Reisil frowned. She understood what was happening, but the boundary should have been chewed up and destroyed a long time ago, limiting the number of wizard rinda, feeding the spell. But there were far more here than there should have been. She scanned the open space, looking for answers. She found them in the cobbles. Etched into the stone were row after row of tiny rinda. They glowed with a dim fire. The symbols were ancient, like the spells in the prison chamber beneath Kodu Riik. Years of dirt and wear must have obscured them until the wizards cast their spell. With the Lady’s presence suppressing magic in Kodu Riik, there wouldn’t have been any way to tell they were there until it was too late.
~He wants to know what you wish to do, Baku said.
Reisil started and looked at Yohuac. He opened his mouth and spoke, but she heard nothing. Nothing at all. Not even her own fast breathing. There was only silence.
Silence. She looked at Juhrnus. Silence rises. She looked back at the unraveling spell, her fingers clenching on her pack. She was supposed to be here, with the moon rinda, with Juhrnus and Yohuac and Baku. All together, they were supposed to fix this. Each had something important to contribute. She knew it. Each in their own way was a melding of two worlds: Reisil born of nahualli and ahalad-kaaslane blood; Juhrnus transformed; Yohuac and Baku united.
Yohuac and Baku had gotten her here safely. They’d done their part. So it was up to her and Juhrnus. The spell had to be stabilized. Not only did they have to find a way to stop the magic from flowing out of Cemanahuatl; they had to turn the flow back so that there was a balance. And she had to protect what she did from the nahuallis, who might even now be trying to destroy it.
She knew what part of the answer had to be. If only she could create it. If only she had enough time. She pulled her pack from her shoulder. Somehow she had to form the thirteen moon rinda into the shape the copicatl had shown her after her trial.
Chapter 41
Soka stumbled and fell, hardly noticing the pain shooting through his knee. He lunged to his feet and strode after the wagon. Samles drove with Metyein’s father sitting beside him. He looked like he’d aged twenty years. Soka had no pity for him.
Beside him, Kedisan-Mutira was a ghostly presence. He knew she was there, but his eyes refused to settle on her, sliding away and forgetting. Metyein’s death replayed again and again in his mind. And his screams . . . Soka’s eyes burned, but he shed no tears. The poison bead clicked against his teeth and he caught it, biting, feeling the hard shell give with the pressure.
“Don’t. He would not wish it.”
The sorceress’s voice was soft, but it contained no pity. If it had . . . He didn’t hit women. But today he’d murdered his best friend, the brother of his heart. His fists bunched.
“What do you know about him?” Soka rasped.
She said nothing for several moments. “Some choose power. Some choose pain. Some choose to hide. A few choose sacrifice. I know that much.”
Sacrifice.
“Why are you helping?” he asked at last. If she’d stepped in sooner—Rage roared inside him, and it took all his strength to hold it in, to wait for an answer. But if it was the wrong answer . . .
“Because of Juhrnus,” she said simply.
“Juhrnus?”
She stopped and he turned to face her. Her shape solidified so that he could see her clearly. She put her hand out, settling it over his heart. He flinched from the touch, but did not pull away.
“You killed your heart to save his suffering. The sacrifice should not be wasted. Nobody’s should.”
Soka grappled at the puzzle of her words. How did Juhrnus fit? “Juhrnus has sacrificed,” he said slowly, understanding seeping in. “What has happened to him? Is he—?” He couldn’t bring himself to say dead.
“He is coming. He is close. But he is . . . different.”
“Different? What does that mean?”
She shook her head, pulling her hand away and rubbing her fingers gently between her breasts. “I do not know. But he will not have to sacrifice any more.”
Her last words were menacing and cold. She walked away, catching up to the rumbling wagon. Within two steps she’d faded to ghostliness again. Soka pressed his palm to his chest where she’d touched. Sudden horror gripped him. Beneath his thumb he felt the lump of the protective ward Reisil had made for him. He hooked his fingers under the string and ripped it off his head. It dangled from his hand, glinting in the bright morning sunshine. Just a coin. It could have saved Metyein. If Soka had thought to give it to him, Metyein would still be alive.
Pain and guilt tore through him. His soul was bleeding to death. He stood there, waiting to die. How could he not? But such wounds were not fatal.
Aare’s soldiers were beginning to notice him. They began to gather, eyeing him suspiciously. He had to move. He had to keep going. Metyein would want him to defend Honor. To see this through. Jerkily Soka began to walk again, twisting the necklace cord through his fingers. A few choose sacrifice. Some choose betrayal. He’d betrayed Metyein to Aare, the thing he’d fought so hard not to do. If only he’d thought to give him the ward, if he’d remembered . . .
He would make sure Metyein’s sacrifice had not been for nothing, Soka promised himself. And when it was over . . . His lips twisted and he spat the poison bead to the ground. When it was over, he would go on. Because he owed Metyein that much justice. To suffer for his murder.
Alone in the Lord Marshal’s tent, the Iisand sat very still. He’d forced the coronation in the last day before marching north. No one had objected. No one had dared.
His eyes were fixed on the silver snowflake perched on his knee. It burned with unrelenting cold. He resisted the urge to twitch and knock it away. Sweat from the effort trickled down his temples and dripped from his nose. He wasn’t going to let them get away with it for free. They would pay, and pay dearly. He didn’t need magic to raze the stockades and butcher those sharmutas.
A rustle caught his attention. A scribe stuck his head through the curtain and then blanched at seeing Aare, the pool of spilled blood, and the piles of ash on the rug. He began to pull back hastily with a muttered apology.
“Boy! Attend me!” Aare ordered sharply, careful to keep his body very still.
The boy nodded and inched back, his face pale with fear.
“Fetch Commander Salives. Bring him here quickly.”
The boy hesitated and then scrambled away. Aare smiled grimly. Yes, they would pay. He looked at the snowflake, and fear made his bladder swell urgently. He couldn’t hold it in. Warmth flooded his crotch and trickled down his legs. His teeth ground together, smelling the stink of piss filling the curtained room. He’d have them all slaughtered. They would feel the horror of his death as acutely as he did.
“Good. You are here,” the witch woman said, greeting Kedisan-Mutira as if she’d been expecting her. They stood inside the abandoned Fox. There was a stench of decay, of bodies rotting. Above them the crystal-mist dome of Mysane Kosk loomed like a mountain.
“We must combine our strength to create a shield around Mysane Kosk. This will keep the wizards from drawing on its power, and it will keep them from making things worse.”
She gestured for them to sit, putting Kedisan-Mutira on one side of her and the gray-eyed wizard on the other. The other three wizards closed the circle. They were white as snow-flowers, and they trembled. Kedisan-Mutira watched them with amazement. These were the infamous Patversemese wizards who’d always been so hard to defeat in the wars? How was it possible?
“Join hands,” the witch woman ordered. “We will layer our shields, one inside another. You three will form the outer shields,” she said to the nervous wizards. “Next will be me, then Tapit, and last you,” she said to Kedisan-Mutira. “You must not hold back or give up. If we fail, then Reisiltark will fail. Do you understand?”
A few choose sacrifice.
They each nodded.
“Then let’s begin.”
Soka paced by the window w
hile his father and Edel grilled Lord Marshal Vare on the strengths of Aare’s army. Metyein lay on the bed in Soka’s quarters, wrapped in the rug from the Lord Marshal’s pavillion. The sorceress had helped transport him through the tunnels before congregating with Nurema and the wizards. Metyein’s father had regained some of his color, but there was still a quake to his voice that wouldn’t go away. Soka liked him better for it.
“He knows your wards are down. We should have killed him and been done with it,” Lord Marshal Vare said harshly.
“It wouldn’t have made much difference. That’s an army out there, and they’re primed to attack. They’ve come for the loot and the women and they aren’t going to just walk away empty-handed. With or without the Scallacians, with or without the Iisand, they’d have come again,” Soka’s father said.
“Besides, a quick kill wouldn’t have been nearly enough,” Soka added darkly. “He’s getting what he deserves.”
Suddenly warning horns sounded their piercing cry. “They’re coming,” Soka said, running to the door and out. The other men followed close on his heels. Up to the battlements.
“Hag’s tits,” Soka murmured.
Aare’s army had pooled at the far end of the valley and was advancing. They pushed siege towers and trebuchets out in front of them. Within an hour, they established a position out of bow range and began lobbing boulders at Bear and Salamander. They struck the walls with great booming cracks. The walls shuddered under the thundering hail.
“I’m going back to Salamander. I’ll be more help there right now,” Edel declared, and strode away. Soka’s father hesitated and then he glanced at Lord Marshal Vare. “I too should go. But only if you’ll take command of the rest. We need a Lord Marshal.” Metyein’s father gave a reluctant nod. There wasn’t anyone else.
“I’ll go with you,” Soka declared. His father gave a sharp glance, but did not object.
They emerged into Bear twenty minutes later. The men greeted Soka’s father with a certain amount of relief, but they’d done well. They hadn’t panicked, and the walls still held. Soka’s lips tightened with smug pride. Metyein had insisted that the walls be sunk deep and braced by boxes of buried timbers. The buildings lining the walls only added to their strength. They didn’t fear rocks. But soon Aare’s men would get around to fire. There were barrels of water and rags stationed every few feet at the base of the walls and up on the battlements. All they could do now was sit and wait for Aare’s army to come within range.
“We need to drive them up between the stockades,” Soka’s father said as they stood together, staring at the waiting army. “Their rabble. They don’t have much discipline and they’ll be getting bored. Wouldn’t take much to get them moving.” He rubbed his hand thoughtfully over his mouth.
A coil of brutality uncurled in Soka. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, starting to walk away. He halted, pulling the ward that Reisil had made him from his pocket. He looked at it, his lip curling, and turned back to his father. He held the necklace out. His father took it, curious. “Wear it in good health,” Soka said, and walked away, ignoring the questions his father called after him.
He gathered a team of men he trusted: Clano, Temles, Ferro, and Slatts. They joined him without hesitation. Soka stopped at the stables, ordering each to collect a thick bundle of straw and a pair of hatchets apiece. Soka also picked up a roll of heavy twine. They dropped down into the escape tunnel. There were torches at the bottom. Each took a half dozen. Soka lit one of his and jogged ahead, lighting the way. He was numb. He didn’t feel the bite of his overworked muscles or the ache in his lungs.
They clambered out of the tunnel, screened by boulders and bushes.
“The wind’s blowing from the east. We’ve got to hurry before it changes. We’re going to build fires to drive the ganyiks into the killing field. Clano and Slatts, you’re with me. We’ll skirt around to the far side and work our way back. We’ll take the high line and stay above your fire line,” he said to Ferro and Temles. “Set them quick and make sure they are burning well before you move on. One of you should stay and nurse the first while the other sets the second. Then leapfrog back. We’ll check yours on our return. This will help,” he said, handing them each a heavy box from the pack he bore on his back. “It’s pitch. Keep an eye out for sweep patrols. I doubt they’ll use them. They think we’re hemmed in.”
It took Soka, Clano, and Slatts nearly two hours to work around to the other side of the valley carrying the bulky straw bundles.
“I’ll start. You two backtrack and get fires going. I’ll leapfrog back when this one is blazing,” Soka ordered tersely.
The others nodded and hurried off. Soka hacked wood from a rotting log and piled it around the base of a snag. He added straw and handfuls of twigs. Lastly, he rubbed pitch on the dead tree’s trunk. He struck a flint to a torch and jabbed it into his kindling pile. It flared with quick heat, ringing the tree in flames. Soka hacked out more rotting wood and added it to the fire. Soon the flames were crackling high above his head, catching on the spreading limbs of the snag. For a moment he remembered the burning figures of the Scallacian sorcerers and he grinned. The expression faded instantly as he remembered Metyein’s head lolling on the floor.
He couldn’t contain the primitive scream of fury that burst from him. It tore his throat and lungs. A blood vessel burst in his eye. He came back to himself when he ran out of breath and began to cough. The tree continued to burn well. Satisfied, Soka took out the roll of twine and wrapped it tightly around a wad of straw. He lit it on fire and then dragged it over the ground in the direction Clano and Slatts had taken, going slowly. With any luck, the straw bundle would strike a few more fires and add to the conflagration they were trying to set ablaze.
Slowly the three of them worked back toward the tunnel. Smoke began to billow on the slopes below as Temles’s and Ferro’s fires caught. A pall drifted over the valley, hiding Aare’s army and the stockades.
Soka’s team reunited at the tunnel entrance. All of them were streaked with soot. Slatts had singed his eyebrows and hair, and Ferro’s hands were blistered and raw. But all five of them grinned fiercely at one another. A full-fledged forest fire raged along the ridge, driving into the valley.
“That ought to get them moving,” Soka murmured.
Then suddenly the air exploded. He felt as if he were being turned inside out. He collapsed to the ground, gasping, as invisible hands jammed him against the hillside. White light burned across the sky. He jerked his head away from it, flinging up his arm and shutting his eye. He felt the ground trembling under him and heard screams and shouts from the valley below.
After a moment, he struggled upright.
The explosions continued, shattering the air and rattling the earth, but they seemed oddly far away, behind the fire. They did not seem to be focused on Honor at all.
“What’s happening?” Temles whispered. He clutched his arms around himself, gazing nervously upward.
“I think the wizards have arrived,” Soka said, coughing. He spat to clear his mouth and rolled to his feet. “Let’s get back.”
They ran for the tunnel entrance, dropping inside. The ground shook again. Dirt sifted from the tunnel roof.
“Run for it,” Soka advised, pushing Clano ahead of him and motioning for the others to follow. He brought up the rear. Sound was muffled underground. He could hear only faint sounds of shouting and the whumping thumps that could have been the wizards’ magic, or the thunder of rocks flung from siege engines. Their own heavy breathing and shuffling steps made it difficult to hear anything else.
They were halfway along when Soka heard the ominous creaking of the support timbers. Then there was a screeching crack. Soka looked up as the tunnel roof slowly began to sink.
“Run!”
He thrust himself forward. Behind him, dirt clogged the passage and clouds of dust exploded around them. He sucked in a breath and then began to gag. He struggled along, tripping over Ferro, who’d collapse
d. Blood ran from a gash in his forehead. Soka lifted him up and helped him along. They careened off the walls as they stumbled forward. Slatts came back and grabbed Ferro’s other arm. Together, he and Soka pulled the injured man away from the collapse.
Temles and Clano waited at the bottom of the ladder. They helped push Ferro up and out and then followed behind. Soka was last up. He crawled over the edge and rolled onto his back, panting. He blinked. Something was wrong. Through the smoke, the sky was . . . red. The color of blood. He rubbed his eye. It remained.
Suddenly he became aware of screaming and men running. He staggered to his feet, swaying. Aare’s men were coming over the walls. The defenders hacked and slashed, and blood ran in rivers across the battlements and dripped in pools onto the ground. But the men coming over the walls were white-eyed with fear and fury. They swarmed like ants, hardly seeming to care about the carnage. Soon the bodies would be piled so deep on the battlements that the men of Bear would have no place to stand. They’d be forced to retreat down the stairs to the bailey.
Soka pulled his sword and ran at a man in a royal tunic who’d slipped through and was going for the gate. His sword clanged against the soldier’s with satisfying violence. He beat him back, ducking under his overhand swing and thrusting through his stomach. He shoved the soldier off his blade and met the next intruder with ruthless efficiency. Metyein had taught him very well.
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