Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) (26 page)

He was as big an attraction, especially for the children, as Marga.

Tigers were the symbol of the Selorm, the lords who kept the kingdom protected. The Seb villagers blessed me for bringing Marga among them.

On the fourteenth day after we crossed the border, we came across the ruins of an ancient city in the hills. No fallen-down huts here, but great buildings made of stone, towering walls, and towers, some still standing, most collapsed, covered in moss and vines.

A hush fell over us as we walked down wide streets that had enough room for several carts side by side, drawn by teams of oxen.

Some of the walls were heavily carved, depicting people and animals and wondrous contraptions: one that seemed to make cloth, but not like a weaver’s frame; flames that burned in sconces without torches, not an oil lamp, not a candle, yet clearly a source of light.

“What place is this?” I asked, but no one could answer.

Yet they were the ruins of some great nation that had once ruled these lands. We found the outskirts of the city early in the morning and were still walking through the ruins that night as the streets went on and on, walls carved with gods and goddesses that time had forgotten.

I saw rows and rows of symbols and great shapes of squares, triangles, and circles, carved over and into each other. I had the strong feeling that they represented something, perhaps the builders’ most important knowledge, meant to be passed down to those who came after.

Yet war had erased all their wisdom, even their memory. All that they had known, would we ever again discover?

Trees grew inside houses and palaces, buildings and nature mixed together, climbing lianas covering walls and holding up the few roofs that had not yet collapsed.

The city was larger than any I had seen in our Shahala lands, or among the Kadar, or during my travels since. I could not conceive that people this numerous and rich could disappear without a name, without a memory.

And if they could, how could small villages and my small island stand against such forces as the Emperor’s dark armies?

I might have lost hope there, as we camped in what had once been a great temple, if not for the people around me. They looked to me for hope, so I smiled and told stories of the weak overcoming the strong, the few defeating the many, tales of survival, and tales of better times that would someday be ours again.

Later, as I sat on a pile of rocks, I watched the people sleep around me. More than one had smiles on their faces. Maybe they felt safe because we were in a sacred place. I wondered which god had once been worshipped in this temple.

A strong sensation that I was being watched brought me out of my reverie. I looked around, then relaxed. Of course, I was being watched. I was sitting in the middle of a large group of people. Many glanced toward me as they settled in.

If unease seeped into my bones, I wrote it down to the strange place, to the fact that the sky was darkening.

Tomron sat next to me. “Bad news, my lady. The three men we found by the creek this morn say they passed by Lord Brooker’s castle a mooncrossing ago.” He said the words as if they sat heavily on his tongue.

“Did they see Lord Karnagh?”

“No, my lady. But they saw Lord Brooker’s blackened corpse hanging from the parapets.”

My heart sank. Lord Brooker was dead. So could Lord Karnagh be, for all my hopes. Was I simply leading all these people to the enemy?

As if reading my thoughts, Tomron said, “The spirits brought you to us, Sorceress. What you order, we obey. Where you lead, we go.”

I was no leader. I was no sorceress. I kept looking at the people who had gathered in this long-gone city around me, unable to understand how all this had happened.

“They are here, gathered all together, all safe and fed tonight, because of you,” Tomron remarked.

I filled my lungs with cold night air. “I will take them to Lord Karnagh.” But as I heard my words spoken out loud, I buried my head in my hands for a moment with a strained laugh.

“They are taking
me
,” I blurted the truth to Tomron. “The Seb villagers are showing the way. The Selorm soldiers protect us. The men and the tiger do the hunting. The women do the foraging. All this could go on without me.”

Tomron’s forehead furrowed. “Here is my truth, if you do not mind my saying so, my lady. I have spent most of my life in military tents. The canvas keeps out the rain. The smoke hole lets us have a fire. The flap allows us in and out. The tent has many much-used parts. The tent pole just stands stuck in the ground. Until I bump into it in the night, I often forget that it’s there. But without it, there would be no tent. You are what holds us together and holds us up.”

I sighed. “I fear your opinion of me is higher than what I deserve, Tomron.”

“You are a very young sorceress. Mayhap you do not see all yet.” He ducked his head. “Forgive me, my lady.”

I smiled at him.

He stood. “I best go see to setting sentries. The tiger is off hunting. She can give us no warning.”

As Tomron strode off, I stayed where I was, watching the people. Standing in a corner like a sentry himself, Orz watched me. Not for the first time, I wished I could talk to him. I had tried, more than once, but he always backed away.

I thought about walking over to him and trying again. But if he wished for solitude, did he not deserve to receive at least that? So I stayed where I sat.

A fair while later, Marga appeared in the destroyed doorway, dragging half a wild boar into the temple. She dropped it at the edge of the open space in the middle, then padded over to me.

I stood to find a spot for the night, laid my blankets on the ground, then we settled down to sleep.

Again, the sense of being watched assailed me.
Orz,
I thought. Yet his gaze on me had not bothered me in the past. He watched me like the Palace Guard would watch a queen they were ordered to protect. I did not know who he was, but I knew he harbored no malice toward me.

I wished he was not so averse to my touch. I knew his battered body was in pain. I wished he would let me heal at least that much.

Baran, one of the Selorm soldiers passed in front of him, and I realized that without his back bent and his head in that deep bow, Orz was just as tall as Baran, and even wider in the shoulders. He had a hunting spear now, one of Tomron’s, and despite his ruined fingers, he held the weapon well. He truly must have been some kind of soldier or captain before his tragic path led him to Ishaf’s sorcerer.

I closed my eyes, forcing my mind from him and toward all I needed to do next.

Within a day or two, we would be at Brooker’s Castle. Of course, as we were now, all of us could not sneak into the castle unseen. We would have to camp at a fair distance in the woods and send but a few. Tomron and his men would know the castle best. I would go with them. I could not risk their lives in place of mine.

Marga and Orz would have to stay behind. They would attract too much attention. Whether or not they would obey my wishes to stay in the woods remained to be seen. I often had the feeling that Marga was humoring me, like a mother would a favored child.

And Orz… I sensed that he had ideas different from mine. But he would always place my wishes above his own. So he might yet be talked into staying behind once again, one last time.

I was certain that someone inside Brooker’s Castle would have news of Lord Karnagh. Lord Karnagh might even be there himself, injured, kept in shackles in the dungeons.

I would heal him; then he could lead what Selorm and Seb were still alive inside, while those who followed me would attack from the outside. We would retake the castle. Then Seberon would have two free cities. That would be a start.

Pressed against Marga’s round side for heat, I went to sleep with that hope in my heart.

We were attacked at dawn.

Chapter Twenty

(The God Demands Payment)

Marga had gone off for another hunt. Since our numbers had increased, she hunted more, as if accepting the people as her cubs. Or maybe she felt sorry for us, thought us deaf and blind, lost little things in the forest without her strength and fangs.

I had once, at Karamur, seen a merchant’s ferocious guard dog that was half wolf adopt a kitten whose eyes hadn’t opened yet and feed the kitten among her pups. Perhaps so we were with the tiger.

I woke when she moved off, instantly missing her heat. She padded silently among the sleeping people, leaped up to a window opening, hesitated for a moment, then jumped out and disappeared.

I settled back to sleep, knowing that should the enemy find us, we had sentries to sound the alarm.

And some time later, indeed they did. The plaintive cry of a shepherd’s horn rent the night. But the warning did not arrive early enough to allow us escape. We barely had time to come fully awake before the enemy was upon us.

The ruin had too many gaps, was too difficult to defend as the Kerghi horde charged. Most of our men had spears, but the rest of us could only throw rocks.

The stone temple, at least, was an advantage. The enemy could not burn us out with fire, then slaughter us when we rushed outside to escape the flames. The roaming Kerghi who found us were prepared for villages with wooden huts and thatched roofs. They were not prepared for a siege.

They had a few bows but no grand division of archers. They had to come up to the wall, climb up to the windows, and try to fight their way in. At which time, they were close enough to suffer injuries.

Orz was by my side suddenly. In his hand, a sword dripping with blood had replaced his wood-tipped spear. Had he taken that sword from the enemy?

My gaze searched for the children in the semidarkness of but two small fires burning, the flames nearly dead. I could see little, not even if we were winning or losing.

We were many. We had enough soldiers and Seb men to defend each opening, with the old and the women helping. As I rushed toward a wounded man, I spotted two of the little girls and called them. They ran to me, burying their faces against my body in fear.

Other children, hiding behind fallen columns and broken stone benches, dashed over to us. Three young mothers had suckling babes. They too scrambled over and followed me as I dragged the injured man to a staircase close behind me. At one time in the distant past it had led down to a lower level but was now half-filled with dirt, nothing more than a hole in the floor.

“Go down and stay down. Quickly.” I stood on the first step, pulling the arrow from the injured Seb’s thigh, taking his injury upon me where my healing spirit could mend it much more quickly.

Orz stood in front of me once again. Whatever came for us would first have to go through him.

Hartz, with a lance in his side, was dragged to me. I helped him, then others who staggered or were brought over.

As light dawned outside, little by little, I could see better. The enemy had maybe a third of our number, though they were all trained fighters with swords and lances, while we had only a handful of soldiers. But we did have the protection of the walls.

And soon we had an ally outside, for I heard the tiger roar.

I watched for her, my hand wrist-deep in an injured woman’s side, but I saw a white-haired man, Ramu, fall at the door instead. An old woman dragged him bravely to safety, back to the staircase. I would see to him next.

As I turned, I glimpsed a streak of yellow through the nearest window, Marga striking down an enemy soldier outside.
Be careful, great mother.

Her claws shredded the man’s face into ribbons, and the Kerghi warrior’s scream could be heard over the battle din as he fell.

I could not watch longer, for I needed to tend Ramu, who had a spearhead lodged in his chest. “I need hot water,” I begged Orz.

The injuries I had taken upon me were beginning to weaken me. I had to mix traditional healing with my powers. The battle was far from over yet.

Orz wouldn’t budge.

“It’s Ramu’s life. Please.”

Orz grabbed a woman running by and held her until I repeated my request. She hurried off toward the fire that burned in the back corner where the oldest and the youngest had huddled together earlier for the night. She returned a short time later with a flask of water that wasn’t hot enough but would have to serve.

I prepared a poultice before touching the spearhead. Then I drew the sharp wedge from the old man’s body as he moaned, blood bubbling up and rushing forth like a crimson river.

I placed my hand upon the gaping wound, closed my eyes, and prayed to the spirits; then I went about repairing the damage, taking as much of it onto myself as I dared. But not all. I could almost feel Batumar’s spirit there, watching over me, could hear his admonitions to be careful with my strength.

Once Ramu was healed enough so he could finish recovering on his own, I applied the poultice, then sat back, giving my own body time to recover. I felt as weak as a newborn babe, as dizzy as a drunkard.

Other injured staggered over. I did what I could for them, but as time went by, my power grew weaker and weaker, the injuries overwhelming my body and my spirit.

The enemy was cutting people down faster than I could heal them.

I could see the fallen at the feet of those who defended the walls, but I could not walk to them, and Orz refused to leave my side to drag them over. Then I saw Fadden fall, the youngest of the Selorm soldiers, his ever-present smile turning into a grimace of pain.

The children cried in the stairwell, sensing a turn in the battle. They had been through this before, had seen their parents and siblings cut down, their villages demolished.

The tiger roared outside, the sound mixed with pain. I could feel her injury, a battle axe in her shoulder, but I could not heal her.

Spirits help her,
I cried in a spirit song.
Spirits help us.

I thought of something Batumar had asked me once, if as I saved life, I could also take it. Could I reach out with my spirit and stop a heart instead of restarting it, burst a vein instead of healing it, bend some bones instead of straightening them.