King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  “Noddy Turtle?” Inda asked, to shouts of laughter.

  Did they not feel the tension? On the surface, no. Under the surface? Ah. The laughter sounded too loud, too bright, the voices too forced. There was just enough of some quality to them that caused Tau’s heart to thump with warning.

  Tau hated battle, and knew he was going to hate a war even worse. What truly bound him here? Why am I here?

  Because—

  His gaze strayed to the two figures ahead, the long tails of hair swinging against their backs just barely picked out in the smear of predawn light: one sun-streaked brown, the other red.

  It has always been people. Not places, certainly not ideals. People.

  He did not define people any further than that, but his hand clenched on the golden case he’d worn near his skin ever since Jeje left, in case she were to write back to him.

  The sunrise lightened to pearlescent, the molten fire just rimming the eastern skyline sending spear-shafts of brilliantly pure, peachy-gold light to highlight the sides of trees, a rock here, and tuft of grass there. Signi observed Tau’s profile against the dawn of a new day. Though Tau’s proximity would never bring her the glory Inda’s did, she had always loved beauty in all things, whether alive or not, natural or made. Tau was beautiful, riding easily now on his dashing young horse—both so alive, so capable of joy—the sight caused her heart to spasm in poignancy.

  How different he was from Inda, and yet they had been raised with love, she could tell in all the little muscle moves, the warmth of glance and voice: Tau, perhaps, had been raised surrounded by love, but had come to regard love as an object, or an objective. For Inda love was sun and air.

  Signi’s thoughts broke at the prickle of magic. Venn magic. It was very clear and distinct, as one might expect in this land where no dags dwelled. She could not test the trace, but suspected Erkric. Who else would be arrogant enough to transfer somewhere within the city to watch the Marlovans ride in under his nose?

  So she pulled the old, weatherworn cloak about her shoulders, the hood hiding her face, and altered her posture to give the impression of someone either elderly or infirm. And she slowed her horse gradually, so that Evred’s party drew ahead. As she had the previous time she’d felt that same trace, she rode just behind Tau, trusting that he would draw attention away from her.

  Tau had noticed her doing the same thing once before, a week or two previous. He’d assumed she had a headache from the dust and warm air, and wanted to leave the loud voices of the Sier Danas behind. Because they were out of earshot, Tau met her eyes, which quirked in question. He asked, “Is this hood some kind of disguise?”

  “In a way.” She considered, then decided it was right to speak. “One of my people is spying on your army.”

  “Will you tell Inda?”

  “If he asks. But I will not offer the information.” She shook her head. “What can be done?”

  “Nothing,” Tau agreed. “So you refuse to fight against the Marlovans, but you’re not fighting against your people either, is that it?”

  How to answer that? Truth for Taumad, but also deflection. “I’m—I was—a ship dag. We had nothing to do with war, except at a remove. My job was to navigate, to assist in repair.”

  Tau shrugged ruefully. “I guess I hoped you might do some kind of spell and make the enemies go away.”

  Her nerves stung with cold. “You do not look forward to the coming battle?”

  “Not,” he said, “at all.”

  She closed her eyes. And though—maybe because—she had been so careful for so many weeks, so watchful, the pent-up words tumbled out, almost too fast to comprehend. “Why do not we see animal bones left in the wild as reminders of what can happen to us? Why not leave ours? But would they not be reminders of life smashed away, of what war means, if we saw them every day?” She lifted her hands, her fingers expressing the anguish of the unanswer ables. “How to remind humans, as we sing so bravely and dress so artfully riding to war that when we make war we are no more than predators?”

  Tau had absolutely no answer for that. His fund of pleasant chat—taught to him by his mother to cover every possible social situation—had eased him through a variety of experiences all over the southern continent through the past ten years. Even with a pair of vicious pirates whose weakness was a wish to appear aristocratic. His chatter was inadequate now.

  A quick indrawn breath from Signi ended the uncomfortable silence. She stiffened, staring downward, turning almost all the way around to gaze behind her as they passed by.

  When she straightened again, her face was pale, making her light freckles stand out, her expression peculiar.

  “Are you all right?” Tau asked her. “Do you need to stop?”

  “No.” Signi drew in another unsteady breath. “No, actually, I am quite well.” She studied his concerned expression, and wondered if she ought to explain what she had seen, not once, but twice, now. On this otherwise unremarkable little hillock at the roadside, covered with summer wildflowers: placed amid the goldenrod a single blossom of milkweed.

  “Are you worried about this mage fellow of Rajnir’s?” Tau asked. “This Venn dag?”

  The morning sunlight struck gold in his light eyes. How acute he was!

  “Dag Erkric,” she said gently. “He is not yet, I trust, The Dag of the Venn. And I am not as worried as I was,” she added, after some thought, within the shadow of her hood.

  “Ah.”

  Was that an expression of comprehension, or of distrust? There were so many pitfalls here! But Inda trusted Tau. He had said so over and over, I trust Tau with my life. Tau, Jeje. Barend—and Fox. I would have been dead many times over without them.

  “Do you know what wards are?” she asked, after more thought.

  They could see the outer city wall now, and make out the sentries on the gates.

  “No.”

  “Think of them as . . . walls,” she said, gesturing toward the city just ahead, glimpsed through the overhang of flowering trees. “Walls of magic that can permit spells, or keep them out. There are none here, so those who know magic can come and go without your knowing. Yet I sense a very great ward near, a most powerful one, and very, very old, so it has nothing to do with this coming battle. But I do not know if I should tell your king.”

  Tau did not mistake the inquiry in her voice. “Don’t,” he said firmly. “If there’s magic of any kind that is a danger he can’t do anything about, then either fix it yourself or let it lie. Unless you want to deal with all the questions it will raise.” And then, in a pleasant voice, “Is dag related to the Marlovan daka, meaning maker?”

  “Yes,” she said, grateful for the respite, and they talked of similar words shared between Venn and Marlovan for the rest of the ride.

  She spied one more milkweed, faithfully planted at another juncture in the road to Ala Larkadhe. One could have been accident. Two made coincidence less likely, but three were a message. For her.

  Inda and his companions raced up the road and into the castle. Signi never once raised her eyes to the castle promi nences; Dag Erkric probably was hidden, and she must do nothing to draw his attention, which would be on Evred and those surrounding him. She and Tau followed more slowly.

  Inda, Evred, Noddy, and Barend reined up in the forecourt, horses’ hooves noisy on the stones. Hawkeye himself awaited them, flanked by his Runners. He and Evred saluted one another, aware of the watching sentries on the walls, and others in windows. There must be no sign of frantic hurry or fear. Everything must be deliberate.

  Hawkeye watched Evred speak orders that sent the Runners off in various directions, each with a specific logistical task. You have come a long way in two years, he thought. I hope far enough to see us through this battle.

  At last only Hawkeye, Evred, and his companions were left. Evred checked; Tau and Dag Signi were just riding through the inner gate to the stable court. A motion to the head stable hand, and the two were surrounded by helpful minions—and
kept out of earshot.

  Inda flicked a question at Barend, who just tipped his head toward Evred. Inda said, “Sponge. I don’t think any of us trust this dag parley business. Too convenient a way to get at you. We’re all going to be on hand.”

  “Then if he has the sense of a rock he’ll take us all out,” Evred retorted.

  “You’re a target anyway. That can’t be helped.” Barend turned his hands up.

  Hawkeye cracked a guffaw, sounding just like he had as a horsetail. He’d always loved the prospect of danger. “But if the rest of us, say, wear coats from the armsmen, and one of our boys wears your House battle tunic, maybe we won’t be obvious targets. Everyone seems to say that we Marlovans all look alike.”

  “Very well.” To Inda: “I want you to set up the room we shall receive them in. Go through the castle, pick the best defensible place. Plan for every kind of treachery.” To his cousin and Noddy: “Hawkeye, show Inda around. Noddy, get the watch captain to assign you Runners. You had better inspect the barracks, make certain we’ve got enough room for everyone.”

  They left, Inda hesitant, a backward glance toward where Tau and Signi stood on the other side of the courtyard, watchful Runners flanking them.

  “She will be safe,” Evred said, and Inda could not answer that; as soon as he was gone, Evred’s gaze slid past Tau after the usual momentary hitch and he turned to Signi. “Please come with me.” He turned away, and Signi followed with her graceful tread.

  Leaving Tau alone. Tau cast an inward sigh, remembering what Vedrid had said privately after all the celebrating the night Inda was made Harskialdna. Now that he’s the new Harskialdna, when the time comes for battle, they’ll expect a crimson-and-gold House tunic to be ready and waiting.

  Tau had seen the one they’d made for Inda during the early part of the journey, the green of the Algara-Vayirs, edged with silver. A one-time Harskialdna apparently wore his own colors. That tunic was neatly packed at the bottom of Inda’s dunnage, along with a fine coat of chain mail; until they rode into battle, the Marlovan warriors traveled in their gray coats, now grimy at cuffs and hems, despite careful brushings and the occasional dunk into the ensorcelled buckets.

  Tau hitched his and Inda’s gear over his shoulder. Back to servant status, with a sidestep into tailoring. Well, it would keep him busy. Busy before battle was good.

  Signi followed the king in silence. His head was bent, his expression thoughtful as they progressed from the granite part of the castle into the tower made of faintly luminous white stone. This stone was not marble, but something different and far more rare. It was called disirad. She had only seen it once before, in the magic-blasted remains of Roth Drael far to the north on the continent of Goerael, where humans had not lived for at least a thousand years.

  The steps she trod now had ovals worn into them, testifying to the extreme age of this tower, possibly one of the oldest human structures on the world.

  Her heart quickened its beat.

  They paused on a landing and he touched a door whose wards and bindings she had sensed from the road outside the city. Powerful and ancient wards.

  The door swung open, revealing the tall shelves, arranged like spokes, of a very old archive filled with treasures, precious beyond price: scrolls and handmade books that had to range over the centuries since humans had begun keeping records.

  “You may stay here,” he said, and she turned to him, eyes burning with the prickle of tears.

  He saw her emotion without comprehending it. “You will be safe from any magic treachery they might try,” he said, struggling past the press of worries, the proximity of battle, attempting to be kind. “I promise there will be food and drink brought. It’s interesting,” he added, looking around with open longing, one of his rare unguarded expressions. His gaze lingered on the case of ribbon-tied old scrolls. “I have spent time here myself. Not as much as I should wish.”

  So he would not misunderstand, she said, “I would willingly stay here a year, if permitted. I shall begin reading at once.”

  His smile was quick, inadvertent, the first genuine sign of pleasure she had seen since that dinner long ago in the royal city. He lingered in the doorway, obviously reluctant to leave, but when his slow gaze met hers his expression shuttered. He stiffened subtly as he took on again the weight of that invisible crown and withdrew.

  He could so easily have consigned her to a stone cell. It didn’t matter that she could escape from one as easily as the other, what mattered is that he’d given a thought to her comfort.

  And so she would not burden him with the facts that this place was so protected by powerful, ancient magic that she could not be detected by any mage—including Dag Erkric.

  For the first time since she had been captured, she sent a magical summons to her Dag Chief, Valda, whose milkweed she had seen thrice outside on the road.

  At Castle Andahi close to thirty dags were finally brought in, one to each massive gate hinge, others responsible for the heating and reshaping, thus loosening, the enormous nails in the outer curtain gates.

  The Venn waited in patient ranks just out of arrow range, so the defenders, glimpsed on their arrival, had withdrawn. Talkar did not assume that the empty sentry walls meant an easy surrender.

  Dag Erkric would have sent a hundred dags, had they been needed. The dags had been working hard, and so, just before dawn the next day, the great gates rumbled and cracked. With the aid of chain-reinforced cable pulleys supervised by Durasnir’s own flagship Drenga captain, several teams of big warhorses pulled the gates enough off balance to fall to the ground with a thump felt at the distant camp.

  The advance force—wearing armor, warhorses also armored, winged helms on the captains, great tree banners in the lead—trotted at a deliberate pace through the cloud of hanging dust in the motionless air. They halted at the castle’s first inner gate, finding it closed and locked.

  This time someone appeared on the battlements.

  Arrows nocked and raised rattled behind Talkar, ninety-nine men across in the front line. Behind them a Battle Group of mounted heavy cavalry, drilled for two years, rode up in line, lances upright but ready to be lowered at command. Behind and to either side of the mounted warriors bowmen took their places, and finally rank on rank of marching warriors formed up in rapid order, disembarked on the tidal flow the night before.

  To Talkar’s extreme left the dags waited in an untidy group, a faint morning breeze just beginning to rise, worrying at long hair and bright blue robes.

  He raised his hand, and the longbows creaked as arms drew back, arrows steady.

  The person atop the gate could be just barely made out against the rising summer sun: a woman, gray-haired, her own bow drawn and arrow nocked.

  Talkar called up in heavily accented Marlovan (having asked one of the mages for the words so he could practice them), “Open the gates, or we shall bring them down. And then my orders are to put everyone to the sword, regardless of age, sex, or degree. But if you permit us entry, and passage to the road beyond, I promise your lives will be spared.”

  The woman stared down, her face too shadowed to see, the sunlight crowning her grizzled hair with silver. But her answer was unequivocal. She held up her hand, and from the front tower two young girls appeared, pulling up the crimson-and-gold banner. They tossed it down to where the woman stood.

  Venn and Marlovan gazes followed that slow, undulating length of fabric until it draped over two older women, who held it outstretched.

  The gray-haired women took a knife and scored down the fabric, ripping it asunder. Destroying her own banner? Was that a surrender?

  The summer air was so quiet Talkar heard Ulaffa’s rusty whisper, “They will not dishonor their banner by leaving it to be taken.”

  And in a motion as swift as the any of Talkar’s front-line archers could have achieved the woman raised her bow and shot her arrow directly at Talkar.

  He had only to lift his shield with the helmed owl, and the arrow c
lattered harmlessly against the metal, and spun away into the dusty court.

  The woman was gone.

  “Mages,” Talkar lifted his voice. “Take down the inner gates.”

  Chapter Four

  LIET-JARLAN stood at the edge of the half-smothered truck garden. All of the castle women stood around her, each wearing her best robes, neat and clean. Honor required them to go into battle with dignity. But their knives were no longer hidden.

  As soon as the first boatloads of Venn had landed, every single man in the castle had ridden to the defense. These were not the still-missing Guard. They were led by an old dragoon whose great-grandchild was up in the robbers’ cave with the children. He was aided by the cook, the cooper, the old brewer, the woodworkers, two Marlovan merchants who’d come over the pass and lingered, wanting to spare their horses the hot weather. A cluster of boys considered too young for patrol, who had stable duty until they gained some seasoning.

  They had barely lasted a watch. Liet had forced herself to witness it from the tower. It was what she owed them.

  “What we are doing,” she said, looking at each face, “is not defending. There must be a hundred ships out there. More. Crammed full of Venn.” She waved at the horizon, where the Venn ships had spread in a line outside the bay. She knew her people had been sneaking peeks through the spyglasses. That was all right. She had too, but they were not a nightmare, to fade away like smoke in the morning light.

  It hurt so much to look in the young, tense faces of the fifteen-year-old girls. But they had voted not to hide with the children. If the boys were here, they would be fighting, their leader had said.

  There was no answer to that. But the Jarlan’s heart ached unbearably. Her mouth dried. Now the men of the defense would have no witness, and there would be no witness here, either.

  “So keep that in mind as you take all the safeguards off the traps. Get the cauldrons on the boil. Pull those stones and flood the basement.” She groped in the direction of the emergency access to the tunnel. The main access had been thoroughly bricked up, hidden, and all the corridors leading to it sabotaged. When eventually they found the basement entrance, they would only be able to fit through two at a time.