Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (26 page)

The tip of his ladder was barely visible. I poked it away with my bow, then resumed the game of shooting. When a horn sounded in the distance, the attackers retreated, firing at us as they backed away.

The pretty girl of Chifeo’s age was still shooting. “Stop,” I said. “They’re too far.”

She continued, desperately fitting arrows to her bow and straining to fire. Her fingers were bloody, cut by the string. I grabbed her shoulder. She suddenly collapsed against me, crying, “They got Ifkanian! They got Ifkanian!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wondering if Ifkanian was the boy with the tic. I put my arm around the girl and felt entirely useless.

Feschian walked by, glancing our way without speaking. She wore a stained bandage on her left arm. She halted and nodded to me, then reached out to take the girl away, still saying nothing. I watched them go.

Komaki’s forces were regrouping on the plain below. Naiji touched my elbow and said, “It’s not over? For today, even?”

I shook my head. “This attack was only to test our strength. And to see if they could scare us. The next one will decide whether we’re in for a short war or a long one.”

17

I COUNTED BODIES
, since that was an easy thing to do. There might have been fifteen on the southwest slope. That was worse than Komaki planned, I was sure. He never expected us to hinder his cannons. If he had succeeded in blasting open the gates for his cavalry while the foot soldiers stormed our walls, his war would already have ended.

Naiji had gone inside to help the healers. I would have preferred to sit in some secluded place with her, saying nothing, perhaps holding hands, perhaps hugging, perhaps stripping each other’s clothes off and... I went in search of Talivane. He was kneeling beside a boy of ten or eleven years. The boy’s chest was blood-soaked, and his face was pale. Talivane was telling the boy how brave he had been and how the healers would make him better as soon as they could. I might have had some sympathy for Talivane then, if I didn’t still believe this was all his fault for refusing to leave Castle Gromandiel. A guard picked up the boy in her arms and carried him away.

“You ready to repeat your lightning tricks?” I asked.

“Why?”

“Two cannons. Komaki’s sent men and horses to help haul them up the stream. They’ll be in place soon. Feschian may have mentioned them.”

“She did.”

“Once they’re set up, we’re finished.”

“I know. But I don’t know if I can—”

‘Try, Gromandiel.“

He nodded wearily. “I intend to.”

“Better do it soon.”

He nodded and beckoned to Feschian, who was directing the care of the wounded and the gathering of arrows. When Feschian came, Talivane said, “I’ll attempt the cannons.”

Feschian nodded. “I’ve been trying to think of another way, but—”

“Just do it,” I said.

Talivane smiled. “You are impetuous, little southerner.”

“What’s the delay?”

“We must have a stretcher brought up here.”

I looked around. Several people had been wounded so badly that they were being taken into the main keep, and I’d seen them carry away a middle-aged woman whose skull had been crushed by a musket ball. Everyone who remained was capable of standing or leaning against the wall.

“Why?” I said.

Talivane flicked his hand toward the cannons. “Because I must do something greater than I’ve ever done before. I’d prefer to be kept in relative comfort, if I lose consciousness.”

I grunted noncommittally and left him. At least two of his people would never know any more comfort at all.

I went to the wall and leaned against it, watching. The road was steep and had never been well maintained. Now that it was a streambed, it was almost impassable for carts. Komaki’s soldiers bunched behind the cannons to push and tied ropes to the front to pull. They sang their damned war song as they worked. I sat there thinking,
I am going to die. And then I won’t ache so much
.

The destruction of the cannons was a simple thing. While the stretcher-bearers stood near, Talivane took a position at the center of the parapet, directly over the gates. He raised both hands above his head, seeming to pray or possibly to rest while he focused his thoughts on his power, and then shouted something in a language I did not understand while he lowered his hands to aim them at the cannons. The lightning gushed from his fingertips like fireworks.

The warriors by the carts screamed and died. So did the oxen. So did several soldiers who were only standing in the water too close to the carts. Then one cart exploded, and then the other, and then Komaki’s followers—the ones who still lived—ran, screaming in fear, back toward their camps.

Most of the witches began to cheer. I turned and threw up. I straightened up after a moment, expecting Talivane’s sneer. Instead I saw that he had spoken the truth to me about this experiment. He lay as though dead on a stretcher borne by two guards, and they carried him away to the main keep. His hands were charred and bleeding.

Feschian noticed me and said, “You okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “I just wondered if breakfast would taste better the second time around.” I nodded at the bandage on her arm. “How’s that?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“We could write a pamphlet,” I said, “on how to talk like soldiers and fools.”

“Fine,” Feschian said. “I’ll write the part about soldiers.”

Komaki’s officers were having trouble forcing their fighters to regroup. They had believed that witches were helpless before iron. Now they might think us invulnerable, if we could frighten them again. “How long before Talivane regains his strength?”

Feschian shrugged. “At least a day, I’d imagine.”

The singing began anew. A few of the cavalry rode toward us as though daring us to do anything. They stayed just out of arrowshot and shouted their speculations about our parentage and personal habits. I took a bow and proved that one fellow wasn’t quite beyond our range, which quieted them for a while.

Feschian ordered most of our fighters from the southwest wall to take positions over the gate. Komaki’s forces began to trot toward us. I asked, “What’s the supply of arrows?”

“Almost half gone.”

“I would’ve felt better if you’d said that half remained.”

Dovriex had taken a position on Feschian’s far side. He called, “Rifkin!”

“Yes?”

“Half of this morning’s porridge remains for future meals.”

“Nobody likes a wiseass chef.”

Feschian fired the first arrow, and the rest of us joined her. I wondered which of the plumed riders was Komaki, or if any of them were. I was glad that Naiji was safe in the castle, then remembered that Kivakali was there too. Well, better that Naiji should be with one suspected killer than facing two hundred confirmed ones.

This attack was more orderly. Before, each warrior had run alone, crouched behind a shield until finding a protected place from which to shoot at us. Now they advanced in rows. The soldiers in front locked shields, and the ones in back fired. Then the front row opened to let the back row pass, and the process repeated itself. I wondered how long Komaki’s officers had drilled his people. The mad rush of the first assault was obviously the Konds’ preferred practice.

When they were close, a party of axemen rushed for the gates. Arrows had no effect on the ceiling they made of their shields, but Avarineo began to hurl rocks that were bigger than watermelons. Three axemen fell. The rest, seven or eight, made it to the gates. I turned to Feschian and saw that she had anticipated this. Several children were bringing kettles of hot oil from the kitchens.

I concentrated on my archery, trying to pick musketeers and officers for targets. When the axemen began to scream below us, I whistled the death song louder. When my mouth grew too dry to whistle, I hummed it. Killing is easy if you refrain from thinking,
Ah! There goes someone’s father. Ah! And there a lover. Ah! A sister, undoubtedly, and probably a cousin as well
.

A shout came from the southwest wall. Several of Komaki’s men had reached the parapet. The rocksmith put her hands on the wall to repeat her earlier trick of toppling the ladder. I saw the ladder go, but that did nothing about the four soldiers who had climbed over. One brought his sword in an arc that half severed the rocksmith’s neck.

Several of us turned to run to the other wall. Feschian, her face grim, said, “Rifkin and Dovriex! The rest stay here, damn your eyes!”

Dovriex’s arrow took the man who had killed the rocksmith. Mine skidded on a woman’s chain mail and lodged in her shoulder. The three intruders, including the one I had wounded, raced for the stairs, certainly to try to open our gates from within.

I dropped my bow, pulled my axe from my belt, and leaped down. There was a stair landing fifteen feet below me, and I hit harder than I would have liked. Another ladder had appeared at the southwest wall. “Dovriex! Help the others! I’ll take these!” Telling this now, it sounds like bravado. The truth is that it was necessity or stupidity. I take it as a compliment that Dovriex did not question me. He fired another arrow that broke on one intruder’s mail, then turned to go to the other wall.