I snatched a wooden shield from a pile of ancient weapons, our one surplus in this affair, to cover myself as I ran to the other wall. I shouted at Naiji to stay behind, but she didn’t, of course.
Another scaling ladder poked up far from me. The rocksmith saw it and put her hands against the castle wall. A moment later a helmeted head appeared at the top of the ladder, then disappeared with a scream as his ladder slid sideways. The rocksmith nodded to herself.
I picked a crenellation for my own and pretended for the next few minutes that this was only a carnival game. Step back against the wall, snatch an arrow from the quiver at my feet, fit it to the string. Step into the open, pick a target, fire. Step back behind the wall, snatch up the next arrow. It was a simple game, yet I found it harder each time to step out and shoot.
The pretense of a game ended when I stepped out and a bearded face peered at me, only a few feet away. We stared long enough for me to notice the flecks of grey in his eyebrows, the missing upper teeth in his open mouth. His eyes went wide, and his mouth opened even more, perhaps to plead with me. I wonder now what he could have said. He might have been there because soldiering was his only means of earning money to feed his family, or maybe he had been forced to join the army by Komaki’s warriors. And maybe he was one of those who think killing is a fine and noble occupation. I released my arrow. It took him through his open mouth, and he fell.
The tip of his ladder was barely visible. I poked it away with my bow, then resumed the game of shooting. When a horn sounded in the distance, the attackers retreated, firing at us as they backed away.
The pretty girl of Chifeo’s age was still shooting. “Stop,” I said. “They’re too far.”
She continued, desperately fitting arrows to her bow and straining to fire. Her fingers were bloody, cut by the string. I grabbed her shoulder. She suddenly collapsed against me, crying, “They got Ifkanian! They got Ifkanian!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, wondering if Ifkanian was the boy with the tic. I put my arm around the girl and felt entirely useless.
Feschian walked by, glancing our way without speaking. She wore a stained bandage on her left arm. She halted and nodded to me, then reached out to take the girl away, still saying nothing. I watched them go.
Komaki’s forces were regrouping on the plain below. Naiji touched my elbow and said, “It’s not over? For today, even?”
I shook my head. “This attack was only to test our strength. And to see if they could scare us. The next one will decide whether we’re in for a short war or a long one.”
* * *
17
CASTLE GROMANDIEL
I COUNTED BODIES, since that was an easy thing to do. There might have been fifteen on the southwest slope. That was worse than Komaki planned, I was sure. He never expected us to hinder his cannons. If he had succeeded in blasting open the gates for his cavalry while the foot soldiers stormed our walls, his war would already have ended.
Naiji had gone inside to help the healers. I would have preferred to sit in some secluded place with her, saying nothing, perhaps holding hands, perhaps hugging, perhaps stripping each other’s clothes off and... I went in search of Talivane. He was kneeling beside a boy of ten or eleven years. The boy’s chest was blood-soaked, and his face was pale. Talivane was telling the boy how brave he had been and how the healers would make him better as soon as they could. I might have had some sympathy for Talivane then, if I didn’t still believe this was all his fault for refusing to leave Castle Gromandiel. A guard picked up the boy in her arms and carried him away.
“You ready to repeat your lightning tricks?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Two cannons. Komaki’s sent men and horses to help haul them up the stream. They’ll be in place soon. Feschian may have mentioned them.”
“She did.”
“Once they’re set up, we’re finished.”
“I know. But I don’t know if I can—”
‘Try, Gromandiel.“
He nodded wearily. “I intend to.”
“Better do it soon.”
He nodded and beckoned to Feschian, who was directing the care of the wounded and the gathering of arrows. When Feschian came, Talivane said, “I’ll attempt the cannons.”
Feschian nodded. “I’ve been trying to think of another way, but—”
“Just do it,” I said.
Talivane smiled. “You are impetuous, little southerner.”
“What’s the delay?”
“We must have a stretcher brought up here.”
I looked around. Several people had been wounded so badly that they were being taken into the main keep, and I’d seen them carry away a middle-aged woman whose skull had been crushed by a musket ball. Everyone who remained was capable of standing or leaning against the wall.
“Why?” I said.
Talivane flicked his hand toward the cannons. “Because I must do something greater than I’ve ever done before. I’d prefer to be kept in relative comfort, if I lose consciousness.”
I grunted noncommittally and left him. At least two of his people would never know any more comfort at all.
I went to the wall and leaned against it, watching. The road was steep and had never been well maintained. Now that it was a streambed, it was almost impassable for carts. Komaki’s soldiers bunched behind the cannons to push and tied ropes to the front to pull. They sang their damned war song as they worked. I sat there thinking, I am going to die. And then I won’t ache so much.
The destruction of the cannons was a simple thing. While the stretcher-bearers stood near, Talivane took a position at the center of the parapet, directly over the gates. He raised both hands above his head, seeming to pray or possibly to rest while he focused his thoughts on his power, and then shouted something in a language I did not understand while he lowered his hands to aim them at the cannons. The lightning gushed from his fingertips like fireworks.
The warriors by the carts screamed and died. So did the oxen. So did several soldiers who were only standing in the water too close to the carts. Then one cart exploded, and then the other, and then Komaki’s followers—the ones who still lived—ran, screaming in fear, back toward their camps.
Most of the witches began to cheer. I turned and threw up. I straightened up after a moment, expecting Talivane’s sneer. Instead I saw that he had spoken the truth to me about this experiment. He lay as though dead on a stretcher borne by two guards, and they carried him away to the main keep. His hands were charred and bleeding.
Feschian noticed me and said, “You okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “I just wondered if breakfast would taste better the second time around.” I nodded at the bandage on her arm. “How’s that?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“We could write a pamphlet,” I said, “on how to talk like soldiers and fools.”
“Fine,” Feschian said. “I’ll write the part about soldiers.”
Komaki’s officers were having trouble forcing their fighters to regroup. They had believed that witches were helpless before iron. Now they might think us invulnerable, if we could frighten them again. “How long before Talivane regains his strength?”
Feschian shrugged. “At least a day, I’d imagine.”
The singing began anew. A few of the cavalry rode toward us as though daring us to do anything. They stayed just out of arrowshot and shouted their speculations about our parentage and personal habits. I took a bow and proved that one fellow wasn’t quite beyond our range, which quieted them for a while.
Feschian ordered most of our fighters from the southwest wall to take positions over the gate. Komaki’s forces began to trot toward us. I asked, “What’s the supply of arrows?”
“Almost half gone.”
“I would’ve felt better if you’d said that half remained.”
Dovriex had taken a position on Feschian’s far side. He called, “Rifkin!”
“Yes?”
“Half of this mor
ning’s porridge remains for future meals.”
“Nobody likes a wiseass chef.”
Feschian fired the first arrow, and the rest of us joined her. I wondered which of the plumed riders was Komaki, or if any of them were. I was glad that Naiji was safe in the castle, then remembered that Kivakali was there too. Well, better that Naiji should be with one suspected killer than facing two hundred confirmed ones.
This attack was more orderly. Before, each warrior had run alone, crouched behind a shield until finding a protected place from which to shoot at us. Now they advanced in rows. The soldiers in front locked shields, and the ones in back fired. Then the front row opened to let the back row pass, and the process repeated itself. I wondered how long Komaki’s officers had drilled his people. The mad rush of the first assault was obviously the Konds’ preferred practice.
When they were close, a party of axemen rushed for the gates. Arrows had no effect on the ceiling they made of their shields, but Avarineo began to hurl rocks that were bigger than watermelons. Three axemen fell. The rest, seven or eight, made it to the gates. I turned to Feschian and saw that she had anticipated this. Several children were bringing kettles of hot oil from the kitchens.
I concentrated on my archery, trying to pick musketeers and officers for targets. When the axemen began to scream below us, I whistled the death song louder. When my mouth grew too dry to whistle, I hummed it. Killing is easy if you refrain from thinking, Ah! There goes someone’s father. Ah! And there a lover. Ah! A sister, undoubtedly, and probably a cousin as well.
A shout came from the southwest wall. Several of Komaki’s men had reached the parapet. The rocksmith put her hands on the wall to repeat her earlier trick of toppling the ladder. I saw the ladder go, but that did nothing about the four soldiers who had climbed over. One brought his sword in an arc that half severed the rocksmith’s neck.
Several of us turned to run to the other wall. Feschian, her face grim, said, “Rifkin and Dovriex! The rest stay here, damn your eyes!”
Dovriex’s arrow took the man who had killed the rocksmith. Mine skidded on a woman’s chain mail and lodged in her shoulder. The three intruders, including the one I had wounded, raced for the stairs, certainly to try to open our gates from within.
I dropped my bow, pulled my axe from my belt, and leaped down. There was a stair landing fifteen feet below me, and I hit harder than I would have liked. Another ladder had appeared at the southwest wall. “Dovriex! Help the others! I’ll take these!” Telling this now, it sounds like bravado. The truth is that it was necessity or stupidity. I take it as a compliment that Dovriex did not question me. He fired another arrow that broke on one intruder’s mail, then turned to go to the other wall.
I jumped from the landing, another fifteen feet or so, and had to steady myself with my right hand. As soon as I touched, I stood, snatched a throwing dart from my belt, and whipped it into the face of the woman closest to me. It caught her in one eye, and she stumbled.
The remaining two moved to pass me on either side, thinking that I would pick one while the other reached the gate. I chose the unwounded one, a boy with a young face. Our encounter was nothing a poet would want to write about, not a duel that occurred between two warriors who found privacy in the midst of battle. I feinted with the axe, then took the boy with a thrust of the short sword to his throat.
The wounded woman was almost to the gate. Had I been kinder, I might have let her touch it. I threw the axe at the back of her helmet, and she fell forward. Then, because I had no rope or time to tie any of them, I stabbed each of the three in the back to be sure they were dead.
More intruders were on the southwest wall, yet the assault on the front gate continued. I noticed that Iron Eyes kept several warriors away from Fat Cat, who stripped himself of armor and clothing. I had seen greater acts of insanity on battlefields before, so I did not watch longer. Dovriex was using a pike like a staff to keep several of the Konds from approaching our bowmen by the gate. The rest of our guards on the southwest wall were busy in a desperate game of pushing away ladders.
The next part of the battle is still a blur to me. I went to Dovriex’s aid, and then, for long minutes, we fought back Komaki’s forces. A plump panther helped to create chaos, initially for our side as much as for the other. Feschian sent Avarineo and a few more fighters to join us, and we battled with no more strategy than tavern brawlers, though the results were far deadlier. At last, when witches were the only ones left alive on the walls of Castle Gromandiel, eight of our people lay dead and three more were seriously wounded.
Feschian, watching the retreat, said, “If they’d continued the attack for five minutes more—”
“Don’t undervalue us,” I said. “Six.” I let my axe fall to the ground and slumped down to sit. The sun was close to setting. The air was cold. Iron Eyes was dead, and Fat Cat, naked and human, cradled the fencer’s head in his lap as he cried. Livifal or Sivifal was badly wounded. She might not live out the night. The girl who had lamented the loss of the boy with the twitch now had an arm to add to her losses. I saw Dovriex by the rocksmith’s body and remembered the woman’s daughter who waited in the main keep.
Feschian said, “What are you singing?”
“The death song.”
“Who for?”
“All of us.”
* * *
18
CASTLE GROMANDIEL
“WILL THEY ATTACK after dark?” I asked Feschian.
“There’s a saying, never fright a witch at night. I doubt they’ll dare visit us this evening. We’ll still have guards out, of course.”
I nodded. “You never know when they might change an old saying.”
I helped Dovriex carry his sister into the castle. The dining hall had become the new infirmary, since it was on the ground floor and the nearby kitchens could provide food and fresh water. Kivakali bustled about as though the witches were her own people, speaking a few words of comfort to one and bringing a bedpan to another.
One of the red-haired twins came over to us. When she saw who we bore, she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. I felt as if this would all be easier if I knew which one we carried and which stood before us. Dovriex said, “Sivifal, I’m...” His words trailed off. I discovered that knowledge only made me feel worse.
Sivifal pointed at a number of mattresses that had been dragged into the room. Most were occupied by the wounded, and a few by the dead. “Put her there.” Her tone mixed urgency and efficiency, saying clearly that she would treat her sister like all her other patients.
Naiji sat with her hands on the brow of the girl who had lost an arm. Both had their eyes closed, but then Naiji opened hers. “Rifkin.”
I gestured at the girl. “Is she—”
Naiji closed her eyes again, then said “No.” She looked at me and shook her head. “You need bandaging.”
“Later,” I said.
“Now.”
“Yes, Lady.”
We moved away from the dead girl. I took off my coat and let Naiji wash my chest. I tried not to wince.
“Were there as many scars on this body when you first occupied it?”
“None.”
“You should treat borrowed things better than you do.”
“Perhaps.”
“Da’s dead.”
I turned to stare at her. She nodded.
“I hadn’t heard.”
“I haven’t either.”
“But how—”
“He and I, we...” Her voice was close to breaking, so I took her hand in mine and held it.
“We shared similar gifts, Rifkin. He was the stronger mind-speaker, but my skills at sensing were...” She paused often, almost after every word. Each time, I thought she would cry, but she did not. “My skills were like his. Once I fell down in the woods, and Da came to find me. I never thought it meant anything more than, well, fathers do that.”
I nodded.
“And once he was away for weeks. I woke in the mid
dle of a night, convinced that something terrible had happened to him. When he came back, he said robbers had beaten him and left him for dead. But I never thought we were linked until...” She held me with her gaze. “Until I felt him go.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You hated him.”
“I didn’t know him.”
“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”
We remained there for a moment, holding hands. Someone moaned, and Naiji went to help.
I found Dovriex in the kitchens, tending something in a kettle. “Smells like venison,” I said.
“It is. Stew.”
“That’ll be nice.”
“If there was more time, I’d fix something better.”
“Stew’ll be nice.”
“I was saving some mushrooms.”
“I like mushrooms,” I said.
“I’ll use a lot, then.”
“Your sister is...”
He glanced at me.
“She’s still alive, Dovriex. That’s not much, but it’s something.”
“She never liked mushrooms.”
“Don’t use them if—”
“I’ll use them. This dinner will be my masterpiece, Rifkin.”
“I’m sure it will.”
“If I had more time, I’d bake something.”
“That’s all right. Everyone likes stew. Especially venison stew.”
“Rum and raisin pudding for dessert,” Dovriex said. “Livifal loved my rum and raisin pudding. ”
I left the kitchens wishing he would just fix the damned porridge again.
The dead were being taken to the cellar. Feschian carried Mondivinaw by herself. We put each body on a blanket on the cool stone floor and left them there. I wondered if Komaki’s soldiers would bury us if they won, or bum us. I did not know what northerners did with their dead, but I saw that they cared, and cried as freely as any Ladizhan. Fat Cat mourned there, with the rocksmith’s daughter and several others. I fled that room as quickly and as discreetly as I could.
Will Shetterly - Witch Blood Page 17
