Winter Be My Shield

by Spurrier, Jo

  As the men trooped out Ardamon turned to Mira. ‘You head across and take shelter with the others,’ he ordered as he settled his helmet in place.

  ‘Fires Below, Ardamon, I can fight better than most of the women who will be standing out there with you!’

  ‘They are not heirs to the clan! You’ve been trained to defend yourself, Mira, but there’s a difference between that and being a warrior,’ Ardamon said.

  ‘But you’re still drunk!’

  ‘I’m sobering up with every moment,’ Ardamon said. ‘Now, Sierra —’

  ‘She’ll stay with us,’ Cam said. ‘She can tell us how the battle is going.’

  ‘I can tell you where people are dying,’ Sierra said. ‘I can’t tell you if they are ours or not.’

  ‘Knowing where the fighting is thickest is still useful,’ Cam said. ‘Put your coat on.’

  ‘It’s easier to hold my power in if I’m cold,’ Sierra said.

  ‘But you’ll stand out,’ Cam said. ‘If the Akharians have mages of their own, I don’t want them singling you out. Wear the coat and carry a spear. You don’t have to use it, but you’ll blend in.’

  Sierra didn’t argue. The power pulsing through her was warring with her nerves and humming inside her head, demanding all of her attention. It called to her with a siren song, promising to wash all her cares and fears away in a golden tide. She longed to let it go to quell the anxiety and fear already gripping her, but she was afraid of what else that would bring. Kell had always made sure she was kept well away from any fighting. To date, the largest battle she had been involved in was the one that had killed Garzen and then fewer than a dozen men had died to fuel her power.

  Here there were nearly a thousand souls in the village, including all the men who had come to join the Wolf Clan’s army, and the Black Sun only knew how many among the attackers. The power pulsing beneath her skin was controllable now but there was no way of knowing what might happen if she was pushed over the edge.

  Cam wrapped his coat over the armour and buckled his sword belt on over that. ‘Alright then,’ he said, pulling his gloves on and working his fingers to settle them in place. ‘Let’s go.’

  They trooped out into the central aisle that separated the dwelling half of the house from the barn on the other side. The non-combatant women and children were just leaving. The older children were silent and frightened but the younger, too little to understand what was going on, squalled and fussed in their bundled furs. With a dark look for her cousin, Mira joined them with her two serving-women and Rhia, who was hefting the pack with her medicines onto her shoulders.

  ‘If the battle goes badly lead them out into the forest to the west,’ Cam told Mira. ‘They will chase you, but if you scatter some of you will escape.’

  Turning pale, Mira nodded and left with the others.

  Outside, Sierra could see a stream of people heading to the western side of the village. The only evidence they had that the attack would come from the east was that that was where she had felt the sentries die. If she were wrong then the women and children would be caught in the thick of the fighting

  She felt nothing from them now. The last of the sentries had died. With no way of knowing how many men there were or how far away, she felt as though she had been blinded. Her power was throbbing against her skin, spurred on by her unease, and Sierra dreaded what would happen next. If it was fighting her control now, what would happen when the battle began, with people injured and dying all around her?

  Cam glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. ‘Sirri?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  He must have read her unease because he beckoned her closer and pointed at the roof of the house opposite. She could just make out a dark shape huddled within the shadows of the chimney. ‘The archers have been told to hold off until the Slavers get to this point,’ he said, indicating a line from the end of one building to its neighbour. ‘They won’t be able to fall back without abandoning the attack. There’s no shelter for them in there. If they stay close to the wall on one side they’ll be in full view of the archers on the next roof. All they can do is try to rush through without being hit. If we can stop them there the archers will be able to rip through them as long as their arrows hold out.’

  Sierra nodded. Inter-clan warfare was rare these days but prior to the alliance with Mesentreia it had been common and villages were still laid out with an eye for defence.

  This one was built around a cat’s-eye lobe of open ground that served as a gathering space and village market in fair weather. The houses were all built along the edges of this open ground with their short sides facing on to it and their long sides parallel. If circumstances allowed, barricades could be built around the outside, but even in a surprise attack the aisles between the houses could be made deadly for any attackers. Of course an assault could come from the narrower end of the village to the north or south, but in that case the villagers could flee from the far end. The attacker would still have to face the danger of archers as the open ground was never more than a bow-shot wide. In order to take the village swiftly the attackers had to attack from the broadest side.

  A shuffle and scrape from the roof above startled Sierra so badly she jumped, a quick, jittery ripple of blue sparking and swarming over her skin before she wrenched it back again. The men gathered around her quickly pulled away but Cam stayed where he was and craned his head back to look up at the roof of the building above. A hooded figure was leaning over the edge and waving some signal Sierra couldn’t quite make out.

  Cam waved back in acknowledgement and the figure withdrew. ‘That’s it,’ Cam murmured. ‘They’re coming.’

  A murmur sprang up around him until Ardamon growled in an undertone, ‘Hold your tongues, you mangy dogs! Do you want them to know we’re here?’ Silence ensued and Sierra heard the soft crunch of snow under approaching feet. She clenched her fists and scrunched her eyes closed, waiting for the first arrow to thunk its way into a target. She had waited like this countless times when Kell had a new victim chained to his slab. She felt as if she had spent half her life waiting for the first spark and blossom of pain.

  The first shot was a good one. She felt it punch into the centre of her back dead between her shoulderblades and felt the man who had been struck drop to his knees with a strangled cry.

  That gargled moan of pain was a signal to the defenders. Shouting defiance, they charged out from their places of concealment and fell upon the attackers, just as the archers and the sling-throwers above let loose their deadly hail.

  The initial wave of pain drove Sierra to her knees and for a moment she thought she would pass out. Blackness swelled and overtook her vision and she seemed to be viewing the world through a tunnel while the blood roared and pounded in her ears. She took one deep, shuddering breath and by the time her lungs were full the blackness and the pain had receded, replaced by a shimmering, golden flood of power.

  It seemed as though she floated to her feet. With the power singing inside her head she glided out to the middle of the aisle where Cam and the villagers were standing shoulder to shoulder, shields locked together as they braced against the onslaught of men fighting for their lives as arrows and stones rained down around them. The same scene was being staged all along the eastern side of the village. Men were falling all around her, but it seemed utterly unimportant.

  Then in the aisle ahead of her a pale green veil of light boiled out of the air to form a shield that stretched from rooftop to rooftop across the aisle, protecting the soldiers below. A strand of light reached out of it to grope along the ice-covered shingles. Sierra heard the sound of scrambling feet and then a scream as one of the sling-throwers was plucked off the roof and hoisted over the aisle in a strand of light.

  Suddenly the scene around her snapped back into perspective. These were her men and women, her archers and sling-throwers. ‘The Black Sun take you,’ Sierra snarled and pushed her way through the line of defenders.

  She felt so
meone grab for her shoulder but she cast a shield around herself and the hand slipped away as the shield-wall closed behind her. An Akharian soldier was staring at her, his eyes the only part of him visible between the white cowl over his mouth and nose and the knitted cap pulled down to his eyebrows. She saw his eyes widen and then he tried to stab her.

  With a flick of her hand she snapped the blade of his sword and then she snapped his neck.

  The mage was standing in the very centre of the aisle staring up at the youth he held in a coil of power. He had another shield around him but other than that he paid no attention to anything on the ground, as though he were utterly certain that nothing in this village could threaten him.

  That was a mistake.

  With a spike of power Sierra shattered his shield and turned her power loose. It swept over him in a furious crackling wave that stabbed through flesh and bone. The shield overhead vanished, evaporating as quickly as it had come and the youth he had held suspended fell and hit the ground with a sickening crack. There was no burst of power from him, though. The boy was already dead. He was no more than fourteen.

  There was no hope of reining in her power now. It fed off her fury and her sudden thirst for revenge and slowly tore the mage apart, savouring every drop of the golden flood of power it sent roaring through her.

  It was only when the flow stopped that she noticed the men around her. They couldn’t penetrate her shield and all she saw was a circle of flailing weapons, glowing blue with Black Sun’s fire and trailing minute bolts of lightning. Over their shouts and bellows she thought she heard someone yelling her name.

  Cam.

  She felt a flash of irritation. He should know that she could take care herself. But he had sworn to look after her, so she would go and show him she was unharmed.

  Slavers blocked her way. Sierra prepared to shove her way through them, but she underestimated her own strength. She meant to clear a path but instead she hurled them away from her and slammed them against the stout log walls to either side. She felt the crunch of breaking bones and the slicing wounds as men were hurled against the weapons of their comrades. The cries and screams of dying men echoed in her head and another swell of power made her feel as though she could take flight.

  The shield wall ahead of her broke open and Cam shoved his way through, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her back to the safe side of the wall. A swarm of light covered them both and the other men shied away from her, but Ardamon bellowed and shouted at them to form up again.

  Cam wrenched his hood back. Beneath it his face was pale. ‘By all the Gods, Sirri —’

  She shrugged his hand away. ‘I should help the others.’ The fighting had slackened off in this aisle. The attackers had seen her destroy the mage and they must have diverted the men elsewhere while they tried to plan a counter-attack. The men on the other aisles were facing a fiercer battle than here. Over the rooftops she could see the glow of another shield.

  Cam saw it too. ‘Ardamon has control of the men here. I’ll come along in case these folk panic at the sight of you …’ They had gone only a few steps when the glow vanished.

  Cam stopped in his tracks. ‘What happened? Did they kill him?’

  Sierra shook her head. ‘No. Only another mage could … oh, Fires Below …’ Only another mage could kill a mage. The Akharians had seen one of their mages die, therefore they knew there was a mage here in the village.

  She hurried back to the aisle where she had killed the man. Perhaps she could do more good by killing foot soldiers. She could kill hundreds of their men while they chased her through the aisles, but without her there to defend the shield-walls against them they would rip through her men just as quickly.

  ‘Sirri, wait!’ Cam grabbed for her arm and pulled her back. ‘Can you do this? If you couldn’t face Rasten …’

  ‘Even Rasten wouldn’t face me in the middle of a battle,’ Sierra shouted back. ‘You worry about the soldiers. Leave the mages to me.’ She felt something stir at the end of the aisle, a prickle of energy that skittered along the edge of her senses. She gathered up her power, now too great to hold in. It covered her in a writhing, flashing veil of lights. When she stepped up to the shield wall again this time they parted to let her through.

  A trio of men stood at the far end, heads together and conversing. As she stepped out of the ranks their heads snapped up and as one they cast shields around themselves. She could tell at once that it was a more complex structure than the one that had failed to protect the mage she had killed. There was a lot of power held between them and they felt … different.

  The only other mages she had had any contact with were Kell and Rasten and their power was tainted by the method they used to raise it. Their energy always felt greasy and unclean but this was as hot and fierce as flame and it felt somehow cleaner. It didn’t set her nerves on edge or make her skin crawl the way Kell and his rituals did.

  There was a sudden hum in her head and Sierra felt Rasten’s awareness settle around her. For a moment her vision was doubled with a view of a dark chamber hung all around with tapestries and hangings, but then he closed his eyes to spare her the distraction. What are you up to, Little Crow?

  Akharian mages, she told him. What do you know about them?

  Battle-Mages or civilians? he said.

  This is a battle, so I’m guessing the former. I’ve killed one but there are three more I can see here. Is there anything I should know?

  She felt rather than heard him chuckle. Only that no mage in his right mind would chose to face a Sympath on a battlefield. They don’t know what you are, Little Crow. This is going to be fun.

  People were still dying all around. The battle raged on in the other aisles and at the edges of the village as well. This was the only place spared the carnage. Sierra was sure now that these three were the only other mages the Akharians had here. Everywhere else the archers and the sling-throwers were hard at work. All the arrows and stones, the blows and cuts had all run together and melded with the golden hum of power to fill her body with fire. It burned within her in a sensation too harsh to be called pleasurable but wasn’t exactly painful, either. It made her want to climb out of her skin, to leave the husk behind and become a being of pure energy.

  Then the mages struck. Acting as one they sent a spike of power against her shield. It actually hurt and that surprised her. She felt it as a line of fire across her body, a searing heat, quickly quenched as her power rushed in to shore up her shields. Her power surged with a fierce heat of its own. Between their spear and her defence she could see the struggle in the air between them as the power stained the night sky with a vivid glow, rippling and pulsing like the northern lights.

  The power was fighting and thrashing against the controls she placed on it. She could feel it slipping away, like water pouring between her fingers.

  Flames were licking along the edge of the buildings to either side of her and water from melting ice dripped and pattered from the eaves. The packed snow beneath her feet shifted, reminding her of the tipping of the ice on the river. All around her little jets of steam erupted from the ground. Elsewhere, wicked spears of ice pierced through the snow, glistening in the firelight.

  Her power was fighting to break free and Sierra could feel her control slipping. She felt it tearing at her skin from the inside, fighting like a wild beast caught in a net. The Akharian mages were increasing their attack but she could do nothing to respond, not without setting all this power loose. Help me! she cried to Rasten.

  I can’t, Little Crow. The beast is out of its cage now and you won’t be able to coax it back in until it’s sated. If you want those who call themselves your allies to survive, you had best tell them to flee now, before it’s too late.

  ‘Cam!’ she screamed, her voice rising like a bird’s shriek over the crackling of power and flame.

  He pushed his way towards her, battling through the maelstrom of power like a man forcing his way through a storm.

 
‘Cam, you have to sound the retreat!’ Sierra said. ‘I … I don’t think I can hold it any longer.’

  ‘Sirri —’

  ‘Just do it, Cam!’

  ‘I can’t! If we turn tail and run, they’ll slaughter us! We’re only barely holding our own as it is.’

  ‘If you stay here you’ll all die!’

  You need to make a barricade, Rasten said.

  How?

  Pull the houses down on top of them.

  Sierra went cold at the thought. The attackers would be trapped under the rubble — injured, not dead, but unable to flee. They would slowly die in a rising storm of power. That spike of power would take her further than she’d ever been before. There was no telling what the consequences would be.

  It won’t help. My people will still die.

  You will have to shield to keep the worst of it off them. You should be able to hold it for a few minutes. If they’re quick they’ll be able to get away. Most of them will, anyway. It’s the only choice you have if you want them to live.

  And why should I trust you? It would suit your purpose if they all died and left me alone.

  Perhaps, Rasten said. But I’m trying to show you that you can trust me and that’s not going to happen if I trick you into killing them. These allies of yours are an annoyance, but the way they’re going they’ll get themselves killed soon enough, and without any help from me.

  He was right about one thing. She had no other choice. ‘Alright,’ she said to Cam. ‘Get the archers down off the roofs and tell the men to be ready to run. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to give them. Tell the women and children to flee as well.’

  He hesitated for just a moment and then nodded. ‘It’ll take a few moments for the orders to reach everyone. I’ll tell you when they’re ready.’

  Sierra nodded and turned her attention back to the mages as they renewed their attack against her shields. They worried her less than the power she was struggling to contain, which clawed and fought and wrenched at her.