King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  Presently, the wounded one stopped pawing at the arrow in her chest and lay unmoving, fainted or dead, Signi could not tell. Two younger women emerged onto the sentry walk and ran, bent and low. One lifted the fallen woman under the arms and dragged her off. The other strung her own bow and shot.

  Signi sneezed. Smoke! She whirled back to face the guild house square. Now more than half of the windows belched flames and smoke. A flicker from a doorway: a young woman carrying a bundle ducked out and ran.

  She made it ten steps before she dropped dead with at least a dozen Venn arrows in her. The bundle fell, and out rolled a baby too young to walk. The child opened its mouth wide, sucking in its breath for a long, agonized moment before the fist-clenching, body-shaking scream. An attack party crossed the court from another direction, their path intersecting the fallen woman and the squalling baby. Most ran past. The man at the end closest cocked his wrist back, sword high, but he faltered midway in his stroke, leaped over the baby and ran on, leaving the child sitting by the dead woman, screaming and screaming.

  Signi smeared the blurring of hot tears from her eyes and coughed from the thickening smoke. More figures dotted the smoke-shrouded street, many of them absurdly small—children separated from families in the smoke, most wailing in fright. Some were shot or struck down by the swords of the Venn, others were hidden by the thickening smoke.

  “I can’t bear it,” Signi whispered.

  “Is it any more right when young men have life and light struck from their eyes?” Valda asked, gripping the stone rail.

  “No. But most chose such a calling. Those children did not. My Dag Chief, I cannot stand by as witness.” Yes. Yes. The words hummed through her, diminishing the pain, the screams, the smell of burning. The world below glimmered in a haze of light. “Yes, I will act.”

  Valda took hold of Signi’s shoulders. “You cannot.” And when Signi did not answer, she shook her hard. “You. Must. Not. Act.”

  Signi’s head rocked, but her gaze lifted beyond Valda’s shoulder. She brushed at the fingers dug into her shoulders. “Go, Valda,” she whispered. “Take Fulla. Go.”

  “I will not be able to ward you,” Valda warned. A shake. “Do you hear me?”

  “I know.” Signi trembled with effort. Valda felt it under her fingers. “The consequence is mine. And if I am discovered, perhaps it is time to let Erkric know that I live. Because I am going to take a stand against him.”

  Valda shook Signi a last time in a frustrated attempt to hold her to the now, to her own plans, so desperately important. But Signi was gone, gazing beyond the rim of the world at Ydrasal, the Realm of the Tree; to Valda’s magical vision Signi shimmered in pale fire.

  So Valda let her go, and backed away a step as Signi began the deep breathing of a mage gathering all her inner resources. Valda gripped Durasnir’s thick, bony wrist and without leave transferred him back to his ship. Then she left herself.

  Signi did not see them go. Her ears rushed and thundered, closing out the screams of the baby far below, the shouts and cries and hissing arrows, the sickening thuds of falling bodies as she reached down and down, to the strong flow of water below the ground.

  She began to whisper a chain of spells held together by strength of will.

  If you knew it was there, and you were strong enough to form the conduit, then the water would drive itself upward. First a trickle, then a stream, moving in and out of space so that every pot, every bucket, every pond and pool and fountain in the city bubbled up to the brim, quivered, spilled over in a thin trickle that rapidly swelled to overflowing.

  Small animals put ears up, twitched whiskers and noses, then scrambled, skittered, swarmed for higher ground. Water spilled onto shelves, tables, puddled onto floors, rilling out of doorways. Water rushed down stairs, through broken windows, seeping, dripping, gouting down into flames that sent up hisses of steam.

  Thin sheets of overflow strengthened to cascades, the fountains jetted huge sprays that arced high enough in the air to glimmer with rainbows between roiling columns of smoke.

  Spouts and falls lifted charred furnishings, papers, books, clothing, carrying them out of windows and doors to wash down streets in ever-widening rivers. Black ash streaked the whitewashed walls of buildings as the jumble of furniture, curtains, pots, cups, plates, and corpses bobbed and spun in eddies across the courts.

  Warriors and defenders alike ran from the deluge, or tried to run until they found themselves caught waist-deep in the swirling waters. Though no one signaled, the women on the walls began in ones and twos, and then in a mass, to run down to the aid of the old and the small, all struggling not to get swept away in the terrifying flood; Venn warriors dropped shields and weapons as they slogged heavily, weighted by their armor, through the climbing torrent. There would be no fires set now. They had to get out with their lives alongside city dwellers, some clutching bits of belongings gathered up witlessly. A Venn sloshed out of nowhere, thrust a squalling baby into the arms of an old woman guiding a frail old man, and surged on. Nightingale Toraca appeared with a string of the horses recaptured earlier, his arm in a sling. His wounds had reopened, and he half leaned on the lead mare. If the Venn even noticed his blue coat, they paid no attention to him or to the horses—who snapped at anyone unfamiliar who tried to touch them.

  Screamer arrows and blats repeated frantically; everyone headed toward the gates, thrust forward by surging water.

  When all living things had cleared the city’s central square directly above the underground caverns, a rumbling boom punched through. A geyser shot skyward, tossing up massive flagstones like leaves in the wind. Water and stone rained down, dousing all the fires, the white-foaming crest near the height of the ancient tower where, unseen from below, a small woman stood, arms upraised, fingers trembling, until her spells collapsed around her and she fell to the white stone in a faint.

  The geyser bumped lower. Then again. Gradually it subsided. Water roared through the southern gate, carrying most of the city’s first-floor furnishings out into a spreading tangle of wreckage. The torrent diminished into running gutters, and then even those lessened to a thin trickle, leaving the city tinkling unmusically with drips.

  The amazed defenders gradually perceived that they were surrounded by uncountable enemies. The amazed enemies took in the defenders standing in small clumps within easy reach. They looked around for weapons, shields—most of them gone—and then sought out their captains, their faces expressing variations of “What now?”

  Nightingale was the first to recover. He knew the Venn wanted horses; he hoped if he got the animals out of sight they’d stay out of mind.

  The last of the horses vanished inside when Hilda Acting Battle Chief Vringir broke through his dazed ensigns and slogged toward the gates, eyeing the defenders in the fading light. The army he’d envisioned did not exist. What did were a few nine-nines of Marlovan women defenders, most of them now as unarmed as his men. No one looked ready to carry on a fight, and though he’d been ready to slaughter them all at noon, he had no stomach for cutting them down in cold blood now.

  “Let them go,” he said to his signal ensign.

  Instead of blowing the permit passage toots, the ensign said, “Who did that?”

  Such a breach of discipline would have netted him summary punishment under ordinary circumstances—as ordinary as war ever was. Vringir ignored the persistent longing to sit right down and empty the water out of his boots as he said, “Dag Erkric’s business if anyone’s.” Adding wryly, but only to himself, For a change.

  “Signal,” he said, more sharply, for some of the people were starting to stir and eye one another warily.

  This time his order was promptly carried out. The Marlovans reacted as if shot—it was almost funny, the way they backed together, looking around for weapons that were not there, some of them slipping in the mud or tripping over cushions and jugs and broken chairs. But when his men backed up obediently, reforming into rough lines, the Marlovans trudge
d back into their ruined city, some stooping to pick things out of the mess.

  Ruined city, ruined camp. The flood had also carried away all their neatly lined up and guarded supplies.

  More supplies would be on the ships, but first they must land.

  Vringir contemplated the west in the fading light. A thin brown pall hung over the harbor city. It looked from this distance like the fires set early that morning were under control.

  He beckoned to the signal ensign. Talkar would need an immediate report, but it was easy to guess the new orders: “We’ll find dry ground and camp. At dawn we’ll march on Lindeth Harbor and secure it.” He thought of the men’s bellies pinched with hunger by morning, and how hard they would fight. He smiled sourly. “If our ships can’t get into the harbor to bring our supplies, then the city can re-supply us for our march up the pass.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE children of Andahi Castle began their sing as soon as dawn lit up the summery grasses and tangled wildflowers around them. As the light strengthened, turning blobby shadows of trees to bright green, glinting in the rocks, their high voices took on the cadence of ritual, the eights staggering under the weight of their packs.

  They sang the “Hymn to the Fallen” four times for each of the four fallen children. It didn’t seem enough somehow; when a grown-up died, the sing had always been fine, it was over, life got back to normal. But Han still hurt inside when she thought about Gdir lying there so still in the pale moonlight, poor little Tlennen curled in a ball. The memory made her eyes burn and her middle shaky, so when Lnand suggested in her tragedy voice that they sing for everybody in the castle, no one argued, or said “But they’re alive!” They just sang as they wound upward and upward, toward the second set of high cliffs, just below where the abandoned beacons lay. When the Venn marched through the pass, the beacon men figured out what had happened and scattered, some toward Ala Larkadhe, others over the mountains into Idayago to find other Marlovans in order to fight back.

  By mid morning the children were too hot and thirsty to keep singing. They slunk wearily along a narrow path. The three-year-olds ran along willingly enough until the morning sun had lifted above the mountains, but when they came to a narrow bridge suspended high over a rumbling, rushing waterfall, everyone came to a halt.

  They stared. There weren’t any bridges in the territory the children had been permitted to roam. They eyed the rope and slat affair swinging gently in the tumbling air currents made by the wild frothing waters. To the children it looked like it was about to fall down.

  “Let’s go one by one,” Han said.

  “I’ll go first. Test it.” Hal stepped on the first slat, then hopped back uncertainly when it wiggled.

  One of the smalls began to cry. Rosebud promptly puckered up, and when Lnand tugged impatiently at her hand, she started to howl.

  “Come on, Rosebud. Just a quick run.”

  “No.”

  “We have to! The bad people will get us if we don’t!”

  Rosebud’s answer was to shriek.

  Lnand’s hand clapped over Rosebud’s mouth, and the brat twisted against her, scratching at Lnand’s fingers. Lnand tightened her grip, her stomach burning with fury. She yearned to slap the brat. Not just slap her, but shove her right off the bridge into the cascade. How good it would feel to be rid of her!

  Lnand was sick of whining, dirt, pee. When would it end? It would never end, they’d be lost in the mountains until wolves ate them, or the snows came and froze them, or Idayagans caught up and shot them all. Just because of these brats.

  She opened her eyes. The sevens and eights had dropped their packs, and all their slogginess was gone, as if somebody had done magic on them. They ran back down the path a little way, to a grassy dell they’d passed, and happily scrambled around in a wrestling game. Young Tana had taken his sister’s hand.

  “Go on,” Lnand told him, her whisper shaky. “Take the other two. Watch the big boys play.”

  Young Tana looked back once—she was watching as she clutched the struggling brat against her—as he led away the other two babies, both sucking their thumbs.

  Hal tested the slats once more, then jutted his jaw and ran over. At the other side, he broke into a wide grin, and Freckles and Dvar followed. They vanished over a pile of ivy-covered rock, exploring.

  Lnand and Han were left standing alone. Lnand whipped a fast glance Han’s way. Han was glaring—at Rosebud! She wants to throw them over the cliff, too!

  A weird thrill sang along Lnand’s nerves. Her mind jigged through possible plans—no witnesses, get the others away, not quite push Rosebud, just get her on the bridge and pretend she got loose, and just . . . do it.

  Han shook with resentment and fury. The morning had just started, and the brats were worse than ever. They would only get even more worse. And the others couldn’t move unless the brats did. Her head ached as if someone pounded it with a rock.

  She hated those snot-smeared, filthy brats, Rosebud squealing so loud her voice was like glass splinters in her ears. She stank like an old dog. At least an old dog had done good service and deserved a place by the fire and frequent wandings. Rosebud hadn’t done anything of use, she just whined, and squalled, and had to be picked up, and she wasn’t even trying to use the Waste Spell any more.

  Han jerked her gaze away from the brat as if not seeing her would make her disappear—and shock pooled inside her belly. In her experience, Lnand either sneaked looks at you quick as a lizard’s tongue, or else she made one of her oh-poor-me faces, her eyes round and big but that little smile curling the corners of her mouth. This face was unlike any Han had ever seen, a steady look, a weird one, her pupils big and round as night.

  Pin-jabs prickled along Han’s arms. Lnand was thinking the same thing! The cold sensation in Han’s middle formed into a clod of ice. She knew that ice. A small ice ball hid behind her ribs the day she’d been sent on an errand to the pantry, and when she passed through the empty bake room, there was a tray of honey corn muffins. She’d stuffed them into her smock, then lied when Lnand’s father, the castle baker, questioned everyone. Lnand and the two older kitchen helpers ended up getting a double thrashing, one for theft, and one for lying.

  Han had gotten away with it, and it had even felt good, especially when she ate them and thought about Lnand’s wailing. The snitch! But when she saw Lnand’s cousin, Radran, with his eyes all red, the ice ball came back, even bigger. Everybody liked Radran—he was fun and never mean—and Han had gotten him a beating for something he hadn’t done.

  The ice ball was big now. Could Gdir see ice balls? Han knew that sometimes ghosts walked in the world, and some people said they could see inside your head. Gdir would never throw brats down a cascade. Gdir had said Han was a bad leader because she didn’t make everyone wash and do warm-ups like when life was normal. Gdir said that a good leader keeps everyone in order, and clean.

  But the Jarlan wanted us to be kept safe. The ice ball was taking over Han’s body, turning her into ice.

  I promised to keep Rosebud safe. That was it. It didn’t matter that Rosebud peed herself. It wouldn’t matter if she threw everyone’s bedroll down a chasm, or screamed all day and all night. The Jarlan trusted Han to keep them all safe.

  Han’s breath slowly leaked out.

  And Lnand slowly relaxed her grip on the squirming, angry child. She could have done “it” when she was mad, but to plan it? And with everyone there? What would they say? Could she get Han to make up a lie? But Han never lied.

  “Blindfolds,” Han stated. Keep them safe. That’s my job. As long as I can. The ice melted away. “We’ll play the scout game.”

  Lnand heaved a loud sigh. She would pretend that nothing had happened, that she was annoyed at more work, but she was secretly relieved. Han wouldn’t do it, and Lnand couldn’t. Now, her secret inner voice whispered, and Lnand shivered. “We’ll tell the smalls they’re now sixes, they get to have big people jobs. If we lead them around in a circle
, and tell them they have to balance on wood that’s on the ground, they won’t know.”

  Neither was going to make any mention of what might have happened. Instead, energy infused them, Lnand worrying about what Han might say about Lnand when Lnand wasn’t there, and Han whispering to Gdir in spirit. Help me be strong, Gdir. I’ll be a better leader.

  They gathered everyone again, blindfolded the smalls, started the scouting game, led them over the bridge, pulled the blindfolds off when they were out of sight of the cascade, then gave everyone a honey lick for doing a good scouting job.

  Two more bridges, and everyone over five had figured out the ruse. Since they’d all survived, they found the bridges fun, and only the smalls needed the blindfolds, but it had become habit by now. Rosebud liked the game because she’d get a honey lick.

  By noon, though, the smalls had had enough walking up steep trails. Even honey licks wouldn’t get them along. “We’re going to have to carry them,” Lnand pronounced.

  Han sighed. “Then let’s arrange the packs again. Anyone who carries a three gets some of their pack taken away.”

  The eights hunched and sidled. That was when Han realized that they hadn’t been staggering nearly as much, though from all the uphill climbing they should have been as tired as she was.

  The flickering, sneaky looks exchanged confirmed her guess. They’d somehow been chucking away some of their burdens. “First, what are we going to eat in a week?” She was so angry she wanted to knock them all down.

  “But we have plenty—”

  “Too much—”

  “We never get to cook anyway—”

  “Second, when you threw away our food you left a trail even a stupid Idayagan can find!”

  That shut them up.

  The remaining food got redistributed. Lnand moved briskly, feeling like she’d escaped something horrible, that Han might say something horrible when they saw grown-ups again. She dunked all Rosebud’s clothes, then said sternly, “If you don’t use the Spell, then you have to have diapers again. Drawers are only for big people.”