Winter Be My Shield

by Spurrier, Jo

  ‘No, stay awake,’ she said, jogging his shoulder when his eyes began to drift closed again. ‘I have something to show you. Here, look at this.’ She pressed something cold and hard into his good hand. More enchantments, bound into plaques of jade. It was hard to focus, but for one brief moment he thought he sensed the power bound within them. He sensed stillness and calm.

  ‘Alameda made those for you,’ Delphine said. ‘Can you guess what it does? Here, I’ll show you …’ She reached for his splinted arm. Isidro would have pulled away but his reactions were sluggish and by the time he’d gathered himself she had one small hand wrapped around his ruined wrist. He lifted his head off the prickling spruce just enough to see her wrapping leather thongs over the bandages and splints. ‘All that bumping and jolting on a sled must be unpleasant. Well, these will help. They’ll dampen the movement so the bones won’t grate every time you hit a bump. Now if you come and work for me I’ll let you keep it and I’ll give you more poppy when you need it. So what do you say?’

  ‘By all the Gods, Delphi, don’t ask him, tell him. He’s a slave, dammit. He’ll do as he’s told.’

  ‘Torren, shut up. I’m not interested in having to beat the work out of him. Do you understand that, boy? You’ll either do as I say willingly or you can go on like this. What’s it to be?’

  If he went on like this he’d be dead within days. At that moment Isidro wanted it more than he’d wanted anything in his life. He craved that release, craved an end to the pain, the fear and the uncertainty. But if he took that path, then what? Perhaps Cam would be better off without a crippled, tainted brother to worry about and care for, but if he believed that he’d failed Isidro, the prince would spend the rest of his life suffering because of it. And Sierra? Despite what she had said — or perhaps because of it — he wasn’t at all certain she would let him die unavenged. And once he was gone, then she would have one less ally to turn to when Rasten came whispering in her ear. Isidro could bear the cost of it to himself, but what of the price to them? Just suppose there was a world beyond this one, as the priests said. Could he bear to watch their suffering, all because he had been too weak to go on? There was no way of knowing what would arise in the weeks and months to come, or what he could do to turn those events in their favour. It was a small hope to be sure, but it was still hope. No matter how much he wanted to escape, he knew that choosing death was the same as abandoning them.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said, burying the shame he felt at the surrender. He was betraying his people to save his kin. ‘I’ll do what you ask.’

  Chapter 25

  Sierra scowled at the cracked and burnt-out stove sitting on the flagstones at the centre of the chamber.

  After the argument at the smuggler’s camp Ardamon and Mira had decided to retreat to the village of Terundel, where War-Leader Dremman and his men were due to meet up with the second muster of warriors on their march to face the Akharian invaders. The village usually housed only a few hundred souls but had swelled to more than a thousand while they waited for Dremman. When Sierra had asked Mira to find her a place to practise, she had expected to be sent some distance from the village. Instead Mira had arranged for her to have the use of an empty barn, even though it meant shuffling the beasts that had been stabled there among the other households. Since Mira had also stationed a couple of men to see she was not disturbed, it meant she could work in relative privacy.

  Given that everything she had tried so far had resulted in complete and utter failure, Sierra was grateful she had been spared an audience.

  The ancient stove clinked at her as it cooled.

  Sierra jammed her fists against her hips. ‘Alright,’ she muttered. ‘Let’s try this again.’

  She gathered her power and wrapped it around the hulk of metal, attempting to lift the massive weight of iron off the flagstones. As her power touched it, the stove erupted with Black Sun’s Fire, giving off a shimmering veil of light. Miniature bolts of lightning writhed over its surface and quested to the ground around it. The stove had barely had a chance to cool from her last attempt and within seconds it was glowing a bright, cherry red. A few wisps of straw lying on the ground nearby smoked briefly then burst into flames. With a silent snarl Sierra pulled her power back and stamped the flames out with the thick felt sole of her boot. ‘Son of a bitch!’ she shouted at the stove. ‘Why won’t you move?’

  There was no response but the clink of cooling metal.

  Sierra raked her hair back from her face and fought the urge to kick Kell’s book across the room. She was too tired for this. They had ridden all day to reach Terundel, yet she couldn’t bring herself to admit such a simple task had defeated her. If she did, it could only mean that Rasten was right — she did need him to teach her how to master her power.

  Just the thought of being back in that place made her sick with panic and terror. It forced her into action and she began to pace, circling the warm and smoky chamber while fine strands of lightning coursed over her skin and through her hair. She had spent whole nights pacing like this, confined in her cell in Kell’s dungeons.

  What if he was right? That was the question that had plagued her for days now. All her instincts told her to run as far and fast as she could from Kell and hope that he would never find her, but she knew that was no solution. The only way to end it was to kill him. But how could she achieve that, when she couldn’t even master a mage’s most basic skill? How could she hope to take Isidro back from the Slavers when even the weakest of their mages knew more of the craft than she?

  ‘Right,’ Sierra growled at the lump of dull iron. ‘One more time.’

  Ardamon sat with his head in his hands, a half-empty bottle beside him and a sticky bowl at his elbow. ‘Cammarian, I don’t think you understand the full impact of the situation. We are doomed. Our clan would have been able to negotiate a way back from this rebellion before all this, but now the only recompense the king will accept is one which includes our heads!’

  ‘I understand that,’ Cam said. ‘I’m just saying that sitting around and moaning about it isn’t going to achieve anything.’

  Ardamon lifted his head enough to glower at him. ‘If you can see a way out of this, Prince Cammarian, then please enlighten us,’ he growled.

  ‘Ardamon, please,’ Mira said, covering her eyes with a hand. ‘Cam’s right, this is getting us nowhere.’

  ‘That’s because there’s nowhere to go. There is no way out of this situation. We had our chance and we failed miserably. The Black Sun would have done the world a favour if She had taken the wretched girl at birth.’

  Mira shook her head. ‘That’s a bit harsh.’

  ‘Harsh?’ Ardamon said as he poured himself another measure of brandy. ‘It’s the truth! She’s a coward! She’s nothing but a liability to us and I see no reason to saddle ourselves with her any further.’

  ‘Oh, by the Black Sun, will you listen to yourself? If she says that going on would have been suicide, what reason do we have to doubt her?’

  Ardamon glared at her. ‘Well, you have changed your tune, cousin. You were the one who set men on her trail, remember?’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ Mira said with a toss of her braids. ‘It was a hasty decision and one I now regret. But try for a moment to see all of this from her point of view. No doubt the poor girl is absolutely terrified of being sent back to Kell.’

  ‘Well, that’s not going to happen,’ Ardamon muttered. ‘She might be as useless as tits on a bull but she’s still too cursed dangerous to be handed back to him. Here, that physician of yours, Rhia, she seems to have a well-stocked store of medicines. Surely she’s got something that would knock her out for a few hours and five minutes with a pillow over her face would see her out of our hair for good. History tells us that mages are always more trouble than they’re worth.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, you sot,’ Mira said, coldly. ‘What kind of fool makes the same mistake twice?’

  ‘There is the small matter of the Akhari
an Raiders,’ Cam said. ‘Rumour has it they have mages of their own and from what I know of them it’s entirely possible. She’s our one weapon against them.’

  ‘And what makes you think she’ll be any more use against them than she was against Rasten?’ Ardamon asked bitterly.

  ‘At the moment perhaps not,’ Mira said. ‘But in the future? Do you expect a boy to learn all he needs to know about being a warrior by playing with sticks? She needs time.’

  ‘Well then, it’s a pity we have none to spare and no one to teach her. And why is that again? Oh, yes, because our ancestors and the Gods themselves decided mages do more harm than good!’

  With a sigh, Mira reached across the table to grasp the bottle, and took a swig from it herself. ‘The head of the village militia wants to take all the men here and march after them.’

  ‘And what does the fool think he’s going to achieve with a few hundred trappers and herders against professional soldiers? Fires Below, we don’t have so much as a vague idea of their numbers.’

  ‘I’ve told them to wait for the war-leader to arrive,’ Mira said. ‘Uncle was due days ago, so they should be here at any moment.’

  ‘In the meantime there are some preparations we should make,’ Cam said. ‘I suppose the captain of the militia has posted sentries?’

  Mira frowned. ‘He said something about nightly patrols —’

  ‘Not good enough,’ Cam said. ‘If the Akharians raided Drysprings, then they’re closer than we thought. We need sentries posted all around the village, far enough out that we’ll get some warning before they’re on our doorstep. The village folk should sleep with their weapons near at hand and they ought to have gear packed so they can grab it and go if we need to evacuate —’

  ‘Now see here!’ Ardamon said. ‘I’m in command, not you!’

  ‘You should blasted well have thought of that before you got yourself drunk!’ Mira said. She turned to Cam. ‘I’ll send for the head of the militia so you can tell him what needs to be done. You have far more experience in these matters than I do.’

  Room had been found for them in the blacksmith’s house, the finest one in the village. The head of the militia was one of the blacksmith’s brothers, a burly man with frost-scarred cheeks. He considered himself a loyal subject of the Wolf Clan and didn’t take kindly to being given orders by an outsider, especially one with as much Mesentreian blood as Cam. But with Mira standing at his shoulder and nodding her approval of the orders he could not object and grudgingly showed them around the village while Cam organised a roster of sentries.

  By the time they returned Ardamon was asleep and snoring in his furs. Mira nudged him with her boot until he rolled over with a snort. ‘He’s not usually like this,’ she whispered to Cam. ‘All that’s happening is weighing on his mind.’

  ‘On all our minds, I think,’ Cam replied.

  ‘Where’s Sierra?’

  Her furs were laid out but empty. ‘She must still be studying,’ Cam snapped. ‘If she’d put this much effort in before we reached the pass …’

  ‘Don’t tell me you blame her for this, as well.’ She went to lay a hand on his arm but Cam turned away.

  ‘She wouldn’t even try. It was our only chance to get rid of Rasten and she was too afraid of him to make the attempt.’

  ‘She did say right at the start that she didn’t think we would succeed,’ Mira said. ‘And she knows better than any of us what he’s capable of. How can you blame her for acknowledging her limitations? Would you rather have her lead us all to our deaths?’

  Cam turned to her. ‘What’s made you change your mind so drastically?’

  ‘It’s what she said when we found the body,’ Mira said. ‘Rasten wouldn’t hesitate to torture one of his own men but she flatly refused to use ours — not that we’d have let her. That and … some other things. I have misjudged her badly. I just hope she’ll forgive me for it.’

  Cam grunted and turned way.

  ‘Do you think I’m wrong?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s just …’ He sighed, and sat on a bench to bury his face in his hands. ‘I wanted to be able to tell Isidro that Rasten is dead. After all he gave up for me I wanted to do that one thing for him. It was our only chance, Mira, and it’s gone. And now Isidro is too …’

  Mira sat beside him and took his hand. ‘We will free him, Cam. I promise —’

  ‘Don’t,’ he growled. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep. He’s only a liability to your clan. They won’t fight for him.’

  ‘They will,’ Mira said. ‘I’ll make them. I’ll find a way to convince them … I swear by everything I hold dear, I’ll find a way.’

  It was late when Sierra came back to the chamber with the tome under one arm and a tiny bead of light cupped in her hand to guide her way. She’d fallen asleep rather than admit defeat and had awoken cold and stiff with her head pillowed on her arms beside the book.

  When she closed the door behind her one of the lumps beneath the blankets stirred. Sierra quickly shielded her light in her fist but not before she saw the red braids shake free of the fur.

  ‘Sierra?’ Mira whispered from across the room. ‘Is that you?’

  Fires Below, Sierra cursed inwardly. ‘Yes. Did I wake you? Sorry.’

  ‘Oh, never mind that. I wanted to talk to you.’

  Sierra set the book down on her bed and led Mira back into the other room where they wouldn’t disturb the men or Mira’s servants, who were also curled in their furs. There she created a larger globe of light and fixed it to a nail in the wall so it wouldn’t bob and float away.

  Mira stared at it, wide eyed.

  Sierra cleared her throat. ‘So, what do we do now?’

  Mira jumped. ‘Oh … we’ll wait here until Dremman and his men arrive. We don’t have enough men to face the Akharians.’

  ‘And what about Rasten?’

  Mira shrugged and looked away. ‘There’s nothing we can do at this point. I wanted to ask you what you intend to do now. I realise that I … we … treated you unfairly. I’ll extend the truce we agreed indefinitely, but if you wish to leave I’ll find a horse and gear for you —’

  ‘Will your cousin consent to any of that?’

  ‘Ardamon? He’s just frightened and too proud to admit it. We need a plan. Things will be better when we know what path we’re on but I need to know if you’re with us or not.’

  ‘I’d rather stay,’ Sierra said. ‘I want to see Isidro safe again. I don’t know what help I’ll be —’ She broke off with a whoosh of breath as a sudden spear of pain lanced through her gut.

  Mira grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling to the floor. ‘What’s wrong? Are you alright?’

  Clamping her arms across her belly, Sierra looked down, half expecting to see blood on her hands. She felt for all the world as if she’d been sliced open.

  She realised it was an echo of sensation just as something else struck her neck, slicing from ear to collarbone. A moment later, she felt an arrow between her ribs. Her legs buckled and the globe of light fixed to the wall pulsated and flickered with colour until it burned a bright and unnatural blue, giving off miniature bolts of lightning as long as her hand.

  Her rising power swept away the echoed sensation, just as Mira reached the door and yanked it open to scream for Cam and Ardamon.

  By the time they came running Sierra was back on her feet with power shimmering and singing in her head. ‘You posted sentries?’ she said to Cam when he appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Yes, we —’

  ‘They’re dying,’ Sierra said.

  Chapter 26

  The village headman and the senior militia men assembled in the main hall of the blacksmith’s house to hear Cam’s orders. Ardamon, still affected by all he’d had to drink that evening, had turned command over to him. Neither Ardamon’s second nor the headman were happy about it, but there was no time to argue.

  While the men gathered round, the women of the household were waking
the children and bundling them up against the cold as they prepared to take shelter.

  ‘The Akharians have done this many times by now,’ Cam said as he buckled himself into his coat-of-scale. ‘They’ll have a standard set of tactics and they’ll follow that unless we give them a reason to do otherwise.’

  ‘How do we know it’s the Slavers and not just some band of outlaws?’ one of the men called out.

  ‘Charzic doesn’t have enough men to risk attacking a village this size,’ Cam replied.

  ‘And how can we be certain they’re all coming from the same direction?’ the blacksmith asked. ‘We could be sending the women and children into more danger.’

  Cam glanced at Sierra and hesitated.

  ‘Only the sentries to the east are dying,’ she said. ‘The ones to the west are fine.’

  ‘The best we can hope for now is that they haven’t yet faced a village that wasn’t taken by surprise, so they won’t know what to expect when we fight back,’ Cam said. ‘Tell your men to leave their whites behind. We will be fighting between the buildings and dark colours will serve us better for camouflage. Our archers and sling-men should be up on the roofs and the walkways by now and they’ll be aiming for men in white.’

  He called them sling-men but Sierra knew that they would most likely be women and adolescents. Aside from a handful of warriors assigned to guard the children and the women who couldn’t fight, everyone else who had any skill with a weapon would be on the ground between the houses, waiting in ambush.

  ‘Go pass these orders on,’ Cam said. ‘Bar the doors when you leave your homes. We don’t want the Slavers taking shelter inside. Gather your people against the end walls of the houses along the village square. We want to stop them there so the arrows and the sling-shots can pick them off. Go quickly. We will have only a few minutes to get in place.’