The Second God (44 page)

~~~~~

For three suns, Trimon hurled windstorms at us. The first hit some of the larger Port Holdings’ pavilions while I was asleep one afternoon, and by the time Hethryn had run to wake me and I’d managed to take the magic out of the storm, the devastation was widespread. After that, I stayed awake during the hours of sun, but I couldn’t see every storm. I primed eagle riders to keep watch, and Kalmander alerted me a couple of times, and between us we destroyed them almost as fast as Trimon could create them. Almost, but not quite. It was surprising how much damage a gale can produce in two or three or four heartbeats.

I was relieved to find that the magic didn’t build up in me the way it used to. Probably that was the effect of Ly’s blood in me, stabilising the way magic affected me. I no longer had the deep craving for regular infusions of magic, and now I discovered that I could keep absorbing large amounts of magic without getting giggly and needing a man in my bed.

It was probably good for me to have so much to keep me busy just then, otherwise I might have given way totally to grief. Ly’s death was as painful as a hole in my heart, and Arran was back in his dark cell and any moment might be his last. For two suns he’d had nothing to eat or drink, but that had changed.

“One of the guards is a bit kinder than the rest. He brings me hot food, and this morning he left an extra flask of water, and I am sure it was not an accident.”

“Is it the same one who brought you proper food before?”

“Yes, I think so. He never speaks, in fact, he keeps his head down and will not look me in the eye, but when I thanked him this morning, he grunted, almost as if he understood me.”

“Well, he might have a kinder heart than the others, but he’s still the enemy, so don’t get too friendly with him.”

Sho’s summoning was over, and the slower beasts were beginning to arrive – bears, the pig-like sukarah and the strange armour-plated and tusked rinnfarr, who might be slow but were large enough and heavy enough to trample anything that got in their way. The whole area north of Greenstone Ford was swarming with them, but Sho, with the lion guard’s help, was controlling them without difficulty. He was stretched, but he hadn’t collapsed into animal incoherence, as Ly once had. The lion guard made all the difference. Everything was now in place, but still we waited.

“What exactly is the plan?” I asked Hethryn one evening, when Arran was asleep and couldn’t overhear. “Are we going to sit out a siege, or are we going to break down the walls?”

He sighed. “The original idea was to break down the walls. With Ly, we could have done that, with or without these god-powers he wanted. But Sho… I like Sho well enough, but he is so young, and we know so little of him.”

“You don’t trust him.”

“We all grew to trust Ly,” he said seriously. “He was one of us, a Bennamorian, and… and he loved you, Drina, everyone could see that. But this boy is an unknown quantity, and untested in battle, and his magic is weak still. So we have decided now that we will sit it out. They have wells, presumably, but unless their cellars are astonishingly full, they will not be able to feed an army that size for very long.”

“What about our own supplies?”

“We have the river for water, and we control the road. The bridge is under repair and then we can get wagons from Bennamore, as well as from the south. We can stay here for the whole summer if need be. Everything has been considered.”

But this careful plan fell apart within hours. The eagles reported clouds of dust to the north – a cohort of golden soldiers marching six abreast in perfect step to relieve their compatriots. And when they scouted further afield, they found a second golden stream on its way from the river towns to the northwest. And, the worst news of all, far to the east on the open plains, a vast cloud of Vahsi heading in our direction, and moving fast.

“We can’t fight the Vahsi as well!” I said.

“We will have to,” Hethryn said grimly. “The bridge is not complete, so we cannot retreat that way, and if we try to escape to the south, the Vahsi will cut us off. Their horses are very fast. This will all come to a head tomorrow, and if the golden army inside the walls comes out to join in…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but then he didn’t need to. We had come to the final battle of the war, and it was likely to be bloody and swift.

And then, in the midst of all the gloom and hastily revised plans, a little miracle.

“Drina? Arran?”

“Ly? Ly! What happened? Where are you?”

“I am by the pool, and it worked! I know how to call on the god-powers. I can defeat this wind god and we can be happy again.”

“Oh, Ly! You can’t get here in time – the battle will be tomorrow. You’re too late.”

The most immediate problem was to get Ly out of the dragon’s tunnels. He was alive and whole and full of power, but he couldn’t see in the dark and had no torch to light his way.

“I will get him out of there,”
Arran said.
“I am used to the dark, and I have nothing else to do. You are needed elsewhere, Drina. Three tunnels round, and the correct one has marks on the wall – I can do this. It will make a change for me to be useful.”

Sho and I sat on the hilltop near the watch post, impervious to the weather. Neither of us slept, and I don’t remember eating, either, although guards trooped back and forth with bowls of food and flasks of water for us. We were in constant communication with the lion guard and, through them, the army leaders. Somewhere on the plain to the south of us, in the sprawling city of tents and cook fires, Axandor and Zand made their final preparations for battle. To the north, the war-beast riders were organised into groups. From three sides, enemies approached us in strength, and the town of Greenstone Ford was filled with soldiers ready to die to defend their god.

And yet my heart sang. Ly was alive! Somehow, by the grace of my gods or his, he had survived the fall into the pool, and was alive and powerful and on his way back to me. Maybe I wouldn’t live long enough to see him again, but he, at least, would survive this war. And if, by some miracle, I escaped the coming destruction, he would be with me and I wouldn’t be alone.

Hethryn had spent all afternoon closeted with the war leaders when he made his way to the watch post with a flask of wine for me.

He jumped and swore loudly when he saw me. “Gods, Drina, what happened to you?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Your eyes are bright blue!”

I laughed, and explained about Ly, who, it seemed, was now an elder, amongst everything else. And whatever he became, I became too. And Arran, presumably. He was unsurprised when I told him.

“He has been in the blue pool, so I suppose he has swallowed some of the magical water. It is not unexpected.”

“How will you account for it, if Trimon asks?”

“I will tell him that the gods have blessed me. Which is true enough.”

“It’s not much of a blessing being stuck in that box of a cell in the dark.”

“The gods sent me to you, my love,”
he said.
“I have been your drusse for six and a half years, and what greater blessing could I ask for? Oh sweetheart, you must not cry. You must be strong now. Ly will be here soon. He is out of the tunnel, and only waiting for Diamond to arrive.”

I didn’t ask how long it would take Ly to fly back. A ten-sun, perhaps, or a little less, since he would be travelling as fast as Diamond’s wings could carry him. It hardly mattered. Unless he could arrive tomorrow, he would be too late and the battle would be over.

The dawn brought no good news. Both columns of the golden army were within sight from my hilltop perch, and the eagles gave me a view to the east where the Vahsi were steadily advancing. To the south, the armies of Bennamore and the Port Holdings lined up in battle order, waiting for the signal.

And then we waited, as the inevitable moment drew nearer. How many of us would survive the next few hours? How many of my own family, even? Axandor would be in the very thick of the fighting. Hethryn was on the watch post with me, but he could still be swept up in the battle. Mother and Cal, Sallorna and Krant were with the other mages in the Bennamore camp to help with the injured. They were well away from the action for now, but it was likely the action would eventually come to them if things went badly for us. And then there was Arran, the most vulnerable of us all, despite his resistance to injury.

Looking back, I wondered if there had been some moment when this could have been averted, when perhaps good sense might have prevailed. But I couldn’t think of one. The nearest we’d ever come to resolving the issue was when we’d talked to Trimon alone outside the town gates. If we’d known then who he was and how events would go later, we could have killed him on the spot and stopped the war in an instant. But perhaps even that wouldn’t have been enough. The golden army might have gone on an even worse rampage, who could tell?

Still we waited. In my mind, the steady beat of Ly’s presence made me feel whole again, for the three of us were one unit, one person. When he’d been gone, there’d been a gnawing emptiness that nothing would fill. Now he was back, a part of me again. While I didn’t understand what had happened, and I felt that he didn’t either, there would be time enough to wonder at it later. For now, all I felt was a profound gratitude.

At mid-morning, the first war-beasts were sent in to harry the advancing lines of the golden army. That was when the windstorms started again, and I was kept busy stopping them. Kalmander had disappeared, but I had several other eagles aloft, spotting the storms as soon as they started. Twice the hilltop where I stood was attacked, but I dispersed them in a heartbeat. The soldiers had learned to crouch down and cover their eyes to avoid the dust swirling about, but many of the war-beasts found the storms very trying, and some of them had to withdraw to recover. Only the rinnfarr were unaffected, and so the golden army marched on virtually unopposed.

Then the gates of the town opened. A golden flood poured out in all directions, and battle was joined in earnest. All around the town walls, steel clashed, commanders shouted and the injured screamed, in the bloody chaos of war. And slowly but inexorably, our troops were split and pushed backwards, one group retreating towards the camp to the south, the other being forced towards the river.

“Drina? Do you want to try something?”

“Ly? Where are you?”

“A long way away, still, but I should be able to funnel my power through you.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“The lightning. That is the most destructive. Hold the amber in one hand, and point at something you want to hit – one of those towers, maybe.”

“I’ll try. There, I’m pointing.”

There was a rush of power through me, filling me with warmth. For an instant, I felt giggly and excited, just the way I used to when I took in a lot of magic all at once. Then there was a bang and a spark, and all the power dissipated. I’d made lightning, but it was no more than the length of my hand.

“Well, that was disappointing,”
Ly said.

“Maybe you’re too far away,”
I suggested.

“Our connection works no matter how far apart we are, so it ought to work.”

“How about the mist?”

“I do not see why that should work any better.”

“Well, we won’t know unless we try it, will we?”

“Hmm. Very well. Point again, then.”

“Pointing.”

The power was different this time, cooler, less strong, less abrupt, a steady flow that made me feel good but not over-energised. And there was mist. It fell from my finger like water from a spout, straight down to the ground, pooling round my feet. And it didn’t dissipate. I moved to where the ground fell away from me, and the mist flowed at a regular pace down the hill towards the river.

“This is working, although it’s slow,”
I said.
“How long can you keep this up?”

“It takes no effort, once it is underway. Is it helpful? Do you want me to continue?”

“Yes, keep going. Let’s see what effect it has.”

I sat cross-legged at the top of the hill as mist spilled from my hand and rolled down the hill. It was a thin stream, but steady, and after a while it began to form a large puddle at the bottom of the hill. Then, very slowly, it expanded across the river and inched its way onto the battlefield.

Sho sat beside me, head down as he concentrated on the war-beasts. Occasionally he’d look up, see how far the mist had spread and smile. On my other side, Hethryn watched the progress of the battle. From time to time, he’d ask me to communicate with Axandor or Zand, if he saw something happening that they needed to know, or with Yannassia, waiting anxiously for news at Kingswell, but mostly he was silent, just there.

I think he didn’t like to disturb my concentration, but I had Ly’s power now to manage a hundred different threads at once. Very little needed my conscious mind. I could receive a message from Axandor through a lion rider that he could use some war-beasts for support at a certain place, and instantly a group would change direction to move there. Somehow, between Sho and me, the instruction was conveyed. It was hard work for Sho, but for me it was effortless. And always at the forefront of my mind, sustaining me more than anything else, the two shining beacons that were Arran and Ly, one so close to me, sitting in darkness, the other flying fast but far away.

Perhaps Hethryn was silent because he could see how close we were to defeat. To the northwest, the war-beasts were making progress against one column of the golden army, but the second column had broken through and would soon join up with their fellows under the walls of the town, and the Vahsi were very close, now. The armies of Bennamore and the coast were fighting valiantly, but they were being inexorably pushed back and back. As soon as the additional troops arrived, they would be finished. And still the windstorms sprang up just where they would most hamper our troops.

“When do we give up?” I said to Hethryn.

“Never,” he said shortly. But his face was grim.

“The windstorms are getting less frequent,” I said. “Maybe he’s running out of power.”

“He has such control, though,” Hethryn said gloomily. “He can whisk the bow from an archer’s hands, or trip a single horseman, if he wants. Or he can flatten a thousand soldiers at once. And the dust he raises is such a problem.”

It was Arran who gave me the first sign of hope.
“Drina, look at the Vahsi.”
There was surprise in his mind.

I found an eagle who gave me a view. They had split into two groups, one heading to the north of the town, the other riding fast round to the south. And they were ignoring the war-beasts, skirting round them and bearing down on the golden army instead. They were with us! I shrieked with excitement, and Hethryn, who was eating his stew beside me, nearly dropped the bowl in alarm.

“What is it? What is happening?”

“The Vahsi are fighting
for
us!”

“Really? That is very unexpected. Usually they are
against
everybody.”

“Now that I think about it,” I said, “they attacked the golden army once before. Trimon complained about it. And I met some of them that night I retrieved the message from the burnt out wagons. They’ve been keeping a close eye on all this.”

“They dislike people encroaching on their territory. The whole Karningplain is walled to keep them from harassing their farmers, and these new towns have to be walled, too. I imagine they have taken exception to the golden army thinking they own the whole plains.”

“They’ve never bothered Bennamore much.”

“They used to, until we built the ditch and bank along the border. But we are not really treading on their toes much. We are too far west and too forested for the big herds of kishorn they follow. The open plains are their habitat.”

“Well, it’s time they got used to living in peaceful coexistence with their neighbours. The gods know, the Plains of Kallanash are big enough. There’s surely room for everyone.”

“For now, perhaps, but I am not sure that is going to work for much longer,” Hethryn said seriously. “Farmers spread and spread, eating up land, and eventually the kishorn and the Vahsi will be driven out. And—”

A shout rose from the guards at the watch post. “Reinforcements from the west! Aid from the west!”

Hethryn frowned. “We are not expecting any more troops. I do not like this.”

“No, it’s all right,” I said, switching quickly to an eagle’s eyes. “It’s hard to believe, but I think the Icthari have answered our call for help.”

“That is
your
doing then,” he said, with a sudden grin. “You and Axandor. The treaty we have with the Icthari is all because of you.”

“Hardly. Our father was only half Icthari himself, and the treaty has always been more hope than action.”

“Until now. I wonder how they will get across the river? The bridge is still unusable.”

But that didn’t slow them down in the slightest. The riders swam their horses across carrying ropes which the foot soldiers used to guide themselves across. Suddenly the balance of the battle had shifted in our favour. And still the mist rolled down the hill at my feet and crept across the battlefield.

“You know, Drina, that mist is very weird,” Hethryn said. “I think people are getting stuck in it.”

It was true. The mist was no more than a handspan deep, certainly not enough to provide any concealment. But it did look as if both horses and soldiers were finding it difficult to move quickly when their feet were caught in it. The archers were still a problem, but the battles with sword and spear began to slow.

Gradually the afternoon wore away, and the fighting ground to a halt. The arrival of the Vahsi and Icthari had levelled the numbers, and Ly’s strangely sticky mist was slowing everything to the speed of a slug. Eventually, the combatants began to disengage, and the golden army inched its way back to the town to hide behind the safety of the walls again. The northern contingents had both been beaten back, and retreated onto the open plains, pursued by the war-beasts who seemed to need no rest. The Bennamorian and Port Holding armies retreated in good order to their camp, which was largely still intact. The Vahsi made a less formal camp to the east of the town, and the Icthari squatted along the river’s edge below the town gates. We had a breathing space, for a while.