Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (25 page)

“I’ve been thinking about this,” I said.

Talivane said, “Don’t strain yourself.”

“Komaki’s reason for coming here is that these lands were a part of his duchy.”

“More than a thousand years ago,” Talivane said. “What he really wants is the Queen and—”

“Don’t go into that,” I said. “His stated reason is that these lands were once a part of his.”

“Yes,” Talivane said.

“Then swear allegiance to him,” I said. “You’ll win time, if nothing else.”

“You think so?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re a stranger here.”

“Thanks for telling me. So?”

Talivane turned away to watch the two riders approach.

“So?” I repeated.

Naiji said, “There were witches who lived on Komaki’s lands, Rifkin. A few months ago he had them all brought to his castle, tied to stakes, and burnt. That’ll happen to us, if we acknowledge him as our lord.”

Dovriex clapped me on the shoulder. “We’re not dead yet, Rifkin.”

“True.” I kept from adding, “So?”

The riders came to the little road that wound up the mountainside. Most of us strode to the gate wall to watch. As they came closer, I saw they were two young women. Red plumes affixed to their helmets proclaimed them officers. The drawbridge had been raised hours ago, so they reined up before it. One called, “Greetings to the lord of Gromandiel!”

“Grim greetings, it would seem,” Talivane said.

“Make of them what you will, Count Gromandiel.” The one who spoke was larger and older than the other. Both wore coats of mail, but only the speaker carried a musket across her saddle. “Do you refuse to entertain your master and his followers?”

“I never said I would not entertain Komaki,” Talivane said. “But I will not allow him in my castle.”

“You refuse him his rights as your master?”

Talivane sighed. “He is not my master. He never has been my master, nor will he ever be my master.”

“You admit—”

“I tire of this,” Talivane said. “Komaki’s game of legal truths has always been an ugly farce. I will not play it.”

The older woman drew herself up on her horse. “In that case, rebel, I have no choice but to declare—”

“Leave,” Talivane said. “And if you’re fools, come back with your master’s warriors. Out of respect for the Queen’s Law, I give you this one chance.”

The woman pointed at Talivane. “You’re the one who makes a mockery of all we value.”

Talivane snapped both hands before him as though he flicked water from them, and they blazed with light. “You have been warned,” he said. “Say another word, and you die.”

“So say you, witch bastard!” The woman swung her musket to her shoulder.

Lightning flared from Talivane’s hands. The woman and her horse both convulsed and fell. The other officer fought to control her mount, then wheeled it and fled. Talivane called after her, “Tell Komaki that we are not helpless! Tell him he cannot hide, not behind iron or mercenaries! Tell him to leave us or he dies!”

Naiji looked at the dead officer and horse. “What of—”

“Ignore it,” her brother said. “There’ll be more there, soon.” He glanced at me. “You look ill, bold warrior.”

“I am.”

“What should I have done?”

I did not know, so I looked away.

Talivane said, “In battle, stay far from me. I doubt it would be safe for either of us if I use lightning and you’re too close with your steel.”

I said nothing. Perhaps Dovriex’s egg-juggling proved that a witch could become accustomed to iron, but it also suggested that the process was a slow one. For every witch who had carefully avoided iron, the old rules still held. I would stay away from Talivane.

Naiji said, “Do you think we have a chance of surviving, now?”

I shrugged. “How many times can he do that, before he’s too exhausted to continue?”

She swallowed. “Maybe... maybe ten times.”

I touched her arm and smiled. “If it’s the right ten times, it’ll help.”

Talivane turned to face his people. He raised his arms and said, “This is your last chance! If any of you would risk Komaki’s hospitality, go now! We will not dare open our gates again until he leaves our valley!”

No one spoke until Iron Eyes said, “No, Lord. We’re with you.”

“Thank you. To your posts, then.”

More than half the group left for their positions on the walls. There were four of us who had no assigned locations: Talivane, Naiji, Feschian, and me. A fifth if you counted Mondivinaw, but the infirmary was his post. Or so I thought until I saw him hobbling across the courtyard with his crutch.

“Da!” Naiji cried.

“Father! Get back to bed, you damned—” Talivane was silent for a second, undoubtedly listening to Mondivinaw’s mindspeech. “I’m sorry, but—” And he was silent again. “As you will, Father.” He pointed at two guards. “Carry him up here. Then fetch his chair. He has as much right to be here as any of us.” Talivane winced, then added, “More.”

The Count tried to have Mondivinaw’s chair placed by the cliff wall. The old man refused. His chair was finally placed directly over the main gate, where the attack would be worst.

Naiji glanced his way, then said, “He asks if the great lord still thinks him a coward.”

“No. I think him a fool.”

She nodded, then smiled, then said, “He says the great lord is probably right, but he would rather die here than in a sickroom.”

Komaki’s warriors marched out from their tents. They sang something that was punctuated with triumphal cries. If it was intended to make us uneasy, it worked.

Someone near me was singing along, quietly and sadly. I glanced to see Feschian. She nodded her chin in time to the words, and a few tears streaked her cheeks.

I nudged Naiji. “What?”

“She served Komaki as his captain,” Naiji whispered. “They might have been more than that.”

“Even though she was a witch?”

“She didn’t know until fairly recently. A lot of us are that way.”

“I see.”

Feschian looked up and grinned coldly. “It’s a war song, Rifkin. In this land mercenaries call themselves part of the Confederacy of Steel. I was one of them, once.”

She turned away from us. I said, “You’re welcome to use my axe, if you’d like.”

She shook her head. “No. Thanks just the same.”

Naiji said, “Rifkin, if you’re keeping your iron...”

I nodded. “I know. Stay away from the rest of you.”

“At least five feet. And don’t get in the path of a spell.”

“I won’t.”

Feschian jerked her thumb at Komaki’s army. “Five gold pieces say they attack the southwest wall first.”

I shook my head. “The gate. It’s easier terrain and—”

“Talk with your gold or not at all.”

Naiji said, “How can you sit there making bets while they’re coming?”

“It’s expected of warriors,” I said. “We prefer bets and jokes to soiling our pants.”

Feschian nodded. “We do that later.”

“You should probably go inside soon,” I told Naiji.

“Hardly,” she said.

“Why?”

Naiji jerked her chin to indicate Talivane and Feschian, who waited on the wall.

“Don’t be brave,” I said.

“I’m not. I’m terrified.”

“Then go.”

“I’m more afraid of being a coward.”

“You’re making this difficult.”

She smiled thinly. “You’re the one who decided that being bound to me meant being my personal guard.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’d prefer you were inside, where it’s safer.”

“I win,” Feschian said.

Naiji and I both glanced at her. Feschian said, “It’s the southwest wall.”

I jumped to my feet and stared. “They’re fools.”

“Not so. We’ll be stretched too thinly to defend it properly. And then if they send a smaller party at the gate—”

“Go into the main keep, Naiji,” I said. “Now.”

“No, Rifkin. You’re bound, remember?”

“Many of these people will need healing, Naiji. You can’t help them if you’re dead.”

“I could help one, Rifkin. Maybe two, if I exhausted myself. Then I’d be useless for anything else. There are those who know more about common forms of medicine than I, and they’re in the keep. I’m staying here.”

“I...” Reluctantly, I nodded. “You shouldn’t make it so easy for me to be free again,” I said, touching her wrist.

“Poor Rifkin.”

Feschian said softly, “Damn.”

“What?”

“I thought those were supply carts. They’re cannons.”

I stared where she pointed. A detachment of riders had separated from the main body of foot soldiers. They accompanied two ox-drawn cannons on the castle road.

“What can we do?” I asked.

“We can give them a surprise,” Feschian said. “Rocksmith!”

The plump woman hurried over, trotting more than running, though she puffed with exertion. She seemed better suited to bake cookies for children than to cope with cannons.

Feschian pointed at the riders.

“Now?” the rocksmith asked.

“Yes.”

The rocksmith nodded and sat cross-legged on the parapet. Her eyes closed and she rested her palms against the stone under her.

Naiji smiled, satisfied. She was not looking at Komaki’s riders, but at the mountain stream that had made the castle moat its bed. I glanced from Naiji to the stream to the rocksmith to Feschian, then scratched my head and waited.

Six of us were above the gate, counting Mondivinaw and a boy who probably should have been put with the children. The approaching riders might have numbered thirty, perhaps a few more. I looked back to the valley. Komaki’s warriors already began the long climb up the southwest slope. I fastened the chin strap of my iron and leather helmet, then began to whistle the opening measures of the death song.

Naiji glanced at me. “That’s pretty.”

“Out of context, perhaps.” I looked down at the moat. No water flowed through it. My gaze flicked to the stream. Somehow, the rocksmith had diverted it from its usual course. It poured onto the road and raced toward the riders and the cannon carts.

The attackers tried to turn, of course, and they failed, of course. I wished the stream were larger, enough to wash them away. Still, it changed the road into a bed of ice water, rocks, and mud. The oxen would eventually pull their cargo near enough to threaten us, but that would be a matter of hours now, not minutes.

“The riders are coming on,” I said.

Mondivinaw stood up from his chair and dragged himself to one of the crenellations to watch. I wanted to say something, but that might force him to answer me with mindspeech, and that might make Izla react.

Naiji picked up a bow. I tucked my axe into my belt to do the same. Feschian said, “Not yet. We don’t want to waste any arrows.”

The riders were ninety yards away and slowed by the stream. The afternoon sun glinted on their helmets. Their dark cloaks flapped behind them like batwings. Almost all carried bows, but a few had muskets. I wondered if they could shoot from the saddle, as the plainsfolk were said to do. When the riders were sixty yards from us, I glanced at Feschian. She nodded.

My shot took someone, young or old, male or female, loved or unloved, in the chest. I whistled the next measure of the death song and released a second arrow.

A few musket shots came from the southwest, but there was no time to look to see what happened there. Unless our people stood on top of the walls to be targets, they were safe enough from guns. I was saving my worries for when the enemy was close enough to shower us with arrows.

Feschian and Naiji were each ten or fifteen feet from me. They fired as quickly as they could. The boy cringed against the wall. In each hand was a quiver of arrows, ready to bring to us when we needed them. Mondivinaw stood at his post, twitching his good hand with a perverse glee. I couldn’t take time to see what effect his spells had, but it seemed that not every rider who fell had been hit with an arrow.

A musketeer leaped to the ground to aim up at us. Feschian’s arrow might have taken her before mine did. Another tried to fire from the saddle. The recoil knocked him to the ground, and I pinned him through the stomach before he could stand.

Most of their cavalry used their bows from horseback. Most of their arrows shattered against the castle walls. We had the advantage here and they knew it. Shrieking and waving, they turned back. We had repulsed the first charge.

Seven cloaked warriors lay in the muddy stream. I suspected as many others were too badly wounded to continue. I decided to be realistic and assume there had been two hundred of them. “Only one hundred and eighty-six to go,” I told Feschian.

“My,” she said. “I do feel much better knowing that.”

I wanted to stay there and rest, but the fight continued at the southwest wall. The sky seemed to rain arrows. I saw the top of a scaling ladder appear, but the boy with the twitch scrambled up to push it away. When an arrow caught him, he fell from the wall with the enemy’s ladder.

I snatched a wooden shield from a pile of ancient weapons, our one surplus in this affair, to cover myself as I ran to the other wall. I shouted at Naiji to stay behind, but she didn’t, of course.

Another scaling ladder poked up far from me. The rocksmith saw it and put her hands against the castle wall. A moment later a helmeted head appeared at the top of the ladder, then disappeared with a scream as his ladder slid sideways. The rocksmith nodded to herself.

I picked a crenellation for my own and pretended for the next few minutes that this was only a carnival game. Step back against the wall, snatch an arrow from the quiver at my feet, fit it to the string. Step into the open, pick a target, fire. Step back behind the wall, snatch up the next arrow. It was a simple game, yet I found it harder each time to step out and shoot.

The pretense of a game ended when I stepped out and a bearded face peered at me, only a few feet away. We stared long enough for me to notice the flecks of grey in his eyebrows, the missing upper teeth in his open mouth. His eyes went wide, and his mouth opened even more, perhaps to plead with me. I wonder now what he could have said. He might have been there because soldiering was his only means of earning money to feed his family, or maybe he had been forced to join the army by Komaki’s warriors. And maybe he was one of those who think killing is a fine and noble occupation. I released my arrow. It took him through his open mouth, and he fell.