She put her eye again to the peephole. Explosive flares along the half-wall wildly lit a chaotic scene. Struggling, jerking shadows. Bodies. Shouts of anger. Shouts of terror. Screams of pain. Gunfire’s echoing racket.
She could see that the invaders were no longer returning fire, which meant they had used all their shots. Not enough discipline,she thought. Too late to learn it now.
The struggle now focused on the exit passage.
Even if the invaders broke through the bottleneck of soldiers, they would find the gate chained closed again.
“Hold fire,” said Clement.
The signal-man changed his tune. The guns gradually fell silent.
“Sabers only. Attack,” said Clement.
And then she ran, with him cheerfully piping the signals behind her. She ran for the entry to the slaughterhouse stink of the courtyard, as the reloaders unshielded their lamps and put them atop the half wall, so the gunflash-blinded pistoliers could see to fight.
She ran, and with her saber’s hilt dealt a ringing blow to the helm of a soldier who was about to strike open the neck of a fallen man. “Mine!” she screamed into the soldier’s startled face. “Go forward!”
She had to trust her rivets to protect herself, and her prisoner, from accidental attack: polished, light-reflecting brass that studded the front and back of her leather armor, and marked her as a fellow soldier even in the hazy light, the rising dust, the spray of blood. The wounded man thrashed and shouted, struggling to rise. His beard was fouled with straw. His eyes … she could not quite endure them. The purity of his rage.
Her shot had blown out the back of his thigh. Inside the ugly wound, she saw broken bone. She wrestled him down, knelt on his back to hold him. Shouted hoarsely for a medic.
The signal-man piped on. No one responded to her shout, a single hoarse cry in a roar of shouts. People ran past her, tripping on her prisoner’s sprawled limbs. “Soldier!” she shouted at each one, futilely. “Get the medic!”
Impossible to know how the battle was going, but easy to predict the outcome. A tangle of struggling, shouting shadows in the arched Passageway. A dozen or more bodies, dead and dying, scattered. A few soldiers now, somewhat dazed in the aftermath, dispatching anyone who still moved.
“Medic!” Clement shouted.
Finally, a man rushed up to her, with a pale boy bearing a lantern. “Lieutenant-General? What is your hurt?”
“This prisoner. He must live.”
The medic took one look. “His leg must come off, then.” The boy was tottering. The medic snatched the lantern from him.
“Give me the light.” The prisoner’s thrashing was losing its strength, so Clement could hold the lantern reasonably steady while the medic put hands into the wound, and pinched shut a spurting artery.
“It may be too late,” he commented.
The boy crumpled.
Someone was shouting for her.
“Here!” she answered. It took a few more shouts before Captain Herme found her. Meanwhile, she noticed the soldiers coming out of the arched passageway, noticed the rising silence.
“It’s over,” Herme said, unnecessarily.
“Get that kid out of the way, will you?”
A soldier picked up the boy and took him away. Others took control of the injured prisoner, so Clement could stand up. Something hurt. Her ribs. Willis must have gotten in a good punch. She stood by the medic. “Don’t amputate yet. But get his bleeding stopped.”
“There’s wounded soldiers,” said the sergeant.
“Unless the wounds are life threatening, they’ll have to wait.”
In the dining hall, the wounded gathered, limp or giddy, attended by their comrades. The medic put his cauterizing irons on the fire. The lantern-boy vomited helplessly in the corner. Clement checked the waiting soldiers, and found no life-threatening wounds. The rebels guns had used up their shots before they had targets to shoot at; their daggers had rarely penetrated armor. Death-and-Life had been cornered, helpless, so overwhelmed they’d hardly been able to fight back.
She went out again to the courtyard. Soldiers worked in pairs to carry the bodies away.
As she walked down the arched passageway to the gate, she lifted her lantern. Blood smeared the wall and puddled the cobblestones. She stepped carefully. The smell made her stomach churn.
She went through the gate, which now hung ajar. The chain with which the soldiers had secured it dangled. The original padlock, its hasp filed open, lay tossed upon the stones. Outside, the snow was churned up, pink with blood. She followed the trail toward the sound of soldier’s cursing.
“By gods, I thought I was skewered.”
“Isn’t that one dead yet?”
“Hell, this is dirty work!”
They fell silent at the sight of her. In solitary silence she viewed the bodies piled in the snow. A boy. A woman older than she. A man with his guts trailing. Not much blood now, just a discarded pile of flaccid gray flesh. The soldiers’ pockets bulged with pilferage.
She turned away. Behind her, she heard the voices start again.
“It’s fucking cold!”
“Haven’t we got them all yet?”
“What did the lieutenant-general want?”
“Did you hear she’s making the medic treat the prisoner first?”
She could hardly lift her feet, she was so tired. The stars shimmered coldly overhead. Her breath puffed out, obscuring her vision.
She was walking away from the garrison.
She could not stop herself.
Her boots caught in deep snow. She fell. She lay.
Her lantern had gone out.
Under guard, the prisoner lay raving, tied spread-eagle to a table. His leg, roughly splinted, smelled like charred meat. His cut-open clothing trailed from him in bloody, unraveling rags.
Clement said to the guards, “Go eat something.” She pulled up a chair, and sat, and crossed her legs. She had forced herself to swallow a sweetened corncake, but her stomach still churned. “Willis,” she said quietly in Shaftalese, “Stop your ranting. There’s no audience anymore—just you and me.”
He fell silent—with surprise?—and gave her a scouring, baleful glance. “When the G’deon comes,” he said, “she will take out your heart. She will dissolve your flesh. You will beg her for death. You will beg!”
Clement said, “Yes, I’m rather afraid of that. When can we expect the G’deon to come?”
“When we prove our devotion to her! When we prove that we are willing to serve her unto death!”
“What will it take to prove this?”
He said through pale lips, “The abandonment of mercy.”
Though Clement had managed to get herself back indoors, she remained weak and stunned by the horror of the massacre. Yes. The abandonment of mercy.
What mercy had the Sainnites ever granted?
She shut her eyes. She opened them to find he was looking at her. “Are my people all dead?” he asked.
“Yes, they are.”
Now, his turn to shut his eyes. A furrowed face, much hardened and battered by the bitter weather of this godsforsaken place. His lips moved. Perhaps he said the names of the dead.
“Tell me about your G’deon,” said Clement. “I want to know about her. What does she look like? What has she said to you? Why isn’t she here with you, helping to fight your battles?”
His eyes opened, his weathered face creased into a baleful grin. “You fear the day that happens! And so you ought to! The land itself has been tainted by your presence, but she will not foul herself with Sainnite blood. She named me her champion. But do you think I am the only one? After this night, hundreds will rise up. Thousands!”
He paused to gasp for breath. Though the bleeding had been stopped, the pain must have been excruciating. Yet, despite agony and weakness, his words were chilling, terrible. The effect he had on his followers must have been profound.
Clement pulled herself together, considered what he had said, and asked quietl
y, “How many of your people did you hold back in the woods?”
“What difference does it make how many? They’re flying down the mountain now!” He uttered a raw laugh. “Oh, no, you’ll not keep this night a secret! All will be known. That we are heroes. And that you—” He glanced at her again. “You cannot silence stories. The land itself will know our names.”
Like Cadmar, the man only seemed able to make speeches. He was a figure, as Cadmar had become a figure.
He lay gasping, shivering. There were no blankets here, and the warmth of the fireplace did not travel far. At the far end of the hall, where the medic was cleansing and binding the last wounds, soldiers trailed in, checked on their comrades, ate a cold corncake or two, and exchanged muted accounts of what had happened. Clement heard no bragging; even hardened soldiers would find this night’s butchery difficult to be proud of.
“Willis,” she said. “Tell me about South Hill.”
He looked at her blankly.
“Surely, what happened there no longer matters, after so many years.”
He said, shallow-breathed, “Who areyou?”
“I’m Clement, daughter of Gabian. I want to understand what is happening to us.” She leaned a bit forward, her stiff leather creaking. “There was a mysterious woman, a traitor, who came to South Hill. Tell me about what happened there, and I’ll tell the medic he can give you a pain draught.”
Some people when injured lose all their intelligence, but this was not one of them. He said, “She was one of yours. You know what happened.”
“I am being honest with you, one commander to another. We Sainnites knew nothing of her, or of her doings. This is the truth. At least tell me her name.”
“Her name? If you don’t know, why should I say it?”
“Did she havea name?”
He gave her the scornful look one madman gives another. “Everyone has a name!”
“Did she tell stories?”
“Stories?” His tone was blank. Was he concealing something, or was there nothing to conceal?
She sat back, and it occurred to her to undo some buckles so the leather would not keep digging into her aching ribs. “Was she a border woman?” She fumbled with the buckles.
Of course, he would not answer a single question. And there was no point in torturing him for the answer. He would simply die.
“Ashawala’i,” he mumbled.
His vague gaze sharpened. She realized she was staring; perhaps she had even turned pale. “Ashawala’i,” he said more firmly, apparently appreciating the effect this word had on her.
Hard to say who was in charge of this interrogation, hard to say which of them had the most power. “She claimed,”he added. “So she got herself into the company by playing on the commander’s sympathy. Because you Sainnites destroyed her people.”
Clement said, “So she was just pretendingto be a survivor of the Ashawala’i people.”
“She was a traitor. She admitted it. Telling secrets to a man in the garrison.”
“To what man? To that seer, Medric? It was he who turned traitor against us! It must have been because of her.”
The leader of Death-and-Life gave her a baffled look. “Then why did Mabin tell me to kill her?”
She stared at him, stunned and chilled. “Mabin knew of this woman?”
“It does not matter,” said the man. His eyes were glazing over.
No,Clement thought, it does not matter.Except that the Ashawala’i had been massacred because another seer had foreseen that a member of this distant, isolated tribe would cause the destruction of the Sainnites. And the shadow-woman of South Hill and the shadow-woman of the Lost G’deon story were linked by councilor Mabin. And a raven had dropped a book out of the sky.
“Lieutenant-General, you are not injured?”
She was holding her head, she realized. The medic had come up to her, with his knives and his bone saw. The cauterizing irons were once again on the fire.
“It’s been a long night,” she said.
He snickered, apparently thinking she was making a pun. And then he said viciously, “Hell!”
She leapt up. The medic tore frantically at Willis’s tightly bound bandages, which were suddenly sodden. Blood pooled on the tabletop, and dripped to the stone floor. But Willis lay quiet, profoundly at rest. Even his fanatical heart had stopped beating.
Chapter Thirty-One
From one exterior wall to the other, nothing interrupted the open space of the big building’s first floor. At both ends, hot fires crackled in stone fireplaces, but could not do more than lift the chill of so vast a space. As the whole host of Paladins came in, however, the space began to seem too small. They stripped off their winter gear, and soon a wall of pegs was hung with clothing, skis, and weapons. Garland, pushing his way through the convivial, loud-spoken groups towards the kitchen, heard scattered words of conversation that mixed together like the ingredients for a soup.
“… when she took my hand …”
“… dizzy!”
“… what Mabin is saying to her now?”
“I never even felt like hesitating.”
“… how often do we have that confidence?”
“And I just want to know what…”
“… the first day of the first year of Karis G’deon?”
Garland found the kitchen, another grand space, crowded with a half dozen sweating cooks, who upon every surface were rolling and filling pastries, on every fire were turning massive chunks of roasting meats, and on a number of auxiliary stoves were stirring big pots of strong-smelling soup. Garland had thought he was exhausted, but now his heart began to pound with excitement.
Someone grabbed him by the shoulder. “Who are you?”
“Tea for Karis?” he said. “I’m a cook,” he added.
The cook, a crabby-looking woman with a wool cap on her head, pointed the way to hot water, then followed Garland suspiciously to the steaming kettle and watched as he unpacked Emil’s teapot from its box and measured out the tea. Abruptly, she asked, “You’re a cook? Will you help us out in here?”
“Yes, as soon as I can.”
“Is it true what they’re saying? That it’s really her, the Lost G’deon?”
“It’s true.”
“What’s going to happen now?”
“I don’t know. Making history isn’t much like following a recipe, I guess.”
“Well! Maybe if she gets something to eat!”
The cook hurried off to fill a tray with lovely crisp bits of filled pastry that had just come out of the oven, exactly as Garland would have done in her position. Yet if he had asked her if she thought that good food could make people wise, she would have laughed at the idea.
Karis had picked up and returned every discarded weapon to each Paladin. By the time she was finished, the sun had nearly sunk below the horizon. Now, as Garland edged his way through the crowded shearing room, the Long Night candle was being lit: a monstrous candle, red as Karis’s coat, set on a table in the middle of the room. As its wick sputtered into flame, the Paladins began to sing, a rather mysterious song full of great symbolism, that Garland vaguely remembered having heard every year. As the singers finished the last verse, the kegs were tapped, and the singing was obscured by cheers. Garland had safely transported his tea pot and tray to the door of the side room, where, he supposed, brokers and shepherds had conducted their negotiations during shearing time. Within, Karis, Emil, Norina and Medric had drawn sturdy wooden chairs up to the hearth, their sodden hats, gloves, and mufflers lay on the floor, and they held out cold-whitened hands to be toasted by the flames. Karis’s frozen tears had finally thawed. Now, vivid red patches on her cheeks revealed where the wind had peeled the skin away.
Mabin was scolding her. While Karis stole away the hearts of her Paladins, Mabin had sat indoors, fuming. She had begun her rant even before Garland had taken Emil’s tea set and left in search of hot water. Her angry speech continued as Garland filled and almost immediatel
y began refilling the little teacups. “… have you not even one thought of justice? Thousands of Shaftali people have been killed on their own soil, defending their own land. Do you think we can simply forget those wasted lives? The great talents of my generation and of yours—hunted down, extinguished, their knowledge and understandings forever lost. Our libraries burned, our university razed …”
Karis took the food tray from Garland, offered it to her friends, then balanced it on her knees. By the time Mabin had finally worn her anger into silence, Karis had drunk four cups of tea and eaten most of the pastries. The Paladins, having sung several songs, apparently had now begun to dance. Their heavy boots stamped out the rhythm on the wooden planks. Belatedly, some musical instruments began to play: a squealing fiddle, and a breathy flute.
“Are you done?” Karis said to Mabin. Her voice was racked, a raw edge of sound giving rough shape to hollow silence. She turned to look at the councilor, and added, “I hope?”
Mabin pursed her thin lips. “Will you respond?”
Karis ran fingers through her hair, which melting ice had left a damply curling tangle. “No,” she said.
“No?” Mabin’s voice rose. “No?”
Karis sat back in the chair, which gave an alarming squawk under her weight. “My logic supersedes yours.”
Mabin stared at her. Norina gave Karis an impressed glance, eyebrows raised. Emil said, “The Sainnites are weak, and we are rapidly becoming the kind of people who can do what we must do to overcome them, without any further trivial dithering over the morality of our actions. And then we’ll live in a land like Sainna, where all disagreements are decided by violence and every generation wreaks vengeance on the next. Is that the justice you want?”
Mabin seemed relieved that someone, at least, was willing to tangle with her. As though Medric, inconsequential in his shivering, red-eyed misery of cold and weariness, were not even in the room, she said with disgust, “Is that what your Sainnite seer predicts?”
Emil said, “Medric was not the first to see it. When Zanja na’Tarwein was brutalized by Sainnites and then by Paladins, she rightly wondered what real difference there was between them and us. So she was the first to see that the habitual use of brute force was changing us, including she herself, into brutes. That’s a lesson you yourself managed to teach her.”
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