Weavers of War: Book Five of Winds of the Forelands

by DAVID B. COE

  Keziah nodded a second time, eyeing the battle with apprehension. The king’s men were still giving ground, more grudgingly now, but there could be no mistaking the trend. It wouldn’t be long before Kearney rode forward to join the fighting. He had deployed his men as best he could under the circumstances, and already he was glancing toward the lines, his hand wandering to the hilt of his sword. And as much as Keziah feared for him, she envied him more. She felt useless. She had no place in this battle. Though competent with a blade, she was neither skilled enough, nor strong enough, to fight beside these men. None of Braedon’s soldiers were on horseback, so having the magic her people called language of beasts did her no good, and with the men already fighting at close quarters, it did no good to raise a mist or wind.

  Looking toward the middle of the fighting, Keziah tried to catch sight of Grinsa or Fotir. The fighting there appeared every bit as vicious as it did along Kearney’s lines, and like the King’s Guard, Curgh’s army looked to have slowed Braedon’s advance somewhat. Gazing beyond Javan’s army, however, she could see that the men of Heneagh were still being driven back with alarming speed. She didn’t need Kearney’s knowledge of military matters to understand how vital it was that Welfyl’s men keep the Braedony force from breaching their lines.

  “Keziah.”

  She forced herself to meet his gaze, knowing what he would say.

  “I have to join my men. I can’t just—”

  “I know,” she said. “Go. Orlagh guide your blade and keep you safe.”

  “And you.”

  They stared at one another for just a moment more, Keziah doing her best to commit his features to memory, every line on the youthful face, every strand of silken hair, silvered before its time and gleaming in the bright sun.

  I love you, she mouthed.

  And I love you.

  An instant later, so suddenly that she actually started, Kearney pulled his sword free and swung his mount around, plunging into the bloody tumult. Even as the tide of the fighting drew him away from her, she could still see him, towering and fell atop his mount, his sword rising and falling, its blade stained crimson. It didn’t take long for the battle to close in around him, as if cutting him off from her, from any path to safety.

  Such confusion, such frenzy, such carnage. As Keziah watched the battle unfold, one thought kept echoing in her mind, and it scared her more than all that she saw. Anything could happen in conditions like these; what a perfect place to kill a king.

  She could even imagine different ways it might be done, ways she might do it herself. “You possess both language of beasts and mists and winds,” the Weaver told her the last time he walked in her dreams, just after he punished her for failing to kill Cresenne. “They should serve you quite well in this regard.”

  He was right, of course. She could see it now, how easy it would be. A sudden gust of wind might alter the path of an arrow aimed at another. Or even better, a single word whispered to Kearney’s mount might make the beast throw the king into the fury around him. No one, no matter his skill as a warrior, would survive long on his back amid the steel and the blood.

  Keziah was horrified at herself for thinking any of this, but once she began, she couldn’t stop. As more died, falling at the feet of Kearney’s mount, it would be more and more difficult for the horse to step true. A shaper might break one of the beast’s legs and drive the king to the ground that way. Or he might shatter Kearney’s blade as the king struck at another, leaving the king defenseless. Working with a second person, an assassin perhaps, a Qirsi might raise a mist to conceal the other’s approach. With so many sorcerers on the battle plain, with so many dying in this fight, almost anything was possible.

  How many of the Qirsi around her served the conspiracy? To how many of them had the Weaver given the order to kill her king? Surely she wasn’t the only one. As the Weaver himself had reminded her, she had already failed him once. Knowing that she had loved Kearney, that she might love him still, he would not trust her with this unless he had others poised to act should she falter.

  Frightened now, convinced that one of the Weaver’s servants would make an attempt on Kearney’s life at the first opportunity, Keziah very nearly spurred her mount forward into the fray. She had no idea what she would do when she reached the king, she only knew that she wanted to be there, to guard him, to watch for the Weaver’s killers. The archminister had gone so far as to adjust her sword in preparation for entering the battle, when she felt something brush her mind as a stranger might brush one’s arm in a crowded marketplace.

  For a single, horrifying instant, she thought it was the Weaver, reaching for her, attempting to read her thoughts or compel her to kill Kearney. In the next moment, however, she realized that there was something familiar in the touch, and something gentle as well. Turning to gaze toward the Curgh lines, she saw Grinsa atop a mount, looking back at her. She couldn’t understand why he would have reached for her now. Fotir, perhaps, but not her. She hadn’t any magic that would be of use to them. Certainly he couldn’t think that raising a mist would do any good. But after catching her eye ever so briefly, no longer than the span of a single heartbeat, he looked away, his touch gone from her mind. It almost seemed that he had only wished to reassure himself that she was all right. Or maybe he had sensed what she was about to do, and had wanted to stop her, if only for a moment, so that she might reconsider. Whatever the reason, she realized that she could do Kearney no good by rushing to his side. Her presence would only distract him, making it easier for agents of the conspiracy to strike at him.

  Unable to do anything more than watch the battle, Keziah began what could only be called a vigil. She kept her gaze riveted on Kearney, straining to see him through the sun’s glare and the haze of dust and dirt kicked up by the warriors. So long as she could see his bright silver hair, and the gleaming blur of his sword slicing through the air, she knew that he was safe, or at least alive.

  As the seething shadows of men and beasts and weapons lengthened across the bloodstained grass, the tide of the battle began to turn. Eibithar’s forces were not able to gain back much of the ground they had lost initially, but they managed to halt Braedon’s push forward. Even in the west, where it had seemed that Heneagh’s lines must surely be broken, Welfyl’s men rallied, aided by reinforcements from the Curgh army. When at last the sun dipped below the western horizon, leaving a fiery sky of yellow and orange and scarlet, the empire’s men broke off their attack and pulled back.

  Raising a ragged cheer, some of Kearney’s soldiers began to give chase, only to be called back by their king. Kicking her mount to a gallop, Keziah rushed to Kearney’s side, resisting an urge to throw her arms around his neck. He had several gashes on his legs and a deep wound on his side, where blood oozed through his chain mail.

  “You need a healer,” she said.

  Kearney flashed a smile. One might have thought that he’d come through nothing more dangerous than a battle tournament. “I’m all right. I need to speak with my dukes.”

  “Your Majesty—”

  “Find them for me, Archminister. Bring them here as quickly as possible. Their ministers as well.”

  Keziah frowned, but nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  She wheeled her horse and started toward the Curgh lines, only to halt after a few paces, her stomach heaving. The grass, once lush and green, had been trampled and soaked in blood, so that the earth itself seemed to be bleeding from some gaping wound. Scattered among the corpses of more soldiers than she could count were severed limbs, disembodied hands that still clung to swords and battle-axes, and heads that stared up at the darkening sky through sightless eyes, some of them with their mouths open in silent wails, as if with death cries still on their lips, waiting to be given voice. She should have been looking at their surcoats, trying to determine which side had gotten the better of the day’s fighting, but she couldn’t look away from those faces, those hands, that blood.

  “Keziah.”

/>   She flinched, looked toward the voice. Kearney gazed back at her, the smile gone, his brow furrowed with concern.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I…” She swallowed, fighting another wave of nausea. “I will be.”

  “Don’t look. Just find Javan and Welfyl. Send them to me, and then ride away from the lines, away from all this. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, but even as she did, her eyes dropped again. One of the dead seemed to be staring at her, a look of surprise on the young face that might have been amusing had it not been—

  “Keziah.”

  Her eyes snapped up again.

  “Find the dukes.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  She started forward again, allowing her mount to navigate among the corpses as best he could, forcing herself to keep her eyes on the men ahead of her, the ones who lived still and who wore the brown and gold of Curgh. She spotted Grinsa and Fotir, and hurried toward them, knowing that the duke would be nearby. A moment later she saw Javan, standing with Tavis, Curgh’s swordmaster, and another young man who she had gathered from previous conversations was Tavis’s liege man and the swordmaster’s son. Like Kearney, Javan bore a number of wounds, but none of them appeared grave. Grinsa, too, was bleeding. Indeed, all of them were. Aside from the healers, she was probably the only person on the Moorlands who hadn’t been injured.

  At her approach, the duke raised a hand in greeting. “Archminister. What news of the king?”

  “He’s well, my lord. He wishes to speak with you and your minister.”

  “Of course. We’ll go to him immediately. How fared the King’s Guard?”

  “I’m not certain, my lord. I wasn’t in the fighting. I don’t … I don’t have the magics of a warrior.”

  “Of course, Archminister. Forgive me.”

  “Not at all, my lord. I’ll see you shortly. I must find the duke of Heneagh as well.”

  Javan glanced quickly at Fotir before facing her again, and she knew from his expression what he would say. “The duke is dead, Archminister. He fell in battle.”

  Her first thought was of Heneagh’s duchess, who had no idea that she had lost a husband and a son on this day. Keziah didn’t even know the woman’s name. As archminister to the king, she should have, but they had never met, and because Welfyl was duke of a minor house, he and the king had little contact before these last few turns.

  “Archminister.”

  She shook herself, as if waking from a bad dream. She was not cut out for war. “Yes, my lord. Who commands Heneagh’s army now?”

  “Welfyl’s swordmaster, a man named Rab Avkar.”

  Keziah looked westward to the Heneagh army. She didn’t relish the idea of entering the camp and searching for a warrior she’d never met before.

  “I know him,” Hagan MarCullet said, sensing her unease. “With my lord’s permission, I’ll go and find him.”

  “Of course, Hagan.”

  “Thank you, swordmaster,” Keziah said.

  He nodded to her and walked away, reminding her so much of Gershon Trasker, Kearney’s swordmaster, who was marching south to fight the Aneirans, that she had to smile.

  Javan climbed onto his mount, moving stiffly, a rueful grin on his lips. “What I wouldn’t give to be ten years younger.”

  “Only ten?” Tavis said, drawing laughs from all of them.

  Within moments Keziah, the duke, Tavis, Grinsa, and Fotir were on their way back toward Kearney. The MarCullet boy followed as well; Keziah couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Tavis without the other young man nearby. Almost immediately, Grinsa steered his horse to Keziah’s side—the side nearest the battle plain, she noticed, as if he wished to shield her from the horrors there.

  “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

  “No.”

  He turned and stared at her.

  “Don’t look so surprised. After all that you’ve seen today, can you honestly tell me that you are?”

  “It’s only going to get worse, Kezi.”

  “I know.” She glanced at his wounds, deep cuts on his arms and hands, and a nasty bruise just below his right temple. “Do they hurt much?”

  “No. If they did, I’d have healed them by now.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I’m too weary.”

  “There are other healers, Grinsa. One of them…”

  “I’m fine, Keziah. I’ll heal myself later. I promise.”

  She nodded, pressing her lips in a tight line.

  They soon reached Kearney, who was walking among the injured men of his guard, offering what comfort he could as the soldiers waited for healers to tend their wounds. Two of his captains stood nearby. Seeing Javan approach, the king came forward. He, too, had not yet had his own injuries healed.

  “Well met, Lord Curgh. I’m glad to see you’re well.”

  “Thank you, my liege. I could easily say the same, except it seems you’re hurt.”

  Kearney glanced down at the bloody gash on his side. “It’s nothing of concern. We have more pressing matters to discuss.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, my liege. But we can speak of these things while the Qirsi minister to you.” Javan caught the eye of one of the healers and beckoned him over.

  A healer could do much damage under the guise of trying to help him. An herbmaster could easily exchange poison for a tonic.…

  “No!” Keziah said, a bit too quickly. The healer hesitated. “The … the matters we need to discuss are of a sensitive nature.”

  Grinsa was eyeing her strangely. But after a moment he appeared to catch on. “She’s right, Your Majesty. I’m not a healer by trade, but perhaps I can help in this instance.”

  Kearney seemed to understand as well. He even paled a bit. “Very well, gleaner.” He faced the healer and forced a smile. “Thank you anyway.”

  The healer stood there a few seconds longer, then returned to the soldiers, appearing nonplussed by the exchange and leaving Keziah to wonder if she should have kept silent.

  “What was that about?” Fotir asked.

  “We have cause to think that the conspiracy will make an attempt on the king’s life,” Grinsa said. “We should be wary of allowing any Qirsi we don’t know to get near him.”

  Javan narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think they want to kill the king? Did that woman you imprisoned tell you this as well?”

  “I can’t say,” Grinsa told him.

  “But surely—”

  “Leave it, Father.” Tavis placed a hand on the duke’s shoulder. “Grinsa wouldn’t have said anything if he didn’t have good reason to believe it was true. Trust him as I do and let it be.”

  Javan regarded his son briefly, as if seeing him anew. Then he nodded. “Very well.”

  They found a pallet on which Kearney could sit, and Grinsa knelt before him, laying his hands over the wound on the king’s side.

  “Tell me of your battles,” the king said, clearly uncomfortable with having Grinsa tending his wounds with the others nearby. His expression changed. “Where’s Welfyl?”

  Javan took a long breath. “He’s dead, my liege.”

  Kearney closed his eyes briefly. “Demons and fire. This is a black day for the House of the River.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “How severe were Heneagh’s losses?”

  Curgh’s duke shook his head. “We don’t know for certain yet, my liege, but it appeared that they had lost nearly a third of their men. Perhaps more.”

  “Damn. And yours, Lord Curgh?”

  “Not quite as bad as that, though close.”

  “Same for my guard. We’ve yet to make a count of the enemy dead and wounded, but I’m sure they fared better than we did.”

  “I’m afraid so, my liege.”

  Hagan MarCullet returned, accompanied by a lanky man with a shaved head and trim beard who Keziah assumed to be Rab Avkar.

  “Swordmaster,” the king said, looking up at
the man. “All of us are deeply saddened by the loss of your duke, none more so than I.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” the swordmaster said, his voice thick, his eyes reddened. “I tried to reason with him, to keep him from joining the battle—a man his age…” He shook his head. “He insisted. He said he wanted to strike a blow for his son. And for some time he fought as a man possessed. But he wasn’t strong enough. I saw him go down—” His voice broke and he turned his head, swallowing hard.

  “Songs will be written of his bravery, and of Dunfyl’s as well. The Underrealm will shine like Morna’s sky with their light.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the man whispered. “Thank you.”

  Grinsa removed his hands from Kearney’s side and sat back on his knees, his face shining with sweat.

  “Thank you, gleaner,” the king said, twisting his body tentatively and then lifting his arm. “That’s much better. You have a deft touch.”

  “You have other wounds, Your Majesty. I can heal them as well.”

  Kearney stood. “Thank you. Perhaps later.” He stepped to where Welfyl’s swordmaster stood. Immediately the man dropped to one knee, bowing his head. “Rise, Sir Avkar.” The man did as he was told. “I know that you grieve for Lord Heneagh,” the king went on, “but this is not the time for mourning. Braedon’s army will attack again, perhaps as soon as dawn. I need for you to command your duke’s army. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “You’ve suffered terrible losses. I can offer you a few hundred men, but it won’t be enough to take the place of all those who have fallen.”

  Rab straightened. “With all respect, Your Majesty. We don’t need any more men. We may not be as well trained as the soldiers of Curgh or the King’s Guard, but we fight now for the memories of our duke and lord. The empire’s army won’t get past us.”

  For a moment it seemed that the king might insist, but then he appeared to think better of it. “Your duke would be proud, swordmaster. Very well. We’ll leave the armies as they are for now.”