Time of Daughters II

by Sherwood Smith

  Neit’s neck gripped. The context was Connar. They weren’t planning the defense yet. They were more worried about what would happen if they broke orders.

  Ventdor sighed. “Sorry. Sorry. Too much too soon...look, boys. Defending Ku Halir is holding it. There’s not much I can do, except remind you that I’m above you all in the chain of command. I know you all want to honor your orders, especially those given by a new and eager commander in chief. And we have to remember that he put you two—both proved captains—here to a purpose. I think it likely he foresaw some kind of attack once his back was turned.”

  Rat’s brows shot up, and Braids whistled. “Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

  “Right,” said Rat. “Right, right, right. That’s why we’re not in that pass right now. He knows if he tells us to hold something, we’ll hold it.”

  Neit watched the relief in Rat’s and Braids’ faces harden to determination.

  Pepper Marlovayir spoke up. “I know exactly where the rest of my flight is. I can have everyone back here by the end of the week, if we ride hard. Ten days outside. But that’s less than thirty. Senelaec, can you get to old Amble Sindan and back in time, and how many do you think the Eastern Alliance can raise?”

  “I’ve already got most of them patrolling.” Braids frowned into the air. “Connar counted on that when he gave me the entire east. But we can pull in whatever we find in, say, a four days’ ride.... Three? Two? How long do we have?”

  Rat opened his sword-callused hand. “Wim, how long do you think it’ll take them to march around the lake, especially if they want to take us by surprise?”

  “Going at night, especially coming into waning moon nights, seven, maybe ten days,” Wim said. “It’ll be slow going, all those inlets. The marsh.”

  Rat turned up his palm. “If we can get that, I’ll be able to pull together a wing to stiffen what we get from Senelaec. The rest of my command will stay west of the river, as ordered. Altogether that isn’t three battalions, but it’s the best we can do.”

  “Do you want me to make a run to Olavayir?” Neit offered, knowing it was a long reach.

  “Nobody can get there and back in time,” Pepper stated. “Marlovayir is closer. I can send someone home, in case anyone’s near the eastern border of our land.”

  Rat turned to Neit. “You stick with Wim here. Help watch those shits squatting in the marsh. When they rise, we have to know.”

  Neit said, “I can do that. But heyo, I do wish Lineas were here.”

  Ventdor’s head jerked up. “Lineas? The freckled redhead of Connar’s?”

  Neit said, “Royal runner Lineas. While I was attached to Nadran-Sierlaef at Larkadhe, it was Lineas who learned Bar Regren so she could talk to the prisoners when he had to sit in judgment.”

  “But she’s here.” Ventdor jerked his thumb toward the stable, and the runner chambers over it. “Probably asleep. She rode hard to bring news....” His voice trembled as he met Neit’s gaze. “Cousin-niece, she came to say that Jarend-Jarl is dead.”

  Neit gasped as if an invisible fist had punched her in the heart.

  Rat, Braids, and Wim, none of whom knew the former jarl except by reputation, looked uncomfortable in the way people do before vast and sudden grief they don’t really share.

  Rat said, “How about I find this Lineas, and pull her up here?”

  “Do that.” Ventdor’s voice was a husky whisper as Neit turned away, her shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Skytalon Peak vanished in a roiling fog that flashed violently with green light followed by thunder so loud it brought powdery stone sifting from the dark reaches of the caverns overhead.

  Captain Jethren’s men had gone out, to come running back when lightning exploded near them, killing one and burning the other down one side. They managed to get him inside, but he sank down, stiff and unseeing, unhearing.

  Jethren left him there and rapped out orders to the rest until they were lined up, spears and gear in hand, ready to go out the moment the storm passed. Jethren waited a pace or two inside the crevasse that opened onto the slope overlooking the pass, his silhouette lit with flickering blue-green.

  Ghost and Stick exchanged glances, each understanding the other: Jethren had orders, and this lightning-struck man couldn’t carry them out. For whatever reason the Olavayir captain was not going to ask for help.

  Stick’s new first runner hovered uncertainly, but Ghost’s, after a glance at him, bent down, and they covered the man with his own bedroll, and tried to get some listersteep down his throat. He stirred, then opened his eyes, looking bewildered, pushing their hands away.

  Ghost’s first runner offered him the salve they’d been using. Seeing him taken care of, Quill withdrew farther inside, away from the noise, and settled down to sleep.

  He woke abruptly, aware of quiet. He rose, drank some water, and got to his feet. Firesticks had been set along the tunnel at intervals, burning low enough to preserve their magic, but to permit them to see where they were going. None had been lit anywhere near the crevasse, lest even that faint light somehow be made out from the towers below.

  Quill felt his way along, until he saw a figure silhouetted against the starlight outside the crevasse. Jethren and his men were gone; Connar stood there at the entrance, gazing out.

  Quill knew he would not be watching the sky. He turned away, but before he could take a step, Connar said, “Orders.”

  Quill halted. Did Connar think he was one of his captains?

  Connar said in that amused voice, “I recognized your step. First, is there a faster way down to West Outpost than the pass?”

  “No,” Quill said. “The three paths I found are too treacherous. They’d take at least twice as long.”

  “Figured as much. Once we descend, stay to the rear.”

  “As you wish.”

  Connar didn’t move, or even turn his head, so Quill retreated.

  He forced down a few bites of travel bread, then paced off to one of the inner chambers, one he was fairly certain none of the others would find, at least without him hearing their approach. Here he set up a tiny flame, just enough to write by, opened his notecase—and there was nothing from Lineas.

  He sat back, breathing against the sharpness of disappointment. Of course she was still riding, perhaps in company with someone other than royal runners. He remembered the long silences she’d had to endure from him the year before, and let remorse chase out the disappointment.

  He took out a slip of paper and wrote:

  Lineas: We’re above the pass. Whatever is going to happen will commence at sunrise, I suspect.

  He hesitated. There was so very much more to say. But in person. So he finished, I long to see your face, and hold you in my arms.

  And sent it.

  He wrote Camerend a hasty report, replaced his notecase inside his shirt, and began to make his way back.

  He hadn’t gone twenty paces when Fish Pereth appeared around one of the natural columns, breathing hard. “There you are.” The words were not quite a question, but carried a tone of accusation.

  “I was doing some last exploring.” Quill lifted a hand toward the carvings of twined leaves overhead, and spoke only truth, “We studied geliaths, but we rarely get a chance to see them. They’ll be asking me all kinds of questions when we get back to the royal city.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Fish said with resignation, and Quill wondered if Fish had been detailed to watch him. But Fish said nothing, as always, and they returned to the others.

  Connar was nowhere in sight; Jethren and his company were also gone. Quill turned toward his gear. He might as well catch some rest before whatever was to happen next.

  A hand caught his arm.

  He turned to find Stick Tyavayir there, Ghost at his shoulder. The flickering light from the firesticks played over their faces, emphasizing the sharpness of their bones, the contours planed by the arduous journey.

  “Thank you for b
ringing us here alive.” Ghost brushed his fingers over his chest in a salute, his pale hair dangling unkempt over his shoulder.

  Quill saluted back, and the two walked away.

  Quill tried to find a less awkward position on the ungiving stone, shut his eyes—and slid into slumber.

  He woke at a shout, “Come see! Come on!”

  Quill followed the others as they streamed out of the great crack opening above the pass, no one paying the least heed to being seen, though the air was clear, the sun resting above the eastern peaks. It was too late for those below to do anything about it.

  One of Ghost’s younger runners whooped in amazement, pointing up the slope behind the crevasse. Quill turned his head, shading his eyes from the glare of the sun, to see Jethren’s men working with levers under massive boulders. These were those long spears that Jethren’s men had brought up the trail, now held together by metal bands to strengthen them.

  Quill could see that Jethren’s men had excavated three massive boulders, each roughly the size of a cottage. As the company crowded around the ledge outside the crevasse, the first rock teetered, sending small stones tumbling down the slope maybe sixty paces to the east.

  A man howled wordlessly, at the pitch of exhilaration.

  Thud! Kadump. The boulder hit the ground, jarring the watchers to the teeth.

  Cr-r-rack!

  The boulder struck a pillar of rock, and stopped. Many of the watchers let out disappointed howls, then shouted as black lines spidered through the pillar.

  It exploded beneath the weight of the boulder, force shooting shards everywhere as the boulder teetered and began once more to tumble.

  CRASH! Each time the rock hit the ground, it shook rubble into following it as it picked up speed. It leaped up and spun in the air, then smashed down again in a mad clatter of stone chips. Then it plunged past the tower, sending a spray of rocks racketing off the stone wall, as the boulder plummeted down the sheer cliff, cleared the narrow access road—upturned pale faces could be made out as it flew overhead—and then crashed into the pass. A second boulder even larger followed, from some thirty paces farther off, and a third.

  A shout from the other direction caused everyone to whirl around. Jethren had divided his men into teams, half to each tower. Those above the western tower loosed their avalanche. The ground trembled beneath the watchers’ feet as mighty rock splintered, causing a crag to break apart, rumbling downward. The ground cracked and an entire cliff shifted, at first slowly, slowly. It began to break apart, picking up speed, a brown and gray river of massive stone thundering straight for the west tower.

  Tiny figures froze on the top. Quill turned away, hoping they had transfer tokens, but unable to look; he could take his part in a fight, but watching someone helpless in the path of disaster sickened him. A scream of laughter an arm’s length from his left barely reached his ear, as distant as a gull’s cry. He shifted his gaze as rockfall led by a vast slate monolith struck the east tower, smashing it in an explosion shards a heartbeat before the avalanche swept it all away.

  Quill shut his eyes as the landslide roared on and on, shaking the ground. The tumult reached an ear-shattering pitch and the company stared, or screamed, or danced about in a frenzy as the two towers were swept entirely away. The landslides met in one great cataclysm, quaking the entire mountain, and sending a geyser of dust shooting skyward.

  What goes up must come down.

  “Get back, get back,” Quill shouted, but no one heard him, or they were too shocked to listen. He ducked into the crevasse moments before a rain of sharp stones descended.

  Shouts. Curses. Ghost’s and Stick’s men crowded back inside the tunnel to escape, but some were already bleeding from nicks and cuts. Jethren’s men had thrown themselves flat onto the ground on the slope above.

  Quill looked toward the entrance, to see Connar with his hands braced at either side on the stone of the crevasse as he laughed.

  Connar had read over and over in the Inda papers Hauth had given him a second-generation account of the dust cloud over Andahi at the start of the Venn invasion. He had chosen Jethren to figure out a way to accomplish a landslide big enough to signal Cabbage Gannan to commence his attack, and to unnerve West Outpost because so far, Jethren had obeyed orders without a word. And without repeating that fist to the heart, salute to a king. But Connar still remembered it, vividly. And so he pushed Jethren as hard as he could, not certain if he wanted him to prove trustworthy, or to retreat to Olavayir in a sulk.

  The second would be so much easier.

  Their great gouge into the southern face of Mt. Skytalon succeeded beyond their expectations. The dust pall hung in the sky, golden against the sere blue. Elated by their success, Jethren was determined to be the first to the floor of the pass.

  Though it was insanely dangerous, he drove his company down the unstable landslide, as far to the west, at the mouth of the pass, those in West Outpost and their besiegers watched the light brown cloud high in the air. Some later swore they had been woken by a deep abyssal boom that had reverberated through the castle foundations.

  The castle defenders had no idea what that cloud portended—other than trouble—but Cabbage Gannan and Henad Tlennen knew this had to be the promised sign. Henad turned to her fastest scout. “Get to Wened and alert the relay.”

  Three hard days of riding later, the last person in the relay reached Ku Halir, her horse in a lather.

  And so, at noon on a summery day, the horns blared from the garrison walls, the great eagle banner rose, and two by two the lancers rode out, weapons held at the correct slant, swords and shields glittering in the strong light.

  Ventdor watched from the courtyard until the last Rider was through the gate, then his eye caught on a jug-eared stable hand standing nearby with a saddled horse. Ventdor’s chin came down minutely, and Wim climbed into the saddle.

  He rode out the opposite gate at a slow walk; when he had cleared the west end of town, out of sight of the last inn, he whistled to the horse, bent low, and rode like the wind to report to Braids.

  That same morning, Connar and the rest of the Winter Company made it down to the pass to discover a tumble of pale stone and old dirt piled up in a fifty-pace high berm smashed up against the thousand-pace sheer cliffs on the other side of the pass. Atop the rubble Jethren stood balanced on the shattered remains of a cart, one boot propped on a wheel, the morning sun making a nimbus of his tousled blond hair.

  Baskets, boxes, and sacks had been lined neatly beside him. He slid, catching himself, and sent a fresh pile of pebbles bouncing down the berm. He fetched up before Connar and struck his fist smartly against his chest.

  “What’s this?” Connar asked as he worked his way over the loose soil.

  “We caught ourselves a caravan.” Jethren grinned. “They escaped the avalanche, just to meet us.”

  One of his younger Riders gave a crow of laughter.

  “Did anyone see you? Get away to warn them below?”

  “No. Made sure of that. We let the two oxen go—they’re useless—but we’ve three horses.” Jethren tipped his head over his shoulder, to where his silent, pale-haired, silent first runner held the horses by their reins.

  “Where are the traders?”

  “Dead.” It was no brag. Killing a gaggle of carters who hadn’t offered even a vestige of a fight was merely a matter of report. Certainly no triumph, but the careless indifference in the man’s voice and face spiked a jolt of hatred through Quill, who stood a few paces behind Fish. Quill wondered if he knew the carters.

  Sick with disgust, he tried to breathe out his reaction as Connar looked over the booty, fists on his hips. “What’s this stuff? Not the supply train.”

  “Shian says these colored rolls are silk.”

  Connar remembered seeing silk, a shiny fabric, at Lindeth. “No use to us,” Connar said, peering westward. The landslide seemed to have filled the pass, but he glimpsed what had to be the old road beyond it. It was still difficult
to breathe, though less so, and from now on it was all downhill.

  From here on in they would drill again, he decided. But after they ate.

  Jethren spoke up. “Silk might be no use, but their stores are.” Jethren pointed to the baskets. “There’s greens. Oats. Jugs of various sorts. Eggs, even.”

  Better and better. Connar swept his gaze around the waiting men as they stood at attention, waiting for him to speak. It seemed Jethren had lost two more on his descent, but he saw no regret in the man’s face—he was waiting for praise. And from the twin looks of reserve in Stick’s and Ghost’s faces, they were as aware as Connar that Jethren was shouldering his way into the inner circle.

  Connar didn’t quite trust Jethren yet, but he could use him. And letting them all compete for his attention meant everyone would work harder. “Well done,” he said. “You did everything I asked.”

  Jethren flushed, but before he could speak, Connar turned to Ghost. “Call everyone together. Quill!”

  “Here.” The royal runner appeared behind the lightning-burned man, who was leaning on a stick.

  “How far to the castle from here?”

  Quill’s eyes narrowed. “This is the easiest and fastest part of the southern pass. If the weather doesn’t hold us up, we could be there in a week. But we’ll need to watch out for traps. I can’t be sure I got them all marked on the map.”

  Connar smiled at the remains of Winter Company. Fewer than a hundred men, and three untrained horses. Cabbage Gannan had better have kept his end of the plan. “Jethren, send scouts ahead to find and spring the traps. The rest of us will get a meal, and then move out. We have West Outpost to surprise.”

  The defenders of West Outpost had felt all the shock Connar could have wished, early in spring when dawn revealed that long line of silhouettes sitting astride their horses just out of reach of their arrows.

  The Marlovans galloped up, shields high against defensive arrows and shot every wall sentry who didn’t have a shield up. The Adranis’ own sharp-shooters had practiced against the butts at considerable distances, but couldn’t get a draw on galloping enemies, and wasted a great many of their own arrows—with no new wood to be had.