“How well do these work?”
“So far, every time.” Nylan gave a sardonic smile. “That means something will go wrong when it counts. Even if one or two don’t work, it’s going to slow them down a lot and allow you to pump a lot more shafts into them.”
Fierral nodded. “I can see that. I hope that we can get maximum impact from everything.”
“When will they get here?” asked Saryn.
“Sometime in the next three to five days, I’d guess,” answered Ryba. “Unlike the bandits, or Gerlich, this won’t be a sneak attack. They’ll attempt to move in mass and not get picked off piece by piece.”
“Why?” questioned Saryn.
“Because they don’t have high-tech communications. Everything’s line of sight or sound.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Nylan.
“That’s simple,” snapped Fierral. “Shoot a lot of arrows from cover as they advance. That’s so they stay bunched up and use those little shields. Then we’ll form up out of their bow range and try to delay them so the entire attacking force is concentrated on the tower side of the ridge. After that, we hope you and the laser, and anything else you can come up with, can incinerate most of them. Otherwise, we’re dead, and so is Westwind.”
“I think Fierral has stated our basic strategy clearly,” said Ryba. “Is there anything else?”
After a long silence, she stood.
Ayrlyn looked at Nylan, giving him the faintest of headshakes. He offered a small nod in return.
As the silence continued, punctuated by the crickets, the others rose, Nylan the last of all as he eased off the bench slowly, trying not to wake Dyliess.
Nylan and Ryba walked up to the top level of the tower without speaking. Ryba closed the door, and Nylan eased Dyliess out of the carrypack and into the cradle.
Later, in the darkness, as he rocked the cradle gently, Nylan asked, “Even if we win-”
“We will win,” Ryba snapped, “if we just do what we can.”
“Fine. Then what? The laser’s gone. Probably half the guards or more will be gone. What happens with the next attack?”
“There won’t be one.”
“Why do you say that? We’ve been attacked for almost two solid years. What would change that?” He tried to keep the cradle rocking evenly. “You’re the one who tells me that force wins, and that people keep trying.”
Ryba shrugged. “After the destruction of the combined army of three local nations, who could afford to even suggest another attack immediately? And if he did, how could he be sure that his enemies wouldn’t find his undefended lands easier pickings?”
“Sooner or later, someone will try.”
“Three years from now, Westwind will have a considerable army of its own, with alliances and a treasury.”
Nylan shook his head, glad Ryba did not have his night vision.
“Don’t doubt me on this, Nylan. I’m not saying it won’t be costly, or that it will be easy. I am saying that we can win. And that it will be worth it, because no one in our lifetime will try again-if we do it right.”
Dyliess snuffled, then settled into a deeper sleep, and Nylan slowly eased the cradle to a stop. Before long, it seemed, she’d be too big for the cradle. He wondered if he’d see that day. Ryba had said Westwind would prevail. That didn’t mean he would, and he wasn’t about to ask-not now. He wondered if he really wanted to know-or feared the answer.
He eased into his separate couch, looking past Ryba’s open eyes to the cold stars above the western peaks.
CXXIII
NYLAN RAISED THE hammer and let it fall, cutting yet another arrowhead, knowing that it might not matter, but not knowing what else he could do while they waited for the ponderous advance of the Lornian forces. Not that one more arrowhead probably ever made a difference in a big battle, except to the man it killed.
He lifted the hammer, and let it fall, lifted, and let fall, and as he did, from the smithy, he could see the constant flow of messengers and scouts, tracking the oncoming force and reporting to Ryba and Fierral or Saryn.
As he set the iron into the forge to reheat, the triangle rang, twice, then twice again.
“That’s it, ser,” announced Huldran. “Time to make ready.”
“Ready for what?” Nylan hadn’t paid that much attention to the signal codes. Two and two, he thought, meant the arrival of Sillek’s force in the general area.
“The scouts and the pick-off efforts.” Huldran set down the hammer and the hot set she had been working with and racked both. Nylan followed her example with his tools. It wouldn’t hurt to check on his pike arrays and make sure all the laser components were ready to set up.
After banking the fire, as he left the smithy, he glanced at the afternoon sky, with the scattered thunderclouds of late summer rising over the peaks. Surely, the Lornians wouldn’t attack late in the afternoon?
He headed down to the tower. When he started across the causeway, he looked up to see Ayrlyn waiting by the door.
“The end of the golden age,” she said ironically.
“What?” Her words halted him in his steps. “What do you mean by that?”
Her brown eyes seemed to flash that dark blue shade, and then her lips quirked. “If the angels win, then women will throw off their shackles, and men will see the past as the golden age. If we lose, why then, we will have been that bright shining age forever aborted by the cruelty and stupidity of men.” Her tone turned from faintly ironic to bitterly sardonic. “I think that’s the party line.”
Nylan thought for a moment. “I suppose that is the official line. The problem is that it’s got a lot of truth within it, especially on this planet.”
Ayrlyn gestured to the causeway wall. “Why don’t you sit down? They really don’t have any use for a healer who loses her guts when they kill someone, or for an engineer who’d rather build than kill. Not today. Tomorrow they’ll need us both.”
Nylan hoisted himself up on the low wall. “I haven’t seen you this bitter, I don’t think ever.”
“I haven’t been.” She paused while she climbed onto the wall. “I’m tired, Nylan. I’m tired of having to heal people because no one can ever solve anything except with force. I’m tired of being thought of as some sort of weakling because killing men upsets me. Frig it! Killing anything upsets me. It’s just that a lot more men have been killed around here lately.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m tired of traveling and trading, and seeing women with terror in their eyes, seeing women barely more than girls pregnant and not much more than brood mares. Ryba may be right, that force applied in large enough quantities is the only solution, but I’m tired of it.”
“So am I,” Nylan said, almost without thinking. “And I’m tired because nothing is enough. More arrowheads, more blades, more violence. And what happens? We’ve got one of the biggest armies in this culture’s history marching after us. And if we do manage to destroy it? What then?”
“Why… everything will be roses and good crops and strong healthy baby girls, won’t it?” Ayrlyn sighed. “And warm fires, and good meals, and smithies and sawmills and… and… and…”
“Of course. Isn’t that the way the story’s supposed to end?”
Ayrlyn laughed, harshly. “Frig… frig, frig… the story never ends. People fight, and fight, and fight. If you win, you have to keep fighting so others won’t take it away. If you lose and survive, you have to fight to live and to regain what you lost. Why?”
“Because nothing is ever enough,” Nylan said harshly. “We talked about this before.”
“And nothing ever changes?”
“Not yet. Not that I’ve been able to figure out.”
“Nylan… ?”
“Yes.”
“If we get through this, can we try to change things… so it’s not just fight, fight, fight?”
He nodded.
“You promise?”
“Promise.”
For a ti
me, they sat there silently, hands clasped, watching the departures and the hurrying guards, until Kadran came out and rang the triangle to announce supper for those few left in Tower Black.
CXXIV
NYLAN LAY AWAKE on his couch, his ears and senses listening to the gentle sound of Dyliess’s breathing, his thoughts on scattered feelings and images-including an evening meal with only a handful of guards even there, most gone out into the twilight with full quivers; including the idea that the whole world was decided by violence and where no achievement or possession was ever enough.
His breath hissed out between clenched teeth.
“Are you awake?” Ryba asked quietly from across the gap between them.
“Yes. It’s a little hard to get to sleep, no matter how much you need the rest, thinking of two thousand men who want to kill you and destroy all you’ve built.” Nylan really didn’t want to discuss the problems of violence and greed with Ryba.
“They won’t do it. Not if we all do our parts.”
“You’ve said that before. I know in my head that you’re probably right, but my emotions don’t always follow reason. You seem to have more faith than I do that we can destroy a force close to fifty times our size.”
“Fierral thinks our archers have already taken out between a hundred and two hundred of their armsmen. She still has a few out there, the ones with night vision,” Ryba said. “Tomorrow, if we can take out another two hundred and get them in a murderous mood coming up the ridge, your little traps could add a hundred or two more. We might get them down to an even thousand before you have to use the laser.”
“And… poof… just like that, our troubles are over?”
“What’s gotten into you, Nylan? I know you don’t like all the killing, but, outside of dying or running like outlaws until we’re hunted down, what choices do we have?” She paused. “Oh, I forgot. We could spend the rest of our very short lives barefoot and pregnant and beaten, unless we were fortunate enough to subject ourselves to someone who’s as kind as you are, and I’ve met exactly one of you in a life a decade longer than yours.”
Nylan had no answer, not one that made sense. Logically, what Ryba said made sense, but he wanted to scream, to ask why logic dictated violence and killing, when the only answer was that only violence answered violence, and that some people refused to give up violence.
“Your problem is that you’re basically good and kind, and you really have trouble accepting that most people aren’t, that most people require force or discipline to live in any sort of order.”
“I see that part,” Nylan conceded. “What I don’t see is why people are like that. War leaves a few people better off, but most worse off. Sometimes, it’s even necessary to survive, but that means that the other side doesn’t.”
“Look at those Gallosian men who attacked earlier this summer.” Ryba’s voice was low and cool. “They couldn’t conceive of women like us. They wouldn’t face it. They would rather have died than faced the idea that women could be as tough and as smart-and they did. You have to face the facts, Nylan. Most people’s beliefs aren’t rational. They wouldn’t do what they do if they were. But they do, and that’s the proof.”
“I suppose so.” Nylan took another deep breath, trying to keep it low and quiet. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He just wanted to know why people were so blind. Sure-violence was always successful for the strongest, but only one person could ever be the strongest. So why did so many people delude themselves into thinking they were that person? “I suppose so… and I can see what you say. I don’t have to like it.”
“Neither do I.” Ryba yawned. “But I can’t change peo-ple.”
Nylan wondered if she really wanted to, but said nothing in the darkness. He turned to watch the cradle, hoping that Dyliess might understand, yet fearing that, if she did, she would not survive. He studied her profile in the silence until his eyes got heavy, until he dropped into an uneasy sleep, far too late, and far too close to an early dawn.
CXXV
THE TRIANGLE RANG in the darkness, and Nylan bolted upright.
Ryba moaned in her sleep, and Dyliess snuffled and shifted on the lumpy cradle mattress. Slowly, the smith-engineer swung his feet onto the floor. He sat on the edge of the bed for a time, until Dyliess began to whimper. Then he eased his daughter from the cradle, and half sat, half fell into the rocking chair, with her on his chest, where he began to rock and pat her back.
The triangle sounded again, once, and Ryba mumbled, “Not yet.”
Nylan agreed with the sentiment, but waited until Ryba shifted her weight again with another groan.
“The great day has arrived,” said Nylan. “I hope it’s great. Better yet, I hope they just take their army and turn around.”
“That won’t happen,” mumbled Ryba groggily as she turned in his direction. In the dark, she fumbled with the striker for a time before she could get the candle lit. “I still don’t understand how you can see in pitch-darkness. Demons, it’s early.”
Nylan patted Dyliess, but her whimpers rapidly progressed toward wails.
“She’s hungry,” he pointed out.
“I can hear that. Just let me get half-dressed.” Ryba pulled leather trousers off the pegs and stuffed her legs into them, then pulled on her boots, leaving the thin sleeping gown in place over trousers and boots as she walked toward Nylan and their daughter. “Would you take Dyliess’s cradle down to the main level while I feed her?” asked Ryba. “After you get dressed, I mean.”
“You can feed her now?”
“Who else?”
Nylan stood, then handed Dyliess to her mother. Even before Dyliess started to nurse, the wails stopped.
“Greedy little piglet.”
“She’s not so little anymore,” Nylan observed as he began to don his leathers.
“She’s still greedy.”
Like the whole world, thought Nylan, but maybe I can change her a little. After he dressed and strapped the pair of blades in place, he lifted the cradle, stepping carefully so that he didn’t trip on either cradle or blades. He snorted, thinking how pointless it would all be if he tumbled down four flights of stone steps before the battle.
“I’ll bring her down in a moment,” Ryba said. “Go ahead and eat.”
“Fine,” he grunted, struggling through the door with his burden.
After he slowly trudged down the steps and set the cradle next to the others carried down by either Siret or Istril or those who had helped them, Nylan paused. He saw a hand wiggling and walked over to look down at Weryl. Flat on his back, his son studied his own chubby hands, his short fingers intertwining, then separating, as if they were not really connected to his own body. Antyl-the new and very pregnant guard-stood watching.
Nylan bent down and touched Weryl’s arm lightly, trying to offer some cheer. After a bit, he straightened. In the next cradle lay Kyalynn, being rocked by Niera. His other daughter’s eyes were wide in the dimness, but she only looked, first at Niera, and then at Nylan.
Nylan walked around the cradle so that he could bend down without getting in Niera’s way, and he touched Kyalynn’s wrist. Her eyes turned to him, deep green and serious as he looked at her.
Finally, his eyes burning, he stood. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and started toward the great room. Though his guts were tight, he knew he had to eat, as much as he could stomach.
“I saw that, Nylan.”
He looked up as Istril stood there: Then he shrugged. “What can I say? I didn’t have a lot to do with their birth, but nothing can change that they’re my children.”
“You had a lot to do with their birth, just not their conception.” Istril swallowed. “I hope Weryl grows up like you.”
“I hope he grows up,” Nylan said bleakly.
“He will. I can see that.”
“You, too?” Nylan forced a chuckle.
“Me, too.” Istril paused. “You’re not riding with the guard?”
“No. I’m suppos
ed to stay with the laser, and try to hold off their wizards in some way that I haven’t really figured out. So I don’t have to worry, in the beginning, anyway, about arrows and blades.”
“That doesn’t reassure me, Nylan.”
“What you’re wearing doesn’t reassure me much, either.” Nylan looked at the silver-haired guard, in full battle dress with twin blades, and the bow and quiver in her hands. “What about… ?”
“Weryl? There are more than score eighty armsmen out there, and two of those small siege engines. Every person counts. Siret and I drew straws. I won, or lost, depending on how it goes. Yesterday, she went out with the sniping detail. You know they got almost two hundred of the Lornians, especially in the darkness?”
“What about their wizards?”
“They can’t see that well in the dark, and Saryn had the tactics laid out well. Only one shot from each position, then move. When you’ve got twenty kays of trail to leapfrog along and they don’t dare leave formation, it’s not that hard.”
“Of course,” Nylan said, “by this morning those fifteen hundred or so who are left are ready to kill us all, preferably by attaching sections of our anatomy to horses traveling at high rates of speed in different directions.”
“Probably. We just have to kill all of them. Then they won’t be a problem.”
Nylan looked at her. He thought he saw a faint hint of a smile. Then again, maybe he hadn’t. “That’s not a solution that works well over time.”
“No. It’d be a lot easier if most men were more like you, but they seem to be more like Gerlich.”
Nylan’s stomach growled, and his head felt faint.
“You need to eat, and so do I.”
Nylan nodded, and they walked toward the great room, where the tables were mostly filled. The candles helped dispel some of the predawn gloom, but not much, and they flickered with the breeze through the open windows.
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