A Time of War and Demons

by S E Wendel

  Prince Colm had indeed been a fool for speaking, but his handlers were even greater fools for letting him anywhere near the Midland camp. But that wasn’t what worried Manek. This lordling was brash with rage, itching for a fight—but so was Larn. As he let his gaze wander over the high walls of Dannawey, their smooth surfaces rising from steep, grassy hills laden with iron spikes, Manek knew it was reasonable to assume that where there was one Dunstan, there was bound to be another. And if that was true, if Prince Colm’s words back in the tent hadn’t been a bluff and King Dunstan was here, then the number of Highland forces standing ready to fight for Dannawey were greater than what Larn had planned for.

  Squatting down, balanced on the balls of his feet, Manek filled his hand with soft Highland soil. It fell from his fingers in rich clumps, but he knew, before this siege was over, the land would be wasted. Ash and blood would water this ground before they took Dannawey. When all was said and done, either he or King Dunstan would lose their first battle. And he didn’t need Ennis to tell him which was more likely.

  Thirty-Four

  With his Father’s blessing, Ma’an stood upon his Mother Mithria, his legs anchored to the earth. His gray eyes did search for a place of being. His fleet-footed sister claimed the forests, his brothers the seas and rivers. Off into the distance, he spied great spires spearing the sky. “What are these, Mother?” he asked Mithria. “They are my mountains,” she said. “They are where land meets the sky.” And so Ma’an climbed the tallest peak; looking up, he saw his father’s realm, and below, he beheld his mother. Content, he said, “I shall protect your union, for the mountains are to be mine, heaven and earth, together.”

  —When They Were Sent To The Four Winds

  The days were lengthening, and as Essa sat skinning potatoes, the last brilliant glimmers of a late spring day slanted in through the house’s high windows. The day had been so beautiful, so warm and clear, that Essa wondered if they would need a fire at all. Elodie had smiled good-naturedly and said that, no matter how fine the day, the coastal night would nevertheless be damp.

  And so Essa skinned potatoes next to a roaring fire in the finely carved hearth, happy to have spent the day outside, in the sun, but now gloomy at the prospect of being cooped up again. It’d been raining two sennights straight, with no end in sight, and Elodie promised, by the look of the incoming clouds, that it would surely rain overnight.

  Her mood didn’t improve when she glanced up from her work to watch Elodie methodically scaling and gutting several blue tuna across the table. Though relieved Elodie had quickly guessed that Essa hadn’t the stomach or nose to gut fish, Essa didn’t welcome yet another meal of it, no matter what kind of hearty Lowland sauce Elodie prepared.

  Their days had become mundane, rhythmic, routine. First came waking, then breakfast, then sweeping, then dishes, then dusting and washing and sewing. In the afternoon, they took a small boat out to check the nets, and while Essa had finally “grown her sea legs,” as Elodie laughingly called it, she was never able to shake the feeling that her grave would be a watery one. Sometimes, when Elodie wasn’t looking and the sky was particularly gray, Essa would peer into the deep, murky water and wonder what it would be to just fall in.

  The inanity was occasionally broken by evening reading lessons for Elodie. It was a slow instruction, and often Elodie, even sometimes Essa, hadn’t the patience for it.

  Other times they were interrupted by villagers, wishing Elodie to settle some dispute. From the hearth, Essa watched silently as Elodie dealt with the matters fairly and efficiently. It was easy to see how things ran so well with Waurin and the men gone.

  Perhaps that was why she felt so glum, she mused. It’d been downright dull without the men. Not that she missed the suspicious eyes of Par following her about, but Carmetheon itself seemed muted. There were still chores to be done, children to be looked after, lives to be lived, but the absence of the men weighed on the Carmetheon women. Essa could see it sometimes in the corner of Elodie’s eye, a wrinkle that hadn’t been there before, casting a shadow so deep her eyes seemed without color.

  With Waurin gone, there were no impromptu adventures, no tasks to help him with, no flirtatious game to play. There was always a glance, a smile, a look to interpret, plan, reciprocate. Aside from her three sisters, Essa had spent most of her life around men, and, in truth, she thought she oftentimes understood them better than other women. So to spend her days with only Elodie for company, to step out the door and walk through a town only of women, was more than a little bewildering for her.

  Ceralia help her, Essa had had her fill of Carmetheon.

  Elodie set her knife down and stretched her back. Essa heard a little pop and winced. Ennis had always liked to crack her knuckles just to make her wince.

  Her eyes fell at the thought of her sister. Had Ennis gotten her letter? Would she write her back?

  “You look far away,” Elodie said. Wiping her hands on a rag, she rested an elbow on the table and smiled kindly. “Somewhere good, I hope.”

  Essa made sure to recreate her smile. “It was very nice today.”

  “Yes,” said Elodie with a sigh. “I think you’ll find we have quite nice summers here. Much like today; clear, warm, but not too hot. Usually there’s a nice breeze in the mornings.”

  This time Essa’s smile was genuine. “So the rain stops in summer?”

  “We do get our seasonal dry spells,” she said with a laugh. “Else we’d be washed right off the beach.”

  A little dark body hopped onto the table, making Essa gasp.

  “Oh, Salt, you bad thing!” Elodie scolded, waving her hands at the black cat.

  Setting down her potatoes, Essa greeted the cat with a conciliatory pat on the head. Of those she’d met in Carmetheon, she thought she got on best with Salt. She and the cat had an understanding; she’d sneak him morsels of fish—which Elodie had forbidden anyone to give him, as they made his breath worse than the plague—while he’d sneak into her room on particularly cold, foggy mornings and lie on her feet to warm them.

  Salt sniffed Essa’s starchy hands and pulled a displeased face. Clucking her tongue at him, she said, “It isn’t suppertime yet, my lord.” She received a glower for that.

  “You shouldn’t dote on him,” Elodie was saying, beginning to lay out the fish fillets on a skillet. “He’ll go soft.”

  Essa scratched the cat’s soft black underbelly and smiled. “Too late for that, I’m afraid.”

  From what Essa had seen, many Carmethians welcomed cats into their homes. She decided it must have been a sort of acceptance of reality; the cats loved fish and knew where to find it, often outwitting the fishermen and finding their stores. In exchange for a warm hearth and all they could eat, the cats kept Carmetheon free of rats and other pests that wandered down from the cliffs above. She’d even seen cats riding in saddlebags and on boats, accompanying those Carmethians who travelled past the bay to sell and trade their fish.

  As Elodie put the skillet atop a grate wedged into the hearth, Essa heard the distinct patter of rainfall on the roof. Sinking back into her glumness, she returned to her potatoes.

  It wasn’t until after dinner that she roused herself enough to do more than agree with whatever it was Elodie said.

  “How long will they be gone, do you think?”

  Elodie didn’t need her to clarify who “they” were. Her gaze fell away, and Essa thought she should feel guilty for bringing up the topic when she knew Elodie liked to forget.

  “Until autumn, perhaps longer,” Elodie said finally. “Sometimes they stay all winter long. It depends on what Larn has the stomach for.”

  Essa soured at the thought of Larn. “Do you think they will this time?”

  “You’d know better than I.”

  “Why?”

  “I know nothing about the city they’ve gone to.”

  Essa leaned back in her chair and Salt leapt into her lap. She began to stroke him, her mind starting to hum with angry thou
ghts. “He’s acquired a taste for cities.”

  Elodie gave her a rather dejected nod. “So it seems. Nothing good can come of it.”

  Essa’s eyes narrowed. “We weren’t ready for him in Highcrest. That won’t be the case this time. Dannawey has seen worse than them. All Larn’s done is unite the Highlands against him.” Her words were harsh and she meant every word, her usually careful control cheering her on. What did she care if they all died at the walls of Dannawey?

  Elodie’s face sank into her hand, and Essa remembered that she cared, just a little, if one of them died at Dannawey.

  “It’ll be that bad?” Essa had never heard Elodie’s voice sound so small.

  The women’s eyes met across the table. Essa’s hand had gone cold against the cat’s softly purring body. She couldn’t lie to Elodie, her pride wouldn’t let her, not this time, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t soften the words.

  “It will be a fight this time, that I know. Dannawey is an ancient city. They say the walls were built in the time Ma’an still walked in our mountains.”

  Elodie nodded, lacing her fingers together. “It gives me no pleasure, this war.”

  Surprised, Essa decided to say nothing, waiting for more.

  “It’s not our war, really. They fight in the north so that they don’t have to fight off Larn here. But sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to...”

  Essa couldn’t help leaning forward a little in her seat. Salt flashed her an annoyed look.

  But Elodie forced a smile and said, “Well, perhaps your Highlanders will give Larn a good fight and he’ll turn away before too many are lost. Perhaps he won’t want a long battle.” She met Essa’s eyes when she said, “We can both hope for that, I think.”

  All Essa could do was nod.

  “Do you know what you’ll do, when it’s over?”

  She couldn’t have been more astonished if Elodie had struck her. “The war?”

  Elodie nodded. “It’ll have to end sometime.”

  “Will it?” she mused.

  “I should think so. Mighty as he may be, Larn will die eventually—hopefully sooner rather than later. And if you believe what they say about his son, the Lowlands will be free of the Midlands when Larn dies. In which case, the war’s over.”

  “I’m not used to wars ending. I’m not sure they can. In any case, I don’t know how it would affect me.”

  Elodie took a long moment to gaze at Essa. “With Larn gone, I doubt my son will have much reason to keep with Midlander laws. He likes them about as much as I do.”

  “You think Waurin would free me, if the war ends?”

  Elodie nodded slowly. “His excuse would be gone, at the very least. And if he didn’t do it the moment after he learned of Larn’s death, I’d knock his head in.”

  Essa had just enough presence of mind to grin in gratitude, but the rest of her thoughts fluttered like a caged bird. She’d never let herself hope for such a thing—she’d convinced herself that the best life she could make for herself was being close to Waurin, remaining a favorite, even, perhaps, giving him a child. But if he were to free her, then what? What would she do? Her home was a ruin, her sisters scattered to the winds.

  Her sisters.

  Elodie continued, though Essa was only half-listening. “Though, I think he’d free you himself, without my intervention. At least, I’d like to think I’d raised him well enough to do it. When that happens, I hope you’d consider staying with us. I certainly wouldn’t want to see you go. And I know he wouldn’t since…”

  She didn’t finish her thought, and Essa was relieved. She didn’t want to be thinking of Waurin and his growing affection for her, nor her increasingly confusing feelings towards him. She didn’t want to think of her pain at watching him leave, or the guilt she felt for feeling that pain, or how she’d feel if he came back to them.

  Instead she wanted to think of the golden possibilities blooming before her. She wanted to nurture the fragile tendrils of hope that sprang in her, let them curl around her heart and fortify her spirit. She wanted to dream of the day she’d cast that cursed black ribbon into the fire, eat her last fish, and turn her back on Carmetheon. She would mount that cliff path, and at the top, she wouldn’t look down, but east. She would look for her sisters.

  Thirty-Five

  After Ean released blackness into the world, everywhere Ceralia looked she found sorrow curled round the hearts of man. She was saddened to see it, and with each passing day, her blue pallor deepened until only Themin could distinguish her from the night sky. “Go to them, my queen,” he said. “Heal them as you healed me.” And so Ceralia reached across the sky, spreading the first spring rain, and washed away man’s tears. “Give me your grief, your fear, and your hate,” she said to them, “for I can bear it all. Turn your face to me, and I shall heal all wounds. You need but ask.”

  —Why Man Welcomes Spring Rain

  Kierum hadn’t been exaggerating when he said anyone daft enough to brave the Lowlands’ summer rains surely couldn’t be stopped. Ennis herself was past the point of trying to reason with the weather; it’d stopped them from beginning work for sennights now, and she knew, with each delay, their precious number of volunteers dwindled further.

  Finally, by late spring, she raged at the sky, “You’ll see!” She told Kenna to inform the volunteers that come rain or shine, they would start. Even in the wet there were things that could be done.

  And so the day came whether or not she was ready for it. She wasn’t.

  The appointed time to meet the volunteers drew nearer, and her heart thundered in her ears. She wrung her hands, watching the sky. Had she been right to do this? Was it doomed after all? Renata had warned that such weather didn’t portend well, and much as Ennis was loath to believe anything Renata said, she did have to admit the gray clouds were less than auspicious.

  There was a faint knock against the doorframe of the front hall.

  “Ennis? Are you all right?” Lora asked.

  Ennis’s hands flew to her face to find tears running down her cheeks. “Oh, I didn’t know you…” She quickly wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “What is it?” Lora asked. “What’s wrong? I thought you were happy to get to work.”

  “I…it’s nothing. Really. I just…I just don’t know…” She crossed her arms over her chest to shield herself from Lora’s inquiring eyes. “I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.”

  Lora grinned. “That’s nothing new for you.”

  “But this—”

  “Ennis,” she crossed the room and took Ennis’s hands in her own, “you’re leading them. Now,” she dried Ennis’s cheeks with the hem of her sleeve, “you get out there. I know you’ve been itching to work, and you can’t direct them from here.”

  Her lips twitched up into a grin. “You don’t know—I have a rather good shouting voice.”

  Lora rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do know.”

  She let Lora’s words wash over her like a balm, let them fortify her spirits and shore up her confidence. It pained her pride to admit it, but she feared what these women would think of her. If she couldn’t impress them, couldn’t make them understand the importance of the project, then she stood little chance of coaxing them back. Everything hinged on today, and if she couldn’t do this, if she couldn’t lead them, she faced never finishing the wall. And she had to finish it.

  Wrapping an arm around Lora’s shoulders, she said, “Have I told you today what a fine person you are, Lora Finnley?”

  Lora batted her eyelashes. “Why no, but I never tire of hearing it.”

  “You are the best of women and the best of friends. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, especially not me.”

  “I’ll remember that the next time you make me cross.”

  Ennis laughed. “Well then, I really had better go, before I do.” She gave Lora’s hand a squeeze. “Will you come see it?”

  “Of course I will. Provided you don’t keep me bus
y with logs falling on people. I’ll even come help, when I can.”

  Ennis finally left the Haven feeling ready to face the volunteers. Her spirits, and cloak, were dampened, however, by a soft misting that left little droplets on anything they could find to cling to. When she rounded the unfinished corner of the wall and saw the waiting forty or so women, Ennis fought the niggling fear creeping up her throat.

  Kenna spotted her over the shoulder of one of her friends and waved. Forty pairs of eyes turned to watch Ennis approach, but she didn’t dare meet any of them other than Kenna’s.

  Putting a warm hand on her shoulder, Kenna said, “Not the prettiest of days, but we’re here all the same.” She leaned a little closer to whisper, “Some of them were still unsure, even though they came. Why don’t you say a few words.”

  Setting her jaw, Ennis nodded. Skirting around the group, she mounted the slope and stood with the wall at her back, gazing down at the women.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, letting her years of schooling overcome her nerves. She was a highborn and had been groomed for such occasions, so she kept her shoulders straight and eyes bright as she said, “I understand the wish that this wall wasn’t necessary—but I also understand, as you do, the dangers we face now that the men have gone. That’s why I’m not asking you to do this for them—though I’m sure they’ll appreciate getting to lay about rather than build it themselves when they return.” She received several laughs and smiles for that. “You’ll do this for yourselves. You’ll give it life and it will stand to defend you when the time comes. A wall made by you, for you, will always stand. So, shall we build it?”