Limits of Power

by Elizabeth Moon

  “It’s now, then,” Cadlin said. Not a question.

  “Yes,” Stammel said. He felt his way past the shaving horse almost as quickly as if he could see and reached up to take the crossbow off its peg. He reached again for the sack of bolts and met the sack coming down in Cadlin’s hand.

  “You should come with us,” Cadlin said, his warm, callused hand on Stammel’s shoulder. “You are a better leader than anyone else.”

  “We have one bow,” Stammel said. “And one archer. And you are a better leader than you know. Tell them what they know to do, and keep them moving.”

  “There’s always a chance pirates won’t come this far,” Cadlin said.

  “If they don’t, I’ll climb up and tell you it’s safe,” Stammel said. They both knew better. Cadlin hesitated, his feet shuffling on the floor. “Go now,” Stammel said, putting all those years of command into his voice. “They need you.”

  “Gods keep you, Matthis,” Cadlin said, and was gone out the door. Stammel waited out of sight, listening to him organizing the villagers—it was taking too long, so much longer than a disciplined troop of soldiers … but the climb up from the sea grew steeper and should slow the enemy down. They would stop to eat and drink; they would stop to loot and rape.

  He stroked the crossbow, checked that he had a second string curled into the sack of bolts, counted the bolts—Cadlin had made him more than he remembered. And all the while the bustle and scurry and noise of the villagers gathering what they could carry, dropping things, children beginning to cry, women scolding, men barking gruff orders, the baaing of goats and sheep, the grunting of pigs … anyone would know there was a roused village up ahead.

  When they were gone—not quite out of hearing on their way up to the caves—he hung the sack of bolts over his shoulder, took his own supplies—oil, water, bread, cheese—and walked out into the village street, in and out of houses, to be sure no child was hiding under a bed, no one forgotten. The wind brought a stronger smell of smoke but as yet no sound.

  He had chosen his place the summer before, with the help of several small boys who thought it was a great game to play at being soldiers and to keep that a secret from their mothers. An outcrop of rock at the end of a ridge, separated from it by a rift the boys spanned with a plank. The track up the mountain turned here, to go around the outcrop. If his sight had been clear, he would have been able to see anyone coming up the track, and then look down on them as they turned, and turned again the other way, to continue up to the village.

  He hoped—he had to trust—that he was still the Blind Archer. All he could see was a blur, lighter by day and dark by night. The invaders would not be fire-shapes like the dragonspawn. But the gods would not have set him here unless he had a purpose. That he was sure of, though he was not sure who stood before him until that person moved or spoke, and he could not name the gods he believed gave him purpose.

  He felt his way across the plank and pulled it free, hauling it up onto the top of the outcrop with difficulty. Then he sat down on the rock he had chosen and ate a little bread, drank a little water. He felt lighter, the old battle excitement rising again. That surprised him; he had not expected to feel it. The sun warmed his face; he smelled, under the smoke, the rock and the aromatic bushes that grew near it. He touched the foxhead ring on its thong around his neck, thought of putting it on his finger … thought of throwing it away, so those who found his body would not know who he was, or take it to use. Finally, he left it on the thong. He was, at the end, a soldier, and he did not really care who knew it.

  Before he heard anything with his ears, the stone beneath him shuddered once. Earthquake? But before he had taken five breaths, he heard voices from below carried on the wind, men’s voices complaining, and took the stone’s movement as a warning.

  The notches he’d chiseled in the stone reminded him where to stand, how far he could move without being seen. This outcrop gave him three places from which to shoot, and he could move between them without being seen—at least until they outflanked him and came from behind. That would happen, he was sure. But if he made it sufficiently costly, they would be slow to expose themselves. And they did not know the details of the land. When they’d come before, they’d simply come up the trail the village folk used to trade with the fisherfolk below.

  He spanned the crossbow and set the first bolt ready, then moved his head a little … could he see anything? Unbidden, for he had not prayed for sight for a long time now, he found himself naming the gods and asking their mercy for the people of the village. The High Lord, Tir, Alyanya of the Flowers, Gird and Falk and Camwyn and Esea Sunlord and Barrandowea Sealord, as the locals had taught him.

  The gray blur he had known so long shattered into bright shards of color and movement—nothing like the sight he remembered. It sickened him for a moment—too bright, too confusing, but there—there was movement flicking from one place to another. Stammel blinked, struggling to make sense of what he saw. There, armed men—not there now—over there—not there but another place … He blinked again and again and finally understood that what he had was vision as different from what he had known before as the ability to see the fire inside the dragon. Whatever moved flicked in and out of sight, moving from one window, as he thought of it, to another.

  And he could use it.

  The men toiled up the steep trail toward the outcrop, where it turned. Most wore leather jerkins over their shirts, short dark leather trousers, and low boots. Long hair, braided behind with colored yarn or ribbons. Stammel remembered Alured the Black, green ribbons and other gewgaws in his braid. He thought one or two might be wearing a breastplate or a mail shirt. They had curved blades thrust through belts, a long dagger in one hand and a short pike in the other. With them were two slaves, roped together and carrying coils of rope and bundles of what looked like sails. Something to put plunder in, Stammel thought.

  All but the slaves wore some head covering, but only three had a metal helmet. The others wore cloth wrapped around the head or a leather coif. Good protection against thrown stones or the light arrows they’d expect from hill peasants with no training. A crossbow bolt might penetrate even the metal, depending on its quality, and would certainly pierce a leather coif. The cloth—if thick enough—might withstand a bolt, but it would surely hurt.

  Stammel could not be sure how many there were; his fractured sight and the scrub and twisting path made that impossible. He picked up the cow’s horn and blew it. The man in front stopped and looked around, but he was not quite close enough yet. Crouching low, Stammel moved to the far end of the outcrop and blew the horn downward into the ravine, where he knew from practice the sound would echo as if coming from there. Three short blasts, as if in answer to that first long one. He picked up one of the round stones piled nearby and threw it as far away from the trail as he could. It hit and rattled down onto others.

  Then he moved back to his first position. Some of the men had taken cover behind rocks that would screen them from the ravine’s mouth but not from above. All those he could see, in the flashes of sight, were looking toward the ravine. If he climbed a little way down to his right—not as protected a position—he could take one of them at an angle that would make experienced fighters move to his left. He remembered his play with the village children. He could be seen from those positions if he didn’t duck fast enough, and returning to the higher ground would be tricky. But worth it.

  He eased over the edge of the outcrop, dropped into a hollow, and then clambered up the next boulder, all with his eyes shut to block out the unnerving jerky flashes of sight. Then he looked. Sure enough: five men visible, all facing away to their right. He placed a bolt and aimed carefully, all the while wondering if this was what the gods meant in giving him sight. Should he have claimed the Blind Archer’s name? He touched the trigger, and the bolt flew true, striking the man he’d chosen in the side, piercing his leather jerkin. One of the others stood up, looking at the tumble of boulders lower down, and
Stammel took a second shot, this time hitting the man square in the chest. Then he flattened himself on the rock behind the thin screen of bushes.

  Yells from below. Stammel slid backward down the boulder he was on, back into the hollow, and decided to take the more difficult climb up into the cleft behind his main position. He made it safely back to the top and peered out carefully. For a moment the shards of vision jerked around, but then steadied. A man in a metal helmet with the edge of a metal breastplate peeking from under a surcoat with some kind of fancy design on it was pointing out where Stammel had been … or close enough. He had no good shot at this obvious leader. Stammel moved to the ravine end and looked again. Now three men were exposed, moving cautiously toward the boulders below what had been his hiding place. He could not see the leader at all. He chose his target and whispered “I am the Blind Archer” as he touched the trigger.

  That bolt too flew true and struck the man in the ribs; the man screamed. The others whirled around, staring back the way the bolt must have come. Stammel picked up the horn again and blew an obvious signal: two and two.

  That brought the man with the helmet and breastplate into view again. Stammel guessed that he thought his protection sufficient, for he stood spraddle-legged on the trail below, yelling orders to his men in some foreign tongue. Stammel’s erratic vision cleared abruptly, as if he were falling toward the man; he could see every detail of the man’s face, his clothing, his hands, thumbs hooked in his belt … and the edge of his breastplate showing just above the belt—a half-plate, they called it in the armorers’ shops. It protected only to the waist or a little above and never included a back plate. Cavalry wore it sometimes, as full frontal protection made riding harder.

  “Thank you,” Stammel murmured to whatever gods were listening. Some surely were, to help him this way. He wondered which … but it did not matter, if he kept the villagers safe. He aimed carefully … and the bolt flew home into the man’s gut. Stammel winced as the man cried out and folded around the wound. He knew what damage it would do; he had seen it often enough.

  Shouts from below. Stammel belly-crawled to the middle shooting spot. Another troop coming up from below, and this time four of them had crossbows. He took a long shot at the man in front; the bolt hit a metal breastplate and did not penetrate. Two of the men with crossbows raised them and shot at him, but their bolts shattered on the rock. Back to the first spot. Someone was standing up, calling to the oncoming troop. Stammel shot him in the side.

  It occurred to him that if he had had one more trained crossbowman, the two of them could have held off the intruders for the rest of the day. Well … he had known from the beginning that he was not to train any of the villagers. The gods had given him a chance to be a soldier once more, to protect people he had come to respect and even love, and that was all the grace he needed. He sat with his back against the protecting rock and drank some water, ate a little bread and cheese. No use feeding a dead man, he told himself. Then he eyed the rest of the bread and cheese. No use feeding the enemy, either. He ate as much as he wanted, crawled to the edge of the cleft, and relieved himself.

  A hard noise from behind made him turn around in time to see two more bolts drop from the sky and shatter on the rock. A volley of four, by the four broken bolts. He flung himself back to his own bow, grabbed his sack of bolts, the water bottle, and the last hunk of bread, and slid back to the cleft just as another four bolts hit the rock a man’s length from the first. They weren’t stupid: they were working along the line from which he’d shot, and they were expert enough to land the shots behind the jagged rocks that topped the outcrop.

  He heard voices but could not distinguish the words; he hadn’t understood the language he’d heard before, either. There were two places in the cleft where a dropping volley could not harm him, but both could be found by men entering the cleft at one end or the other—and he’d be cornered in that event. Yet he could not think of any alternative. He had no armor; a dropping bolt would likely be fatal. Well, he expected to die … but he’d rather kill the enemy. And they could not have an infinite number of bolts.

  The plank he and the boys had placed across the cleft, that he’d pulled over when he came, was still on his side of the cleft. It had a crossbow bolt in it. Stammel felt its underside. The bolt had not penetrated the thick wood, and the plank could cover most of his body … but would it be better to let them think they’d killed the shooter?

  He wasn’t sure. He peeked out the narrowest of the gaps. Men were coming out of the boulders … gathering on the trail. The wounded had been dragged into a row and killed. The bloody gashes of their throats gaped. The commander—the man in the metal breastplate that went all the way to the groin—seemed to be arguing with another man wearing a metal helmet. Their arms made expansive gestures. Stammel assumed it was an argument of “go on” versus “give up, cut our losses.”

  Maybe they would give up. Maybe this time they would give up, and by the time they came again, he would have a better plan. It was at that moment he heard a noise behind him and rolled over. Someone was in the cleft, climbing. They were checking to be sure he was dead.

  Stammel spanned his crossbow and slithered over to the cleft as silently as he could, staying back from the edge enough that he would not be seen from below until the climber’s head topped the rock. One climber or two? And what weapons did they have? Had they climbed with those swords or the short pikes? The crossbow was certainly not the ideal close-quarters weapon, and he had only a dagger in addition.

  What he could hear most was heavy breathing and the bump of body parts on the rock. Two climbers … three or four man-lengths apart. They could alternate looks at the top of the rock for any hint of where a live enemy might be. They were far enough apart that a single defender could not attack them both; it would take too long to span a crossbow and reload. Stammel shrugged. It would have been nice to have a stupid enemy for once.

  The only good thing was that they were grunting and panting as they climbed. One seemed to be faster than the other; Stammel hoped their own noise would cover the slight sound he made moving toward the sound of the faster climber. He dared not look over … but when the top of the man’s head showed at the edge, he thanked the gods that the man wore only a leather coif. He rolled, the full strike of his arm bringing his dagger down on the top of the man’s skull. He felt it penetrate leather and bone; the man grunted, lost his grip, and fell, the dagger stuck in his skull.

  Stammel grabbed the crossbow, ready for a shot, and rolled to the edge of the cleft; he could see two more men, not just one, and the one standing in the bottom of the cleft had a crossbow. Stammel leaned out a little and shot the higher one just under the arm; that one too lost his grip and fell. The third had his bow spanned and ready. Even as Stammel rolled away from the edge, the bolt struck his left shoulder from behind, spearing through his shoulder blade. The man below yelled. Others answered.

  Stammel struggled back to the shelter of the taller rock and tried to span the bow one-handed. He could not reach the bolt in his shoulder to pull it free. He knew the bolt had hit his lung; he could feel himself weakening and fought the urge to cough. But it was not in him to give up. Every moment he delayed the attackers was a moment more for his people to get clean away.

  The first man over the lip of the cleft got a crossbow bolt in the chest … and the next man, red-faced in a rage, ran toward him, his short pike aimed at Stammel’s chest. It was the end. Stammel grinned at the man, as he had always grinned at the enemy, as the point went home. Thank you, he thought through that last pain.

  The man who killed the old fellow on the ledge wrestled his pike free of the body, then tossed the man’s crossbow down to his fellows below and searched the body. No money, of course. A ring on a thong around his neck—he yanked that off. “Hurry up, Tegar!” someone called up to him. The crew was moving; Tegar left the corpse for the carrion eaters and climbed back down as quickly as he could. One man, to kill so many—he must
have been a soldier once. Tegar looked at the ring he’d taken. A foxhead seal. Fox Company here? Or just one of their veterans? He shrugged and jogged up the trail to catch up with the others.

  With the rest he climbed the last stretch to the village, but had no breath to call out about his find. He took several steps more, coming close to the captain. Silence. No more horn calls; no more bolts from the rocks. No doubt the villagers had fled, but they would have left behind what villagers always left behind.

  In the crooked lane between two crooked rows of houses a man stood, dark in the brilliant sunshine glaring off pale rock walls. The air shimmered with noonday heat. “I found a ring,” Tegar said, when he could speak. “It has a fox—”

  “Shut up,” the captain said. He was staring straight at the man in the lane, and Tegar could read the tension in the captain’s shoulders. “Who are you?” the captain said to the dark figure in the lane. “Are you the headman? Tell us where the gold is and I might let you live.”

  “You killed him,” the figure said. Heat waves rose off the stone; an incongruous smell of hot iron, like a forge, stung Tegar’s nose.

  “If you mean that crazy old fool with the crossbow, certainly,” the captain said. “I don’t know what he thought he was doing…”

  “What he always did,” the figure said. “His duty. Tell me: are you wise?”

  The captain gave a harsh bark of laughter; Tegar felt a sudden cramp, a twisting in his mind as painful as a twisted knee. Don’t laugh, he wanted to say, but he could say nothing. “Wise?” the captain said. “That’s for fools to think on; I don’t need wisdom. I have swords at my command—”

  Flame blossomed in front of them: impossible flame, a spear of flame brighter than the sun, and it pierced the captain and all directly behind him. Only the fourth man had time to scream, and only briefly. Through the flame, Tegar saw the dark figure of a man change to another, much larger shape shimmering with heat, and could not move. Such things came in tales—they did not exist—could not. As one after another of the crew, touched by flame, became fire as well, Tegar stood as if his feet had grown into the rock.