It makes them feel bigger. Superior. Gabriel felt this way, too.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that this isn’t something new to them.”
“And yet perhaps this is something more,” Percival said. He pondered for a minute. “Perhaps the Old Ones see their own advantage in that sort of attitude, so they target people like Gregori—like the Drove you saw on the streets—those who voluntarily,eagerly, fall in line with the Radiant Droves’ ethos. They’re young. They’re untested. They believe that they are the new and improved order, soaring on the coattails of the grizzled and experienced, if only so they can eventually surpass the veterans. Wouldn’t the Old Ones target them? Such recklessness—and such disregard for innovation—would make for perfect soldiers.”
Something about what Percival said there made Roy pause. Not so muchwhatthe Old Ones were doing, but who they were doing itto. And yet, paradoxically, exactly what they were doing.
The Old Ones kill,Roy thought.That’s what they do. They don’t discriminate, and they don’t hesitate. They attack, and they conquer.
They are, in fact, the perfect soldiers.
Roy’s eyes widened. “Percival, you’re right. Recklessnessdoesmake for good soldiers, and that’sexactlywhere the Governor comes in: the unarmored, Blighted Droves. And that’s what makes them his perfect soldiers.” As soon as he uttered this realization, another struck him.
Dimestra had said something to the Governor before his first meeting with Roy.I considered it my responsibility to administer all aspects of my rule as both a Matron and a commander of Drove squadrons and, as such, would have thought my presence for this discussion necessary.
“The Matron,” Roy said. “She told memonthsago that she’d supplied him with more soldiers and, in exchange for her contribution, she requested the security of the aristocracy. But she never knew the truth—not about the Old Ones, and therefore not about precisely who she’d ordered to watch over Briar.”
Percival rested his forearms on the desk, a crease between his brows. “Wait a moment. ‘His perfect soldiers’? What do you mean?Whosesoldiers?”
“By the Scribes! Who else, Percival?”
“The Governor?”
“Exactly! He benefits from this war, and the undead creatures it’s made of his soldiers—some of which were once under the Matron’s command—because he has them under histhrall,” Roy explained, a myriad of interlinked realizations whipping through his head. “All of them. I don’t know if it’s the oaths they take or some natural affinity to him as their leader, since he basically stole them from the Radiant Droves’ leadership, but for whatever reason, the Blight isn’t swelling the ranks of the Old Ones. It is, however, expanding his own personal death squad. Which in turn means he doesn’tneedto feed the lower class. He doesn’tneedtheir support. He doesn’tneedwhat they could provide, because none of it aids him. The storm winds will keep on blowing, the people will keep on eating each other, and he willstillhave his muskets, his Burrow, and his Droves, these glassy-eyed resurrected soldiers. And probably more and more of them, it appears, as the bodies pile up. I’m sure the only reason he cares about the cannibalism—the only reason he eventually reopened the pass—is because he was worried he’d be losing out on more soldiers for his command. Remember what Farrek said about there being a shortage of bodies after the massacre? The Governor must’ve carted them away and used them. He’s completely content with all this, and not only with these cogs churning, but two others.”
“Us,” Percival whispered.
“He has us here, beavering away at this mystery,” Roy said. “So that when hedoeshave a big enough force of resurrected Droves, he can banish the rival army that’s laying siege to us.”
“Which he must believe will happen in roughly three months,” Percival surmised.
Roy nodded. “At which point, the moment we deliver the key to the shackles which are the Old Ones, we are through.”
