by Lori Martin
“That was supposed to produce another Lissor,” Lilli said. “And I will now admit it had me terrified. I kept thinking of it, the creature born, killing everything around it. Freezing and burning, just as the council feared. And do you know something, Dalla? I think having two was what caused your illness. Think of the strain.”
Dalleena turned it over. There must be a way to put the pieces together. The Book was truth, so Lissor was truth. “Until my word shall change” was also the truth. Yes, Inama, you were right. As always. But still –
“Lissor was a madman,” she said. “He was mad because he saw all time: the past and present of the Armasiis – their strength and practicality – and the future, the fire of the Nialians. But he was only a mortal, and his soul could not carry such a weight.” She looked down at the babies. Gray eyes looked back.
“There are two of them.” Her face lit up with excitement. “That’s what saved them! There are two!”
They looked confused.
“Don’t you understand? The combined gifts of a Nialian and an Armasii are too great for any one mortal. But Nialia has given me more than one. They’ve divided the gifts! And split the burden!”
“Sharing the load between them?”
“Exactly.”
Pillyn sucked in her breath but said nothing. Lilli said, “Dalleena, you’re right. You have to be.”
The girl-child squirmed against her elbow. “I only wonder which one of them is carrying what,” she said. In the ordinary course of things, any female child of a Nialian should also be a Nialian. But it might not be possible to count on normality. The gray eyes hooded over as the little eyelids came down.
“We’ll find out, eventually,” Lilli said.
“Yes. Yes, we will.”
Rendell. Rendell, your children have been born.
CHAPTER 23
The Fifth Squad was composed mostly of men from the Fifth and Fourth Hills who had been fishermen before the war. Unlike the other squads, it had no accompanying archery bands. Their women were trained only in the wielding of short knives, for self-defense. The Seacoast had had little need for bows and arrows, until the soldiers came. It was this squad Temhas had joined.
The Second Hill had fallen as predicted, and Sillus’s stand at the palace had failed. Marlos-An belonged now to the Mendales. The Lindahnes had been pushed back, back through the valley, with terrible losses. The new king, barricaded in an estate between the Fourth and the Fifth, issued impulsive and ill-advised orders. His best and highest officers were dead, having sacrificed themselves to cover his retreat. Those who were left, taking a cue from his wife and son, spent their energies avoiding his anger. Sillus thought he heard around him murmuring voices, low and vague. They had accepted him because they needed a war leader, and he was failing.
Temhas’s squad, back on home ground they would soon have to defend, camped out at the base of the Fifth. He had chosen this squad because few of them had been “palace people,” and none had been at the truth-seeking when he had testified against his brother. They knew from his speech only that he was noble-born and educated, and presumably had a right to an officer’s rank. But he had volunteered for the foot soldiers, and though as inexperienced as the rest, he was quick to learn and – more important – eager to work and fight hard. After his first week, when he had saved a man and finished off the Mendale who had cornered him, Temhas found himself one of them. He was thankful that they asked no questions.
“If I climbed that tree in the daytime, I’d see my own house,” Peilus remarked glumly. He was an older man, his face gnarled by the Seawinds, his hands strong and capable with a net but less so with a sword. He was the man Temhas had saved. They were crouched around a fire, huddled into snow and mud. “Never thought I’d be welcoming Mendales into it.”
“Pass the wine, Reil,” said another man to Temhas. It was the name he had given the recruiting officer.
He obliged, while Peilus continued, “They’re driving us into the net, like so many schools of fish.”
“And the same end we’ll have,” said a second. “Strung up on lines, and ready for the fire.”
“I hear the heretics sent the new king a messenger, saying they’d take a surrender.”
Peilus spit into the flames. “Yes, they would, but who’d be fool enough to take the bait?”
“The king turned it down,” the man said. He leaned forward, his eyes wide. “Do you know what they’re saying at headquarters?” he hissed. “Why they’ve attacked us?”
Peilus grunted, as if to say there could be no sensible reason, but Temhas asked, “Why?”
“They’re starving. The gods have paid them for their sins and sent them a sickness that’s killing their crops. Or else it’s a flooding, some say. But they need land and food – and we’ve been blessed with both, because we keep the gods’ words.”
“Precious little protection the gods have given us for it,” Peilus grumbled. “If it’s so, why are they winning? I’ll burn my boats and my house before any Mendale feeds off my belongings.”
“Here comes Khael,” Temhas said, and the squad leader stood in the circle.
“Well, my boys, get to your beds,” he said. “There’s a hard day tomorrow.”
They looked at him, and he nodded. “We’re attacking in the morning, to drive them back to the palace and off our doorsteps. I don’t have to tell you what it means. This is our country, and these are our homes right behind us. Every squad will be fighting. It’s the final throw of the die.”
No one looked at anyone else. The group began to break up. Each man lay down in the dark and tried to sleep.
The Mendale’s sword slashed viciously into his left arm and upper chest, exposed and unprotected since he had lost his shield. Temhas cried out, blinded for a moment by pain. Eagerly the Mendale pressed forward, incautious and sure of the kill, but Temhas had pulled himself together. He took the sudden opening, and struck. The man fell dead at his feet. Blood streaming down his arm, Temhas staggered, trying to keep his footing in the snow. He would have agreed with the Mendale officers when they had protested the Assembly’s delays. War was impossible in winter.
The Lindahnes were losing the battle. Their lines had been broken hours ago, and the Fourth Squad no longer existed. The Third Archery Squad had spent their arrows uselessly, and many of the women were taken captive, while others sank to the ground, staining the snow. Fierce in their rage and helplessness, and cut off from the rest, the men of his own squad planted themselves stubbornly and fought on.
Temhas reached down and heaped handfuls of snow on to his gaping wound, but it continued to gush. The sword in his right hand felt terribly heavy. He stepped back, almost tripping over the dead body.
“Put down your sword or die,” said a voice. Dizzy, he craned his head toward the sound. A Mendale officer stood watching him. The man repeated the offer, and sounded as if he did not care which alternative Temhas chose.
“He’s killed Farlin,” someone else said. Temhas, somehow clutching his sword, turned slowly in a complete circle. Four or five Mendales had surrounded him.
“Hurry up and take your pick,” the officer said impatiently. “We’ve more of your kind to deal with.”
“Kill him and have done,” the other man said.
“No. We’re supposed to take captives if we can.” He glared at Temhas. “Well?
Temhas set his jaw and straightened. To surrender would be to give in to his fear. “I will fight you,” he said with dignity, and fell forward into the snow, in a faint.
“Pick him up and take him in,” sighed the officer, wishing his feet were warmer. “And take poor Farlin, too.”
Sillus’s obsession bordered on madness, but no one around him knew it. Busy with their own troubles and locked in despair, the stragglers who stayed with him did not see the white light of hysteria that came often into his eyes.
His failure was complete. The Mendales now ruled Lindahne. They had broken the lines and overrun the esta
tes, taken prisoners, given orders. The kingdom he had seized had been seized from him. And somehow, in his mind, it was all the fault of the child.
For the time being he had escaped capture. Loyal men of the First Squad had stayed with him and protected his retreat, and Carden was with him. His unfortunate wife was taken. Rumor had it that the imprisoned queen was also in Mendale hands. In fact, both women were in chains, on their way to MenDas, where the Assembly could decide what to do with them. For the first time in their lives they were equals: former queens, with no country left to rule. Ayenna was quiet. She also thought of the child.
The rational thing would have been to surrender. The heroic thing would have been to kill himself, to save the blood of the men responsible for protecting him. But he was neither rational nor heroic, and he led them past the Fourth, to the farthest reaches of the Third. The woodlands stood at their backs. The Mendales were pursuing them – the self-proclaimed king was an even greater prize than Ayenna – but for the moment had lost the trail.
If he could kill the child, things could still be righted. It was becoming clear that all the talk at the truth-seeking was not just so much superstition. Dalleena’s sin had caused this curse of the Mendales. She should have been executed. Carden should have killed her. But because she lived he had not killed Ayenna, and the people continued to love her. Of course he had been unable to rule – who could wage a war without the loyalty of his citizens? And the child. Did they want it as the successor, after all? If the Mendales left, would they accept him still? If Dalleena had not been born at all, he would have been rightful king. He would have ruled well. The Mendales would not have dared to attack: he would have been strong. He was not his weak brother, with his notions of peace. But instead, because of Dalleena, he was a hunted man in his own country.
He stared into the fire. If he could kill her and the horror she had presumably given birth to, he could bargain with the Mendales. Look, the Lindahne royalty has been destroyed, through me. Spare me. I can help you. I know how to govern; I was a powerful man.
Of perhaps her death would finally appease the gods. The curse would be lifted. Would the heretics be driven back, and the Chair returned to him, by the force of Nialia alone? This was a question he could not answer. Too little of his life had been spent in thinking of the gods, and he did not know their ways. He passed over it.
There was no one among the company to argue with his twisted logic. They had pleaded with him that morning that they should go into the woods. The Mendales were busy subduing the Lindahne population; they didn’t have the time or the men to comb the thick area for them. It would be safe for months.
He could hear Carden’s voice among the men. He shifted in irritation. With an idle finger he traced a map in the mud. Here the captured palace. Here the Sea. Here the dead and burning Fifth. Where in all of this could Dalleena have gone? He had been too pressed to work it out when she had first slipped through his fingers. Or rather Carden’s, thanks to the double-dealing Temhas. He scratched in the border of Mendale, and the Valtah. His finger froze in place. His inflamed eyes grew a little wider. The woodlands. She must have gone to the woodlands! It was so obvious. Any fool who looked at a map would know it. Lindahne territory. She wasn’t permitted on it – but that’s where she had to be.
So the men wanted to hide from the Mendales? Camp out, in fact? He started to laugh, harshly, loudly, and unpleasantly. There was quick silence from beyond, where the men had been murmuring. The woodlands.
It wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Nesmin, the First Tribune of Mendale, had ridden in himself. By the time the last Lindahne fell in battle he had established himself at Marlos-An in comfort. Though stripped, the palace would make excellent headquarters for the occupation. But first things first: he had the best furniture – which was to say the least damaged – moved into the most spacious room, and he settled in. Judging by the size of the apartment, it must have been the king’s. So much the better.
Lindahne rang with the sounds of the new government. New buildings were being erected throughout the valley by unwilling Lindahne hands. The dead bengrass was trampled beneath. The Mendale government, a fat and healthy bureaucracy, needed more space to conduct its affairs. On each Hill the noble estates that had survived the destruction were being converted for the future use of Assembly members, though at the moment they were filled with the army’s officers. Partially destroyed or damaged buildings were leveled, and the stone put to use elsewhere.
The small cottages of the villagers were left intact, if their owners were docile. If not, they were burned over rebellious heads, as a warning to others. The Fifth Hill – site of the final stand – had suffered the most. Half of the local population had been killed. The rest, mostly women, had felt the same way as the men of Peilus’s squad, and they had burned their homes themselves, to prevent the Mendales from profiting by them.
If some homes remained in Lindahne hands, the produce did not. They learned that Mendale had indeed fought the war for food. They took control of Lindahne crops. Soldiers arrived daily and cleared out their storehouses, leaving each family a bare minimum that did not look to last out the cold weather. Huge shipments of grain and cattle began the journey to Mendale. Lindahnes who fought – Lindahnes who even protested – joined the ranks of the prisoners-of-war, who had been put to forced labor, loading the detested carts with their shipments. Further rebellion brought the sword, and fire.
The surviving officers of the Lindahne army, who were the rightful owners of the confiscated estates, were considered dangerous by the Mendales. Many were sent to the city of MenDas, where they were imprisoned or sentenced to death by the harsh Assembly. Second Tribune Tana was insisting on firmness. The pleas for mercy, advanced by Forlas, fell on deaf ears. For those Lindahne nobles who were willing, subordinate advisory positions to ranking Mendales were open to them. Most of the victors, after all, knew little of the population they were trying to subdue. Homegrown advice would be useful. Some Lindahnes took these positions to save themselves, some because they saw it as a way to help their suffering countrymen. They acted as buffers, absorbing and trying to re-channel Mendale force. One of these was the high priest of Proseras, the compassionate old man who had called on Inama at the truth-seeking. He managed to convince Nesmin himself that destruction of the Hills’ temples would be more trouble than it was worth. The people, just beginning to resign themselves, would rise up again in outrage. The Mendale army would have to beat them back down, and damage much of the remaining land – and its storehouses. Surely this would be of little use to all concerned? Nesmin agreed. The temples were permitted to stand, but services were strictly prohibited. The old priest murmured his thanks for such generosity. Then he went home and wept.
Nesmin continued to issue orders in his loud, cheerful manner. He feasted the commander, head of the army, in Lindahne dishes. Everything was going well, very well indeed. Mendale, instead of starving, was more prosperous than ever. As for the native children outside his window, who grew thin and sick while their parents worked endless hours for the invaders, he did not think of them. He was happy and secure in his power and the success of his plans. Tana, no doubt, was furthering her strength in the Assembly during his voluntary absence, but there were new sources of power and wealth here. As for poor Forlas, too foolish even now to accept their good fortune, surely he would not last much longer. A new Third Tribune – preferably one indebted to himself – would be very welcome.
He went and looked out the window, feeling the usual satisfaction. The army was gathering together a large group of Lindahnes, to put them to work on one of the new buildings. He watched the rounding-up, as they were brought together on the open ground past the palace. Suddenly he leaned forward. A small feeling of bewilderment crept into him.
All of the Lindahnes were dressed alike. But these were not soldiers; it was not their army clothes, which in any case had been forbidden. These were just ordinary men and women, hustled
out of the villages and from all over the valley. Individually he would not have noticed it. But together as they now were it could not fail to catch the eye. They were all in brown. It was if a hundred leafless trees had fallen to the ground, one beside the other.
Brown, he thought. I must remember to find out if it means anything.
From where he stood he could see the courtyard, the courtyard that had bid farewell to Boessus on his journey. He could see the fountain where Temhas had sat, the beginning of the orchard where Dalleena and Rendell had met in love, the road the Watcher had ridden from the cave of Sanlin. But he knew nothing of these things. He saw only the ever-falling snow, and the strange pink flower that still grew at the gates.
CHAPTER 24
Dalleena leaned her face against the bark, in weariness. It had come, that familiar voice, but from far off, without possession. Without sight or joy, just a mere sudden knowledge, as if the gift were begrudged.
Gift, she thought bitterly. Is it a gift, to have to tell them?
She walked back toward the shelter and was surprised to see all three of them standing outside, looking south.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The smoke,” Lilli said.
“Again?”
She followed their eyes. A column of smoke was rising above the trees.
“It’s closer than it was before,” Lilli said. “It can’t be on the Third. “It’s someone in the woodlands.”
“When we first saw it,” Pillyn said in a small voice, “I thought it was our estate, burning.”
“Oh no, you poor girl, it couldn’t be that. Too small. It’s only someone’s campfire.”
Dalleena shook her head. “You’d think whoever it is would have enough sense not to send up a signal.”
“Maybe they’re not running from anyone.”
“Then what are they doing in here in the first place? No, it’s recklessness. Or foolishness.”