by Kate Elliott
“Adica, you must go up to the stone loom. Their arrows can’t reach you there. I want ten adults to attend her. Make sure she’s covered and safe. You’ll have to lie low all day, beloved. Can you do that?”
She nodded.
“What shall we do?” asked the woman called Ulfrega, war leader of the Four Houses warriors.
“We’ll need fighters all along the palisade. That’s our weakness.”
“Not the cleft and the ditch?”
“The planks are pulled back, so the Cursed Ones can’t charge through. Set a force with spears there, behind shields, and the best archers up along the palisade. That’s the first place they’ll try to break through. If somehow riders break through, you must brace the hafts of your spears in the dirt and hold them steady. Then they’ll drive their horses into the points.”
She nodded. An arrow sailed lazily overhead and skittered along the opposite embankment, rolling downslope to end up at one of the centaur’s hooves. “What of the villagers?” she asked.
“Beor can lead them well enough. He’ll let their archers use up their arrows as long as he can. It will help us that the Cursed Ones are caught between two pincers. They have to protect themselves from both sides. And we have a few tricks planned, things they can’t expect. Just pass the word along the palisade that none of you are to shoot arrows unless you come under direct attack. Have children pick up any arrow that falls in to us. We can shoot it back at them.”
In the village, a third house had caught on fire.
“Sos’ka, you and your comrades must keep a perimeter watch all around the hill. If any place on the embankment is weakened, send one to alert me, and we’ll send reinforcements. If they break in behind us, we are lost. Ulfrega, you must remain here to command if I’m called away. Adica!”
She still watched the movements of the Cursed Ones and, farther, the smoke pouring up from the burning houses. A fourth house in the village caught fire, but people hurried to soak the thatch of the adjoining council house roof with water.
A line of Cursed Ones rode closer to examine the tumulus. One rash soldier with a fox mask rode in and, whooping, twirled a sling around his head. Stones peppered the palisade. A dozen archers rode close enough to shoot.
Alain took hold of her arm roughly and tugged her down, while folk around them gasped to see him handle her so. “You must get back to safety.”
“Where will you be?” A single tear snaked down her cheek.
“I will always be with you. I’ll follow when I can.”
She climbed down the ladder. A dozen adults formed around her and hurried away up through the higher embankments, toward the stone circle.
“Shall we shoot at them?” cried one of the archers near Alain.
“Nay, they’re no threat to us yet. Let them waste their arrows.”
Beor’s archers had begun to return arrow fire, and the archers of the Cursed Ones retreated to their main force, content evidently with the mischief their arrows caused in the village: five houses burned merrily now. Smoke boiled up into the sky, and ash fell everywhere. Yet the Cursed Ones waited as an unseen drum counted the passing with a steady rhythm that seemed to reverberate up from the earth. Leaning against the palisade logs, Alain felt that throbbing rhythm, oddly soothing, drawing his mind away, causing memories to flower as his attention drifted.
Up among the ruins near Lavas Holding, he sees the shadows of what had been, not the shadows of the ruins lying there now. The lantern’s pale light and the gleam of stone illuminate the shadows of the buildings as if they stand whole and unfallen. This filigree of arches and columns and proud walls stretching out as impossible shadows along the ground is the shade of the old fort, come alive as memories twist forward.…
Liath stands in front of a heap of wood. Everything is damp. Even the air sweats moisture; in a moment it will start to rain. All at once, fire shoots up out of branches, licking and crackling. Falling to one knee, Liath stares at the fire as a gout of flame boils up toward the sky. Are those shadows dancing within the flame? She stares, intent, as distant then as Adica has become now, and draws from her tunic a brilliant gold feather.
Ai, God! He knows that feather, or knew one like it: a phoenix feather like the one he plucked from the cavern floor. In her hands, it glints fire. The veil concealing the shadows in the fire draws aside, burned away by its pure light, and he can see:
An old man, twisting flax into rope against his thigh.
Why does he look so familiar?
Rage barked, startling him. He rubbed his eyes as the folk around him murmured uneasily. Below, grass and stubbled fields bled a gauzy mist into the air. The enemy faded beneath the sun as if they had only been illusion all along, first darkening to shadow and then lost in a shrouding fog that seemed to drift up out of the earth itself. Mist boiled forward over the ground, spreading out in a broad front that would engulf both village and tumulus. Not a single rider could be seen beneath that veil of fog. The Cursed Ones had hidden themselves with magic.
The wind shifted sharply, blowing in from the east, and as it gained strength, the magical shroud shuddered and gave ground, catching out a handful of riders, the vanguard, who scrambled to return to the cover of the fog. A thud rang out from the village.
“The catapult!” cried Alain
A large pot came sailing over the wall and vanished into the mist. Beor had unleashed the first surprise. Shrieks and panicked whinnying floated out of the drowning fog as bees, now free and agitated, took their vengeance upon the Cursed Ones. The mist rolled back to unveil one force advanced almost to the village gale and the other closing in on the tumulus. The enemy soldiers, their magic exposed and disrupted by the bees, fell back to regroup as the White Deer people showered the foremost riders with arrows. A third force of Cursed Ones could be seen circling around toward the east side of the crown.
“Sos’ka!” he called. She had sent eight of her comrades away along the tumulus already. “Follow that group to see where they’re going!” She cantered away.
The vanguard nearest him, retreating, reversed itself suddenly and charged for the ramparts. Arrows rained down and, after them, a hail of stones from slings. Children screamed. The man standing next to Alain jerked backward, spun, and fell to hit the ground below with a smack. Blood pooled under his body. The Cursed Ones leaped off their horses and hit the embankment running, scrambling up toward the parapet.
“Don’t waste your spears!” Alain cried, but even so some threw away their spears by trying to strike at the enemy below them, in vain.
Yet what point did it serve the Cursed Ones to come up against the palisade, which they could not climb without ladders? The soldiers held their shields high, protecting one among their number, a woman dressed more lightly than the others, as she raced forward to throw herself against the wood. Where she touched the posts, wood flowered to life as fire.
“Water! Water!” The cry came down the line. Buckets of water were handed up to those on the walkway, who spilled them over even as the Cursed Ones continued to shoot arrows at the defenders. The villagers dropped rocks on top of the shields, battering them down, and a ragged cheer rose out of the ranks when the sorcerer was struck directly on the head with a big rock and went tumbling back down the slope.
“They’re bringing ladders and planks!” Ulfrega’s powerful voice rang out from the cleft, where she had taken charge of the defense. “Spears, stand your ground. Archers, hold until they’re closer!”
The sorcerous mist rose as a cloud near the village. A second thump sounded; the second pot of bees arched up from the catapult and fell precipitously, but this time the Cursed Ones were ready for them as they charged out of the mist to escape the bees behind them. Fire bloomed in two more of the village houses. Cries and shouting and screams echoed everywhere. Tendrils of smoke obscured the fields. Thunder cracked, and clouds pushed in from the west, ominously dark.
“Alain!”
Sos’ka galloped up, sweat running all al
ong her flanks, her expression grim. “There was another force waiting in ambush apart from the one you saw. They’ve almost broken through on the eastern slope, by the sacred threshold to the queens’ grave. Come quickly!”
He scrambled down the ladder, leaping off the fourth rung to the ground, almost landing on the corpse. He grabbed a pair of girls, not much younger than Adica, who were cowering under the walkway. “You! Go to Ulfrega. Tell her she must hold the entrance now. You! Run up to the Hallowed One. She must find a way to counter their magic, if she can.”
He jumped up, got his belly over Sos’ka’s flank, and swung a leg over.
“Stay down,” said the centaur.
He clutched her mane, head ducked low as she trotted along at a jarring rate, negotiating barrels of water and cider, stores of grain, shelters, and four wounded men who had crawled away from the palisade. At last she broke free of chaos and opened up to a gallop. The sounds of battle roared around them, shouts echoing behind and before. She knew her way well through the maze of the ramparts, blind alleys, and earthen mounds that made up the hill’s defenses. Fighters manned the palisade walkway, thrusting with spears or heaving rocks over the side. Now and again they passed a zone of unexpected calm, where nervous guards waited, craning their necks to get a look down the palisade to knots of fighting.
He had heard these sounds before. Memory dizzied him.
The Lions hold the hill as Bayan’s army retreats across the river. The first cohort stands the rear guard, and Alain keeps step with his comrades as they retreat up the hill with their fellows. The ramparts lie in a maze around them, ancient embankments curling around the hill’s slopes.
He remembered these embankments, but when he had seen them last they had been so old that they had fallen in ruin and were half washed away under the brunt of time and wind and rain. He had fought in this place before. Yet the earthworks around him now were newly raised; any fool could see that.
He had fought here before in the time yet to come. This is where the Lady of Battles had killed him.
The curve of the ramparts brought them into sight of a ferocious fight. Cursed Ones had gotten over the palisade, and now Sos’ka’s centaurs and a score of White Deer warriors grappled hand to hand, pounding with clubs, thrusting with knives. A roan centaur parried a spear thrust with her staff, flipped her opponent to the ground, and stove in his head with a well placed kick. Fire licked up the palisade. A shout rose from the enemy, unseen on the other side as they pushed forward.
A woman with her animal mask torn free slid over the posts, dropping to the walkway. She braced herself, met the charge of a man with the cut of her bronze sword, then dropped to one knee as she lifted her other arm high and spun a sling briskly around her head. Let fly.
“Down!” cried Sos’ka.
He ducked. A kiss of air brushed an ear as the stone shot past his hair. The second bounced off his skrolin armband with a snap. But the third slammed into his temple without warning.
Pain stabbed through his head as he tumbled off Sos’ka’s back. The ground hit harder even than the stone.
“But 1 swore to serve you,” he whispers, astonished, because he really never thought that this of all things would happen to him. He never thought that he would be the one to die on the battlefield.
“So you have served me.” The voice of the Lady of Battles, as low and deep as a church bell, rings in his head. “Many serve me by dealing death. The rest serve me by suffering death. This is the heart of war.”
“Adica!” He bolted up, straggling to sit, gaze blurring as the sun glared in his face. Familiar hands pressed him back.
“Hush, my love. Lie down.” Her tears fell on his face. “I feared for you.” She kissed him. For a moment, he saw two of her, his dear Adica sitting next to the Hallowed One in her antlered garb, haughty and aloof as she knelt before him.
Why wasn’t the sun rising beyond the stones? He saw it, swollen and hazy, riding low over the indistinct palisade in a blaze of vivid red-gold. Smoke drifted in streamers among the distant trees.
Nauseated, he lay back, and after a moment, beyond the agonized throbbing in his head, he heard the clash of battle. “What happened?”
“You were hit in the head by a stone.”
It was a struggle to recall what had happened. “They’ve broken through on the east slope, by the sacred threshold!” He got up to his feet before she could stop him and staggered, catching himself on one of the hounds before he could fall. It was hard to tell which one; he couldn’t quite focus.
“Adica?” He turned, and saw her.
She had bound on her gold antlers and bronze waistband, the regalia of a Holy One, a woman of power. He could still hear the battle, but the sun now set in the west.
“How long?” he demanded hoarsely. Where once had lain the birch shelter where they had slept, and made love, now lay smoldering coals and white ashes lifting on the dusk breeze.
“All day,” she said. “We’ve held them off all day.”
At what cost?
He saw, then, that what he had first thought was the setting sun was in truth the village in flames, all of it burning or fallen in. The palisade had been breached in a dozen spots; in some places fire had eaten it away. Bodies filled the ditches, pinned on stakes or simply broken. He could not see what had happened to the villagers, but what remained of the Cursed Ones still fought desperately along the tumulus, trying to break through. Yet as desperately as they fought, the White Deer people fought more desperately still. He caught a glimpse of Sos’ka down by the cleft. Streaked with blood, she vanished in a hail of spears. The other hound ghosted in just as he sagged forward, and he caught himself on that strong shoulder.
“Are they all dead? Did I lie here all day, while they died?”
Behind him, she spoke. “Beor and the other fighters broke out of the village in the afternoon to try to reach this place. When the attack came, Weiwara led the children and old people into the forest. I made a prayer for them. I burned pine leaves, to grant them invisibility. I hope some made it. It will be safer for them there.”
“Kel? Tosti? Urtan? Beor?”
“I don’t know what became of them.” Her tone sounded so distant, too calm, as though Adica had gone and the Hallowed One, a detached, unapproachable woman he didn’t really know, had kidnapped her form and now walked the Earth in his beloved Adica’s body.
The sun’s lower rim touched the horizon.
“Alain.” Her voice, so sweet to his ears.
He turned. She had come forward. They stood alone on the height, with the stones behind her and the fighting raging all around. Every last soul had gone down to try to stem the Cursed Ones, just for this one final hour. That was all she needed now.
Weeping, he caught her by the arm. “Must you do this, Adica? Ai, God. How can I bear it?”
“Think how many will die if we do not succeed. Think how many have already died, protecting me!” Anger flared at last. “My heart grieves to leave you, Alain. You know how much I do love you. But don’t stand in my way. Don’t break the love we share by bowing to selfishness. My life does not belong to me but to my people. And it does not belong to you either.”
“You lied to me! You knew all along!”
Blinking back tears, she kissed him. “I couldn’t bear to see you unhappy.”
She kissed him again. Hugged him for a long time, arms wrapped tightly around him. And left him, walking proud and tall, her antlers towering above her as though they would touch the heavens. She walked to the calling ground. She set her feet in that chalk circle, with her head raised proudly as the light waned and twilight crept up the eastern sky, although the last purple-rose ot sun’s glow lingered in the west. The bowl of night began to fill up with darkness. The last glint of the setting sun caught and tangled in her shining antlers, making her seem no longer human.
She had lied to him all along. But had her lie been any different than the one he had spoken to the dying Lavastine? She had only w
anted to spare him pain and fear.
He broke forward to come up behind her. “So be it. Then I’ll die with you.” Behind him, Sorrow and Rage whined.
Her back stiffened, tensing as she heard his words. She did not answer, but neither did she tell him to leave. The first star winked alive in the dusk sky, brilliant Somorhas setting in the west, almost drowned in the last glimmer of the sun. With a shuddering breath, she raised her mirror to catch its light. Stars bloomed quickly now, as if in haste, and with her staff she wove them, one by one, into the loom. Through the soles of his feet he heard the keening of the ancient queens and the cries of anguish from the battlefield. Threads of starlight caught in the stones and tangled into a complex pattern made strong by the bright light of Mok shining on the cusp between Healer and Penitent.
She had other names for the stars.
“Heed me, that which opens in the east.
Heed me, that which closes in the west.”
Did he hear other voices, an echo of her own, singing along the gleaming spell, tangled in the threads of light woven through the stone loom?
“Let the shaman’s beacon rise as our weaving rises.
Answer our call, Fat One.”
As she wove, she wept. He saw it, then, the cluster of seven stars he knew as the Crown of Stars but which she called the Shaman’s Headdress. As it rose in the east, she caught its light in her mirror. That light tangled around him, and he grew so dizzy that he would have fallen over if the hounds had not shouldered under him to hold him up. Above, stars wheeled slowly, ascending out of the east, climbing, climbing, until he realized that the spell had woven around him as well, that they were caught inside it as time passed, as the night wheeled forward from dusk to midnight. The Shaman’s Headdress crept up the sky. The battle raged on, torches blazing along the walls, the cries of the wounded muffled by the throbbing ache in his temple where a bruise swelled. A child screamed, sobbing frantically.