King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  Lnand turned her thumb up: that made sense.

  “So let’s get into position—first rule—just like in practice.” Han tried to say it the way the arms mistress had. The way Gdir’s mother had. “And when I shoot, and you hear it, everybody shoot as fast as you can. Get square between your targets, lay out your arrows. Just like we were taught.” Han paused, and the two little girls turned up their thumbs. “Lnand, you and me do odds, me left of the line, you right. Freckles, you the left, and Dvar, you the right on evens. Chest, no fancy shots. Now.”

  Dvar let a single whimper escape, but when Freckles poked her, she stopped. “Just like practice,” Freckles whispered, and again, no more than a breath, “Just like practice.”

  The four girls blended with the dirt- and rock-tumbled slide as they wriggled across the landslide in a line roughly parallel to the spreading Idayagans. They positioned themselves between the enemy and the fallen children, their instinct to guard the latter.

  As Han had guessed, the Idayagans had not remembered where they’d left those squalling Marlovan brats. They crossed the landslide, well spread, but moving at the wrong angle. They might even have missed their victims, at least on a first sweep.

  Han’s sweaty hands were tightly gripped on her bow, her arrow nocked. She had fixed on a certain rock as the perfect range, and counted the outermost Idayagan’s steps as he moved toward it. He was scarcely visible as an individual, just a looming man-shape, eye sockets black. When he scuffed past her rock, she shot.

  Spang! The noise sounded as loud as the thunderclap days ago. She hesitated a moment, then nocked another arrow as he fell. Lnand’s shot hissed through the air a heartbeat later, and truer than Han’s. Thump. Square in the chest.

  “Augh!” the man howled.

  The rest of the Idayagans stilled into perfect targets, standing upright to look around for danger. Four bows twanged, the nine-year-olds at the same moment, and Lnand and Han with their second shots.

  Six down, though the girls did not know if they were dead or just wounded. Several Idayagans returned arrows, though they could not see their targets. When four more arrows zipped back at them from unseen shooters, each hitting at least a limb, the Idayagans began to scatter. The girls were good shots but had little power; the Idayagans were very soon out of range.

  And then the Venn horn blew. The girls and Idayagans alike jerked round. From the castle’s back gates rode a war party, a much bigger one this time. They galloped straight for the landslide.

  Han waited only long enough to see what angle they came at, then worked her dry mouth. She was terrified she wouldn’t be able to do the cricket chirp that the children used in games for Center on me!

  But it worked—it worked—the other girls, anxious for orders, began crawling toward Han the moment they heard the familiar tongue clicks. When the ground trembled under the horses’ hooves, Han gave the kek-kek hawk cry for lie doggo! Her voice was too high, she didn’t sound like a hawk at all, but the enemies were making too much noise to pay attention to a faint mewling bird cry. The Venn galloped past at extreme bow shot, chasing the Idayagans, who were scrambling away as fast as they could over the hump of the landslide in an effort to get out of sight. Two or three fell, and slid, causing more dirt and rocks to cascade; a couple of horses floundered in the fresh, unsteady dirt flow.

  Venn and Idayagans vanished over the landslide. There was nothing the girls could see, but they all lay flat to the dirt until a horn howled from up high and another horn answered from the castle. The faint tinkle of harness and armor echoed back from the castle’s inner walls as the Venn rode back down and into the castle.

  Han and the girls waited until the moon had passed the top of the sky and was beginning its slide down the other way before Han gave a single cricket chirp. Then she counted to fifty, and gave another, and the girls homed on her. They arrived swiftly, Lnand pressing so close her breath was hot on Han’s cheek.

  “I thought it all out,” Han said in as forceful a whisper as she could contrive. Now was not the time for Lnand to start pugging! “Those Venn will be back looking around as soon as sunup comes. Maybe the Idayagans, too, if any got away. So we have to go to Gdir and the others and Disappear them. We’ll sing them as soon as we get back to the cave. They won’t care, or if their spirits are still here, they’ll understand.”

  She was relieved when Lnand stayed silent.

  “Right now?” Freckles said.

  “I don’t want to see them dead.” Dvar’s whisper was softer than a sigh.

  Han’s whole body twitched, followed by a flare of anger, but she had just enough sense to recognize that she was mad because she didn’t want to, either.

  “We owe them. Gdir would have for us. You know that. And you’ve seen dead people before.”

  “Not our age,” Lnand said somberly.

  “So we’re going to sing extra. But let’s go. You each pick one, and straighten them out proper. Just like the Jarlan does. Then we’ll all Disappear them at the same time.”

  Nobody had anything to say, so they elbow-wriggled back down the slope to where the children’s bodies still lay.

  Han wished one would still be alive. The Disappearance spell wouldn’t work if one was alive.

  Lnand avoided Gdir and went to little Tlennen, so Han crawled to Gdir, whose fingers curled around the arrow. The children’s limbs were cold, loose, unexpectedly heavy, life-abandoned; Lnand and Freckles were too shocked yet for anguish, but that would come later. Dvar wept silently, not just over the cold, open-mouthed face lying at her knees, but because she knew that the same had happened inside the castle. Everyone was dead.

  Han had hesitated. The grown-ups always pulled arrows out, but she didn’t think she could, and anyway, she had to stay dog-flat, or as low as she could crouch. Pulling an arrow out was a standing up job.

  So she unstrapped Gdir’s knives and gently laid them aside. She took Gdir’s cold hands and put right hand over the heart, like a salute, and left hand crossed over that. The arrow stuck up nastily in the middle of her chest, but Han tried not to look at it.

  She straightened Gdir’s legs, then moved up to her face. Her eyelids were a little open, the sinking moon causing a faint, gelid gleam. Somehow that was worse than anything, even that arrow, because it reminded Han of Gdir staring at the cave ceiling just a little while ago. Alive.

  Han pressed dirty, shaking fingers over Gdir’s eyelids. And then, she did not know why, she pulled Gdir’s filthy hair out from under her head, and parted it with hurried motions, and then braided it as neatly as she could. Finally, because her own mother had always kissed Han before bedtime, and Gdir’s mother wasn’t here to kiss her own daughter, Han pressed her lips to Gdir’s cold forehead.

  Her mouth shook—she could feel a big cry coming, but she couldn’t, she had to keep the others alive, that was orders. She stretched out her hand the way the Jarl and Jarlan had when they Disappeared someone, palm up as though holding a torch. The magical words whispered in her mind, and she said them.

  Gdir vanished in a soft puff of air.

  Han looked up. The other girls had been watching. They performed their spells. The three little bodies vanished. The killing arrow tumbled onto the dirt. Even the blood was gone. Han looked closely, then scowled. “These are our arrows. They stole them.” She closed her hand on the one that had killed Gdir. “They’re ours now. I’m going to use these to shoot them back.”

  The girls gathered up the arrows, the two bows, and Gdir’s knives. They crawled down the landslide, and sneaked back to the cave.

  Chapter Twelve

  JUST after midnight, after a long day of planning sessions with everybody, Inda ran downstairs with Barend and Rat, who talked across him as they divided up the castle guard and the remainder of the force they’d brought.

  When they paused for breath, he said, “Barend, I want your best wing of bowmen.”

  Barend stopped on the landing, his usually squinty eyes wide in the torchlight. �
��Inda, we’ve already stripped the castle of everything but the clothes we’re standing in.”

  Inda lifted a hand. “I know. But if Ola-Vayir does get here, it’s your bare asses that’ll get drawers first.”

  Rat snickered.

  Barend knew Inda better. He sent a “shut up” look at his cousin and crossed his arms. “What do you intend to do with them?”

  Inda said, “If Venn are landing here, what does that mean?”

  Rat turned a puzzled look from one to the other, then to the arrow slit, through which they could see a slice of mountain.

  It hit the cousins at the same time: the unlit beacons.

  Barend’s mouth thinned. “Shit. You think they’re already in Castle Andahi.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the pass.

  “Yep. Why else would these ones on the ocean choose now to land? The signal just has to have been the northern force either attacking or getting past the Arveases. Let’s figure on the worst.”

  Rat slanted up a brow. “So what can you do with eighty-one archers? Not thinking of trying on your Runner’s idiot plan, one against ten thousand?”

  “I’m going to take them to the heights.”

  Barend flexed his hands, then dropped them. “Damn. I just don’t see—” He shook his head. “Damn. All right, Inda, I’ll pick ’em out and leave ’em here for your orders. And as many arrows as I can squeeze from everyone else.” He shoved past, talking to his cousin. “Come on, Rattooth. Let’s roust our boys . . .”

  They splashed across the courtyard in the direction of the barracks as rain hissed down, Rat sharing an idea about fire arrows, only would they work in rain? Barend would tell him about the fire arrows they’d used in their pirate fighting days, Inda thought as he vaulted back up the stairs three at a time.

  He found Evred alone in the map room, surrounded by lanterns as he gazed down at the map. Evred’s fingers traced up the pass, tapped lightly on the heights next to the lake. Then tapped rapidly thrice in succession: north of Lindeth, Lindeth itself, south of Lindeth.

  He glanced up, a sharp movement. “Inda. Are you aware that you’ve got our army split five ways, and we cannot count on Ola-Vayir’s reinforcement? Six, if you keep any here.”

  “Five. We’re leaving the city to the Randviar and the women. They’ll be better at getting civ cooperation than we would be. Especially if they make it clear the Venn are going to take the city else.” He hesitated, fidgeting with his knife hilts. “No. Six, actually. What we were talking about before. If you give me leave to take a wing of archers through the archive magic door to the heights opposite Cama.”

  For a long time Evred stood with one hand resting on the map, as all around the tower rain sheeted down with a roar.

  Here it was, no respite this time.

  He said to the map, “This was not part of your original plan. Why do you think it necessary?”

  “My plan depended on us getting to the top of the Pass before we faced the Venn. I think they’ve already landed. They might be marching up the Pass right now, and their numbers have to be far larger than ours. If we can reinforce Noddy from one side and Cherry-Stripe from the other, maybe from three directions we can hold the Venn at the top long enough for Ola-Vayir to back us up.”

  “If Ola-Vayir doesn’t come, we’re defending the north with a tenth of what they have. If that much.” Evred breathed the words. He shut his eyes. “They all look at me. Expecting the problems I inherited to end. If I cannot—” He stopped, though his jaw ached. It sounded like whining to say, People blame the king for failure, and so does history. “How do you do it?”

  Inda flinched inwardly at the pain shaping Evred’s whisper. He said to the map, “I just don’t stop. I won’t be a prisoner again. I’m going to keep running if I have to. Until I die. Everything’s easier that way.”

  “Run until we die. It does sound simpler, doesn’t it? Makes death sound like rest.” Evred made a great effort, and Inda sensed that too, in his forced laugh, the sharp twist of his head. “So where is their Commander Talkar? Sitting out in the ocean here, waiting to land?”

  “Where he’s at the mercy of the Oneli, and can’t see anything? Naw.” Inda was definite about that. “He’s in the pass. So that’s where I have to be,” he added.

  Evred straightened up. “Then the top of the pass is where I should be as well. We will go together,” he said.

  Inda heard the flat affect of his voice. Evred had not used old kingly so-shall-it-be verb mode, but it was there in his tone.

  Inda brushed his hand against his chest, then ran out, clutching his head as he clattered downstairs. It seemed like his brains were leaking out his ears, leaving behind a hammer that kept whanging him somewhere around his eyes. It had been the same before the battle against the Brotherhood of Blood. Run or die.

  So he ran, formulating his orders on his way to the barracks, where he found Barend’s archers awaiting him, all dressed despite the midnight watch being well advanced.

  “All right,” he greeted them as he dropped down onto someone’s bunk, hands on his knees. “We’re going to need nine canoes. Anyone know where to get some? Good. You’re in charge. Now. You have two days to get ’em and ready your gear, including as many arrows as you can get. First in, five pairs of socks, because where we’re going, there won’t be horses. Ever smelled your own feet after an all-day hike?” He paused for the laughter, fought off memory of running about war-gaming on the hills behind Freeport Harbor, and issued the rest of his orders.

  In the robbers’ cave above the northernmost end of the Andahi Pass, Han looked around at the other children. Babies! How was she supposed to run with babies?

  She and Lnand had been arguing ever since they crossed the ridge. “We have to hide,” Lnand insisted. “We’re good at hiding.”

  “We can’t hide if they have scout dogs.”

  “They don’t. My father says they’re too stupid to know anything about anything important. Or they wouldn’t have given up when the old Harskialdna just rode up the pass.”

  “They might have them now. Look, Lnand, I don’t think the Venn got all those Idayagans. I think some got away. And if they did, that means they’re blabbing to everybody about us. And that means they’re going to come searching in order to slaughter us.”

  “Why would they do that?” Freckles asked, her fists pressed together under her chin.

  “Why did they shoot Gdir, and then come back? We’re the enemy,” Han snapped, goaded into sarcasm because once again, she wanted to howl.

  She looked at the babies. The urge to cry changed to anger. That was good. That meant she could think. “We’re not going to let them get us. That means we have to go, and that means we have to tell the smalls something so they won’t get scared.”

  “What could that be?” Lnand demanded.

  Han knew Lnand was scared, she’d seen it on the mountain. What’s more, Lnand hadn’t wanted to be leader. She just wanted to be called leader.

  It felt like a window opening. Han drew a deep breath. “We’re making up a story,” she said to Lnand. “And you have to be the leader in that part. I can’t make up stories like you do. The smalls have to think it’s a game. And they’ll get a big reward.”

  “What reward?” Freckles asked doubtfully.

  Dvar hadn’t spoken since they’d Disappeared the four fallen children. Her eyes were huge, her face streaky with mud and tears.

  Well, all their faces were streaky.

  Han groaned. “I don’t know! But if we’re going to wait for the king, like Ndand told us, then he can give them a reward. That’s what kings do!”

  That made sense to everyone. They roused the smalls, who were sleep-soggy and fretful. At the prospect of a game, and a reward, they soon were as bouncy and cheerful as ever. Lnand went around and in a bright voice renamed them after various animals. They wouldn’t run as smalls, they would be ponies, scout dogs, cats, hawks. That made the little ones bounce with joy, as Haldred, Han, and Freckles fa
ced the stores.

  “How can we carry all that?” Freckles said it aloud after a protracted silence.

  Ndand had brought the food on the horse to add to the bags of dried beans and rice they usually kept here for overnights. There was the huge, heavy basket of cabbages and carrots, untouched since the time they’d abandoned the Fire Sticks and Lnand couldn’t cook food.

  “We can’t take anything we can’t carry,” Lnand said over her shoulder, in a sugary voice so the smalls would think it part of the game.

  “And we have to carry theirs,” Freckles said, pointing to the little ones.

  “Five and up, you all carry your clothes pack, and we’ll put food in each,” Han declared, aware of the passage of time. She wanted to be well away by sunup. “You eights? The more you carry, the bigger your reward from the king.”

  That caused a mad scramble. By the time the older children had rolled up the bedrolls, all the eight-year-olds had overstuffed their packs with food supplies.

  Han, Lnand, and Hal divided up as much of the rest of the food as they could carry. Freckles and Dvar loaded themselves with four bedrolls, or they tried. Dvar’s knees buckled when she tried to stand up, and she knelt there on the stone, tears spilling down her cheeks and her skinny chest heaving on silent sobs.

  Han yanked the top three rolls off her pack sticks. “We’re going to share these,” she said.

  “Warmer that way,” Lnand added. “Aren’t we going up higher? We can’t go into the pass.” On the word can’t some of her drama came back.

  “No pass,” Han said shortly, and, seeing them more or less ready, “Let’s go.”

  “Leaving this stuff?”

  “Aren’t we going to sing?”

  “What if they find it?”

  “We’re leaving the stuff we can’t carry. It’s not like a blind goat wouldn’t know we were here, with all the footprints around, and the smell of pee from you-know-who.”