by David B. Coe
“Drink it all,” she said. “You’ll soon start feeling drowsy. Be sure you’re lying on your side. I don’t want you falling back on that arrow.”
The minister shuddered. “Of course.”
Both healers left her and Yaella downed the tonic, despite its sickly sweet taste. As the woman had warned, she began to feel sleepy almost immediately. She lay down on the pallet, positioning herself as comfortably as she could.
She was aware of little after that. She remembered hearing voices, feeling something in her leg akin to pain, though the sensation was fleeting. Later she dreamed of Shurik and the Weaver and another shadowy figure she assumed was Grinsa. But even with the tonic still in her blood, she could tell that none of these visions carried the weight of prophecy, nor did she believe that the Weaver’s presence in her dreams was anything more than an illusion.
When Yaella awoke, there were three healers nearby, none of them paying the slightest attention to her. She could tell that it was dark outside, though she had no sense of the time. The tent appeared even more crowded with wounded men than it had when she first entered, and she could hear wails and sobs coming from outside. She pushed herself up on one arm, feeling surprisingly clearheaded.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
One of the healers turned, an older man. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Much better, thank you.”
He nodded, turning back to the soldier whose injuries he had been tending. “Good. It’s been a busy night. It seems Kentigern’s men attacked the last of the hurling arms and also made a run at our stores. The fighting spread all the way to the river, just east of here. Some thought that they might cross and press on to Mertesse, but at last, our soldiers managed to push them back. Good thing, too. There would have been no way for us to move all of you in time.”
“Did they destroy the other hurling arm?”
“Yes,” he said, still intent on the soldier. “Word is they nearly burned our provisions, too. But just a short while ago we caught most of the raiding party between the river and the castle. Most of them were killed, a few were captured. Some of the men you hear outside are from Kentigern.”
She wanted to ask if the duke had survived the night, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She wasn’t even certain what answer she wanted to hear. Besides, if Rowan had died, the siege would probably be over. Surely the healer would have included such tidings in his description of the night’s events.
Yaella moved her arm cautiously, testing her shoulder. It felt stiff where the arrow had hit, but there was no pain. Her leg still throbbed, however, and when she tried to swing herself off the pallet, making the wood creak, the old healer glanced at her, frowned, and shook his head.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you. You’re not ready to be walking about.”
“How long until I can?”
“I’m not the one who set the bone. But I heard it was broken in two places—clean breaks, mind you. Two of them, though. That will take a couple of days to heal well enough.”
“So I have to remain in here?”
“Didn’t say that. We need the space. I’ll have someone take you out in the morning. I just don’t want you doing it on your own.”
Once more, he turned back to the soldier. After a few moments, Yaella lay down again and closed her eyes.
For some time she drifted in and out of sleep, vaguely aware of the comings and goings of healers and wounded men. Eventually she fell into a deeper slumber and began to dream once more. And this time there could be no mistaking the source of her vision.
The Weaver didn’t make her walk far, appearing to her, black as pitch against the blinding white, long before she reached the rise he usually forced her to climb.
“You’re wounded,” he said. There was no concern in his voice, but she sensed that this was more than an idle observation.
“Yes, Weaver. A broken bone in my leg and an arrow in my shoulder.”
“You’ll be all right?”
“Yes, Weaver. Thank you for asking.”
“How goes the siege?”
“Not well. Aindreas’s army has destroyed all of my lord’s hurling arms and has killed many more of our soldiers than I believe the duke expected.”
“Is the siege in danger of being broken?”
“I don’t believe so, Weaver. Without the Solkaran soldiers it might have failed already, but with them we have enough men to continue for some time.”
“Good. That’s good.” He seemed to hesitate. For the first time in all her conversations with the man, Yaella sensed on his part a lack of resolve, as if he weren’t quite confident in what he intended to say next. When finally he did speak again, he surprised her with the direction of his questioning. “How are you feeling, Yaella?”
“Weaver?”
“I don’t refer to your wounds. I sense that they’re healing well already. But I sense as well that Shurik’s death still weighs heavy on your heart. Isn’t that so?”
She lowered her gaze, her throat tightening. “Yes, Weaver.”
“Do you still feel as you once did, that I had a hand in his death?”
Fear gripped her heart. “No, Weaver! You told me that you had no part in it and I believe you.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I trust then that you blame Grinsa jal Arriet.”
She nodded, uncertain still as to where he was going with all this. “Shurik feared that Grinsa would kill him. It seems he was right.”
“Yes, it does.” A brief silence followed, and then, “How old are you, Yaella?”
“How old?” she repeated, knowing that she sounded dull-witted. “I’ve just turned thirty-two, Weaver.”
“But you feel older, don’t you?”
Again, she grew frightened. How much could he sense of her thoughts and feelings? Did he know how her powers had failed her this day? “I . . . I don’t know what to say, Weaver.”
“It’s all right. I’m not angry with you. How could I be? Qirsar has ordained that all of his children will die young, at least when compared with the Eandi. That’s the price we pay for the powers he gave us.”
“Yes, Weaver.”
“I remember you telling me once that your mother died at a young age. You fear that you might as well?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose I do.”
“It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Many have given so much to this movement, and yet some, like Shurik, died before they could see its promise realized. And others may have only a few years to enjoy this new world we’re creating.”
“We serve you and your movement, Weaver. Even if we don’t see this to the end, we share in the glory of what you’re doing.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Yaella.” And she sensed that he truly was. She could hear in his words that he was smiling, that the uncertainty she had sensed in him a few moments before had vanished. “I have a task for you. A dangerous task. I can’t say for certain that you’ll survive, even if you succeed. But you will be doing a great service to the cause we share, and I believe that you’ll find peace before you die.”
She should have been scared. Perhaps she would be when she woke. But at that moment she wanted only to please him, to do whatever it was he would ask of her.
“Tell me what you want me to do, Weaver.”
She saw him nod.
“You serve me well.”
They talked for a long time, far longer than they had ever spoken before. He told her much about his plans and about how the movement had taken shape. And though she trembled at what he asked of her, she vowed that she would succeed or die in the attempt.
Yaella woke from her dream of the Weaver to the golden light of early morning and the singing of thrushes outside the healing tent. The pain in her leg had subsided. She felt refreshed, as if she had slept for days and days. Reaching for her power, she sensed that it had replenished itself, that whatever weakness she had felt the day before was but a memory. Seeing that
she was awake, one of the healers checked the wound on her back and placed his hands on her leg, probing the bone with his mind. Satisfied that she was healing well, he had two men help her out of the tent to a shady area near the river. There she was placed on another pallet and told to rest.
She watched the swirling waters, shading her eyes against the sun that sparkled off the surface. She had spent much of her life by the Tarbin, marking her years by the rise and fall of its flow. The thought that she would be leaving it soon brought some regret, but it passed quickly.
I have a task for you, he had said.
And she had pledged herself to his service. Death no longer frightened her, not if it had purpose, not if it offered her peace. She would embrace death, and she would strike a blow for her movement.
Chapter
Twenty-one
Dantrielle, Aneira
ebeo had thought that matters couldn’t get any worse. After the failure of Bausef’s mission to destroy the hurling arms, the bombardment of Castle Dantrielle with the severed heads of his men, and the savage display of the master of arms’s head on a pike before the Solkaran camp, the duke was certain that he must have reached some sort of nadir in his conflict with the royal house. Instead that dreadful night had been but the beginning of a downward spiral into an abyss of horror and misery.
The day after Bausef’s death, the Solkarans resumed their attacks with the fiery boulders. They were joined in the assault a day later by the men of Rassor, who had constructed their own hurling arm. These missiles did only minimal damage to the castle walls, but they were a fearsome sight, burning brilliantly as they soared high in the air and descended toward the fortress, a long plume of dark smoke trailing behind them. Tebeo’s men learned quickly to judge their trajectory and to move to safety before they struck. Still, the besieging armies kept up a withering assault and over time it clearly began to wear on Dantrielle’s soldiers.
For three days the attacks continued. Then, abruptly, they ceased. Yet this did nothing to ease the minds of Dantrielle’s soldiers or people. Rather, it served only to increase the sense of foreboding that hung over the entire city. It took less than a day for all of them to learn that their fears were justified.
As with the lofting of severed heads into the castle, Tebeo had heard tales of attacking armies using hurling arms to throw the rotting carcasses of dead animals into a city or castle, thus spreading disease as well as dread. But he had hoped that Aneira’s regent would refuse to subject his own people to such terrors, even if those people were in rebellion. Once again, he had misjudged the man, seeing in him more compassion than was there.
Numar began with slaughtered sheep, dead at least two or three days. His hurling arms couldn’t be as accurate with the beasts as they had been with the boulders, but they didn’t have to be. They needed only to clear the walls. In the heat of Elined’s turn, with the remains already decaying, the stench was unbearable. Almost as soon as this newest atrocity began, Tebeo ordered his men to douse the carcasses with oil and set them afire, but even after they carried out his orders, the fetor of rot and burning flesh lingered over all of Dantrielle.
The following day, both the Solkarans and the army of Rassor used dead cattle. Not that it mattered what type of animal dropped into the lanes of the city or the castle wards. Tebeo could hardly step onto the walls of his fortress without feeling his stomach heave. Everywhere he looked, small fires burned, sending foul smoke into the air. He hadn’t heard of anyone in his city taking ill because of the animal carcasses, but still his people suffered.
That night, as the soldiers at the hurling arms returned to the flaming stones, interspersing an occasional animal corpse, a party of Solkaran soldiers tried to gain entry to the castle through one of the sally ports. Tebeo still bore a scar on his side from his fight with the last Solkarans to make the attempt. This time, the duke’s men were prepared for the attack and drove the party off, killing more than half of them. But even this victory did little to raise the spirits of Tebeo’s army.
Yet as much as those within the city and castle suffered for the siege, the duke knew that those who lived in his dukedom beyond the protection of his walls endured far worse. Numar might have been intent on winning the favor of Dantrielle’s people, of turning them against their duke, but that wouldn’t stop him from plundering the farms and villages in the Dantrielle countryside for food and water. No doubt his men had quartered themselves in the homes of defenseless farmers as they approached the castle, and who knew what else they had done. Soldiers marching to war had been known to make sport of violating their enemies’ wives and daughters. With all the horrors Numar’s army had visited on them thus far, why should Tebeo expect that these men would be any different? “A war among nobles,” it was often said, “bloodied all.”
Tebeo had yet to name a new master of arms to replace Bausef. Instead he relied on three of the armsmaster’s most trusted captains, and on the eleventh night of the siege, for the first time, two of them raised the prospect of discussing terms of surrender with the regent. The duke and his captains were on the ramparts, watching for the next assault from Numar’s men. Tebeo wasn’t certain how to respond to their suggestion, but the third captain was appalled.
“You don’t really mean that,” he said. “The siege isn’t going well, but to consider surrender so soon . . .”
“I’ve never seen the spirit of these men so low. They already feel that we’ve lost. They have since the master of arms died.”
“And,” added the second man, “we’ve inflicted almost no losses on Numar’s army.”
“Our losses haven’t been very high either. We lost the armsmaster’s party, but they’ve had men killed on raids as well. We still outnumber them.”
“For how long? I’ve heard men talk of desertion, and though I don’t think many of them are ready to go that far, it will come to that before too long.”
“What would you hope to gain through surrender?” Tebeo asked.
The third captain stared at him. “My lord—”
The duke raised a hand, silencing him. “You understand that all four of us would be executed, and most likely my sons as well.”
“Yes, my lord,” said the first man, looking away. “Forgive me.”
“I wasn’t trying to silence you, Captain. I really want to know what might be gained. Do you think that the regent would spare the rest of the men?”
“Yes, my lord. He needs soldiers to fight the Eibitharians. He might be so desperate for them that he would even spare the four of us. If you pledge yourself to his cause, you might be able to end all this.”
Tebeo gave a grim smile. “That I don’t believe. You’ve seen what he’s done, the lengths to which he’s gone to break our will. Are these really the actions of a man inclined to such mercy?”
“No, my lord, they’re not,” the third captain said, glaring at his two comrades, torch fire gleaming in his dark eyes. “You can’t surrender, my lord. Not yet. We’re still waiting for Orvinti, Kelt, and the others. Their arrival might very well break this siege. We should at least wait for them.”
“How are our stores?”
Even the third man faltered. “They run low, my lord.”
“How low?”
“They may not last to the end of the next waxing.”
“They won’t,” the first man said, sounding so certain that Tebeo found himself questioning the man’s loyalty.
The duke nodded. “Well, you’ve given me much to consider Since we’re not yet done with the waning, I assume we have at least a half turn’s provisions left.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good. For now, we’ll keep rations as they are. I’ve no desire to start a panic. We’ll speak of this again. For now, return to your posts.”
The three men bowed, and the two who advocated surrender moved off, leaving Tebeo alone with the third captain. His name was Gabrys DinTavo. He had come to Dantrielle with Bausef and had long been the armsmaster’s favo
rite among all his captains. That alone made him Bausef’s most likely successor in the duke’s eyes.
“They’ll say that I argued as I did to curry favor with you,” the man said, watching the other two captains walk off. “They’ll say that I tell you what you want to hear so that you’ll choose me as your next master of arms.”
“Is that true?”
Gabrys turned sharply. “No, my lord!”
“Then why should you care what they say?”
“I don’t suppose I should, my lord.”
“I don’t want to surrender, Captain. But neither do I wish to see all these men massacred.”
“Of course not, my lord.”
“If it comes to that choice, you know what I’ll do.”
He nodded. “Yes, I do.”
The duke gazed down at the Solkaran camp, awaiting the next assault. “Bausef thought me too soft to be an effective leader in times of war. I expect you see me much the same way.”
The captain started to reply, but Tebeo shook his head. “It’s all right. Bausef knew me better than I know myself. I tried to prove him wrong that night when Numar first started to use his hurling arms, and I ended up sending him to his death. Since then I’ve vowed to follow my instincts rather than be something I’m not. Thus when it comes to questions of warfare, I have no choice but to rely on your counsel, and that of the others.”
“I understand, my lord.”
“Obviously you don’t think I should surrender. So what would you have me do?”
Before Gabrys could answer, the duke heard a light footfall behind him. Turning, he saw Evanthya step out of the tower stairway. She stopped when she saw Tebeo and the captain.
“Forgive me, my lord. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re not interrupting, First Minister. Please join us.”
He glanced at the captain, only to find the man glowering at Evanthya. It often seemed, particularly in these times, that warriors viewed the Qirsi with even more distrust than did nobles. Bausef had been an exception—he had never struck the duke as having much feeling for Evanthya, or the other ministers, one way or another. But apparently Gabrys did.