Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

wasn’t enough, you could tell he was a true soldier by the face he wore, mute and unmovable as a stone, saving all energies, physical and mental, for some great future trial and having none therefore to fritter away on excess feeling or unnecessary speech.
    ‘They’re ready?’ Bas asked.
    ‘They won’t get more ready before the morning.’ He waved to his adjutant – squat-shouldered, pug-nosed, a name Bas had never learned – and the man ran over to refill his cup of coffee.
    ‘If their spies haven’t told them you’re coming, they’ll figure it out by the time you mass ranks,’ Bas said. ‘Subterfuge is out, so don’t make an attempt at it – go hard enough at them and they’ll bend, go a little harder and they’ll break.’
    ‘Then I’ll see you inside,’ Theophilus answered, taking the mug from his boy.
    Nothing else worth saying and Bas did not attempt it. In truth, he had little enough role to play in the day’s events. Bas had spent the better part of the last ten years on the Marches as Strategos for the Thirteenth thema, responsible ultimately for everything it did, every bent pike and late patrol, every failed stratagem and dead soldier. As Legatus in the western army, his purpose was less clear. Konstantinos was responsible for overall strategy, the leaders of the individual themas were responsible for executing his commands. Bas got the sense at times he was little more than a mascot, like the donkey the Thirteenth had kept that one summer when he had still been a pentarche, a spotted thing that someone had taught to drink whiskey. What had happened to that mule, Bas tried to remember, staring up at the walls? Yes, they had eaten him when winter came. A man of greater imagination might have supposed that an unprepossessing portent.
    ‘Then you will attack today?’ she asked from behind him.
    Bas did not smile, though there was a brief second where it looked like he might. She moved with such grace and silence, it still astonished him, even having seen her daily or near daily for the better part of two years. ‘You know I can’t say.’
    ‘You do not need to. What else would explain the commotion in camp, and your mustering at the front?’
    What else indeed? The only time Bas had ever seen another Eternal they had been locked in mortal combat, and so Bas was not entirely sure of how the Sentinel of the Southern Reach compared to the rest of her species. He had the vague sense that they were not as diverse in type as humans, though he couldn’t have said for certain if this was true. She resembled humanity in the way that a horse resembles a mule, larger and finer and better formed. He was not sure if other men would call her beautiful; with her eyes that were like slabs of amethyst, with her fingers that would have stretched a fair length of his forearm, with her height and her tiny, beak-like nose. He was not entirely sure if he thought her beautiful either, or at least he did not allow himself certainty on the subject.
    The Roost claimed ownership over all the lands of the continent, by right of their ancient presence, predating not only the Aelerians, who had only come to the continent a scant three centuries before, but even the Salucians and the Dycians and the Marchers, who had resided there for millennia prior. In the eyes of the Others the human nations were their vassals, demonstrated this fealty by yearly tithe – as well as, in theory at least, obeying their commands. The Sentinel of the Southern Reach had accompanied the Aelerian army to remit these orders, though in practice she did little more than observe and occasionally comment in a fashion more acerbic than practical. Bas had named her Einnes to facilitate their communication, though as Bas was the only human with whom she spent any time in conversation, he was also the only one who used or even knew of this name.
    ‘And you will lead them, then, Slayer of Gods?’
    ‘I had not thought to do so,’ he said, which