Orla was standing near the window of Savas’ bedchamber, but the shutters were closed tightly. She scowled—she’d hoped that she’d be able to see the grounds around the tower the Mundoa held, but she couldn’t touch or affect solid objects through the spell. She saw Savas respond to her irritation at the closed shutters with a smile. “What’s the matter, Dream Orla? Can’t see what I have my men preparing for you? Give me some credit for learning from mistakes; after last time, I expected this. I never should have allowed you to see the ships. If you hadn’t, perhaps you wouldn’t have been on Onglse yesterday, and I wouldn’t have lost so many good men.”
The Moonshadow’s voices barked with laughter. Orla heard her mam’s mocking laugh in the chorus.
“Then I suppose I should be grateful for your initial mistake, Commander.”
Savas seemed cynically amused by Orla’s comment. He smiled as he left his bed, uncaring about his nudity. She noticed that he grunted with the effort as he lifted himself from the bed, that he had a decided limp, that his body was covered with scars and wounds both new and old, that his stomach was more a paunch than Eideard’s firm, narrow waist. With the observation came the realization of just how old the man was—easily the age her own father had been when he’d died.
“Isn’t that the goal of every war leader—to kill more of the enemy than they kill of your people?” Savas asked as he cocked his head, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her image. “I believe I see a different torc around your neck tonight, Dream Orla. Am I correct in thinking you’ve finally become the ceanndraoi? The damage to your face I recall seeing before, though.”
“I’m ceanndraoi,” she acknowledged, “as was my mam before me. As for my face . . . that’s another story.”
“Then I’ll look forward to hearing it one day. Congratulations, Ceanndraoi. Your mam was a worthy and dangerous opponent. You’re obviously the same, and I look forward to the challenge.” (
“I’ve come because I don’t take any pleasure in killing people, Commander, but I have to do whatever I can to protect my people and my land. What I wonder is whether there’s any path you and I can follow to stem the bloodshed.”
“I told you before: I’m just a simple soldier, Ceanndraoi. Great-Voice Utka and Emperor Pashtuk give me my orders, and I obey them. I’ve been told to take Onglse, and that’s what I intend to do.”
“You were ordered to do that before,” Orla interjected. “Yet when my mam left Onglse with Ceannàrd Maol Iosa, you chose to ignore those orders and came back to defend the south. Had you been just a ‘simple soldier’ and instead followed your orders, taking Onglse wouldn’t have mattered, because we Cateni would be holding many of your cities in the south and have burned the rest to the ground. So forgive me if I find that I’m not entirely convinced by your argument.”
“That wasn’t a choice I made lightly, Ceanndraoi. It nearly cost me my head despite the outcome. So you’ll understand if I’m reluctant to repeat the experience.”
“I am more powerful and more dangerous than my mam ever was,” Orla declared. “I can touch the Moonshadow and use it in ways she couldn’t. You can believe that or not as you wish, but you won’t win here, Commander.” The voices of the anamacha called out their agreement.
“That may be, but forgive me if I can’t take your word for that.”
“I’m very serious, Commander. The losses you suffered yesterday will be nothing if you go forward again. You and I should look for ways to negotiate an end to this conflict.”
Savas hesitated, and for a moment Orla felt hope. But his smile turned wry and sour. “Negotiate? The only ‘negotiation’ the Great-Voice would accept is your surrender. Is that what you wish to do, Ceanndraoi? Surrender to me? Or do you think that the Great-Voice would be willing to surrender to you because you’ve claimed that you’re more dangerous than your mother?”
“You won’t negotiate? We can’t parley?”
He gave a slow shake of his graying head. “I don’t see how that’s possible. I thought I might be able to trust Ceanndraoi Greum’s word, and I found that he doesn’t keep his vows. I’m learning from my mistakes, remember?”
“I’m sorry, then,” Orla told him. “I’ll take no pleasure in what will come, but you’ll see the truth of what I’ve told you, Commander.”
“Perhaps,” Savas answered. “But we each have our duties and our burdens. You’re Cateni. You should understand that there’s no shame in a life that ends with an honorable death.”
“You and Ceannàrd Eideard Iosa think alike,” Orla told him. “And that’s the shame. For both Cateni and Mundoa.”
With her answer, she let the spell dissolve, and found herself back in her quarters in the tower.
* * *
Altan didn’t wake Tolga after Ceanndraoi Orla left. Instead he wrapped himself in a blanket and sat in the chair at his desk, musing on this encounter and watching the fitful glow of ashes in the room’s hearth. He found himself troubled by much of what she’d suggested.
We barely managed to survive Ceanndraoi Voada; she burned down a hand and more of southern cities, and she would have done the same to the rest if we hadn’t stopped her. Her actions had the Cateni rising up everywhere. She managed to kill Great-Voice Vadim and sack Trusa, and we’re still dealing with the consequences of that. If Orla’s even the equal of her mother, trying to take Onglse could end in disaster, and Great-Voice Utka isn’t going to be able to contain her with the troops he has. Orla could finish what her mother set out to do.
And if her boast about being even stronger than her mother is true . . .
More and more since that final battle with Voada the Mad, Altan was feeling old and tired. In his younger days he’d found the prospect of a coming battle exciting; he’d yearned for the excitement, for the thrill of defeating those who dared stand against the emperor and the Great-Voices Altan had served. But in the last few years. . . the incessant battles with the Cateni and, worse, the internecine political battles that accompanied them had aged him far more than he wanted to admit. He found himself thinking more of the pleasures of simple comforts: good food, good wine, staying in one place and watching the world move past him, returning to Rumeli and seeing his children again. Being with Tolga.
When Ceanndraoi Orla spoke of parley and peace, he’d found himself wishing that were possible.
It’s what I thought I’d arranged with the Red-Hand: a ploy that might end this war. It’s what I’d hoped to accomplish, but Muras and the presence of the Moonshadow ended that hope. Maybe I should have resigned when the Great-Voice asked. Perhaps Musa or Ilkur should already be i
n my place.
Altan scowled at the thoughts. He picked up a small polished-brass mirror that lay on his desk and stared at his wavy reflection. Tired eyes with deep wrinkles in the corners stared back at him from the metal. “Have you made a terrible mistake?” he asked his reflection.
There was no answer in those eyes.
“Altan?” a tired voice called from the bed. Altan laid down the mirror. Tolga was sitting up, yawning as he stared at Altan. “Can’t sleep?”
“No,” he answered. “Too many ghosts tonight.”
Tolga’s eyebrows raised. “You’re seeing ghosts?” He let his gaze travel the room as if expecting to see spectral presences.
“Not here. Those that live in my head.”
“My father always said that ghosts didn’t have the ability to hurt the living.” Tolga rubbed at his sleep-tousled hair. “But he said that sometimes they carried a message to us from the Pale Ones who serve the One-God. Premonitions and predictions. Did your ghosts tell you anything?”
You won’t win here, Commander. Orla’s words.
“Nothing I’m willing to believe,” Savas said to Tolga. He pushed himself up from the chair, groaning as he did so. “My body aches,” he said.
“Lie down here, and I’ll give you a good rub-down. That’ll make you feel better and drive the ghosts from your head. We need you ready to lead the cohorts to victory, after all.”
“Yes. We need that, don’t we?” Altan answered. As Tolga poured pungent oil on his back and began massaging his shoulders, he tried to banish the doubts and worries from his mind.
But the wisps of those ghosts proved obstinate and stubborn.
* * *
Orla awoke to find herself wrapped in Sorcha’s arms. She said nothing for a time, just enjoying the feel of the woman’s body against her back. Finally, she stirred and stretched, and Sorcha released her.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever coming back.”
“I was never gone. Weren’t you holding me the entire time?” Orla asked.
“Yes, but . . .” Sorcha padded over to the hearth. With a towel, she swung the crane from over the peat fire and poured water into a teapot on the table. “So did you learn anything? Should I wake the ceannàrd?”
“Let the man sleep. I’m exhausted from the spell myself.”
“Did you talk to Savas about . . . ?” Sorcha let the rest of the question trail off. She poured a mint infusion from the pot into two mugs and brought them over to the bed, handing one to Orla.
“He only gave me the same answer as before: he’s just a soldier performing his duty. He won’t parley. He won’t consider negotiation or a truce.” Orla sipped from her mug and shook her head. “No, we’ve no choice but to fight them. And if that’s what we have to do . . .” She pulled in a long breath. “He’ll regret the choice. But so will the Mundoa and Cateni who will die as a result, as well as their families and those who love them.” Orla looked at her anamacha, standing at the foot of the bed and watching the two of them. She knew what they would say.
Part of her agreed with that. She remembered the terror of the day of her father’s funeral: the way Bakir and his soldiers killed all the Cateni in their house without remorse, without pity; how she and her brother, Hakan, were taken away as the soldiers turned to her mother; how Orla screamed in terror as they beat and kicked Voada. When Bakir took Orla’s maidenhead that night in his bed, he’d told her that her mother was dead and Voada was a horrible witch who deserved all the pain she’d suffered, and that if Orla didn’t want to suffer the same fate, she’d be an obedient second wife and do everything and anything that Bakir and his first wife told her to do.
The rage she’d felt still burned inside her and blunted any sympathy she had for the Mundoa she’d killed and maimed since the Moonshadow had come to her.
Blunted the sympathy, but didn’t entirely banish it. There were good Mundoa just as there were bad Cateni. There was Azru, without whom Orla wouldn’t be here at all. In any case, it wouldn’t be only Mundoa who would die in the coming battle. There would be more pyres and more souls to send to Tirnanog.
Orla handed the mug, smelling of mint and honey, back to Sorcha. “Thank you,” she said. “I think I need to sleep now. And if you keep holding me, I know my dreams will be better than my last ones. I’ll need that, since I don’t think the ceannàrd will be happy with what I intend to do.”
Sorcha set the mugs on the floor and stroked Orla’s scarred cheek. “Then I’ll hold you and send you good dreams,” she said. “Gladly.”
25
The Battle for Bàn Cill
IT WAS TWO DAYS later that the advance scouts placed by Eideard and Comhnall came racing back to the tower with the news that Savas’ forces were stirring. “They have ladders and bridges—it looks like they’re expecting to use those to cross the streams and bogs in the bottomlands. The front is entirely foot soldiers with just a few mounted officers, no chariots at all. They must be holding them back until they can establish the bridges across the streams and bogs. And they’re coming along a wide front this time, easily spanning three towers of the second wall, with at least six full cohorts involved. There was movement everywhere we looked.”
After thanking the scouts and sending word to the faicinn fada watchers on the tower ramparts, Eideard started to snap orders to the àrds and draoi. “Àrd Mac Tsagairt, I want you to take command of the tower to our west; Àrd MacGowan, you’ll command the east tower. I’ll be here in the middle, and I’ll have flaggers and carnyx players on the tower for signaling between us. I want the chariots set in front of the gates here, as we did during their last attack—they’ll be devastating against those on foot. Magaidh already has the draoi sending them foul weather; they’ll be struggling to get through the bogs again. Ceanndraoi, you’ll ride with me as before, of course.”
“I do learn from my mistakes . . .” Savas had said.
Orla spoke then. “No, I won’t,” she said simply, and the softness of her voice drew their attention, all of them leaning toward her. “That’s not what I need to do. Savas isn’t that stupid.”
“Ceanndraoi?” Eideard asked. She couldn’t decide whether he looked angry or just puzzled.
“I believe that our scouts have it wrong. Savas isn’t holding back the chariots and horsemen; he’s taking them elsewhere. He knows that his first attack on this wall was a mistake. Look at the map.” She pointed to the table, where Eideard had laid out a map of Onglse. “The deep furrows in Onglse run east to west in front of us, but they finally bend northward and flatten out a few crow calls past the western tower. He can run his chariots, mounted troops, and ballistae with a couple of cohorts of footmen and archers for support along the ridge from where he is now right up to the wall there, out of direct sight of the west tower. Meanwhile the rest of his army keeps us occupied here. I believe they’re already on the move; that’s why the Mundoa haven’t attacked here yet, to give them time to approach on the longer route. If Savas can break the wall beyond Àrd Mac Tsagairt’s forces, he’ll be through and behind our line, with very little between him and Bàn Cill.”
“You’re saying that the movement our scouts saw is a feint?” Eideard said. “Ceanndraoi, with respect, I know battle strategy, and so does the First Àrd. You don’t commit that many men to a diversion.”
“That’s because it’s not entirely a diversion,” she insisted. “If breaking through the wall to the west fails, then Savas is hoping he’ll still win at least one of the towers with the same result. With respect,” she said, mimicking Eideard’s tone, “my mam and your uncle saw the Mundoa and Savas in battle many times, as she has told me. Savas is employing the twin horns of the bull—they’ve used that strategy before to their advantage. The First Àrd no doubt remembers that.”
Com
hnall nodded in agreement, but his finger traced the line of the second wall on the map. “We can’t spread out our line that far,” Comhnall said. “We don’t have enough warriors and draoi to hold it.”
Orla nodded. “I understand. And that’s why I’ll be meeting Savas alone.”
* * *
Orla stood atop the wall. The brash wind was heavy with a cold drizzle. It whipped her hair around and sent the grass-green cloak and gray bog dress she wore to flapping against her. Through the misty rain, she could barely make out Àrd Mac Tsagairt’s tower well off to her left and around the curve of the wall; the next tower in line to her right was closer, though still some distance away. Colin, her charioteer today and also a faicinn fada, stood next to her. “I can just see them now, Ceanndraoi. You were correct: they’re coming, and no one with long-sight in the west tower would be able to see them through this weather.” The man sounded nervous, and he looked around as if hoping that by some miracle hands upon hands of Cateni warriors were standing around them. He had also, after his first glimpse, avoided looking directly at Orla’s face; he continued to do so now.
It had taken a great deal of argument and Orla’s insistence that she would do this whether they wished her to or not, but eventually Eideard, Comhnall, Magaidh, and the others had reluctantly agreed to allow her to come here, when they obviously preferred she stay to defend the other fortifications. Even then, she wasn’t sent entirely alone. Eideard had chosen his cousin Colin’s chariot to take Orla; the chariot and its driver waited for her just below on the inner side of the wall, along with a double-hand of mounted warriors as additional escorts. If she was unable to deal with Savas or if (as Orla knew Eideard expected) Savas simply never appeared, they would quickly return to Magaidh and Comhnall in the west tower. In addition, Magaidh had sent along Mànas, a young man and minor draoi, in case she required magical help—and to send a fireball flaring into the sky if Orla needed to signal for help and was unable to do so herself.
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