by DAVID B. COE
She walked an easier road than Shurik and so many of the others. She had known it for some time, but only today did it occur to her how fortunate she had been. Her betrayal was subtle. She could continue to serve her duke to the best of her abilities and still be true to the Qirsi cause. If all went well, Rouel would not learn of her deception until long after she was gone from Mertesse. Shurik, on the other hand, was likely to be branded a traitor for the rest of his days no matter what happened. His was a cruel fate, and realizing this made her that much more determined to secure his safety when he was forced to flee Kentigern.
Reaching her horse, she stroked his mane and kissed him on the nose. Her saddle needed a few slight adjustments, but the stableboys had done a fine job combing him and readying him for the journey. She pulled on her riding gloves and checked her sword again. It would be hours still before the siege began, but Yaella felt her anticipation growing. She never expected to respond to the prospect of battle this way, and she tried to tell herself that she was merely eager for her role in the Qirsi movement to begin in earnest. But a part of her knew better. The truth was, she found war exciting. The army of Mertesse needed her magic, but Yaella almost hoped that she would be forced to fight with her blade. She had practiced swordplay almost all her life, and though she was not nearly as powerful as Rouel’s soldiers or the men of Kentigern, she was quick and skilled with a sword.
It was mere fantasy. Rouel would never let her fight, not only because she was a woman, but also because he valued her magic too highly. Still, as she waited for the duke and his men to complete their preparations, Yaella drew her sword and checked the blade, wiping away a small spot of dirt and some finger marks so that the steel gleamed.
The army marched from the castle a short time later, with Rouel riding before it escorted by two men bearing the black-and-gold banners of Mertesse. Yaella rode just behind the duke, as did Wyn. The city’s streets were choked with people who cheered for their duke and his army so loudly that the minister feared the sound would reach Kentigern, alerting the Eibitharians to their advance. It took some time for the entire procession of soldiers, laborers, provision carts, and supplies for the siege engines to leave the walled city.
Once they were in Mertesse Forest, however, they quickened their pace. Their route carried them eastward toward the edge of Harrier Fen, rather than directly north toward Kentigern. The Tarbin grew shallower as one traveled east, and the larger encampments of Kentigern’s men kept to the west, nearer the castle. They reached the edge of the wood well before dusk, but Rouel wisely chose to keep his men in the shelter of the trees until nightfall. They could hear the river from where they were, its slow waters looking dark and angry beneath the grey clouds that had hung over the land throughout the day. The white mass of Kentigern Tor loomed over the river plain, appearing far closer than Yaella had imagined it would from the forest. Atop the tor stood Kentigern Castle, its grey stone a perfect match for the color of the sky.
As daylight finally gave way to darkness and torches appeared on the castle walls, the duke led his army from the shadows of the forest onto the river plain. They moved quickly and with astonishingly little noise given the size of the army. Yaella could smell the fen from where they were, but the ground was still firm, a far cry from the rank ooze of the slough itself.
The men forded the river far faster than the minister would have thought possible, but the carts proved to be another matter. Loaded down as they were, a number of them became mired in the river’s silted bottom. Soldiers scrambled back into the river to throw their weight against the carts, but the crossing proved difficult. And before all of the wagons had emerged from the water, several of the horses began to whinny sharply in their distress.
Rouel, who had been watching the crossing from the north bank of the river, spat a curse at the sound and whirled in his saddle to look up at the castle. At first nothing happened, but then they began to hear shouts coming from farther up the river. Bright ward flames leaped to life on the castle’s towers and more guards appeared on the walls, many of them bearing torches.
“Get those carts onto the riverbank!” the duke bellowed, his horse rearing in the sudden turmoil. He turned again, looking at the soldiers who still stood on the riverbank near him. “You men, light some torches. Then unload the carts that have gotten across and get the laborers working. I want the snails built first, then the ram, and then the hurling arms. Lord Stridbar will direct you.”
The duke and his master armsman exchanged a brief look before Wyn swung off his horse, calling out instructions to his men. They were taking a risk, though not a great one. Kentigern had men stationed nearby, but their numbers were small. The encampment by the river was intended to keep Aneiran raiding parties from attacking houses and villages outside the walls of Kentigern. It wasn’t nearly large enough to repel a full invasion. No doubt those men were already on their way back to the castle, where they would make their stand with the other soldiers who had not gone with Aindreas to meet the force from Curgh. Even now the castle was being readied for the siege, something Rouel had hoped to avoid by waiting for darkness to cross the river. But at least here, the duke and his army remained beyond the range of Kentigern’s archers.
Still, just hearing the men of Eibithar call to their castle, and seeing those cries met by the bright yellow fires that sent dark smoke into the night sky, made Yaella tremble upon her mount. She was aware once more of the sword she wore on her belt, but she realized in that moment how foolish she had been to fancy herself a soldier. All she wanted was to raise her mists without delay and hide herself within them.
She stayed by the duke’s side waiting with him until all the carts had been pulled from the waters of the Tarbin. Then they dismounted to help Wyn oversee the construction of the siege engines. The snail, as it was called, was a low shelter mounted on wheels that the attackers would use to approach the castle. It was covered with two layers of wood thick enough to block arrows and even crossbow bolts. The wood was then covered with wet animal skins, to protect against fire. It moved slowly, particularly up a hill as steep as that which led to the castle gate—hence the name—but it would offer protection to the men as they filled in the road pit with soil and stones.
The ram would follow close behind it, also covered with a roof of wood and damp skins. If Shurik had succeeded in weakening the gate, it would take only a few blows to breach the gates and portcullises, but even with the damage he had done, they would need the ram.
The hurling arms might not be necessary. Once the Mertesse army gained access to the castle, they would not need them anymore. But the men of Kentigern would expect the attackers to build the engines—all armies did when they began a siege. By not having them built, Rouel risked drawing the defenders’ attention to the weakening of their defenses.
The construction of the snail and ram took some time, though not nearly as long as it would have had the army not brought wood from Mertesse. As soon as both engines were ready, Rouel and Yaella led at least half the Mertesse army along the riverbank to the base of the tor. The rest of the men stayed with the master armsman to complete the hurling arms. The minister and her duke met no resistance along the way, nor did they see any awaiting them on the road winding up the rocky slope to the castle gate. No doubt Aindreas’s men were all within the walls of Kentigern, awaiting the commencement of the siege.
Yaella turned her eyes to the sky, looking for arrows from Aindreas’s archers.
“You’ll never see them until it’s too late,” Rouel said, following the direction of her gaze.
“Perhaps they’ll use fire on them.”
The duke shook his head. “Not yet. Not until we approach the gate. Until then, their arrows will be far more deadly if we can’t see them.”
Yaella nodded, though she couldn’t keep herself from looking up once more.
Nearly a hundred men fit inside the snail and several dozen more walked beneath the roof on the ram. But the rest would have to climb the tor unprotecte
d. “Spread out along the road, men!” the duke called to them. “If you walk in a cluster you’ll give their archers a target.”
He faced Yaella again. “We need your mists now, First Minister, over the length of the road for as long as you can manage.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Before she could summon her magic, a cry went up from the castle.
“Shields!” Rouel cried out, raising his own shield over his head.
Yaella grabbed at hers, which was still strapped to her saddle. In pulling it loose, however, she allowed it to slip out of her hand to the ground. An instant later she heard the harsh whistle of falling arrows. Unable to do anything else, tasting her death in the breath she took and held, the minister threw her arms over her head and neck, huddling down close to her horse’s mane. The arrows dropped all around her, burying themselves in shields and the ground, or bouncing off rocks, their barbs sparking with the impact. Men screamed out in pain, as did at least one horse, its shriek echoing like the cry of a demon off the side of the tor. But the minister was spared.
“Your mists, First Minister! Now!”
Yaella closed her eyes, and reached down into herself with her mind, as a singer might just before beginning “The Elegy for Shanae.” Except rather than reaching for that brilliant high note, she was reaching for her power, drawing it from her blood, from her heart, from the very essence of who she was. She had heard Qirsi argue for hours over the root source of their magic, some saying it was part of their corporeal being, and that was why the use of power left them so tired and shortened their lives. Others, like her father, believed that magic existed within their minds, like memory and thought, and the cost it exacted, while no less real, came from the spirit rather than the body. At times like these, Yaella found it impossible to distinguish between the two. She felt as though she lived solely to bring forth this magic, as if her body and her spirit were nothing more than conduits for the power that dwelled within her. It was glorious. She felt like a flame, like light. This, she had decided long ago, was what it meant to be Qirsi. The Eandi looked at her people and saw white hair and yellow eyes, pallid skin and frail bodies. But she knew that there was so much more. The ability to glimpse the future, or to create fire in the palm of her hand. The ability to draw mist from the earth.
Opening her eyes, the minister saw the first pale strands of vapor rising from the ground and drifting over the men of Mertesse. Within moments they had been enveloped by a great billowing cloud that continued to build. She summoned a light wind that carried the mist to all of Rouel’s soldiers and up the road toward the fortress, until the entire face of the tor was shrouded in a dense fog. Kentigern’s archers could still loose their arrows and bolts in the direction of the road, but they could no longer see their targets. Even the torches carried by Rouel’s men could not penetrate her mist. At the same time, though, she was able to leave some clear air between the bottom of her cloud and the ground. The duke and his men could see each other and the road reasonably well.
“You and your men can approach the castle, my lord,” Yaella said, her voice tight with the strain of what she was doing.
“How long can you hold the mist in place?” Rouel asked.
“I don’t know. Summoning the mist is the most difficult part. Maintaining it takes far less magic.”
“But it takes some.”
“Yes. I’ll do the best I can, my lord. But for the sake of all of us, work quickly.”
The duke nodded, then turned his horse and called for the men to follow him up the road.
Arrows continued to rain down around them, hissing angrily, like Kebb’s serpents. Kentigern’s men couldn’t see Rouel’s army any longer, but they knew the twists and turns of the road, and the mist muffled the sound of their arrows’ descent, giving the soldiers of Mertesse less warning of their approach. Still, fewer men were struck by these new volleys than had been by the first, and the army advanced steadily up the tor.
Yaella’s head had started to pound and she was shivering in the damp cold of her mist. Had she been on foot, her legs would have failed her by now. But she clung to her horse as if he were a spar of wood floating in a dark sea, her eyes closed and her mind fixed on nothing save her magic.
So intent was she that the duke had to call out her name to keep her from riding her mount into the men walking in front of her. Opening her eyes, she saw that the snail had reached the great pit at the top of the road and that the men beneath its shell were filling in the hole with stones large and small. Arrows and bolts struck at the snail almost continuously now, many of them flaming. The wood had started to burn, the smoke mingling with her mist and the bright glow of the fires to suffuse the very night with a baleful orange hue.
Pots of lime and burning tar dropped down upon them, scoring the siege engines and splattering on many of the men, who howled in pain like burning wraiths from the Underrealm. The smoke and the smell of the fire pots stung Yaella’s nostrils and her eyes until tears ran down her face. She was seized by a fit of coughing that almost made her black out and left her throat raw and sore. Soldiers were dying all around her, yet somehow she was spared, as was Rouel, who rode from one side of the snail to the other, shouting commands and exhorting his men to work faster.
Soon they had filled in the pit, and moving the snail away from the gate, they brought forward the ram. Yaella stopped drawing forth her mists long enough to set fire to the raised drawbridge with her magic. And as it burned, the men within the ram began to hammer at it with a heavy rhythm that seemed to shake the entire tor. More fire pots fell, more men screamed and died. Even with the mist around them, they were easy targets for Kentigern’s archers. There was no mystery anymore. The invaders were at the gates, and Aindreas’s bowmen loosed their darts as rapidly as they could.
Yet, amid the din and confusion of the siege, the minister heard the low rattle of another engine coming up the road.
Apparently Rouel heard it as well.
“Drop your mists, First Minister!” he called to her. “Wyn is here with the hurling arms!”
Immediately, Yaella let the mists begin to fade, even going so far as to summon a wind that scattered the remnants of her cloud like the dry seeds of a harvest flower. Wyn’s men had already drawn back the arms on all three engines and fitted large stones in the great round hands. As soon as the top of the castle came into view, the master armsman barked a command and the first arm flew forward, propelling a missile toward the nearest of the towers. Kentigern’s archers dove out of the way, though the stone passed harmlessly above them.
The second rock flew too low, smashing against the castle wall, but doing little damage. The third, however, found its mark, striking the top of the south gate tower and sending men of the castle flying in all directions.
After that, Yaella saw little of the fighting. With her mists gone, no one was safe, and since Qirsi were often the first targets in battles of this sort, Rouel insisted that she seek shelter in the snail with the wounded. After hurriedly sending her mount back down the road, she slipped into the engine, regretting it almost instantly. The space was cramped and overly warm, and it smelled of sweat and blood and fear. Already there were too many wounded to fit comfortably. They seemed to be lying on top of one another, groaning in their anguish. Two Qirsi healers crawled over each other, trying to ease the men’s pain as quickly as they could.
“First Minister!” the older of the two men said as she entered the snail. “Are you hurt?”
Yaella swallowed and shook her head. “The duke sent me here. He didn’t want me getting killed.”
“Can you heal?” the man asked.
“No. I have mists, fire, and gleaning.”
The healers looked at each other, both of them frowning. In that moment Yaella would have given up all three of her magics just to be able to help them.
“Will you at least help us tie bandages?”
“Of course,” the minister said quickly.
For a time that
defied measure, the minister’s entire existence seemed to reduce itself to the act of tearing and tying strips of cloth around wounds that made her gag. Some of the men had burns that covered faces and hands. Others had arrows lodged so deeply in their flesh that the healers could do nothing more than break off the shafts and try to stanch the bleeding. Yaella refused to look at the faces of the soldiers to whom she attended. She merely moved from wound to wound, marking the progress of the siege by what she heard over the moans and sobbing around her.
After some time, a triumphant shout went up from Mertesse’s soldiers, and she guessed that the raised drawbridge had finally been broken. Soon after, she heard another cry, and then a third. The portcullises were falling. Shurik, it seemed, had earned his gold.
More shouting still, the ring of swords being drawn, and finally the more desperate cries of battle and the frenzied clatter of steel striking steel. Men were fighting not far from the snail. She heard Rouel’s voice over all the others, crying out, “For Mertesse!”
Still Yaella tore cloth and bound wounds, her clothes covered with blood. Gradually the sounds of the battle receded into the castle. One of the trailing soldiers stuck his head into the shelter, a fierce smile on his young face.
“We’re in!” he said. “Kentigern’s gates have fallen!”
She looked at him briefly and nodded, before turning her attention back to the man lying in front of her.
But a few moments later, a second man came. He had a jagged gash on the side of his head which had left a trail of dark, dried blood all the way down to his chin and onto his shirt of mail.
“You need healing,” Yaella said, as he peered in at them.
“I’m fine, First Minister. The duke wants you in the castle.”
Had Kentigern fallen already? She followed the man out into the night.
There were bodies all around the snail, most of them with arrow shafts jutting from them like cooking spits. The ground was still blackened and smoking in spots from the lime and tar, and the grey walls of the castle were pocked where they had been struck by missiles from the hurling arms. Kentigern’s drawbridge, charred by her fire, had been splintered and broken in two, each half still hanging from the castle gate by thick iron chains. The portcullises lay twisted and fractured just beyond, as if a whirlwind had passed through the gatehouse.
