by Wendy Palmer
He thumped his feet into Bet's sides and she charged forward, ears laid flat. He glanced back once more to see if Filipe had reached Lithia, and saw him signal the gate. It slammed shut just as Mizzle and Faustus reached it.
They were trapped and under siege by Mikcul.
Chapter Seven
Jacoby has left her door open and Kintore glances in. A young DarkElf male sits on the bed beside her. The LightElf leaps back, already drawing his sword.
'Peace,’ says Jacoby, standing. ‘If you do not fear me, you cannot fear this one.'
'He is a male,’ says Kintore, his sword still up. ‘Supported by a female.'
'We promised truce between us, ‘Tore.'
'Interesting,’ says the DarkElf male, in clear Bourchian.
Kintore's gaze flicks to him and drops to his hand, mangled stumps where his fingers once were.
'Exile, yes,’ says the male.
'His name is Jarrett,’ says Jacoby. ‘He is passing through and is no threat to you.'
Kintore stares at the male, hostile. ‘How could he be?'
Jarrett stands, smiling. ‘You wish to lose the other eye, faerie?'
Jacoby turns her back to Kintore and faces the male squarely. ‘Do not,’ she says, her voice gone very cold. ‘You are exile and I will not support you.'
Jarrett's smile wavers. ‘And what will you be when they discover the company you keep?'
Jacoby turns and pushes Kintore's sword down. ‘What will happen?’ he asks. ‘Or do they already know?'
'He seeks divisiveness,’ she tells him quietly. ‘Do not reward him.'
Kintore backs off and Jacoby follows him out. In the hallway, she addresses Jarrett still sitting on her bed. ‘You may go now.'
Anger flashes in his eyes and is gone behind his mocking smile. ‘Remember me, Jacoby Nightsword.'
He bows deeply and walks past them down the stairs.
'Males are unpredictable,’ says Jacoby. ‘It is wise not to underestimate them.'
'I know it,’ says Kintore, and his hand touches the eye patch. ‘Females too, yes?'
Jacoby lifts a shoulder. Kintore hesitates. ‘How did he find you?'
'The clan always come here when we come to Told,’ says Jacoby.
That cannot reassure the LightElf. ‘The king of Bourchia has a sense of humour, it seems.'
Jacoby's mouth quirks. ‘Joshe has learnt from his predecessors to keep no iron here. Perhaps the king thought you would be comfortable.'
Again Kintore pauses oddly. ‘Is he a good friend of yours?'
'I barely knew him,’ says Jacoby. ‘He has been long exiled.'
'Then why did he come to you?'
Jacoby is silent. Kintore takes a few steps towards his room. ‘I should not question you.'
'Because I am wife to the Dark,’ she says, answering his question from behind him. ‘Jarrett thinks I could influence the decision to exile him.'
Kintore spins. ‘Wife to the—’ He bites it off. ‘Your Dark is male?’ he asks with forced nonchalance.
'The current Dark is male, yes,’ says Jacoby, her violet eyes fixed on him.
Behind her, Marle comes up the stairs hand-in-hand with a tavern client, sees them standing in the hallway, and pulls him back down again. Kintore nods and opens the door to his room.
'Wife is not the right word, of course,’ says Jacoby. ‘Humans cannot capture the flavour.'
'Concubine, I believe?’ says Kintore, stopping with his back to her and his hand on the doorknob. His air of strained indifference has deserted him.
Jacoby breathes out but answers calmly. ‘That would describe him, yes.'
Kintore shuts the door in her face.
* * * *
'Bastard,’ Trick said, and nothing else. Mizzle could not have seen Filipe order them shut in, and Trick could not give him away unless he wanted this army to have no commander at all.
Mizzle sat before the gate, head bowed. Despite her decision, she might have been using the DarkStone, channelling fury to keep Faustus or Mouse or him safe. Or perhaps she was tempted to take up the stone and burn her way out through the gate. He did not doubt she could.
But she turned and rode back to him with no harm done to gate or person.
Faustus said, ‘What are we supposed to do now?'
He was looking at Trick.
Mizzle's head turned towards him too, blind gaze on him.
They expected too much. He shrugged to their expectations and went back after Filipe, letting Bet shoulder her way through frightened and milling townspeople.
They relied on Filipe's scant goodwill, just sufficient enough that he had not set outraged soldiers on to Mizzle—yet. So Filipe planned for them in his game, and shut the gates on them to ensure it. And Filipe watched them come now, between strong words with Lithia.
'I tell you, Filipe,’ she said. ‘I will not leave this town. I'll have my banner up so the Imperial soldiers know who they go to war against.'
Brave and foolish girl, to ask such a thing, and under the eyes of Dalton's captains. Filipe could not flat-out refuse her in front of them or he would be revealed as the Bourchian hand on the Livanian throne.
Such a fine balance, to have control of a dead lord's army on the fact of past association and the rumour of the long-awaited heir. Dalton's men took Filipe's orders because they had grown used to seeing him with their lord and fell back to him for guidance, but they would never take Lithia's orders if they thought those orders came from Filipe. Trusted ally, Bourchian dog, Filipe walked a tightrope.
Now he watched Trick lead Mizzle towards him and said, ‘We'll raise your banner, Lithia.'
Trick got a chill. Filipe still played for assassination or he would have found some way to keep Lithia out of Dalton's rebellion. Mikcul might suspect Dalton had gotten his courage from a certain source. He would know for sure when the sword and moon banner went up over Dalton's hammer and horse.
Filipe walked the tightrope and invited a DarkElf into the game. And Mizzle rode on past Filipe when Trick stopped in front of him.
So Mizzle declined the invitation, in no uncertain terms, and let Filipe understand now and finally where the power was between him and her.
Faustus of course went with her, and Trick had a very fast exchange with Filipe that spoke wordlessly of an angry personal guard barely constrained. Then he went after Mizzle.
'We have to deal with Filipe now,’ he said. Was he betraying her, to turn her over to Filipe and his manipulations? ‘Filipe is the power in this town and we have to deal with him.'
Mizzle reached up and took off her blindfold. She blinked in the hazy light and looked around at him and Faustus and finally at Mouse.
Mouse the Illusionist. So easy to forget that, when he stared at them with innocent brown eyes.
'Can you see, Mizzle?’ asked Faustus.
'Shapes,’ she said, still looking at Mouse. Trick swore her eyes glowed. ‘Enough. I recover.'
She rode back to Filipe, and reined to a halt in front of him. She favoured him with her silver-eyed stare and directed a nod of the head at Lithia. ‘Your Majesty,’ she said.
Trick had to cough. Filipe was not the power in Kitira, not in Livania. He could not be past this ephemeral confused time unless Lithia let him be. Mizzle made her own bargains and the heir to the throne nodded back to the creature who had held her hostage, silent acceptance of a dangerous ally.
The look on Filipe's face was worth it all. But he was never, rumour said, thwarted long. ‘Mikcul must be removed.'
He brought it back to assassination again, the most viable solution and not one Trick would present to Mizzle, with her fragile grip on right and correct and true. Even on the vagaries of a battlefield, it had to be assassination, against heavily guarded Mikcul. A sword would never reach him—a silent knife might.
Lithia, innocent and stupidly brave, could not be happy with the idea either. ‘The Imperial army will surely rally to my banner.'
Innocent and stupid
ly naive. ‘They're paid well to be Mikcul's army,’ said Filipe. ‘They will not care about your rights.’ He called a soldier and gave him orders in his ear.
Lithia's banner would rise, as she had insisted. Filipe let it happen only because he wanted all to know that what happened to Mikcul happened because he had gone up against the true Empress.
Trick admired the man's confidence—with a cold lump in his stomach and his hands shaking.
Mizzle leant over to him. ‘He wants this Mikcul killed, does he not?'
He had to answer, with her calm gaze on him. ‘Yes.'
Mizzle could not understand human intentions and motivations, but she got this one. ‘I will not have blood on my hands over a human quarrel.'
Filipe switched to Livanian. ‘Make her do it, Trick.'
'Explain to me how.’ Fortune's eyes, he wished Filipe wouldn't assume Mizzle wasn't getting words of Livanian.
'You travel with her,’ said Filipe.
'And she is not my ally.'
'But you are hers,’ said Lithia, watching him closely.
A great noise rose around them, startling their horses. Lithia's banner, silver sword and crescent moon on white, had gone up above Dalton's hammer and horse, and the army and the townspeople rallied to it, with cheers and a great clash of weapons, swords, hammers, iron tools. Mizzle glanced askance at it all, this incomprehensible human display of loyalty for an unknown and doomed leader.
'Livanians,’ said Trick, low and for her only, to explain it in a word.
'We should act now while their blood is up,’ said Filipe.
'Open the gates and attack Mikcul's army?'
'Only one needs to fall,’ said Filipe back. ‘Ask her.'
Trick shook his head.
'That man had your wife killed, Trick,’ Filipe added.
Trick had an instant explosion of rage and bright pain inside his head, his hands going to fists about the reins. What he had once called Linnet took control of his tongue. ‘You want him dead, Filipe?’ he said. ‘Open the damn gates then.'
He got nothing but a long appraising look from Filipe, who measured him coldly to decide if he could do what a DarkElf could do. He turned and signalled.
All was chaos then, noise and slow movement and emerging organisation. Dalton's captains brought up the cavalry to the gates, the footsoldiers behind, townspeople behind them. A standard-bearer unfurled Lithia's banner, twin to the one rippling above the town. Trick waited by the gate, Bet matching the great chargers in size. Faustus and Mizzle stayed with him.
'They're attacking?’ said Faustus. ‘Why are we waiting here?'
Trick passed Mouse over to him, the boy heavy in the swing-across. Mouse scowled back at him, safe on his cousin's black horse.
'I'm going out,’ he said. He could not hear for the buzzing in his ears.
'You will not,’ the DarkElf said.
He heard that. ‘Stop me.’ He threw defiance into her face.
Filipe rode over, while Mizzle looked Trick eye to eye. She was fighting herself, he thought. She was fighting to not enforce her will on him with glamour, or fighting to not knock him off his horse for his sheer insolence.
Lithia moved to the front of the army. Filipe had gotten her mounted on a big white mare, almost as big as the chargers but easier controlled. She raised a sword, shining in the sun, reflecting light all up and down its length.
'My people,’ she said. Her voice rang out over the suddenly silent square. The adoration in the eyes of the closest rank of mounted soldiers made Trick want to shudder. Something there reminded him of the look on Faustus's face when he looked at Mizzle. Oh, so easily could the DarkElves corrupt Livania if ever they came south.
'Did you write this speech, Filipe?’ he asked, as Lithia's words sang out, enthralling and stirring.
Filipe smiled and declined to answer. Lithia was of course speaking Livanian. Mizzle could not understand it and it could not hold her attention. She looked to Filipe.
'You will lead this army?'
Trick thought Filipe was wary of a trap, in the slowness of his answer. ‘Yes.'
'But your Empress, she will not go out to fight.’ She had seen that shining clean sword, light and silver and not made for piercing flesh. If Lithia's army chose to ignore the implications, Mizzle did not.
'Of course not,’ he said. ‘She can't die.'
Mizzle wiped her hair from the face in that way she had, a creature not accustomed to having her hair loose and in her eyes, a fair annoyance. ‘She can.'
She was light threat and humour when she didn't use the stone. So she deliberately misinterpreted Filipe and watched him go pale. Trick had to hide a smile.
'Lithia does not go out, Trick does not go out.’ She turned his good humour to outrage with flat statement.
Trick was instant protest. ‘Mizzle—'
Mizzle turned on him. ‘Indulge your death wish otherwhere.'
She silenced him. So she knew, and how could she not, and now Faustus looked at him, sideways and superior, and Mouse sitting before Faustus turned his frank brown eyes away.
The gates opened. Filipe glanced back but did not ask him again. The army marched out behind him, saluting Lithia as they went past. Lithia smiled and waved and turned her grim face to them as the last went out, townspeople armed with their tools and nought else.
'Can you not help us?’ She thought to force Trick's hand with solemn vulnerable eyes where Filipe couldn't touch him, and she was sorely misled.
'No,’ he said, as the gates shut again. They had emptied the town of all defenders and the gates were all Kitira had now, and four men left with Lithia.
They went up on the wall, with all the threatened widows and orphans. Mizzle let them go up, Trick suspected, because she was at a loss for what else to do, with an army surrounding the town and battle about to engage.
Trick's leg bumped against something and he looked down to see a bucket full of rocks. As he watched, women and old men took up the rough stones and used slingshots to fire them at the Imperial soldiers. Trick had time to think that was clever before a woman fell off the wall with a retaliating arrow through her throat.
Trick stepped away from the defenders. Lithia's white hair was a banner all to its own, and he took Filipe's place in edging her back from the wall and behind a rampant. She let him, with another solemn look. She had to understand her own vital place in all this.
The exchange of rocks and arrows continued sporadically. Below them, Dalton's mounted men met a charge from the Imperial army, and were swept back against the wall. Dalton's footmen were exposed and they charged at the Imperial soldiers, early and stupid. Trick could not trust the evidence of his eyes. Filipe threw the dice on battles but never risked the war. To lose to Mikcul today was to lose all, and Filipe was losing.
Filipe, thought Trick, you could not have gambled all on me. You must know me better. And Filipe had merely nodded to Mizzle's refusal to let him go. Fortune knew Filipe did not intend to go up against Mikcul himself unless Mikcul would play without his surfeit of knights. So Filipe had something beside a ragtag army intent on throwing its life away.
It was trumpets then, and dust in the distance west.
'They come,’ said Lithia, with no surprise and so it had to be on the side of the Empress.
Trick ran through the short catalogue of northern lords. ‘Crethen?’ he said, as the most likely.
'You know him?’ asked Lithia, all innocence. He was beginning to doubt that about her. This girl had all the north in rebellion, if Dalton and Crethen both were rallying.
'Not well,’ said Trick. Not at all was the truth.
Lithia's banner rallied below and Dalton's men shoved off from the wall and pushed the Imperial army back towards the cloud of dust that was Crethen. Another disbanded army called back into being. But if Mikcul had known about Dalton, why had he not known about Crethen?
Immediately as he had the thought, Trick turned south and looked for more dust. Filipe was a devi
l to deal with, but Mikcul was no fool either and the Imperial army was all too large to be contained on this field.
It was there. He hovered on the edge of calling it his imagination until Faustus beside him said, ‘Is that more reinforcements?'
Lithia turned then, and Mizzle and Mouse. ‘We have to warn Filipe,’ was all Lithia said, gone pale. She looked as she had with Mizzle's hand to her throat.
'I'll go,’ said Trick, without a single look at Mizzle.
She stopped him before he had taken more than a step. ‘You may not.'
'This city cannot fall, Mizzle,’ he said. ‘Do you think Mikcul will spare you because you're not involved in the battle?'
But Lithia sent her guard down. That was last of their able-bodied men, apart from those on the gate, and Trick asked Fortune politely to let them get the gate shut again after letting the bad news out to fly to Filipe.
'How long do you think the city will hold?’ Lithia asked him but Faustus answered, with his education on tactics and command.
Education, no experience, and his answer was brusque. ‘They'll be in by nightfall.'
Lithia looked over the wall again. Crethen was fully engaged now. Trick could just see the red eagle banner. Up here, the noise and stink of battle was too far away to worry about, though the mothers and wives watching must have thought otherwise. Trick noticed no few weapons among them. Lithia's banner still held. Filipe probably didn't know yet that Mikcul was closing his trap.
'Mouse,’ he said to the boy, only then remembering. ‘What can you do?'
Mouse nodded, standing next to Lithia. He glanced back once, and mist came down over the battlefield, hiding the rebels and the gate from Mikcul.
Trick was disappointed. He had wanted a dragon, and got mist. But Mouse was sweating at the effort and he did not risk to push him further. It might have been the mere Illusion of mist, but it worked. The sudden sorcerous cloud sent the Imperial army into disarray as they fell back from their unseen enemies. Men swirled thickest about Mikcul's black horse banner, a thick clot of men pressed and harried on all sides, jostling about the edges of the mist.