Shadows of Moth (32 page)

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The
assault on Orewood began with cannon fire, swinging catapults, and
shrieking ballistae.

"There
will be no siege!" Lord Gehena's voice rose like a storm,
inhumanly loud, high-pitched like shattering glass. "All who
oppose Serin will die, and Orewood will be his trophy."

A
boulder slammed into the rampart beside Torin, cracking the stone. A
ballista's iron projectile, longer than a man, sailed overhead to
smash a home beyond the walls. A cannonball drove into a guard tower,
and the turret collapsed in a pile of bricks.

"Fire
your arrows!" Torin shouted. "Men of Arden, take them down!
Aim at the gunners! Aim at the catapults!"

He
nocked an arrow and fired. Across the walls of Orewood, thousands of
archers fired with him. Thousands of arrows flew from the walls, the
guard towers, the roofs behind. A rain of steel, wood, and flame
descended upon the enemy. Radian troops fell, pierced with arrows,
only for their comrades to trample the corpses as they charged.

"Scale
the walls!" Gehena screeched upon his horse. "Shatter the
gates! Claim this city for the Light of Radian!"

The
Radian hordes swept forth like the sea. Great ladders swung, snapping
onto the walls with iron brackets. A battering ram swung on chains,
slamming into the doors, chipping the wood. Trebuchets twanged in the
field, tossing flaming barrels and spiked boulders over the walls and
into the city. Log homes collapsed. Fires crackled. People shouted
and fled deeper into the city, clogging the streets.

"Oil!"
Torin shouted. "Burn them!"

Across
the walls, oil bubbled within cauldrons. Torin helped tilt one pot
over a murder hole carved into the rampart. The oil slid down the
stone tunnel, fell through the open air, and sizzled over the troops
below. The Magerians screamed, the oil trickling under their armor
and searing their flesh.

And
still the enemy kept coming.

Mages
shot black, astral whips that rose hundreds of feet tall. The lashes
grabbed onto the ramparts and tugged back, tearing down merlons and
turrets. Bricks rained down into the field. Men rained with them.
Cannonballs sailed overhead and crashed into homes beyond the wall.
Fires spread across the city. Red smoke rose in clouds, hiding the
sky.

It
is a war we cannot win,
Torin thought.
It is a
war without end.

He
shouted hoarsely. He fired arrows. He spilled oil. When the enemy
climbed the ladders, he swung his sword, and he fought them on the
walls, and he slew men, and his blade ran red with blood. But through
roaring fire, blasting cannons, and the screams of the dying, all
seemed muffled, the whole world a haze.

It
is the war eternal. It is the curse of Moth. Will we always bleed?

He
knew they could not win this battle. Not with the magic tearing the
walls apart, ripping down brick by brick. Not with the cannons
firing, the rams swinging. The gates shattered below. A mile in the
northwest, he heard distant screams, and he saw the city's western
gates shatter, the enemy stream into the streets. To his right, a
great section of wall crumble, and the enemy surged, climbing over
the rubble into Orewood.

The
dams collapsed.

The
Radian forces swept into the city with chants, with galloping horses,
and with myriads of swinging swords.

A
war eternal,
Torin
thought, standing atop a pillar of stone, one of the few sections of
wall still standing.
Blood
without end.

"Torin!"
The voice seemed miles away, ages away, a voice from another world,
from memory. Was it his wife calling to him? He had fought his wife
once. In the city of Pahmey, she had fired an arrow at him. She—

"Torin,
damn it! Come on!"

A
hand grabbed his arm. He looked down. Cam was tugging him, shouting
something. Torin could barely hear. His head rang. When he touched
his forehead, his fingers came away bloody.

"I
don't remember being hit," he whispered.

"Tor,
come on, damn you!" Cam shouted.

Torin
nodded. Cam tugging him, they raced down a stone staircase instants
before it collapsed. Bricks and dust rained. They ran into a
courtyard covered with bricks, cloven helms, and bodies. A few
scattered Ardishmen stood with raised swords. Hundreds of Radians
surrounded them.

"Does
it end here?" Torin asked his friend.

Cam
spat and raised his sword. "If it does, we go down together, old
boy. Now let's kill a few of these bastards first."

The
two men shouted and charged toward the enemy.

Across the city of
Orewood, buildings collapsed, horses galloped, cannons fired, and
blood flowed. A temple's columns cracked and fell, and the roof
slammed down onto men. Fire blazed across wooden homes. Helmets
rolled across the streets. Hammers swung, cleaving breastplates. Men
fell and cannons rolled through the city, their wheels bristly with
arrows. Bears charged at horses and lances thrust. Everywhere the
fire burned. Smoke rose, black and red, hiding the crumbling city
under a blanket of heat and ash.

 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
DAGGER AND BONES

Madori knelt on the
cold, rocky ground of the courtyard, polishing Lari's armor. She had
been working for an hour with rags and oil, shining each piece at a
time—pauldrons, breastplate, vambraces, greaves, gauntlets, and
helmet. Each piece of steel was filigreed with golden buffaloes and
Radian eclipses, symbols of Old Mageria and the new Radian Empire it
had become. Each of these pieces was priceless, worth more than
anything Madori had ever owned, probably worth more than all that had
been in Fairwool-by-Night.

You
destroyed that village, Lari,
Madori thought as she worked, shining the rubies inlaid into the
breastplate. Her eyes stung.
You
crushed and burned it to the ground. And some turn I will avenge it.
I don't know how, and I don't know when, but you will pay for your
crimes.

She lifted one of
the Lari's gauntlets—the one that had struck Madori's own cheek only
last turn, leaving an ugly gash. She began to polish it carefully,
moving the oiled rag over each finger, cleaning off her own blood.
Last time Madori had failed to polish the armor carefully enough,
Lari had ordered her men to beat Madori unconscious. Luckily, in her
weakened state, that had not taken more than a couple blows, but it
was enough that Madori had never missed a spot since.

She had been here
for two moons now—two moons of beatings, of hunger, of disease—and
Madori was fading away. Every turn as she awoke, she was surprised to
find herself still alive.

"Lari doesn't
even need armor in this place," Madori mumbled as she worked.
"We're so weak we couldn't crush a mouse beneath our heels."

A voice boomed out
behind her. "Work silently, worm, or you'll taste the back of my
hand."

She looked over her
shoulder. One of Lari's guards stood there—a yellow-haired,
rat-faced man named Derin. Madori scowled at him, prepared to talk
back, but when he raised his hand, she swallowed her words and
returned to the armor. Derin had beaten her often enough—it seemed
every guard here had—that she had lost the appetite for defiance.

If
I were still strong enough to cast magic, I would crush you like a
bug,
she thought. Often she had tried to use her magic here, to cast a
shield of air around her, to protect herself from the blows. But her
body was too weak, her mind too muzzy. Whenever she tried to use
magic, her skull seemed to contract, and she saw stars. A few times
she had managed to create a protective shield of air around her
during the beating, but the effort had sucked up so much energy, she
had spent hours afterward dizzy and gagging.

The tents of
soldiers rose around her. Beyond them, scaffolding rose in the night;
workers bustled there, constructing a fortress for the Magerians. To
her east, Madori could make out a line of soldiers guarding the
canyon. The sounds of the mining rose from the chasm—pickaxes
against stone and whips against flesh. Several times, Madori had
tried to creep toward that canyon, to gaze down into the shadows, to
see if her mother still lived. But guards always caught her and
tossed her back to Lari and her wrath. And so Madori remained above
in the Magerian camp, the only Elorian here, serving the princess.

"Make way!"
rose a voice. "Make way—nightcrawler corpses! Make way!"

Oiled rag in hand,
Madori sucked in her breath. She spun toward the voice, and she saw
him there. It was Peras this time, a wiry soldier with graying hair,
who was shoving the wheelbarrow through the camp. Within lay a dozen
starved Elorian corpses.

Forgetting the
armor, Madori hobbled toward the wheelbarrow. The chains around her
ankles jangled, and tears filled her eyes.

"Please,
Peras," she said. "Let me see them."

Radian soldiers
gathered around, chortling.

"Let her
look!" said rat-faced Derin. "I like it when she looks."

Another soldier, a
tall woman named Ferla, barked out a laugh. "Remember, Derin, if
she finds her maggot mother before the new moon, you owe me a silver
coin."

Derin spat. "Won't
be till after the new moon. Her mother's a tough one."

"No one's
tough in the mines, boy." Ferla snorted. "And you're going
to owe me that silver coin."

Ignoring the
soldiers, Madori rummaged through the wheelbarrow of bodies, seeking
her, seeking Koyee. The dead were almost unrecognizable; fallen to
starvation, disease, and their cruel masters' whips, even freshly
killed they looked like old corpses, shrunken and shriveled. She
found men, children, youths . . . all strangers.

Madori breathed out
a shaky sigh of relief. "She's not here," she whispered.

A few Radians
roared with laughter. Ferla muttered and spat, while Derin boasted of
the coin she owed him.

You're
strong, Mother,
Madori thought, returning to the armor.
You'll
survive this. We both will.

She gave the armor
a few last passes with the rag, then turned to her next task:
preparing Lari's dinner. The princess often went out riding for hours
in the darkness, claiming the camp stank of death. When she returned,
weary and hungry from her ride, she demanded her meals waiting on her
table.

Madori hobbled to
the wide tent that served as the camp's kitchens until the fortress
was completed. Wobbling on her chained, bony legs, she carried plate
after plate into Lari's embroidered tent, setting out the feast upon
the giltwood table. Lari was a slim young woman, not much heavier
than Madori had been before arriving at this camp, and yet she could
eat as much as the burliest soldier, her appetite knowing almost no
bounds.

Perhaps
cruelty sucks up a lot of energy,
Madori thought, arranging the silver cutlery.

Soon the meal was
set: a roast honeyed duck upon a bed of shallots and wild mushrooms;
grainy bread rolls still steaming from the oven, topped with butter;
a silver bowl of dried figs, persimmons, and apricots; and a wooden
box full of sweet almond clusters dusted with sugar. It was all fine
Timandrian fare, imported from the day, and intoxicating with its
aroma. Madori's mouth watered and her head spun. She craved a bite,
desired it more than anything. Her head spun and her body shook as
the smell entered her nostrils.

Only
a bite,
she thought, reaching toward one of the figs.
Only
a little . . .

She stopped
herself.

No.

The first few times
Madori had set this table for the princess, she had stolen a few
morsels. And each time, somehow Lari knew. Each time, Madori was
punched in the gut, forced to gag. Each time, Koyee was dragged into
the tent, punished for Madori's crime.

There
is magic here,
Madori knew, looking around at the tent.
Magic
like my locket.
Some item in this tent—perhaps one of the chalices, perhaps one of
the jewels sewn into the walls—had the magic of sight, allowing Lari
to spy upon her from afar.

And so Madori
placed her hands behind her back, desperate for the food but daring
not take a single morsel. She was slowly starving, but she wouldn't
risk more punishment for her mother.

Finally trill
laughter sounded outside, and the tent flap opened. Lari stepped
inside. She wore a fine riding gown trimmed with fur, the skirt cut
down the sides to allow her to straddle her horse. Her cheeks were
flushed pink, and sweat dampened her hair.

"Mongrel!"
she said, kicking off her boots. "Come. Polish them."

Madori nodded and
rushed forward. The boots splattered mud across the rug as Lari
kicked them aside. Madori knelt, rag in hand, and got to work,
polishing the leather again and again.

As Madori knelt,
polishing away, Lari sat at her table and began to feast. The duck's
crunchy skin cracked. Gravy dripped off the shallots as Lari tossed
them into her mouth. Her throat bobbed as she drank the wine. Madori
had always imagined princesses to only nibble their food, a few bites
here and there of lettuce, but Lari guzzled down her meals; it was an
obscene, unfathomable sight. Madori did not know where all that food
went, for Lari remained slender. Perhaps some magic was involved, a
way for Lari to feed like a pig and magically transport the food away
from her belly.

Or
perhaps she simply burns up the energy by tormenting me,
Madori thought, her mouth still watering.

Finally Lari was
done eating. She slapped her feet onto the tabletop, causing the
plates to bounce. She tossed one of those silver plates at Madori. It
crashed onto the rug, scattering the duck's bones and fat.

"Eat your
meal," Lari said. "Eat it all up, then clean up this mess."