A trumpet sounded, and the ground trembled slightly with the sudden cavalcade of hooves. Behind Elora, the clash of arms picked up in intensity as cavalry from within the fort broke forth to join the fray. With their assault, at long last, the gates of Fort Tregare finally swung shut.
With their arrival, the tide of battle turned for good.
Just after Sunset, the Colonel called a council of war. Originally, Elora had wanted no part of it. As the battle before the main gate wound down to its inevitable bloody and brutal conclusion—as it became clear that the attackers had no intention of surrendering but were determined instead to sell their lives as dearly as possible—the day’s exertions at last caught up with her. She began to sway and tremble, her muscles losing the ability to support her body’s weight. A spear she’d wielded as though it weighed nothing suddenly became heavier than lead in her grasp. One of the attackers, seeing an opportunity, made a charge for her, only to be blindsided by Luc-Jon. The pair of them went down in a tangle of limbs and Elora’s heart leaped to her throat with fear for her friend, as she saw how clearly he was outmatched. The attacker raised a knife—and Luc-Jon’s hound crashed into the man with the force of a battering ram, using powerful shoulders and chest to drive the warrior to the ground and then closing his great jaws about the man’s head. A single shake was all the hound needed to end the fight and then he took Luc-Jon by the scruff of the neck, to drag him close by where Elora stood.
She collapsed to her knees beside the young man, trusting to hound and brownies to watch over her while she tended to Luc-Jon. He looked a mess, as no doubt did she, but his hurts were superficial. Little of the blood that was splashed across skin and clothes was his own and what blows he’d taken in the fight had left him mainly with aches and bruises.
A shape moved between her and the sun but Elora didn’t need to see the woman’s features to recognize Khory Bannefin. The warrior stalked in a quick circle around the girl, a half-dozen paces out from where Elora knelt, close enough to offer decent protection, far enough distant to allow decent room to maneuver.
“Alive,” she heard someone cry in a voice hoarse from trying to make itself heard over the din of the brief and brutal conflict. She couldn’t place either face or name to it but from the tone of command she assumed it was one of the officers. “Colonel wants prisoners, Shando!”
“Doin’ our best, Cap,” came the reply, from a sergeant she knew.
“Bloody hell,” snarled Khory with rare vehemence, and a shiver trilled up Elora’s spine at the realization that the warrior’s anger was directed at her.
“Lady Khory,” Luc-Jon tried to say in Elora’s defense, but Khory cut him off.
“I’m no lady,” she snapped. “Sit and be silent.”
Khory gave him no time to think, no room for argument. Before Luc-Jon knew it, he was once more on his rump. Only his hound wasn’t cowed in the slightest by the warrior’s fury, but Elora also noted that the dog always looked in the direction opposite from Khory’s gaze, automatically covering her back as she was Elora’s.
“I’m sorry,” Elora started to say and then cut herself off because she wasn’t. When Khory turned to glare at her, with a gaze that would do a basilisk proud, she met the tall woman’s gaze without flinching.
“Bloody hell,” Khory growled again. “What were you thinking, Elora Danan, playing hero like that?!”
“I saw what was happening. I had to stop it.”
“You like to got yourself killed, girl.”
“If I’d done nothing and these attackers had seized the barbican and the gate, would we be any better off?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Oh. Forgive me. I forgot. I’m the Sacred Princess. I’m the Savior of the World. Fates forfend I should ever lift a hand in my own cause.”
“Don’t play the snip with me, girl. You don’t have that much luck left that you can afford to press it so—and, yes, after the Dragon’s Realm you should think more on the consequences of your acts before indulging yourself.”
“The same applies to you, Khory Bannefin, and to Drumheller.”
“You went to the Dragon’s Realm?” Luc-Jon asked in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Mind your tongue, boy,” Khory told him, “and your business.” Then it was back to Elora. “It’s different with us.”
“Not if you’re killed.”
“Listen for once, will you? And heed my words. This is my craft. You need blood shed, or lives taken, I’m the one to do it, not you.”
“You weren’t here.”
Khory ignored Elora’s reply and looked instead at Luc-Jon.
“You hurt?”
He shook his head. “Not so’s it matters.”
“On your feet, then. Give a hand with Elora Danan.”
The hound rose, too, with that smooth, effortless, almost liquid grace unique to his kind. Elora hated being singled out for special attention, but she couldn’t deny that she also appreciated the help. There was nothing smooth or effortless or especially liquid about her own ascent; she clambered up in fits and starts, marked by pinpoint bursts of pain at every joint. She was grateful for Luc-Jon’s arm about her waist. Though she’d managed to drape her own across his broad shoulders, she had no illusions about how much good it’d do if she started to fall.
In the aftermath of battle, troopers from the fort had been busy. The enemy slain were being dragged to a communal grave, the few survivors manacled and placed under guard. Even so, Khory took no chances. She gave the scene a wide berth, with herself and the hound between Elora and their foes. Luc-Jon was not only responsible for helping her, his own eyes ranged the field beyond, just in case any attackers had been missed. As they made their deliberate way toward the main gate, Elora noted a fair number of Sandeni soldiers among the dead, precious few in the hands of the healers, and asked about that.
It was the sergeant she’d heard earlier, Shando, who answered.
“Not much for mercy, the Chengwei,” he told her, his own demeanor as wary and alert as Khory’s, his sword loose in its scabbard, right hand close by and ready, “in a fight or after.”
“Chengwei,” stammered Luc-Jon, “so far from home and in these mountains? Shando, are you sure?”
“You know your business, scribe. I know mine. Weren’t no raidin’ party neither, no band o’ deserters nor renegades,” he continued, forestalling Luc-Jon’s next question, “these were proper soldiers, professionals.” Shando looked ahead at the towering ramparts of the fort, mouth twisting as though he’d suddenly tasted something vile. “If they’d seized the gate…” The way he said that left no doubt in anyone’s mind as to the consequences. “E’en so, even with the warning—an’ f’r tha’, ’Lora Danan, me an’ mine, we’re more grateful than y’ can know—it were a near thing, this scrap. They got more like these follerin’ along behind, well we’re in f’r a rare fight an’ tha’s no error.”
“They have more,” Elora said flatly.
“Best tell the Colonel.”
“Drumheller’s already doing so,” said Khory. “This one’s for where she belongs, bed.”
“I’m all right, Khory,” Elora protested.
“Let her go then, lad,” the warrior told Luc-Jon. “Let’s see her walk unaided.”
“She’ll fall!”
“The hell I will,” growled Elora.
“Then my point’s proven.”
“Y’ll need the rest, lass,” Shando advised her gently. “We all will. The way this lot fights”—and he waved a hand toward the Chengwei—“it puts the Maizan t’ shame. We stand against them, it’ll be a brutal, bloody business. We’ll need all our strength—watch out there!”
A pair of riders, each leading a remount right as they left the gate, barely missed Elora’s party as they peeled right and thundered around the periphery of the stronghold to intercept
the main road back to Sandeni. They were couriers, stripped to the bare minimum of clothes and equipment—light chain mail for defense, sword and daggers for weapons, hardtack and canteen for food, plus a rucksack of oats for their mounts, and a light racing saddle—trusting in their animals’ speed and endurance to carry them past any danger.
Khory spat a mouthful of dust as she watched the riders disappear around the farthest balustrade.
“Only two riders,” Elora noted, mainly to herself, “both heading downriver, to Sandeni.”
She twisted slightly in Luc-Jon’s grasp, to allow her eyes to take in the wide expanse of forest that filled her view of the other direction, from where the Chengwei had come.
“Shando, how many other patrols are there?”
“Four more all told, the best part of a reinforced comp’ny.”
“They get no warning of what’s happening?”
“Colonel’s orders, m’lady. Tha’s why he stands ’neath the eagle standard, t’ make those kinds’a calls. Y’r pardon, ’Lora, but I best be returnin’ t’ me duties.”
They stood now in the shadow of the gate itself, with armed troops on every side.
“He can’t just abandon them, Khory,” Elora said as the sergeant moved off.
“There are other ways of sending messages, lass,” the warrior told her. “Quicker and more certain, especially given our allies, and the circumstances. The Colonel’s a good man, he knows his business. Let’s leave him to it and see you safely home.”
Elora refused to acknowledge her exhaustion; the awful paradox was that she was so far gone with fatigue, she found she could neither sleep nor eat. Her nerves were still jangly from the ferocious outburst of energy that had propelled her out the gate, try as she might she couldn’t find a way to relax. Worse, the very taste and scent of food—even the forest stew that was her favorite—made her ill.
At the same time, obstacles to sleep piled up around her higher and faster than snowdrifts in a midwinter blizzard. Orders had been issued to all the fort’s master craftsmen and women and within the hour the waryard was bustling with activity. Teams of quartermasters scurried through the great underground storage bunkers beneath the fort, to make a comprehensive inventory of the stronghold’s reserves of food and other supplies. The hearths along blacksmith’s row blazed hot and high, as troopers came by in shifts to have their blades sharpened and their armor repaired. At the same time, scores of molds were put to use to forge replacement weapons for those sure to be lost over the course of the battle to come so that the yard rang with the constant din of hammers tempering that freshly minted steel. Teachers and some of the parents did their best to calm the growing apprehension in the many children—far too many, Elora realized, the fort’s population of noncombatants swollen near to bursting over the past weeks with refugees from the Frontier towns upriver—while others worked in the hospital, rolling bandages and packing first-aid kits for use on the front lines.
Livestock represented one of the greater problems: how much would be needed to sustain the fort in case of siege? How many head of cattle and sheep could the defenders afford to keep alive, how much could be slaughtered and placed in storage, what to do with the numbers that remained? There were howls of protest from farmers and ranchers at the sacrifice of their stock, and precious little faith in the vouchers handed out in return, even though they were promised compensation for their loss at full market value. Some demanded the Colonel drive the combined herd downriver and when he refused, citing the need to keep every fighting man and woman at the fort, they demanded permission to take the herd themselves, and their families with them.
To that demand, reluctantly, the Colonel acceded and another set of frantic preparations was begun among the refugees for a departure the next morning at first light. In the meanwhile, Elora added all the myriad sounds of the barnyard to the catalog of her misery.
When Drumheller poked his head around the door of her room as the last bits of outside light faded to darkness through the slats of her window shades, Elora was actually relieved.
“Whassup?” she asked him from underneath a small mountain of down pillows.
“Colonel DeGuerin requests the pleasure of your company, child.”
She shifted position and triggered a modest avalanche of bedding.
“You saw everything I did,” she said.
“Perhaps. But I wasn’t the one who sounded the alarm.” She considered a moment, pursing her lips in thought, and then began a wiggle toward the edge of the bed. She was still too sore and tired to consider leaping to her feet. In passing, she blearily noted Rool atop the headboard, making no secret of his amusement at her state as he reviewed her progress. She rewarded him by sticking out her tongue, which made him laugh. Franjean struck an elegant pose on the nearby cedar chest and indicated the neatly folded cloth that rose beside him almost to the height of his own head. It was a caracalla, a warrior’s scarlet war cloak, of a melton wool so tightly woven it was as impervious to the elements as oilcloth. This one had clearly been made for Elora by the brownies, their fingers as nimble and talented with needle and thread as with picklocks, gaining them renown as tailors to match their fame as thieves and cutpurses. Though it weighed the proverbial ton it hung with surprising comfort from her shoulders, cut so superbly that its clasp didn’t need to be closed to stay anchored in place.
“You’ve outdone yourselves, my lads,” she complimented them. “This feels delicious.”
“The weave’s laced through with ironcloth,” Franjean told her. “Not as strong as the pure fabric or steel mail but it’ll deflect its share of attacks.”
“Certainly easier to wear.” Elora snugged the cloak close about her body over her nightgown and was about to slip her feet into shearling-lined boots when she looked up at Thorn. “Can I at least make myself presentable?”
He smiled. “I think we can afford the time.”
She allowed herself a half hour for the change, not because she wanted to keep the Colonel waiting but because she wanted to make the right impression on him and his officers. She chose to wear a jumper rather than pants because her intent was to retire to bed as soon as he was done with her. The key was a steaming hot bath and a session with a scrubbing brush that left her skin tingling clean. Thankfully her close-cropped hair, that owing to the Deceiver’s enchantment had grown as absolute a black in color as her skin was purest silver, was easily managed.
The council was in the Colonel’s office; all the chairs had been cleared away and his desk covered with a fair-sized jumble of maps. Around it crowded his battle staff—senior officers, senior noncommissioned officers, the Chief of Scouts, the surgeon, the chief quartermaster, the chief armorer, plus representatives of the civilian residents and most importantly of the Veil Folk who’d allied themselves with the Daikini of Sandeni—and they greeted Elora’s arrival with a mix of emotions and responses. Among the Daikini officers, disdain and an instance or two of dismissal if not outright hostility; whatever her title and reputation they considered her little more than a slip of a girl, with precious little to offer their deliberations. The noncoms knew her better. Shando quirked his lips in what passed with him for a smile of welcome. Tyrrel, Liege Lord of the Realm of Lesser Faery, was more open with his own greeting, striding over to embrace her with a hug that left her near breathless.
Ranulf DeGuerin was more reserved and circumspect in both regards and Elora understood in that instant why his men respected him. Whatever his feelings, he kept them superbly masked as he indicated a place for her and Drumheller opposite him at the table.
The air in the room was close, too many people, too much agitation, and, though few here would admit it, too much fear. There was only a handful of candles, Elora noted, most of the illumination provided by Faery globes, spheres of clear crystal that glowed when charged at the heart by the touch of magic. The atmosphere was electric with tension, like the
sky with summer lightning in the advent of a storm.
DeGuerin himself was the supernally calm center of this growing tempest. He was the kind of man most folks called compact because to describe him as short—which is what he was, standing at full height better at Elora Danan’s shoulder—would be sure to provoke a fight. By the same token, any such fight, he’d be sure to win, because every aspect of his body bespoke solidity and strength, as though someone had cast the trunk of an oak in human form and set it walking across the world. His beard and what was left of his hair were the color of coal, very lightly dusted with snow, and his eyes were dark as well. He’d served the Republic for thirty years and while the rigors of that duty had been etched indelibly on his face they were tempered by equally deep lines of laughter and good humor. From Shando, Elora had learned that his men would follow him anywhere, secure in the faith that if there was a way to bring them safely home, he’d be sure to find it. At the same time, precious few considered themselves arrogant—or fool—enough to face him over a game of chance or strategy. He was a man who liked to win, and who was very good at it.
“On behalf of the Republic of Sandeni,” Colonel DeGuerin said quietly, “I bid you welcome, Elora Danan, to Fort Tregare. Though as I recall, this isn’t the first time you’ve graced us with your presence.”
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