Shadow Queen

by Unknown

  I rose, stiff as if I’d run a marathon the night before. Roshi put a steadying hand on me and Sepp made a trencher from a hollowed heel of black bread and filled it with stew.

  Waiting near the swathe of churned earth which had once been a ramp, Sidonius was garbed for battle. He carried a mace and had a short stabbing sword strapped to his waist. Robbed of the cover of darkness, he had not ventured as near the walls as our position last night.

  ‘Do you need to be close, to work your tricks?’ he asked, not bothering with greetings.

  ‘No,’ I answered, after Roshi gave a tiny shake of her head.

  I squinted at the Turholm, and the scored dark earth before its walls. Surely it would be more difficult to work from further away? I didn’t voice the thought, however, in case Sidonius commanded me closer to the fray.

  ‘Good,’ he said, and turned to give the command to stand ready. Movement ran through the ranks like an ebb tide as the soldiers gripped weapons and shifted their shields forward.

  ‘It doesn’t need to be glamorous, lady, merely serviceable. Make a ramp wide enough for four men abreast and take it to the top of the wall. We’ll take care of the rest.’

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ I snapped.

  The look he gave me helped me to focus, and I stared at the patch of earth I needed until I had it memorised. Someone – presumably Achim – had made a start at rebuilding the ramp, but it was only a dozen paces long.

  I closed my eyes, and reached for the connection. The quiet place, where the mechaiah dwells, I thought. The tight place, where the earth thrums deep inside me. I pictured it in my mind, the earth melting until it flowed, drawing together and running up to the walls, building on itself, and finally settling back to solidity. Four men abreast, and serviceable.

  When I opened my eyes, no ramp breached the wall’s face. The earth had not shifted so much as a single grain. Sidonius, Roshi, Sepp and rank upon rank of soldiers were all staring at me.

  Squeezing down a panicked breath, I shut my eyes again. This time I imagined Clay’s breath cold and close on my nape, his massive hands pushing me, grovelling and suffocating, into the ground. That only made me remember the golems I had killed the previous night, with the gaping pit and the endless tumbling.

  I swayed on my feet, my eyes snapping open to steady my balance, and shook my head weakly. I couldn’t summon an apology for my failure. It must have fallen down the same pit as the golems.

  Sidonius’s hands curled into fists, and his gaze told me he’d like nothing more than to pierce my ribs with a pike.

  ‘Then you’re no use to me,’ he said, dismissing me with a curt wave of his hand. ‘Wait quietly somewhere nearby, until you find something you can do to help.’

  I retreated back to the treeline, where I found Achim sitting cross-legged with his back supported against a tree trunk, watching events with his pitch-smeared eyes.

  ‘Why aren’t you out there building his ramp for him?’ I snapped. ‘It won’t cost any golem lives this time.’

  ‘I tried,’ he said, ignoring my tone. ‘And succeeded, for a time, despite Dieter’s counter-efforts. He never was particularly strong in manipulating the earth. Which is how I ended up stuck by one of his arrows.’

  Belatedly I noticed the bandage around his shoulder. Not waiting for any apology, Achim went on, ‘The beginnings of the ramp took me two hours. I need rest before I can continue. I suggested to the general that Dieter would be too strong for you and he should have you collapse the wall instead.’

  ‘But that would damage the Turholm.’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘What will he do now?’ Roshi asked.

  ‘Build his ramp by hand, I suppose, for now. But that won’t be his only strategy.’

  In fact, Sidonius appeared to have abandoned the idea of the ramp. He was deep in conversation with a group of green-crested officers, and from the way they scratched maps in the dirt at their feet, I thought his next tactic had less to do with the ramp and more to do with flanking the Turholm. Was he planning a siege after all?

  Whatever he was planning, no more golems appeared to defend the walls. Whether it meant Dieter was too weary for more tricks, or something more sinister, I couldn’t judge.

  ‘And you?’ I demanded of Achim. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Until Sidonius takes the palace, very little. Unless he requires counsel on Dieter’s latest conjuring.’

  I didn’t point out that his counsel last night had been sorely lacking. ‘And when Sidonius takes the palace?’

  The shadow-worker met my gaze. ‘I will bind Dieter, and take him back to Amaer. Every man must meet his chosen fate.’

  I looked away. What did it matter to me what happened to Dieter? He was not my friend, neither was he someone who commanded either duty or loyalty from me. So why did Achim’s words provoke a gnawing feeling deep in my guts?

  Sepp was watching me closely, as if he suspected the direction my thoughts were taking.

  I countered the sickness the only way I knew how. ‘You could teach me, while we wait,’ I said to Achim.

  ‘How will you use my teachings?’

  When I didn’t answer, he shook his head. ‘I thought so. Would you give me your oath, before I taught you?’

  ‘I’m a little short on oaths right now,’ I said.

  ‘You are like Dieter – there is no boundary you can’t justify crossing. You would use my teachings to kill and subdue others. I will not help you.’

  ‘Fine. I doubt I’d find your help useful, anyway.’

  After that, Roshi and Sepp and I made for our tent, where Roshi tried to teach me more of what she knew. It was little enough, however, and none of it helped me connect with the power again.

  At midmorning we learnt Sidonius had received good news. The men he had sent to find the source of the Turholm’s water pipes had succeeded in blocking them. Provided no one broke out of the palace and unplugged them, the Turasi would soon suffer the stab of thirst. We left our tent and headed back towards Sidonius and his men.

  Bad news arrived hard on the heels of the good, however. Scouts, windblown and harried, with the shadow of pursuit in the circles under their eyes, brought a straining silence in their wake.

  ‘Turasi from both north and west, General. Judging by their paths, they mean to join forces before they reach us.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Two days, perhaps.’

  Sidonius cast me a dark look. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve remembered anything of use yet?’

  Numb, I shook my head and he turned back to his men. ‘That’s not all, is it?’

  ‘The Skythes approach from the northeast, General. Further away than the Turasi, and a smaller force, but every one of them mounted.’

  As Sidonius cursed under his breath, Roshi plucked at my elbow, her eyes wide, the whites bright with worry. ‘Tilde,’ she said, a strangely timorous note in her voice. ‘Those are my people – and yours.’

  I said nothing – words seemed superfluous – but reached for her hand instead.

  She shook me away. ‘They’re coming because of you.’

  ‘They’re coming because Dieter called them,’ I said.

  ‘Because he’s your husband.’

  Stubbornness set my chin. ‘They treated him as my husband even after I tried to point out I had no choice but to marry him. They chose to support him then, they can support him now. I don’t figure into it.’

  She grabbed my arm, stopping me from turning away. ‘They don’t know he’s not your husband anymore,’ She hissed.

  ‘A binding is eternal, Roshi. He’s still my husband,’ I protested. Then a new and uncomfortable idea occurred to me: ‘Do you mean to say your people can … can …’ I sought for a word. ‘Unbind?’

  ‘You’re allied against him, Tilde, and sending men in to kill him –’

  ‘Not kill.’ Not right away, at least, I thought, remembering Achim’s purpose.

  ‘If they knew your allianc
e, they’d not send him aid,’ Roshi insisted.

  ‘Their inattentiveness isn’t my concern.’

  ‘They’ll die,’ she whispered, fear tightening her cheeks and pinching at her eyes. ‘You can stop it.’

  I shook my head. ‘How? I’ve no way to get a message to them. Unless you mean me to ride out and meet them? Actually, that’s not a bad idea. We could turn them to our aid. I’m sure Sidonius would –’

  ‘No!’

  Her cry drew other eyes, but she stared them down before turning back to me. ‘Ilthea doesn’t ally. Sell your Turasi if you want, they’re used to masters and lords and orders. My people will die, starving for the sky.’

  ‘You’re being melodramatic,’ I said. ‘Stone roofs didn’t kill you. Besides, I don’t know what you think I can do. If you don’t want me to ally them with Sidonius, he’ll see them as a threat.’

  ‘Tell him about the bolthole,’ she said.

  I shook my head, drew back a step. ‘No!’

  ‘Damn you, matilde!’ she hissed. ‘Would you pick a side and stick with it? You’ve allied with this Sidonius, stop hampering him.’

  ‘I’ve picked a side,’ I replied coldly. ‘Mine.’

  ‘And it’ll get us all killed, stuck between Dieter’s walls and my people’s spears!’ she cried, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw, determined. ‘If you don’t tell him I will. This conflict is yours. I’ll not let it draw my people to their deaths.’

  Stubborn as I was, I didn’t want to see more bloodshed either. That had been one of the reasons for allying with Sidonius in the first place, so I relented. As it turned out Sidonius refused me the courtesy of privacy when I asked to speak to him alone, though he did at least gesture to his men to move away, though they didn’t draw out of earshot.

  When I told him of the bolthole, and the precise location where it breached ground, he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

  ‘You didn’t think to mention this before because …?’ he asked, his eyes still closed and his voice tightly controlled.

  ‘It didn’t occur to me,’ I said, the transparency of the lie making my voice weak.

  Giving me a contemptuous glare, he summoned his men back. ‘The lady has miraculously remembered a bolthole. I’ll organise a force to take the tunnel and break in, then we’ll overrun them from the inside. Give us two hours’ – this with a glance at me to ensure the time would be adequate – ‘Then bring out the scaling ladders and the battering ram to distract them. Given his injuries, it isn’t likely that Achim will have finished the ramp by then, so we’ll open the gates for you –’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ I interrupted. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? ‘The passage leads to the stables. The main gates are courtyards away from there.’

  ‘It’s a good thing we’ll have you to guide us, then.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘You’ll forgive my lack of trust, I’m sure, but I’m not sending my men into a bolthole you’ve conveniently forgotten until now without insurance. I can’t think of a better safeguard than sending you into the dragon’s maw with them.

  ‘Oh, and in case that’s what you were planning all along? My men will have orders to kill you at the first hint of betrayal,’ he said, his expression as cold and sharp as winter sunshine. ‘Nothing else you want to tell me?’

  I shook my head. All of my careful plotting and planning, all my luck and daring to keep me alive this far – would it end here? If Dieter’s men didn’t kill me on sight, Sidonius’s might stab me in the back anytime one of them got twitchy.

  All you need do is get inside the Turholm, child. Men die in battle all the time. I turned my face away, hoping the thought didn’t show.

  Sidonius’s hundred men looked pitifully small for an invasion force, even more so when the bulk of them gathered behind me, each of them watching me with heavy, foreboding looks.

  One of them summoned Sepp forward. Eyes downcast, cheeks and brow pale, Sepp obeyed without comment. I looked at Sidonius.

  ‘He’s coming with us,’ he said. ‘More specifically, with me. A little incentive, to make sure you don’t view my safety too lightly. Roshi is confined to the tent, and she’ll share Sepp’s fate. Whatever it may be.’

  Sepp wouldn’t meet my gaze and I was almost glad of it. There was no way to explain, with or without words, that I needed Sidonius dead.

  THIRTY-NINE

  IT TOOK US an hour to travel to the northeastern wall, where hills and forest backed up close to the Turholm. It took Sepp a further twenty minutes of casting around to find the tunnel’s entrance, twenty minutes full of dark glances from the soldiers, their knuckles turning white as grips shifted and tightened on sword hilts.

  At last Sepp found the remnants of the pony’s tracks, deep-cut crescents indicating how much she’d laboured under the weight of me, unconscious on her back. Following the tracks brought us to the entrance, a chink of darkness hidden slantwise behind a fallen boulder.

  ‘There,’ he said, pointing.

  Sidonius eyed it doubtfully, but a soldier slipped through with a scrape of metal on rock, and pronounced it true.

  moments later I was ducking my head forward into the darkness, the air damp with the smell of limestone and earth. Every fifth man carried a torch, the guttering red light deepening the walls to black and setting off a hissing when water dripped into them. The rest of the world was cut off as we walked.

  There was no telling how the battle overhead progressed, whether Dieter had unleashed any disastrous new tricks, whether the Iltheans were scaling the walls or ramming the gates. There was only the steady tramp of feet through echoing stone passages, the squeak of studded sandals, the drip and hiss of water, the flutter and gutter of flames from the torches.

  At last the tunnel climbed steeply, grooves cut into the rock floor aiding traction. The stable was nigh. Every nerve felt on edge.

  Sidonius must have guessed we were close, for he motioned me back from the lead before he and a handful of men approached the rear of the false wooden wall. They paused, listening, then Sidonius motioned to me: be ready.

  I had no weapons other than my strange power, and no Roshi to help me guide it forth. If the door was guarded by one of Dieter’s golems or some other arcana, it would be up to me to overcome it. I shivered, terrified.

  The door swung open, and a half-dozen Turasi faces turned towards the movement, hands reaching for their weapons.

  The Iltheans were faster, Sidonius spitting two of them before they’d even drawn their swords. His men swept by on either side, their short, brutal blades driving through the lungs or stomachs of the remaining four.

  The bodies slumped to the floor, their blood soaking into the straw, giving a coppery note to the warm, rich air. Down an aisle a horse whickered, then fell quiet.

  I held my breath, but no one came.

  Sidonius gestured the rest of his force into the stables behind me.

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any other way out of here?’ Sidonius asked in low tones.

  I shook my head, uncomfortably aware of the short, claw-like swords unsheathed at my back.

  ‘Figured not. Right, then, lad. Your turn,’ he said, hooking a hand under Sepp’s elbow and jostling him towards the courtyard, where every Turasi worth his salt would be waiting for them.

  Fear twisting my guts at the thought of Sepp caught in the midst of Turasi fire, I hurried to keep up. With aching care we crept the stable’s length towards the square of daylight tumbling in from the courtyard. Just inside the door, still in the safety of shadows, Sidonius stopped.

  The upper courtyard appeared empty. All the men were on the walls. By the cries and the clash of metal and the whistle of arrows, the Iltheans outside were keeping them occupied. Stepping into broad daylight felt like walking to my doom. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the sky, transfixed by the threat of death falling from the pale blue sweep overhead.

  A faint whistle built around us, flowering int
o a whine, then rocks exploded down into the courtyard, a scattershot of fist-sized stones which tore through flesh and chewed into wooden beams.

  I screamed and ducked, arms over my head. No one else so much as flinched.

  ‘You didn’t call off the ballistae?’ I asked, indignity heating my cheeks as I straightened.

  ‘If I did that, they’d have more time to notice us,’ said Sidonius.

  ‘It’ll be hard enough getting to those gates unseen without having to dodge missiles.’

  ‘I can hardly call them off now,’ he pointed out. ‘If you’re worried about being hit, figure out a way to protect us.’

  This time he let the bulk of his force precede us, a rush of Iltheans borne forward by the ferocity of their weapons, stabbing and hamstringing Dieter’s men from behind. Blood flowed and splashed, and we followed in the wake of a red mist curling on the breeze.

  We kept to the stable wall and, for one long moment, while the surprise lasted, it looked easy. Effortless. Like stabbing unarmed nobles in the midst of Aestival.

  But it couldn’t last, and in the next moment the Turasi rallied, turning to face the new threat, rushing from the walls and into the courtyard. Like ants swarming from a kicked nest, their numbers seemed endless as the hot swirl of battle pressed in on us, hemming us in on all sides, crippling our progress.

  The gates were only spans away, but between us and our object stood scores of Turasi. Though they wore different liveries, all had a single purpose – to annihilate us.

  Sidonius welcolmed them with a feral cry, hefting his sword as Turasi rushed towards us.

  You called up the earth as if it were a fluid. Whether the voice was Grandmother’s, Roshi’s or my own, I didn’t know. Air is not so different, surely?

  I tried to imagine the air turned solid above us, like a blanket stretched taut to keep out the rain. But I found no tremor of connection inside me.

  Forgetting Sepp, sidonius pushed to the front line to meet the battle. Cocooned in the jostling centre, I groped for Sepp’s hand, which was as clammy as mine. The men in front stood close enough that I could trace the muscles in their back without stretching. The squeal of iron and snarl of ripping cloth beat at me from all sides. Underneath the grunts and smacks, came the moist sound of flesh puncturing.