by Sylvia Kelso
And she says, so quietly it rasps in her throat, “You meant this all along.”
“Tel—”
“You knew we would never take those terms.” Not would not, her tongue longs to scream. Can’t. “You always intended—to bring us down.”
His lips part. And close. Is there pain to match that, she wonders, in my eyes?
His shoulders lift. And droop. Then he sets his teeth and lifts his chin. Assandar.
“I hoped they’d do it peacefully. It wasn’t just for show. If you knew how much I’ve grudged this time—how impatient Quizir’s getting.” The Dhasdein brigadier. “How much riskier it is when you make troops delay . . .”
He stops again. Final courage, meets her eyes.
“I suppose I made up my own mind—a long time ago. While I was still—Alkhes. In a way—it wasn’t intentional, but in a way—it’s why I came to Amberlight. To know.”
In the pause, she hears the outer world, the rumble of male voices, the rumor of a great camp. The sounds of war. And death.
“But, yes. If that’s the only way to stop it—then, yes.”
Her eyes sting. She draws a great breath, as if commanding her muscles for a last cut at the face.
“If that’s how it must be—you know the rest.”
The eyes cling to hers, blacker than velvet, blacker than sentient, suffering night. The garb, the stance, the face is Assandar. The eyes are Alkhes. As is the voice that whispers, “I know the rest.”
* * * *
“No,” says Tellurith, remotely, watching the light die. “It’s nothing we didn’t know.”
* * * *
Any more than they doubt the form of the opening shots. Averion’s projection needs no confirming sight of the Dhasdein brigadiers. The Thirteen have the night to prepare. To have troublecrew from Hezamin and Jerish mass out the gun-crews on stand-by at the Dead Dyke wall, turn-and-turn-about since the Navy was lost, day and night. To have others from Hafas and Terraqa down at the quays, posted before dawn in the warehouses that Averion’s plans have seen converted, long since.
All of them with the big new guns for which Telluir and Keranshah and Hafas and Diaman have been cutting slabs the last four months.
Charged, aligned, set up in cover, with ranges worked out, and fields of fire, and savagely overlapping traverses, all along the waterfront, right across Dead Dyke wall. So when the regiments mass at daybreak, when the trumpets peal and Cataract’s irregulars surge forward, howling, beside the immaculately squared Dhasdein front, when the cheering surge hurls its ladders across Dead Dyke, they are ready. For the canal-bank glacis to reach optimum crowding. To become the most terrible of killing fields.
“Just try to drink this. Please, Ruand.”
Tellurith’s stomach rolls. The taste of vomit gags her mouth.
“Been heaving all rotted afternoon.” Low, furious undertone, somewhere behind the gun emplacement, its crew fallen out and eating now. As silent, as appalled as all the rest. Everybody but lookouts carefully, rigorously avoiding a glance over the wall. Onto the glacis where, in mid-afternoon, the enemy sued for truce.
To remove their wounded. And their dead.
Quizir, Tellurith thinks remotely, should be patient now.
A flicker of scarlet above them in the night. Relay signalers transferring a message via Arcis summit from Main Quay. Yet another thing Averion has insisted on. Communications, clear, fast, day and night.
A wind breathes and her stomach turns over uncontrollably, the wrenched muscles screaming as it heaves. At the vile charred meat and excrement smell of which nothing can cleanse the field.
A wash of movement in the firelight. Voices. A hand on her shoulder, a light, unfamiliar grasp. Hunkered uncharacteristically beside her, Averion.
Who takes the basin from Caitha. And presently, coaxes water down her neck. And then cajoles her away, silent and tender as a lost mother, to an angle of the wall. Staring back on Amberlight.
And says at last, very softly, “When it came to it . . . we had to pay the price.”
We. Planner, killer, strategist. And still human enough to see the killer’s price as the worse.
Who presently puts an arm about her, and says more softly, “Telluir, we need to ask you—what will they do now?”
Staring up into the moon’s dark, Tellurith balances forces in her mind. Quizir and his colleague will want to try again. Dinda’s troops, whose armorless spearmen took the losses’ brunt, will probably have had enough. Assandar?
Will doubtless have the ascendancy now, having let his dissenters rush upon disaster yet again. Wants to hurry. Does not seem to mind spending, but will not waste his men. Will he go for escalation, spread those numbers extravagantly across the quay-fronts, a river-borne assault?
Exposing troops for the river’s width, pinned in their boats? After what today’s repulse has told him of this fire-power? Send men to their deaths against those odds?
Not Assandar.
“Then will he wait?”
With a start Tellurith realizes she has been thinking aloud. Feels her face burn, heart thump with the shock of a near-miss. If she had said anything else . . .
But wait?
“Assandar,” it comes out so coolly, “will do something different.”
Averion’s body relaxes beside her, draping on the wall. Curious, she thinks, to find a wildcat in the fastidious, aloof Head of Keranshah. A catamount, a killer, a soldier. To know the truth of her, after all these years.
“If I was fighting light-guns . . . and knew I would be fighting light-guns . . . I’d work out long-distance weaponry . . .”
“Bows?”
A soft laugh. On her shoulder, an absent pat. “Nice, Telluir. But no. I think I’d go far longer.”
Catapults.
* * * *
No surprise, then, when five days’ lull brings the sight of approaching sails. Running downRiver with the summer wind behind them, three narrow Cataract river-craft, loaded deep. Unloading, upstream of Dead Dyke, the special components for those massive timber frames that the siege forces have labored to raise. And the specialist crews to man Dinda’s big city catapults.
“Of course, he had it pre-arranged, like the Dhasdein ships. And of course, they won’t throw stones.”
Averion draped, elaborately boneless, on the gun-site fire-wall. Safely, their work-crews calculate, out of throwers’ range.
Beside her, Ti’e says, “We send criers into River Quarter. Tell them, soak their roofs.”
Averion cocks an approving brow. Tellurith looks across the crowded animal pens, the makeshift shelters behind Dead Dyke, and groans. “What’s the limit of their range?”
Ferally, Averion grins. “Tomorrow, they’ll find out.”
When at sunrise next morning, the battery of work mirrors behind Dead Dyke wall catch the light calculated, focused and fired from its guns. And the single huge amplified beam tracks across the river. To rest, gentle as a finger, upon a catapult.
As the tiny surrounding figures jump, spin, dance, inaudibly curse and shriek and run, distantly waving fists, Averion breaks into a soft, genuine laugh.
“Ants in someone’s pants?”
* * * *
“Probably,” good dining chairs dragged onto the balcony, to flank a table bearing a carafe of wine, Averion’s elegant summer sandals cocked up on the balustrade, “they’ll work at night.”
“Unless the Dhasdeiners overrule him. For an all-out assault.”
“They won’t overrule him. Not unless he wants.”
Tellurith stares. Such absolute certainty, in that tone, in the cool, coffee-brown eyes that stare out over the balustrade.
The eyes turn sideways. “I know you know him. But—in a way—I’ve come to know him too.”
“So—now—you think he’ll wait?”
/> Averion considers. “Patience isn’t a Cataract virtue. I don’t see it pleasing Verrain. If he waits too long—his troops could just ooze away.”
And we would be safe.
Tellurith’s throat is still tight with hope when Averion goes on.
“It depends if he really wants—what he wants.”
Tellurith’s eyes blur. She hears her voice say curtly, “He does.”
Averion sips her wine. Sets down the cup. Remarks plaintively, “I really was hoping you wouldn’t say that, Tellurith.”
“So,” brusqueness to cover her distress, “if you really wanted, in his place, what would you do?”
Averion sighs and puckers her eyelids. “If I had Dinda’s engineers—and a river—I think I’d go for hydraulics. Big shield walls. And moveable catapults.”
* * * *
It all takes time, Tellurith tells herself, squinting against the glitter of distant water in the sun. Time to dig the diversion ditch, time to set up the hydraulic screws, to build the solid flooring disc, let alone seat the catapult. Time for Verrain cavalry to grow impatient, and upRiver tribesmen to leak away.
And reinforcements to march in from Dhasdein.
And more City supplies to be consumed.
And boat-crews to labor sweating in the airless secrecy of a warehouse on a dozen light rowing craft. And guerilla volunteers, River Quarter ruffians, gang-tribes, to train under Averion’s carefully prescribed conditions, night after night.
So when their best guess makes the catapults near ready, three boats slip across to raise mayhem and murder with a light-gun on the waterfront sentry posts. While four more, black-painted, the black-clad crew with carefully blackened faces, race for the catapult sites.
“Exquisite!”
Averion in the wash of crimson torch-light, acclaiming as for some great wine’s bouquet. Swirled by a frieze of rascals, dancing, cavorting, laughing, screaming at the top of unpent lungs. Behind them, across the river, three sullen low stars of fire.
“Got the three of them! And never a scratch!”
* * * *
“Of course, they won’t let us do it again.”
I wish, Tellurith thinks as her heart again somersaults, that you wouldn’t unleash your worst forecasts in that calmly casual voice.
Averion nods confirmation. “They’ll pack the sites five-deep every night.”
“Couldn’t we afford—”
“We couldn’t do it at any price.”
“Oh.”
Averion’s eyes slit. “I wish,” she murmurs, “I knew what else he has lined up.”
“Why should he have anything—”
“Come, Tellurith. He knows from that range he might as well shoot peas at us.”
Amberlight glitters hazily in the morning light. A high, harsh cloudless late summer day. A veil across the city. Dust. Open fires, a fog of cooking smoke. Averion taps her stick, one, three, one, three, mirror signalers’ Stand-by code, against the warehouse wall.
“If worst comes to worst—it might be worth his while to make that full assault.”
Tellurith’s mouth dries. Averion looks round sharply. The faint frown is understanding, all but tenderness. It is the voice of envisioned destiny that goes on, quite quietly, “Come on, ’Rith. We always knew it might.”
* * * *
But an offer to return prisoners they do not expect.
“Ten from the early raids—gangs, River Quarter men.” Behind the Dead Dyke gun emplacement Averion’s troublecrew Second counts on her hands. Averion squats on the pit-floor, fine muslin trousers trailing like the gunners’ in the dirt, squinting under a disreputable Korite straw hat. The last anyone will do is laugh.
“That hardly seems worth the rations . . .” She eyes her Second’s face and stops.
“The other fifteen are Navy. Wounded. One Second. Two gunners. Twelve hands.”
Across the dyke the black and white truce flag flutters in a simmer of early haze. Tellurith feels all their hearts yearn. Navy folk. Women. Fighters. Redeemed, honored, their own kind.
And gunners. Skilled gunners. A weapon beyond price.
Averion hardly pauses before she says, “We’ll take the lot.”
Scarcely noticed, in the fêting and cosseting and bestowing of diamond ear-studs, when River Quarter sends delegates to ask access to the river, at least once a day.
Since the water that windmills pump to Arcis cistern up the north-side pipeline, and which rejoins the River through Uphill and business quarter plumbing, is hardly available in River Quarter. And the extra demand is choking the wells. And with the enemy idle, there can surely be no harm in opening the barricades that seal every street access to the quays.
Not just once a day.
Especially when the privilege is cancelled a week later as marchings about, gathering of boats and parade noises presage the general assault.
“No way will he try the whole perimeter. Far too expensive for him, much too helpful to us.” Averion in general council. Cynosure of twelve anxious, wholly attentive pairs of eyes. “He’ll use spearheads. The real problem is who outguesses who on where.”
In the silence, Zhee’s question seems very loud.
“Guess?”
“I know him. He knows me. He can choose a target—and try to convince me otherwise. Quite subtle. But subtle is not the word for Assandar. What if he knows I’ll disbelieve him, and takes the first one after all? And if he takes the double-bluff, can I?”
“Sweet Mother, it could go for ever,” groans Liony.
“What targets,” presses Maeran, “will he want?”
Averion stares out into the pure morning sky.
“He could go for the Dyke—for land access. He is going to try a river crossing somewhere—unless that’s a bluff. If he took Main Quay, he could split our defense.”
“What would you do?” asks Tellurith.
The glinting chocolate eyes turn. There is time to think, Mother. She’s enjoying herself.
“I’d go for something more—devious. Nuisance attack at Dead Dyke. Tie up Cataract. Rotted if I’d let them in the main assault.”
“And the main attack?”
Averion smiles without amusement. “Iron Valley, for the citadel road? Pipe Spur, to cut the water supply? Main Quay, for a major bridgehead? Any one’s a good choice.”
“All we can do,” she says coolly into the clamor, “is have every signaler and look-out and gun-crew on stand-by. To keep our communications open. And our minds.”
And at Damas’ bellow of, “Minds?”—“To keep our minds open, yes. To expect anything. We’re fighting Assandar.”
* * * *
Black night on Amberlight. The new moon has already set. A sword-play of lightning far to the north. Down at the Telluir quay command-post, Tellurith fights for composure. To be still. Not to flail the dark and shriek, Get me back to my balcony, up the men’s tower, on High or Dragon Spur or Arcis itself, anything for sight!
Struggling reason re-asserts itself: Averion will be on Arcis. Eyrie of command. Racing up the road which runs by Keranshah’s wall, in response to those signals that have shot you to the quayside, and the signalers to their posts, and every available hand, light-gun, bow, sword, sleeve-sling to their battle-sites.
Since torches and uproar have signaled Cataract gathering to the attack.
All splendidly predictable, there is time to think, while the signals stitch the sky. Diversion attack on Dead Dyke. Now, where are the boats?
Aeons of struggling for calm, for military composure, while the messengers scuttle, and her troublecrew’s stillness tightens round her, and the faint light of signal lamps, of charged light-guns, of power-panels on the wedge of vehicles next the command post, flickers through the dark. Until a runner scurries from the warehouse, gasping, “Boats out! Boats lau
nched! Heading for us!”
The signals fly. Wilder ones fly back. The assault is general. Every quay from Gate to North.
Work-mother, help the Iuras and Prathax gun-crews, prays Tellurith, on the north side, with no experience, and no cool head to order them. Work-mother, help us.
She slips out her old cutter and wakes the charge.
“Give them till mid-stream,” she can hear the gun-leader just inside the warehouse saying. Cool as a House-head before the mother-face.
Darkness stretching, endless, unbearable tension. I must run, scream, tear something, hit—
“Fire.”
Longdrawn stinging hiss. Brilliant beam of white.
Silhouetted prows spring out of the black. A glitter as helmets duck. Confusion of oars. Spearheads jerk and shatter light and vanish as the beam sweeps majestically past.
“Traverse.”
Hisss. Over the barricade shows a lightning-flash of tangled oars, collided boats, thrashing metal, waving arms.
And, crisp as a cutter-slash inside the warehouse, “Off.”
Darkness. Through it, the gun-leader, icy as ever. “It’s a long time until light.”
Let it not be too long, Tellurith prays, hands jittering on the cutter haft. Not enough to drain the qherrique. She can almost hear the spendthrift uproar down at the Dyke. How high will Cataract pay?
Far higher, she comforts herself, than hired tribesmen who are pledging their own lives.
We have the guns. All we have to do is hold and wait.
Then the night explodes behind her on flying rocks and bludgeons and a screaming onslaught amid rivers of torchlit flame.
* * * *
Averion’s strategic brilliance is all that keeps a shambles from becoming a rout. Her insistence on communications, on alternative plans, her persistent vision of the quay-guns as mere forward defense. For which there must be immaculately organized systems of retreat.
So even under the impact of the entirely unpredicted, when River Quarter rises to savage its oppressors and fling the gates open to the liberators beyond the barricades, Telluir and Diaman and Keranshah and Hafas and Hezamin and even Jerish get half their guns out. Get many of their gun-crews to the vehicles. Get a good number of those vehicles up through the fire, the rocks, the ambushes, along the raging streets to Hill-foot road. Where, in obedience to the signals that have never ceased to regulate their action, the gun-crews, under cover of troublecrew skirmishers, set up temporary firing-posts.
