But there were other creatures along the way. Foxes, hidden in bushes. Numerous cats, tucked away in barns or farm kitchens, or occasionally walking openly past us. Rats everywhere. Mice and other rodents, although they were harder to reach here, nothing like as open to my mind as their counterparts at the Keep. Goats, surprisingly, were very clear, with strong personalities.
I tried to make sense of it, but there was no obvious pattern and in the end I gave it up. I was more used to learning from books, where those cleverer or more observant than I looked over all the evidence and drew conclusions. My education, excellent though it was, had not fitted me for working things out for myself.
When we arrived, half the fortress turned out to receive us, our entire route across the parade ground lined six-deep with immaculately turned out soldiers standing to attention, every button and sword hilt and spear point gleaming. The commanders stood in a neat row, each with toes arranged at the regulation angle. As I dismounted, they bowed with synchronised precision. It was as impressive as a Sun Festival parade.
“Good afternoon, Commanders.”
“Greetings, Most Powerful,” they intoned in unison.
“An impressive display. I trust the war is not being neglected while your soldiers polish their boots.”
“Indeed not, Most Powerful,” said the most senior commander smugly. “Daily polishing of boots is excellent discipline, and a disciplined army is a successful one. You will find nothing amiss here.”
Our rooms were comfortably furnished, small but adequate. There was no shortage of hot water to wash the mud of the road from our own boots, even though lines of juniors had to labour back and forth with ewers to supply it. Then there was time only for a change of clothes before evening board, an elaborate affair which wouldn’t have disgraced a noble’s table. All the commanders and captains attended, together with their various husbands, wives and drusse.
Arran sat to one side of me, and the senior commander the other. The commander made polite conversation, but I kept my answers brief, and Arran knew better than to talk to me on such an occasion. In fact, he became so absorbed with the pretty young woman on his other side that I twice had to pull his attention back to me.
As dishes were brought and then removed, and the wine flowed and the chatter became louder, my gaze roved around the room, looking for the subtle, yet distinctive signals. This was an army at war, and there must be tensions and uncertainties, tactical disagreements and suppressed hostilities. Most of these people were nobility, and used to concealing their true feelings, but I could read them as easily as a book.
“Well?” Arran said eagerly, as we undressed for bed. “What did you learn? Are they as relaxed as they appear?”
“Not at all, but I see no sign of dissent amongst them.”
“They have not fallen out, then?”
“I don’t think so. And it’s not just the pressure of being under inspection. No, it’s something else, something they all feel. They are… unsettled.”
“War does that to people.”
“True, but it feels like more than that. I will have a better idea when I have looked around the fortress.”
“You want to inspect the cellars?” he said teasingly. “That may take a while.”
“The cellars, yes, and the armoury. I’d like to talk to the smiths. They always know the gossip.”
He sighed. “The cellars and the smithy? I can barely contain my excitement.”
I laughed, and stretched up to kiss him. “No need for you to come. Go and pop some arrows, if you want, or do some swordwork. Your arm is fully healed now.”
“Indeed it is,” he murmured. “All parts are in full working order.”
“Oh, I think we should check, though. Just to be sure.”
For answer, he scooped me up and, smiling, carried me to the bed.
~~~~~
For two entire suns I inspected the fortress, from the battlements to the cellars, from the kitchens to the stables. I talked to scores of junior workers, peered into grain barrels and oil jars, admired neat rows of swords and entire rooms full of arrows. I even visited the buttery, the sewing rooms, the brewery and the bakery. I found nothing out of place, and no more than the usual type of gossip found in any community of this nature. But still I felt something was amiss.
On the third sun, we crossed the ditch and walked down the hill towards the lake. For once, the rain had stopped, and weak sunshine set the grass and low bushes sparkling. No trace remained now of Ly-haam’s village of scattered skin clava. A newly paved road wound down the slope, and at the bottom sat the supplies camp, the earlier pavilions replaced with a dispiriting collection of identical wooden huts arranged in straight lines.
The commander walked out to meet us, a couple of captains half-running to keep up with his long stride. He was a tall, rangy man, nearer forty than thirty, with the deeply creased face of one who spent his life in the open.
“Good morning to you, Highness!” he boomed, while we were still some distance away. “You honour us with your visit. Do you wish for refreshments? I can have something drummed up in no time. Or would you like to look around straight away? Your time is precious, I know.”
By this time, he had just about reached our group. Laughing, I put my hands up in defence. “Good morning, Commander. We have only just finished morning board, so I should like to see your camp first, if you please.”
“Of course, of course.” He spun round to walk alongside me, displacing Arran. Lowering his voice, he said, “We were all so sorry to hear the sad news about Highness Zandara. She was an excellent war leader, and will be greatly missed.”
I bowed in acknowledgement, but had nothing to say. The grief was still too fresh for me to talk about her dispassionately. I found it interesting that he mentioned Zandara at all, for the fortress commanders had carefully avoided any reference to her.
His voice returned to its normal level, loud enough to make my ears ring. “You will take us as you find us, I am sure, Highness. This is an operational base, and our priority is to get the wagons off every morning. We are not quite as dressy as the fine fellows at the fortress.”
“I understand.”
“What would you like to see first?”
“I leave that to you to decide. You will know best where we will cause the least disruption to your activities.”
A supplies camp is even less interesting than a fortress, I discovered. Almost all the huts contained stores of one type or another. A few were barracks, and there was an infirmary, a kitchen and dining space, and some recreation rooms and offices. Within an hour, I had seen all there was to see.
“The planning room?” the commander said. “Or the infirmary? I do not recommend the barracks. Off-duty soldiers are not a sight fit for a lady’s eyes.”
I laughed at that. “No, I have no interest in the private quarters. Your soldiers may enjoy their leisure time in whatever manner pleases them. I believe my escort would be glad of some refreshments now, but perhaps you will walk down to the lake with me, Commander?”
He bowed his acquiescence.
Waving away Arran’s protests, I chose one of my two bodyguards to accompany me and sent everyone else to the dining hut. Then I set off with the commander for the lake. This side of the camp was fenced, but he unlocked a gate and we passed through. The ground was level, with several picketed horses busy keeping the grass down. Here and there, circular bare patches showed where the Blood Clans’ clava had stood, and I could just make out traces of paths winding between them.
The commander strode straight through the remnants of the village, making no effort to avoid the numerous post holes, or patches of blackened earth that marked the fire pits. Then we reached the longer grass and reeds fringing the lake, and the little beach that I’d stood on with Ly-haam, our boots crunching on the shingle. Here we stopped.
Once again I felt the strange pull the lake exerted on me. Or perhaps it was the island, its trees only just beginning to chan
ge colour. Something was drawing me. I wondered what was out there, and what secrets were hidden in the dark stone tower I’d glimpsed when I’d flown past on my eagle.
“Have you investigated the island?” I asked. The commander shook his head. “Not at all? Do you fish in the lake?”
“No, Highness. Your report of your meeting with the byan shar was very clear that the island – indeed, the whole lake – is sacred to the Blood Clans. I would not lightly interfere with that.”
I turned to look at him, surprised by the emphasis in his tone. “You are a religious man, Commander?”
“Myself, no. The main Sun God festivals only. My sister is a Moon Temple priestess, however, and she is very insistent that every god should be respected. Besides…”
“Yes?”
“I am not privy to the Drashona’s intentions, but it is very possible that, in a year or two, this experiment may be abandoned, and all this land revert to the Blood Clans. I would not wish to give them a grievance by sullying their sacred places.”
I thought it likely they had plenty of other grievances. We had cleared a great many villages on our drive to the forward camp. But perhaps that meant less to them than the island.
“I am not privy to the Drashona’s intentions, either, but this was Bennamore land not too long ago,” I said. “All this area below the fortress, and the lake and island too. Perhaps we will keep it, whatever happens to the forward camp.”
“Perhaps we will,” he said equably.
“Commander,” I said, spinning round to face him fully. “You are an honest man, and I am sure you will answer a question without prevarication.”
“Highness, I will.”
“Well then, what is it that you – all the commanders – are not telling me? Something is amiss, I am certain of it. You are concerned about something.”
“Is that why you brought me here, alone?” He glanced at the bodyguard, then shrugged. “It is true, and you ought to know of it, and so I have argued. Here it is, then. The messages from the forward camp have stopped.”
“Stopped?”
“Yes. Every sun, the High Commander dispatches riders bearing three sets of messages. One for me, about supplies needed. One for the fortress, about soldiers sick or disciplined, that sort of thing. And one for Kingswell. Strategy, I suppose. And we send messages back to her. The journey takes several suns, but so far nothing has disrupted the procedure. However, for the last five suns – nothing has arrived.”
Five suns! That was a long time for the message system to be interrupted.
“What of the wagons? Have they been disrupted too?”
“Not so far. But for them the journey is slower, even for the empty wagons. Those that have recently arrived left the forward camp before the message riders that have gone missing.”
“What are your theories, Commander?”
“Bad weather is the most obvious. All this rain – the road washed away, or bridges, floods, mudslides. There are any number of possibilities.”
“Hmm. Or hostile action, perhaps?”
He hesitated. “We are at war, Highness. That is always a possibility.”
“When do you expect the next wagon convoy to arrive?”
“At any hour from noon onwards.”
“You will send me word when it arrives, if you please. And if it does not arrive, send me word at first bell tomorrow.”
“Very well, Highness.”
~~~~~~
There was no word that evening. The message was brought to me at morning board, very brief and to the point, much like the man himself: ‘No wagons arrived.’
This time, I took all the senior commanders from the fortress down to the encampment beside the lake, and the supplies commander spread his maps over the table, and marked with wooden tokens the likely position of every wagon convoy on the road between there and the forward camp.
“The road is a good one, I believe?” I said.
“Excellent,” the supplies commander said. “I have travelled the full length of it myself, and the surface is stone-covered, but with not a single weed growing between the slabs. Then there is a clear margin either side where no trees or bushes grow, just grass.”
“And the bridges are all in perfect order,” another said.
“I have sent riders out this morning to investigate what has happened,” the supplies commander said. “We will know in a few suns.”
“I may have a quicker way,” I said. “If I can persuade my eagle to fly that way, I shall be able to see the problem myself.” Their faces were carefully blank. “You are aware of my connection with the bird?”
One of them coughed. “We have been informed, Most Powerful.” The disbelieving tone was unmistakable. I could understand that. It was a very strange ability to have.
“Very well. Please do not talk to me for a while.”
I summoned the eagle. She screeched excitedly, swooping down from a rocky hill some distance away. Through her eyes, I saw the dreary rectangles and squares of the encampment, the Bennamorian flags the only spot of colour. “Find the road, my lovely,” I murmured. Obediently she circled, gaining a little height, crossing the western edge of the lake. There was the road cutting straight as an arrow through the twisted countryside. “That way. Follow the road.”
Off she went, great wings flapping lazily now and then, not rushing. I gazed down through her eyes, spotting first a group of riders moving at speed, then a wagon convoy on its way out from the supplies camp. The road was empty for a while, but eventually there was another line of wagons and their escort of riders, also heading westward. Then a third.
“I see nothing travelling away from the forward camp, and towards us,” I said. “The road is empty… oh! Wagons at the side of the road. Abandoned, I think. All the horses are gone.”
“Which direction were they moving?”
“I cannot tell. Now there is nothing on the road at all.”
For a long time, it seemed, the eagle flew on, and the road unfurled beneath her, clear and unmarked, with no sign of people or animals, living or dead. I turned my attention forwards now, for she was getting close to the camp.
“Smoke!” I cried. “There is smoke on the horizon.”
“The camp! That will be the cookfires.”
“No, I don’t think so. There is too much smoke. I can see— Oh!”
As the eagle drew near, the smoke moved, swirling and lifting. It resolved itself into a myriad of tiny black dots, rising up into the sky, their raucous squawks audible even from several marks away. Rooks and crows and ravens and vultures by the thousand.
The harbingers of death.
32: War Leader
The camp was gone.
As the eagle spiralled lower, displacing clouds of irate birds, I could see the remains of pavilions, torn and trampled, and wooden buildings reduced to ash, threads of smoke still rising. Here and there stood a wall, or a flagpole, the colours still fluttering bravely, but most of the buildings were destroyed, debris scattered everywhere, wagons overturned. Amongst the wreckage, some darker shapes, motionless. I caught the occasional glint of a sword or spearpoint, abandoned where its wielder fell. And slinking here and there as they moved from corpse to corpse, the red fur of ghenack, the wild forest dogs. Scavengers, like the vultures.
I pulled abruptly back from the eagle’s mind, too distraught to watch any more. The commanders were gathered around me, faces anxious. Behind them, my scribes, mages and waiting women clustered. Arran pushed through the crowd to wrap his arms around me.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured. I became aware of tears pouring down my cheeks. “Hush, hush.”
For a few moments I could do nothing but weep on his shoulder and shake from head to foot. It was too dreadful to speak of. But I had to compose myself, to force myself to tell them everything. They listened in silence to my halting description, still punctuated with occasional sobs.
When I stopped, the room was silent. From outside, I heard a captain beratin
g one of his juniors, and the clack-clack of staves. Far away, a horse whinnied. Inside, no one spoke.
Eventually, the supplies commander drew a noisy breath. “The whole camp?” he said, in tones of disbelief. “How is it possible? Those were our very best fighters, well-trained, well-equipped.”
“And where is the enemy now?” said another darkly.
No one could answer. The commanders huddled around the map table, talking in low voices, while Arran led me unresisting to a chair.
Cal materialised from the throng and knelt at my feet. “Gods, Drina, are you all right? Do you want some magic?” He took my hand and stroked it. “Take whatever you need. Arran, maybe some wine?”
He would have rushed away to fetch it, but I clutched his hand with an incoherent sound. I couldn’t bear to let go of him. He clicked a finger at one of the scribes and sent him off for the wine.
“I am all right,” I whispered. “It was just… the shock.”
“Of course,” Cal said. “There is nothing to be done immediately, so I suggest—”
A scream of fear jerked me back into the eagle’s mind. She was rising, rising, her great wings fighting to gain height. Then she veered sharply away from the ruined camp, back towards the road. Every muscle was strained to increase her speed. She reached the road, passed over it, flew on over the forest beyond. Then she was rising again, up into the low hills beyond, making for a line of distant peaks.
Her fear was a palpable thing, but I could detect no reason for it. Nothing beneath her suggested danger in any way, yet she was terrified.
I let my mind roam free, through hers. What was she aware of? There! Something behind her, chasing her. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there, just as she did. Another eagle. No, several eagles. I could just make out their anger, dim but distinct.
They dropped away, wheeling about, deciding not to pursue. Sunshine turned her head to watch them go, and I saw them circling down, dropping away into darkness. The black-bark forest.
And then, very faintly, barely within the range of my consciousness, I heard a far-away whisper.
The Fire Mages' Daughter Page 30
