by Court Ellyn
Kelyn leaned on the desk and ordered the others, “Leave us. We’ll finish the briefing shortly.”
Silent, the commanders filed from the parlor. Eliad stood from the leather chair, but that’s as far as he went. “Pardons, but I think I’ll stay. You can kick my arse for it later.”
Kelyn didn’t argue. The inferno in Daxon’s eye was murderous.
“How many men did you lose?”
“Did I lose?” Daxon’s finger stabbed into the red tower on his surcoat. “Ah, no. I won’t swallow the blame—”
“I sent two hundred men with you. How many died under your command?”
The heel of Daxon’s hand struck Kelyn in the chest. “You’re the War Commander! It’s your dearest wish to see every Fieran here massacred. Isn’t it! Tell me the truth! What a victory for you then!”
Kelyn seized two handfuls of soiled surcoat and hauled the lordling so close he could see his pores oozing sweat. “What made you believe I had given the signal? Did ogres attack you from the rear? Did they force you into the fire? Explain yourself!” He dealt the boy a shove. Daxon tripped over his own feet, caught himself against the mantelpiece, straightened his surcoat with sharp tugs.
“The firewall lowered. I thought—”
“Did Haldred tell you what the signal would be?”
“Two fireballs—”
“At any time did you see two fireballs launched skyward?”
Daxon gulped.
“You do not do as you please. You must stick to my orders, Kethlyn.”
The lordling blinked at him.
Kelyn closed his eyes, took a breath. “Daxon. If Lord Haezeldale hadn’t arrived when he did, none of you would’ve survived. I hold you responsible for wasted lives. You will attend their burning, and you will turn their ashes. Dismissed.” He turned his back on the Fieran, but only because Eliad stood on hand.
Daxon’s dagger, however, wasn’t made of steel. “You deserve losing him. It’s only fair.” The door clicked shut.
Kelyn swept his goblet off the desk. He was trembling as badly as Gyfan had.
“I really despise him,” Eliad grumbled.
“But I don’t blame him for despising me.”
“Kelyn, that was twenty years ago! And it was war. You’d think he would—”
“Did you?”
Eliad crossed his arms. “Did I what?”
“Forgive the man who murdered your father.”
The ride to the Bastion felt torturously long, yet all too short. A burr chafing around in Kelyn’s brain had led to his embarrassing slip with Daxon, and it wouldn’t wait any longer. He had to know. Had he lost both his sons?
The infirmary occupied several floors of the Bastion’s north tower. Wounded soldiers lay on the grass outside, waiting their turn. Women in stained dresses walked along the rows, sorting the wounded by severity, or stood over cauldrons boiling strips of cloth, strands of horse hair, and tiny bladed instruments. Girls ran back and forth to the well, buckets sloshing. Orderlies carried the dead toward South Town where ash belched from the burning yards. Rows of bodies made loaf-shaped lumps under canvas tarps. The row was long, and growing longer. Kelyn decided to search there last.
Inside the tower, cots lay close together. Nurses flung out blankets for pallets on the stone floor. “Make room,” ordered a woman with a ferret’s face and disheveled hair. “Move those cots. We need more room.” Soldiers groaned, pleaded, sipped poppy wine from silver thimbles. The stench of blood, sweat, and piss hung like fog on the still air. Even the wavering light of the torches seemed sluggish and pained. At a long workbench, women sorted bandages, horse-hair thread, bottles of poppy wine and boxes of powders. Flies flocked. Boys chased them with swatters of woven grass and scraped them into jars. Through a broad doorway, Kelyn glimpsed the surgeon’s table. An orderly slopped blood-colored water over it with a saturated rag. Queen Briéllyn emerged, scrubbing her hands inside a towel. Her face was ghostly, as if she too had lost much blood, or was trying desperately to hold down her breakfast. She saw Kelyn trying to make sense of the chaos and waved him to her.
“Ma’am,” he greeted with a bow.
Briéllyn replied with a bleak sigh. “War looks the same as it ever did.”
“Is the infirmary adequate?”
“It’s well-supplied but poorly organized.” Discreetly, she gestured toward the ferret-faced woman. “That … dear … lady wondered who the hell I was when I ‘waltzed in’ and started changing things. Apparently she’s the castellan’s wife, and she flinched for only a moment when my guards announced me. ‘My infirmary, my authority,’ she said.”
“Ah. Then I pity us both. Captain Reynal, I just discovered, is Lander’s twin in everything but appearance.”
“Mother’s mercy,” Briéllyn groaned. Her charm had been instrumental in swaying Lander to see things the king’s way time and time again. “His Madam Sergeant is made of stern stuff, and while I admire that, I have a feeling I’ve met my match.”
“You’ll win her over, ma’am, as you always do.”
A handsome lattice of fine wrinkles gathered at the corners of her eyes when she smiled. “Are you here to inspect the place, Lord Commander? Or can I help you find someone in particular?”
His mind raced; it was easy to turn a lie into the truth: “Rhogan was brought here in bad condition.”
Briéllyn nodded. “Madam Sergeant told me he died shortly before I arrived.”
“I feared as much.” Should he write a letter to Aisley or wait until she arrived from Ilswythe? “And Carah? She’s here somewhere, I assume.” His glance swept the rows of soldiers, searching both for his daughter and the highlander. On a cot nearby he spotted a red, gray, and black cloak. His breath caught in his throat. The highlander rolled onto his back, and though the man’s face was clotted with blood, he was too stocky and too blond to be Alyster.
He realized Briéllyn was talking. “…down that corridor, I believe. The Elarion are in one of the back rooms. Madam Sergeant saw fit to segregate them.” Disapproval sharpened her tone.
Kelyn didn’t like the idea of some shrew mistreating his allies. “I assume that objective is also in your battle plan.”
Briéllyn slapped the towel across her palm. “Better believe it.”
A pair of orderlies carried a soldier in Fieran green toward the surgery. Kelyn stepped out of their way and bowed his departure. The corridor Briéllyn had indicated split the tower down the middle. Smaller rooms and stairwells branched to each side. Kelyn peeked into the rooms like a spy, an eavesdropper. The less urgent cases were relegated to these back rooms, except for the Elarion. The wounded among the Regs and the dranithion had been shoved into the same small room, no matter the severity of their condition. Azhien lay on a pallet, ashen and sleeping, his golden head swaddled in a bandage. Laniel sat beside him, eyes closed in weariness or prayer, a hand clenching his cousin’s shoulder, as if anchoring him to this world. Nearby, one of the Regs had produced a flute and played a low, melancholy tune. He noticed Kelyn inspecting the room and stopped playing. Laniel opened his eyes.
“I won’t have you treated this way,” Kelyn said. “It’s unconscionable. Queen Briéllyn has vowed to sort it out. If she doesn’t, I will.”
Laniel shook his head, as if he expected nothing better from his hosts. “You have other concerns, Sheannach.”
Unexpected notes of laughter spared Kelyn from arguing the point. He knew that laughter well. Across the corridor, Carah saw to the wounded highlanders. Both kindreds, it appeared, had reached an accord and shared the same space without tossing taunts. Haim the Redbeard, son of Fenn son of Kall, lay on his side; blood darkened his shirt, front and back. A pike or a sword had pierced him through but must have missed anything vital. Carah knelt beside him, her hands hovering over the wound. Across from her, Alyster sat cross-legged, engrossed in a lively tale. “This big,” he said, spreading his hands to arms’ length. “Muscles the size of boulders, he had, and gnarled yellow teeth the leng
th of ma’ hand. He’d a tore you in twain, Haim. Because you’re slow. So slow that when you run down the mountain, glaciers catch up to you.”
The Redbeard shook with a chuckle; tough as boiled leather, he was. “Who taught you to run, you wee piss ant.”
Carah’s hands balled on her hips, as if she might scold the men, but she hung her head and gave way to laughter again. “You’ll have to shut up, both of you, or I’ll never get this stitched.”
“Aye, lad, shut yer gob and let me be an invalid,” said Haim. “If it didn’t hurt so damn much I might enjoy it. She’s a fair one.”
Carah rolled her eyes. “Shut your gob, old man, or I’ll let you bleed.”
Alyster crowed at that. “She will, too!” He seemed to have not a scratch on him. Had he inherited the foresight that had earned Kelyn his nickname? And avedra, too. Goddess knew what he was capable of.
Carah bowed over the wound, and Alyster leaned close to watch her work. How alike their faces in profile. Undeniably alike. Anyone could see it. If people were laughing behind Kelyn’s back, he hadn’t caught wind of it. Were they too afraid of him to laugh? No, more afraid of Thorn, aye, that was more likely.
“Teach me to do that?” Alyster asked. There was a tentative note to the request, as if he was leery of expecting too much. Or of being indebted.
Groggily, eyes closed as she worked, Carah said, “Happily.”
“Not on me, you won’t,” grunted Haim.
Alyster laughed, and a silver pendent swung free of his collar. He tucked it safely inside again without a second thought. Carah’s fairy charm. Couldn’t be. She never took it off. Yet that glimpse was enough to convince Kelyn. She’d given the charm to him. Why such tenderness toward this stranger, when there had been only animosity between her and Kethlyn?
“There,” she said, sitting back and sweeping a wrist across her forehead. “Don’t move tonight, Haim. If you become feverish, send this wee piss ant running. He’ll know where to find me. I’ll check you again in the morning. Who’s next?” Aye, stitching flesh, stitching bonds. How deeply she must regret her broken relationship with Kethlyn to adopt this brother so quickly. Had Kelyn been wrong to keep them apart? Was Alyster capable of harming her? Hell, Carah was the mind-reading avedra. If Alyster had ill-intent toward her, surely she would detect it. Kelyn barely trusted his own judgment anymore. He scrubbed his face with a dry, cracked palm. His brain felt numb with the weight of decisions and indecisions. And doubt. So much doubt, like an insidious poison creeping under his skin. He needed sleep. Aye, sleep would clear his head.
“War Commander?” asked one of the highlanders, spotting him in the doorway.
Kelyn jumped, tried to ease behind the doorpost, but too late. Carah scrambled to her feet, but there was no way to look innocent. Alyster patted Haim on the shoulder and rose unhurried.
“Da?” asked Carah. Her crossed arms were a sign that she willfully defied his wishes. “Do you need something?”
To Alyster’s credit, he stepped forward, putting himself between his sister and the father he so deeply misjudged. Did he think Kelyn would fly at his daughter and drag her out by her hair?
“I came to see if all was in order.” He yielded with a weary nod. “It is.”
~~~~
33
Dusk settled inside the walls of Tírandon, and the Lord’s Hall was fragrant with a feast, modest though it was. Candles burned in three wrought-iron chandeliers, casting a golden light that attempted to be warm and festive. Arryk counted six piglets and three lambs set out on a dozen trestle tables, but too few diners occupied the benches. Officers mostly, who had received permission from Kelyn to take their ease for a couple of hours. None of the Elarion joined them, nor Queen Briéllyn whose work was only beginning, nor Lady Carah, nor the avedrin. The War Commander had ordered food sent up to his suite.
Arryk occupied the center of the high table, next to Lady Ruthan. She had trouble carrying a conversation or starting one. Arryk decided she was not comfortable in the roll of hostess. He made up for it, chattering on about things that didn’t matter, his dogs mostly. Lord Lander, apparently, had been devoted to his wolfhounds, and Ruthan had shared his affection for them. She showed genuine curiosity about the mastiffs. Daisy, Rose, and Woodbine curled up before a grand hearth, where a fire crackled blithely. They had effortlessly ousted the two old wolfhounds, who had slunk from the Hall and hadn’t been seen since. Arryk was explaining why he named his fierce protectors after flowers, when his eye caught the gleam of an oiled blade hanging over the mantelpiece. Many a hearth was ornamented with trophies of war or great hunts, but there was something strangely familiar about this particular sword. It was nearly as long as he was tall, and its pommel … that ghostly pale pommel!
“Is that what I think it is?”
Ruthan followed his gaze. Her sudden stillness answered for him. Arryk stood, which compelled everyone at the tables to drop their forks and jump to their feet. He descended the dais and strode to the fireplace. Daisy sauntered over to lean against his leg as he stared up at the greatsword. A monster’s muscled arms and hooked claws shaped the cross-guard, and a gargoyle’s leering face was carved from a moonstone the size of an apple, or a human heart.
“Why, sire,” said Johf, “that looks uncannily like the Warlord’s sword. What was it called?”
“Contention.”
“Yes, I thought it lost in the Thunderwater when Goryth was slain.”
Arryk crooked a finger for Lady Ruthan to join him. Like a child anticipating a switching, she hesitated beside her chair, then raised her chin and plowed toward him, resolve making a hard thin line of her mouth. Her fear showed when she came to stand with the mastiff between them. Daisy shifted her weight and leaned against the woman’s leg instead. Ruthan scratched idly behind the dog’s ear while awaiting the king’s displeasure.
“The way I recall it,” Arryk said lowly, just for her, “Goryth lost his weapon when he lost Bramoran. I assumed it was in the Black Falcon’s treasury all this while, or melted down.”
Ruthan cleared her throat, then found her voice. “My father claimed it, in reparation for the razing of Tírandon. He traded steel for stone. And after the war, Rhorek gave him silver for each soldier, each household servant who was slain. But nothing could make up for the loss of my mother. I’ve always hated the sight of that sword. It reminds me of her death. And then … Leshan’s, too. I begged Father to take it down, but he refused. If you want it, sire, I return it to you freely.”
“Does it pain you to speak of them?”
She took her time weighing an answer. “It’s easier for me to speak of the past than remember the future.”
Remember the future? “Then I would hear your version of the razing of Tírandon, lady. I doubt Fieran history records it quite accurately.”
Her dark eyes slid over the trestle tables. “Were … were any of these gentlemen there?”
Arryk realized the full measure of bravery it took for Ruthan to open her house to Fieran guests. If any of the officers or knights at the tables had helped Goryth break down Tírandon’s gates and slaughter its people, none had seen fit to tell their king. But what about their brothers, fathers, friends? “You’re right. We’ll speak of it elsewhere. But I do not want the sword. In truth, I always thought Goryth a loathsome man. I remember wishing my father would replace him with someone kinder, less terrifying. But kind men do not start wars. Destroy the thing if you wish. Or give it to Laral. He can pass it to his sons.”
Ruthan closed her eyes and shuddered, as if a cold wind keened through her bones.
Could this woman truly see what had not yet happened? Mention of Laral’s family had triggered something. A memory of the future. Yes, Arryk understood now. “What do you know?”
Her chin trembled. “I know that on the night the siege began, Jaedren was still alive. I don’t know about Andy. If I try to See, I’m afraid… He’s so afraid. His body, his frail little body is in pain…” Which of Laral’
s sons did she mean? Ruthan’s hand flew to her mouth. She backed away. Daisy whined. “Please, excuse me, sire.” She turned and ran from the Hall.
~~~~
Carah balanced a tray of cups, and her eyes swam with black fog. Sweat puddled in the hollow of her throat, despite the cool night-breeze probing the arrow loops. Her hair, her clothes, her pores were so drenched in the odor of blood that she hardly smelled it anymore.
“Water…” groaned a Leanian. He reached a hand toward her. Carah knelt beside his pallet and held his head up while he drained the cup dry. Thanks to an ogre’s blade, his right hand was missing, and the bandages were beginning to leak.
“I’ll be back with fresh ones,” she whispered. “Try to sleep.”
A bell somewhere in North Town struck the first hour, and the infirmary was hushed under a pall of drug-induced sleep. Muffled cheers echoed from one of the back rooms as dice rolled favorably. A flute played softly, and the strings of a lute. Byrn the Blue strolled through the rows of cots playing songs that dying men longed to hear. But the screams of pain, of terror on the surgeon’s table, had faded with the sunset. Queen Briéllyn had managed to carry herself upstairs where a private room hid her tears, if she shed any. Did queens cry? Did they run to corners and vomit? Carah had done both, earlier in the afternoon. Now she felt like threadbare cloth, too worn, too frayed for tears.
She dug a roll of fresh linen from the supply room. On her way back to the Leanian, she heard voices rise in anger. Like stones clacking together, the voices came from the main room.
“… just have to wait.”
“We have waited!” The bellow shook the silence. The lute stopped thrumming.
Carah tucked the bandages into her pocket and hurried down the corridor. Laniel was facing off against the Madam Sergeant. Her actual name was Agna, and Carah liked her not one bit. She had her notion of how things should be done, all well and good, but even the queen’s opinion mattered less than dirt, despite her lifetime’s worth of medical experience. When Agna first saw Carah working, stitching flesh closed without a needle and thread, she had propped her fists on her hips and declared, “You won’t use magic in my infirmary, Missy. Those wounds are bound to burst open again, and I’ll have to clean up after you.” She had assigned an old bat of a matron to shadow Carah and press needle and thread into her hands. Carah took the needle, all right, stuck it into her sleeve, then mended the soldiers’ wounds in her own way.