Shapers of Darkness: Book Four of Winds of the Forelands (Winds of the Forelands Tetralogy)

by David B. Coe

  If she could have struck a blow for Shurik, she would have. She had never considered herself a vengeful person, yet she would have given all she had left in this world to see Grinsa dead. But Shurik had suspected the man was a Weaver, and though Yaella had never thought to see the day when two Weavers lived in the Forelands, she had come to believe that he was right. Even as a younger woman, when her magic flowed as easily as the Tarbin, she could not have hoped to best a Weaver. She could hardly expect to do so now. All that was left for her was to follow the Weaver she served and hope that his victory would bring Grinsa’s doom.

  For now, serving her Weaver meant serving her duke as he made war on the Eibitharians. So when Rowan shouted her name again, steering his mount down the road toward the riverbank, Yaella stood and faced him, smoothing her hair with a thin hand.

  “First Minister,” he said, halting his horse before her but not bothering to dismount.

  “You called for me, my lord?”

  “Several times.”

  “My mind must have been elsewhere, my lord. Forgive me.” He was as foolish as his father had been clever, as much a brute as the old duke had been a true noble.

  “Well, I need you with me at the gate. Fetch your horse and join me on the road.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  The duke rode back toward Kentigern, and Yaella walked up the bank to where she had tied Pon, her mount. The horse whinnied as she approached and Yaella kissed his nose before untying him and climbing into her saddle. Then she started after her duke, riding slowly and eyeing the castle ramparts far above her.

  Soon the road began to bend, curving back on itself as it climbed the tor. She came first to the hurling arms, which were positioned along a portion of the road that offered a clear view of the castle. Rowan’s planning for this siege had been uninspired, save for his decision to build the four hurling arms. It was an extravagance, one that had slowed their preparations, as well as their advance across the Tarbin. But defeating a castle as formidable as Kentigern demanded a certain amount of extravagant thinking. For two days now, Rowan’s men and those from the regent’s army had kept up a constant barrage against the fortress, and while the walls remained whole, they had sustained a good deal of damage. No doubt the bombardment was also taking a toll on the minds of Aindreas’s men. Even more than the harm done to the castle walls, that might well prove decisive before the siege was over.

  Once past the hurling arms, however, matters began to look far more grim for the Aneiran forces. With every step her mount took, the minister saw increasing numbers of dead and wounded lying beside the lane, most with arrows and quarrels jutting from bloody wounds. Ahead she could see the gate, still burning, but still standing despite repeated blows from the ram. More arrows, some of them afire, rained down on the engine and the men within it. The sharp odor of burning pitch and oil brought tears to her eyes and made her throat hurt.

  As far as she could see around the base of the castle, the soldiers of Mertesse and Solkara were raising ladders, trying to scale the walls to the ramparts. But again, dead blanketed the ground, like some grim harvest from the Underrealm, and every few moments another of the ladders would topple back, sending men tumbling to the rocky slopes of the tor.

  “I need your mists, Minister!” the duke called from near the ram. “Kentigern’s archers are taking too great a toll on my army.” He kicked at his horse’s flanks and galloped back to her. “How long can you sustain a mist for me?”

  “To be honest, my lord, not very long. The approach to the tor taxed me near to my limits, and setting fire to the gate only made matters worse.”

  “Come now, First Minister. We’re at war. All of us are weary. I need you to do this.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, my lord, but it’s not at all the same. A Qirsi’s magic can only be stretched so far. This isn’t a matter of me being lazy. If I push myself too far beyond my limits, I could render myself entirely powerless. Qirsi have even been known to die from abusing their powers.”

  Rowan frowned, looking so much like his father that Yaella had to look away.

  “I’m not even certain that a mist would be wise at this time,” she went on after a moment’s pause. “The men need to be able to see, particularly the archers providing cover for those raising the ladders. Shroud them in a mist, and they’re liable to kill our own men.”

  “Then what should I do?” For just a moment, he sounded less like the brash duke she had come to hate over the past year, and more like a young man beyond his depth.

  “Concentrate your efforts on the gate, my lord. These are just the outer walls. Even if your men gain the top, they’ve still the inner walls to climb. Continue to use your hurling arms against the inner keep, but everything depends on defeating this gate. If it fails, the castle will fall. If it doesn’t, we have no hope of winning.”

  He nodded. “Yes, of course. Thank you, First Minister.” He actually managed a small smile that again brought to mind the older duke. “I can see why my father valued you so.”

  She didn’t want his praise or his kindness. It was far easier simply to despise him. Still, now that Yaella had heard his uncertainty, she found herself thinking of him as a boy, as Rouel’s son, desperate and frightened. Damn him. “My lord is too kind.”

  “Return to the river, First Minister. Rest there and await my commands.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Yaella turned Pon and started back down the lane. Before she had gotten very far, however, a cry went up from Rowan’s men. Twisting around in her saddle, she saw a swarm of flaming arrows arcing high into the sky and descending toward the duke’s army, the ram, and the road itself.

  “Minister!” the duke shouted.

  “I see them, my lord!” she called back, never taking her eyes off the arrows.

  Intending to raise a gale, she reached for her power, and despaired at how little was there. She gritted her teeth, drawing on all the magic that remained within her, feeling the effort consume her, like some ravenous beast gnawing at her heart. Yet the wind that she summoned was barely strong enough to stir her hair. And even as she struggled with her weakness, a second volley rose from the castle walls.

  “Shields!” the duke called.

  The first of the arrows plunged toward them, toward her, the flames snapping in their descent like pennons in a storm. Her wind began to build, though too slowly to do much good. Her head ached and her vision was blurring. She could hear her duke calling to her again, though whether to demand that she do more or to warn her to get away she couldn’t say for certain.

  An instant later the first volley of darts struck. Several men screamed out, though not as many as Yaella had feared. Flaming shafts pierced the ground all around her, making her mount rear. The minister nearly lost her balance, but she clung to Pon’s neck, expecting at any moment to feel an arrow imbed itself in her back.

  Get off the road!

  Men were shouting everywhere and she couldn’t tell if the voice she heard was in her mind or belonged to one of them. Not that it mattered. She kicked at the horse’s flanks to steer him off the road. More arrows hit, and judging from the cry that went up from the duke’s men, more still were in the air. Two struck in quick succession just in front of her, and again Pon reared. He took the next arrow square in the chest.

  The horse screamed as might a wounded soldier, twisting against his reins before crashing down onto his side, and onto Yaella’s leg. Her head hit hard, but on the dirt next to the road, rather than on the lane itself. Still, she was dazed, though not so much that she wasn’t aware of the crushing pain in her leg, or the smell of Pon’s burning flesh. The horse jerked violently, as if trying to get up, but he couldn’t seem to move. Yaella had to drag herself out from beneath him as still more arrows struck. Small fires erupted in the brush.

  A second arrow buried in Pon’s flank and the beast convulsed, then was still. Yaella crawled to where the horse lay and stroked his nose. He was breathing still, in
wet gasps, and bloody foam gathered at his mouth. His eyes looked dull, glazed. A sob escaped her and she put a hand to her mouth as tears spilled from her eyes. Was it foolish to shed tears for a horse when all around her men were dying? Did she dishonor her memory of Shurik by weeping for Pon as she had for her love?

  “First Minister!” Two soldiers were running to where she knelt. “Are you hurt?” one of them asked.

  She nodded. “My leg. I think the bone’s broken.”

  “We’ll get you to the healers.”

  The one who had spoken lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing and, accompanied by the other man, who had drawn his sword, they started down the road.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered, gazing back at Pon and wiping her eyes.

  The pain in her leg was manageable, though she was sweating and her limbs were trembling. She was certain the duke would tell her that she was fortunate to be alive at all. She didn’t feel that way.

  Yet it seemed that her ordeal wasn’t yet over. Just as they reached the hurling arms, shouts went up from the nearby brush, to be answered by cries of alarm from the men at the siege engines. A large party of soldiers dressed in the colors of Kentigern burst from among the trees, many of them carrying swords, the rest with bows. Abruptly the minister found herself in the midst of a battle. She had time to consider that the flaming arrows had been but a diversion to allow Aindreas’s men to strike at the hurling arms. After that she could think of nothing but the combat that raged on all sides.

  Arrows whistled past, making the man carrying her flinch and lower his head. Yaella cowered against his chest, trying to curl herself into a tight ball. That may have been why the arrow that hit her dug into the back of her shoulder rather than her chest. As it was she had never imagined that anything could hurt this much. It almost seemed that the head of the arrow had been made of molten steel, the wound burned so. Agony lanced through her back with every step taken by the soldier who carried her. The man knew she had been hurt, for his companion was already telling her in reassuring tones that the injury didn’t look too bad. He might even have slowed his pace to avoid jarring her. Yet each step increased her suffering until she wanted to holler at him to stop and put her down. At last, he did just that, laying her on her side on as gently as he could under the circumstances before both of them rushed to join the battle.

  Already, though, it seemed to be too late. Kentigern’s archers had killed a number of Aneirans with the first arrows they loosed, and managed to fire off several more volleys before they had to fall back toward the brush. There, guarded by the Eibitharian swordsmen, they brought forth more arrows, the heads of which were wrapped like torches. More quickly than Yaella would have thought possible, they lit the arrows and loosed them at the hurling arms, striking three of the machines and setting them ablaze.

  Yaella watched all of this through a haze of pain, gritting her teeth to keep from being ill and blinking her eyes to keep her vision clear. She couldn’t move, of course, not with her leg injured and the arrow jutting from her back, and so she could only hope that the fighting wouldn’t reach her. Watching the soldiers, she cringed at every arrow that struck true, every sword stroke that bit into mail and flesh, and she muttered a curse as the siege machines began to burn. But she didn’t notice the lone Eibitharian swordsman until he was nearly on her. He approached her cautiously, no doubt wary of her magic. She knew, though, that fear wouldn’t stay his hand. Qirsi ministers were prized targets in any war, even those who were wounded, even those who were too old and weak to turn the tide of battle.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she said, trying to sound menacing, knowing that she failed.

  The man hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he grinned.

  Yaella reached for her magic again—fire this time, which was easier to wield than mists and winds. But with her wounds, she felt even weaker than she had by the gates. Sounding the depths of her power, she found the merest residue of what she once had possessed, and she felt shame at what she had become. Still the Eibitharian approached, his sword glinting in the sunlight. Already there was blood on the steel. He had killed this day, and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again. Again she reached, and with an effort that tore a cry from her throat, she summoned a flame, trying to direct it at the man’s chest.

  Instead, she found his arm, setting his sleeve on fire. Still, that was enough to make him halt. He dropped his blade, crying out and flailing at the flames with his other hand. In just a few seconds he had extinguished the fire, but by then one of the Aneiran soldiers had seen him and was sprinting to Yaella’s defense. The Eibitharian died before he could reclaim his weapon.

  The hurling arms, however, could not be saved. The three that the Eibitharians had managed to set afire were now fully engulfed, frenzied flames crackling and swirling, dark smoke pouring into the midday sky.

  Yaella heard more voices and, turning toward the tor, saw more Aneiran soldiers running down the road, reinforcements from the castle gate and walls. Before the men reached the hurling arms, Kentigern’s soldiers melted back into the woods and brush, vanishing almost as suddenly as they had appeared. By the time the duke arrived, the fighting had long since ended.

  “Damn!” he said, glowering at the raging fires. “How many men did we lose?”

  “We’re not certain yet, my lord,” one of the soldiers answered. “We’re making a count now.”

  “Whatever the number, it’s too many. Demons and fire! How did this happen?”

  “We had no warning, my lord. They must have snuck around from the north end of the castle.”

  Rowan nodded, staring at the fires again, clearly struggling to control his ire. “Get started building new ones. I want them ready by sundown tomorrow.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The duke walked to Yaella and squatted beside her. “You’ll live?”

  “I expect so, my lord,” she managed to say, her voice as thin as parchment.

  “Good. I’m going to have some men take you to the healers, again. This time see that you get there.”

  It was something his father would have said. Yaella couldn’t keep the smile from her lips. “Yes, my lord.”

  He called for the same two men who had carried her this far, to take her the rest of the way to the river. Then, as if an afterthought, he added two more men. Yaella wondered if he would have been so eager to protect her had he truly understood how weak she had grown.

  The soldiers conveyed her down to the river without further incident. Rather than finding comfort in the prospect of a healer’s soothing touch, however, the minister was horrified by what she saw along the banks of the Tarbin. Everywhere she looked wounded soldiers awaited the Qirsi healers, some of them moaning, others silent, their eyes fixed on the sky and so sunken that they might have been dead already. A few had lost limbs, and most had suffered wounds so bloody that Yaella gagged just to look at them.

  The soldiers tried to take her directly into one of the tents, but the minister shook her head. “No. We have to wait. These men were here before me.”

  “Duke’s orders, First Minister,” said the one carrying her. “We were to take you to the healers right off.”

  “But they need help more than I do.”

  Before he could answer, one of the healers emerged from the tent, a Qirsi woman Yaella recognized from the castle. She was stout for a Qirsi, with short white hair and a round face. Yaella couldn’t remember her name.

  “What’s this about?” the woman demanded, immediately examining Yaella’s injuries, gently probing the wound around the arrow shaft with her hands.

  “This is the first minister. She—”

  “I know who she is, you dolt. Why are you arguing with her?”

  “It was my fault,” Yaella said, wincing under the woman’s touch. “I didn’t want him to take me into the tent, not with all these others waiting.”

  “But the duke wants us to care for you first, is that right?”

  “Yes.
”

  “What powers do you possess?”

  “What? What does that—”

  “What powers? Mists and winds? Fire? Language of beasts? Any of those will help end this siege sooner, and frankly, First Minister, that will save more lives than would any delay in your treatment. So stop wasting my time and let this man put you in my tent.”

  She could do nothing but nod her agreement and remain silent as the soldier carried her into the tent.

  It was warm within, and the air smelled of blood and rot, betony and sweetwort. Again the minister gagged.

  “Put her there,” the woman said, following them into the tent and pointing at a pallet near the entrance. “Then get out.”

  The soldier did as he was told and was gone before the minister could thank him.

  “Does it hurt much?” the healer asked, kneeling next to her.

  “Yes, and my leg is almost as bad.”

  The woman laid her hands gently on Yaella’s leg, frowning. “How did this happen?”

  “My horse—” She broke off, fearing that she would cry, knowing that if she did, the woman would think her weak and stupid.

  “He fell on you?”

  She nodded, her eyes stinging.

  “All right. I need a tonic here!” she said, raising her voice for just an instant. “You’re going to be fine, but you need to rest, and I don’t want you conscious when I set this bone. Do you understand?”

  A few moments later a second Qirsi brought a cup of steaming liquid to the healer, who sniffed it once before handing it to Yaella.