I couldn’t believe one person could carry so much blood and meat, or that it could fly so far.
The only thing that kept me from vomiting was the need to keep Shielding Taro.
Segal’s Shield, right beside him, was coated in blood and gore. A moment later, she collapsed. Dying, if not already dead.
She wasn’t the only one to be covered with chunks of another human being. Some of those standing closest to Segal disintegrated into hysterics, screaming and scraping at their skin. Shields were dropping their protections, I could perceive it from their body language. Their unguarded Sources collapsed, looking oddly crushed, as though their flesh had been pressed together, their bones shattered.
Their Shields would die, too. Some, immediately. Others would linger in fear and agony for some unpredictable length of time before they too succumbed.
Some of Gifford’s soldiers also found themselves sprayed with blood and bone. Others merely saw where it came from, and that was enough to make them freeze. For some, the distraction was fatal.
Unfortunately, it distracted our soldiers, too, and they suffered for it.
The odd unnatural cloud blinked out of the sky.
People on both sides broke and ran, but not everyone. Not all at once. Some ignored what was going on around them and kept on fighting. Sometimes one of their colleagues pulled on them, urging them to back away. Sometimes they were left behind.
It wasn’t a quick parting, everyone sliding in the water and mud, many falling completely. People dropped their swords and didn’t bother to retrieve them.
Our Pairs ran, too. It would have been suicidal for us to stand there by ourselves.
But running back meant running around bodies. I was appalled at how many. My struggles with Gifford’s Pairs had kept me blind to just how much distruction was going on beyond our immediate environment.
Taro and I noticed that some of our people were finding colleagues who weren’t dead, helping them to their feet or outright carrying them.
So Taro and I looked as we ran, immediately finding a slight young man who was still breathing. We propped him up between us and struggled to take him off the field. He was aware enough to help us a bit by moving his feet.
We brought him to the healers’ tent and went back out to look for more survivors.
Some of Gifford’s people were doing the same, collecting their wounded and dying and carrying them off in the opposite direction. There was no threatening behaviour between the two groups. This baffled me. Just moments ago, we were trying to kill each other. Now we were ignoring each other. How did this make sense?
I was so cold.
The next survivor we found was one of Fiona’s people. Blacksmith Iyo Reen. There was blood all over him and he was gurgling. “Moving you will hurt,” Taro warned him. “But we’ll get you there as quickly as we can.”
Reen grabbed Taro’s wrist.
And then he died. Right in front of us, his hand falling to his side, into the mud.
He was there because of us. Fiona had sent him – or convinced him to come – because of us. This was our fault.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him.
But we couldn’t linger. There were more people alive who needed to be moved. We pushed through our fatigue and searched for them. We laid our fifth survivor inside the healers’ tent and turned to the entrance to get another. Just then, Browne stepped up to us and put a hand on Taro’s arm. “You can do more good here,” she told him. “Anyone can carry the wounded back in.”
Taro nodded. There were two dozen healers, but that wasn’t nearly enough.
“But I need to speak with Shield Mallorough for a moment.”
“Of course.” Taro moved among the victims and knelt beside a middle-aged man, assuming a smile.
Browne leaned close. “What in Zaire’s name happened to those Pairs?”
Feeling sick at the visions rising up in my mind, I told her.
She stared at me, shocked. “Was that a cast?”
“No. It’s something I can do as a Shield.”
“How did you do it?”
“I’m not talking about it,” I said sharply.
Still, she persisted. “Can other Shields do it?”
“I’ve never been told of anyone else doing it.”
“How did you learn how to do it?”
“I just figured it out.”
“So now that Gifford’s Pairs have seen it, some of them might figure it out, too? And use it in the next clash?”
Air whooshed right out of my chest. I bent over, hands on my knees, trying to breathe.
I’d created something horrible and shown it to other people. Our Sources could start disintegrating into showers of blood. And at any time they channelled, not just during clashes.
I never wanted to be responsible for anything ever again.
I felt hands on my shoulders. “What did you say to her?” Taro demanded of Browne in a low voice.
“Not her fault,” I gasped. “It’s me. It’s just …. Oh, gods.”
“I’m sorry,” Browne said, sounding uncharacteristically diffident. “I was just asking her … I didn’t mean to ….”
“Didn’t mean to what?” Taro snapped.
“It’s not her fault,” I insisted.
“I’m sorry,” Browne repeated.
Taro squeezed my shoulders, prompting me to stand straight. “We’re going,” he told Browne in a sharp voice.
“They need you,” I protested weakly.
“That’s what the healers are for.”
That struck me as really, really cold, and not like Taro at all. He ignored my faint objections and guided me from the healers’ tent to ours. Once we were there, he urged me to sit down.
“What happened?”
I opened my mouth to answer and a wail came out instead of words. I disintegrated into tears and sobs. Hard, deep sobs. I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.
Taro didn’t ask me why I was upset because he wasn’t stupid. There were a thousand things to be upset about. I put my head in his lap and he smoothed back my hair. He didn’t insult me by saying everything was all right. I appreciated that.
And when I’d cried myself out, I lay there and breathed and listened to the activity going on around our tent.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Everyone spent the next two days waiting for the Emperor to attack. We couldn’t move with all of our injured. There were over two hundred of them, and we simply didn’t have the means. I suspected no one had been able to anticipate the level of damage one short clash could wreak. I certainly hadn’t.
Besides, we had just over a hundred people to bury.
At least it had stopped raining.
Between the almost disrespectfully brief funerals, the soldiers performed drills. The casters practised their spells under the leadership of Murdoch. Devereaux worked with the Pairs. Taro and I spent most of our time with Browne in the healers’ tent, so he could ease the pain of Browne’s patients. One of the benefits of his work was that it slackened the demand for soothing medicines that needed to be carefully rationed.
At night, people who could sleep at all seemed to have a lot of nightmares. I could hear them crying out.
I didn’t sleep much, either, but it was if I’d gotten used to it. I had developed the habit of rising much earlier in the morning than had been my custom throughout my life. Not as early as Taro. He had always – almost always – woken up earlier than I, and he continued to do so. Sometimes I had the ridiculous idea that it was some kind of competition.
On the third morning, I woke while it was still dark, and Taro was gone. I went to the mess tent where there was always coffee on the stove, though at differing levels of awful. At that point of the morning, it always tasted foul, bitter and grainy, but it was coffee, and I was awake.
And I wasn’t alone for long. Just as I sat at one of the tiny tables, a young soldier walked in and poured himself a cup of tea. He then shocked me by join
ing me. “Shield,” he greeted me rather shortly.
He wasn’t wearing any frogging. “Good morning, private. I’m happy to see you well.”
He looked surprised. “You know who I am?”
Now I was embarrassed to admit I didn’t. “There were so many killed and wounded. It’s a relief to see someone whole.”
He stared down into his mug. “It’s nothing like they say in the history books,” he muttered.
There had been nothing like this massive clash of forces in our past, but I knew what he meant. Titleholders had fought each other over land and influence, and the winners had written epic tales about how noble their actions had been.
“It seems to me nothing ever is,” I responded. “I wonder why people bother writing history at all, if they’re not going to tell the truth.”
“To convince everyone they aren’t bastards.”
“After they’ve died. Who cares what anyone thinks of you after you’re dead?”
The young man smiled wryly. “Just about everyone, I’d think. Maybe you don’t know people all that well.”
“I’ve been told that a lot.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re a Shield.”
“I’ve been told that a lot, too.”
He chuckled quietly.
“What’s your name?”
“Glazier – ” He abruptly stopped speaking, and then resumed. “Private Dalin Sawrap. I’m from Pale Arc.”
“That’s a remote area.” They probably would have been able to keep their heads down and be ignored through this whole mess.
The private seemed to read my thoughts. “Pale Arc is a poor area,” he explained. “That never seemed to matter to the Triple S. Throughout the years, all of the Pairs they sent were decent sorts. Some more likeable than others, of course, and some clearly weren’t enamoured with life somewhere so small and isolated, but they all did their job well and treated us with respect.”
“That is no more than what is expected of all Pairs,” I said. Though I had certainly seen enough to know that not all Pairs lived up to their responsibilities, or even the standards of common decency.
The private didn’t speak to that, merely taking another sip of tea. “And then one day, without warning, Imperial Guards showed up and ordered our Pair to go to a different settlement, saying they were more needed there. A larger, wealthier settlement. The Guards hadn’t brought a replacement Pair, but they sent our Pair away immediately. While we waited for a new Pair to come, a hurricane nearly destroyed our village and killed over twenty people.”
I felt sick.
“The Pair tried to refuse to go. They said only the Triple S could assign their posts, and that they couldn’t relinquish their responsibilities without others being there to assume them. But the Guards threatened to execute them for treason right then and there. We didn’t have anyone who could challenge their claim, so ….” He trailed off.
“The Pair had to go,” I said.
“Yes. And then the Guards left, after posting a list of new laws. Some of the laws didn’t make any sense. Some seemed to change old customs just for the sake of changing them. We realised the Emperor had no respect for anything that mattered to us.”
“And yet you came here,” I said. “It must have been difficult to leave home after such destruction. To come so far.”
“Someone has to stand up to the Emperor. The Triple S is. We all know that. We couldn’t let you do it alone.”
I didn’t know what to say. I rarely did when emotions were strong.
Another private – another person far too young to be there – ducked her head into the tent, her gaze alighting on me. “The Commissioner would like to speak to you, Shield Mallorough,” she said. “He’s in his tent.”
I smiled at Sawrap as I left the table and washed my mug of its awful grounds before going to the Commissioner’s tent, where the Commissioner, Taro, and Browne were waiting. “Fair morning,” I said.
“Fair morning,” the Commissioner responded abruptly. “I understand you can change the weather.”
Well, that was unexpected. “Not reliably,” I stammered.
“From what I understand, that’s more than anyone else can do.”
“Perhaps.”
“We’re thinking some snow would be handy.”
Handy? “Even the Emperor is too smart to order a fight in winter conditions.”
“Exactly. The idea is to encourage their personnel to bundle up and stay close to their fires. Hopefully it will cut down on their patrols. They’ll think we won’t be moving, either, so they won’t expect us to attack.”
I wasn’t liking this. “But we will.”
“We’re going to make some of our soldiers unseeable. They will infiltrate Gifford’s camp and kill as many people as they can as quickly as they can, and then run back. Hopefully, their actions will cause panic and confusion among Gifford’s ranks.”
“Kill,” I said.
“Or injure.”
“While they’re asleep.”
“Aye.”
“So we’ve given up on honour entirely.” Perhaps that was a foolish thing to say, killing people was never honourable, but this seemed even worse than facing off on a field.
The Commissioner’s expression became impatient. “We can’t afford honour.”
This was just getting worse and worse. I felt filthy. Not on my skin. More inside my chest, where soap couldn’t reach.
But I wasn’t the one with the mind to make or dispute decisions of such scope. “I’ve never created snow. Will fog do?”
“We’d prefer snow,” the Commissioner said shortly.
He’d prefer snow. It sounded like he was ordering wine in a tavern.
“I can’t promise snow,” I said, getting a little irritated myself. “I’ve done fog. The last time I fiddled with the weather without knowing what I was doing, people died. It’s why Lady Westsea is a widow.”
After a moment, the Commissioner nodded. “We will trust you on this matter, of course.”
How magnanimous of him. “I’ll need to practise.”
“You have the rest of the day.”
“I’ll need more time than that,” I protested.
He shook his head. “We’re sending out our people tonight. We can’t stall any longer.”
So no pressure. “I need access to the casting stores.”
“You’ll be given whatever’s necessary.”
If we had it.
I needed five candles, fresh mint, two wooden fans, and cool water.
There was no mint anywhere in the camp, fresh or dried. Browne recommended dried deonsin moss, stating they were in the same plant family. I was at a disadvantage right from the beginning.
Browne, Taro, and I retreated to the casting tent. Browne wanted to observe my cast, and I needed Taro to channel so that, through him, I could manipulate the subtle forces that allowed me to shape the weather. I believed this was why regular casters couldn’t change the weather. They needed a Source to give them access, and most didn’t have one.
I was working purely from memory, which meant I got it wrong the first time. But I was a little better the second time, then the third, and after four attempts the elements of the cast settled into place, and fog surrounded us.
I could hear exclamations and swearing from outside the tent.
The fog felt wrong, as it hadn’t when I’d performed the cast in Flown Raven. It made my stomach want to flip over. Harshly unpleasant.
I stopped the spell. The fog disappeared almost immediately. “That’s not long enough.”
“You’ll just have to keep repeating the cast,” Browne suggested.
“The soldiers will need to get to Gifford’s camp, kill as many people as they can, and then get back. I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the cast going that long. Not this cast.”
“How are you doing?” Browne asked Taro.
“Fine,” Taro answered. “I’ve got the easy part.”
“Wait a
moment.” Browne left the tent.
I rubbed my eyes.
“I wish you didn’t have to do this,” Taro said, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear.
I sighed. “No one should have to do anything like this.”
Browne returned with a small sack in hand. “Kyrra powder,” she announced.
Gah. Kyrra powder was used by healers when they needed to spend hours with patients without sleep. It focused the mind and gave the user superior endurance. I’d used it before, and it worked, but the after effects were nasty: piercing headaches, stomach cramps, and intense nausea.
“Just a little for now,” Browne suggested. “Just to see if it works with the cast. If it does, you’ll need a bigger dose tonight.”
Another unfortunate characteristic of the powder: it had to be eaten, and it tasted vile. Bitter.
I felt its power immediately, and I easily maintained the cast for a considerable length of time without tiring. I could have worked longer, but I didn’t want to expend any more effort than necessary before the night.
But I had become confident I could perform the cast.
I would be well able to help our soldiers kill people in their sleep.
I was so proud.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Once it was dark, twenty soldiers lined up and half a dozen casters prepared to make them unseeable.
One of the soldiers was Risa. I trotted over to her before one of the other casters could work on her. “I’m sorry you were ordered to do this,” I whispered.
She grinned. “I volunteered. All of us did.”
“Oh. I thought this stunt would be particularly dangerous.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it is. I just love the idea of walking into their camp, causing chaos, and walking out with no one knowing what is going on.”
Causing chaos was a pleasant, if unconvincing, euphemism for killing people. “Why are you wearing one of Gifford’s uniforms?”
She wasn’t the only one. All of the members of the party were wearing the Imperial breastplate, cape, and trousers.
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