by Robin Hobb
Yet others of Olikea’s kin-clan were not as swift to welcome Soldier’s Boy wholeheartedly. I suspect that Jodoli did not encourage the people of his kin-clan to trust the interloper. Soldier’s Boy’s presence had greatly modified the attitude of the extended family group toward Jodoli. Both he and Firada had been relieved when Soldier’s Boy had taken up residence in Lisana’s old lodge, well away from the village where they traditionally wintered. They had been happy to characterize him as a Great One with no attached kin-clan, a sort of renegade mage. Jodoli had begun to solidify his standing with the kin-clan, and now here came Soldier’s Boy, threatening it once more.
What could have been a confrontation was defused when Soldier’s Boy instead sought Jodoli’s advice on the summoning, sharing his concern for Likari. At first Soldier’s Boy only asked questions and listened solemnly to every answer, even when Jodoli tediously overtrod ground well known to both of them. Firada had a soft spot for her nephew, and as the evening passed into night, the consultation changed into a family discussion. Jodoli’s home was twice the size of Lisana’s old lodge and lush with the acquisitions of a man who had been a Great One for years. These comforts Soldier’s Boy openly admired, stroking Jodoli’s pride. Yet when the night deepened about the lodge and we all drew closer to the hearth, the great lodge seemed a small place where the dancing firelight illumined a circle of faces wearied by sorrow. The feeders had been sent off to their homes. Only this “family” remained, the two women and their father, and Jodoli and Soldier’s Boy.
I should not have been surprised to discover that Jodoli was as fond of the boy as anyone was, and as shocked and offended that Kinrove had let the summoning take a feeder. It was a painful discussion for all involved, as Soldier’s Boy asked difficult questions about how long the boy might be expected to dance. He bluntly asked how long other youths called to the dance had lived, and the answer chilled us all. Two seasons. If Likari were not freed from the dance by summer, he would almost certainly die of it.
“Two seasons in which to save him. That isn’t much time,” Soldier’s Boy said anxiously.
“Two seasons to save him from death,” Firada corrected him. “Two seasons only if you are content to bring him home crippled and broken. The dance is arduous and unrelenting, Nevare. It breaks bodies, for the magic cares little for what it demands of our flesh. In two seasons, Likari will look like a little old man. His body will be stunted, for he will not grow properly on that regimen. And his mind will have been consumed by the magic. This we have seen in those Dasie freed from the dance. The adults who were returned have regained some of their connections to home and family and kin-clan. But the younger ones were completely seduced by the dance. I have heard of at least five rescued dancers who have since decided to return. They do not know what else to do with their lives. Of those who have remained, they are very young in mind; they have not grown in knowledge or manners since they were taken. They know nothing but the dance and the infusion of purpose that the magic put in them. Likari, I think, will be more susceptible to that than most. If we wait two seasons to try to take him back, well. By then it would be more of a kindness not to, to let him spend out his life there.”
Olikea had been strangely quiet. She blinked then, freeing tears that rolled down her cheeks. She did not breathe harshly or gulp. These flowing tears that spilled silently were a frequent phenomenon now, as if she wept deep inside and only her tears reached the surface. She still tended me, but she was most often silent. She appeared lost and childlike, as if she had been transported back to the days when her mother had vanished. I realized then that the view she had given me of Speck family life had been skewed to her own perspective. She had kept Likari at arm’s length all his life, fearing that she might lose him. Yet when she did lose him, even that distance had not been enough to protect her.
Soldier’s Boy reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. Although I knew his heart remained with Lisana, he and Olikea remained occasional lovers and she always shared his bed. Offering him that physical release was a part of her being his feeder; she did not expect romance or passion beyond the physical sort. Since Likari had been lost, it seemed to me that they coupled more often, as if seeking a comfort they could not quite find. Perhaps she tried for another child to replace the one she had lost. Perhaps he touched her so gently only because he wished to strengthen his bond with her and hence her kin-clan. In any case, I envied them what they had, the uncomplicated physical enjoyment of each other. Sometimes I shamed myself by pretending it was Amzil that my hands caressed, Amzil’s mouth reaching eagerly for mine. It was a sour pretense that only left me feeling more desolately lonely than ever. At all times, there remained a bristly affection between them, and the shared loss of Likari had only strengthened it. She slept against his belly rather than his back these days, and when she cried out in her sleep, he often held her. Now he immediately reassured her.
“It will not be two seasons, Olikea. I hope it will not be much more than two days. This I have decided. Tonight we send word to Kinrove and Dasie. I will take the force that we have, and we will attack Gettys. We will make the cold and the snows our allies.”
He looked around at their disbelieving faces and smiled grimly. “Fire will be our primary weapon. This is the plan. I will take our forces back to the western side of the mountains. We will go prepared to endure the cold and snows, but only for a short time. We will quick-walk down to Gettys in the darkness of the deepest cold of the night. Some will hide in the town around the fort. Others will help me dispatch the sentry on the gate. Quietly. Then we will enter. I will make maps of the key places to set the fires. At my signal, the town fires will be set, also. As soon as the archers outside the walls see the flames rise, they will let fly with their arrows, to start fires on the upper walls and watchtowers where the soldiers cannot easily douse them. I only wish that we had more than a dozen of the basket arrows.
“It will be crucial that we free the prison laborers. They have no love for their wardens and their release will add to the confusion. With luck, they may turn and attack those who have treated them so cruelly. We will set many fires, too many for them to fight. When the soldiers flee the flames into the street, we will have a chance to kill many of them while they are panicked and unarmed. That state will not last long, but while it does, we will take advantage of it.
“When they begin to rally, we will fall back. As we move through the town, we will kill any in our path. We will quick-walk our retreat, vanishing into the night. We will wait, giving them time to battle the fires and exhaust themselves. Then, when they think the crisis is over, we will quick-walk again into their midst, to kill again. If we have time, we will set more fires.”
He fell silent. No one spoke, staring at him.
“If once is not enough, we will return three days later. We must be prepared to keep a guard on the road to the west. No courier must ride out to report what is happening. Gettys must simply disappear. After we have killed all of them, every structure there must be burned completely to the ground. Completely. When the supply wagons come next spring, they must find nothing there, not a wall, not a bone. Nothing.”
He said it as calmly as my father would speak of clearing a field of stones or of doing the autumn slaughter. Those around him nodded, heartened by his speech, as if there were no human deaths involved at all.
Jodoli spoke hesitantly. “But what of your previous proposal? That we would negotiate with them, perhaps with a treaty that appealed to their greed?”
“Later,” he said coldly. “I have decided that will come later. When they decide to try to rebuild Gettys. Then will be the time to confront them. For now, the plan is simply to kill. And when Gettys is destroyed, Kinrove will have no further need for his dancers. They will be free.”
Olikea took a breath and spoke hesitantly. “Can you truly do it so quickly? Can you bring Likari back to us?”
I felt the doubt that he dared not bare to them. Aloud, he spoke with co
nfidence. “I can. I will.”
I feared that he was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BATTLE PLANS
It was dark in the mountain passage, and cold. Images of the passing terrain blinked before me like pages in a book, turned before my eyes could focus on the print. Only torches lit our way as we quick-walked. Ropes of ice twined and coiled down the stone walls. Horses’ breath stood out in plumes of steam. The Speck warriors, unnaturally bundled in furs and wool against the cold, walked awkwardly on the slick ground. The waterway that had gurgled to one side of the passage the last time I had traversed this pass was frozen solid.
The sounds of our passage came in pieces. Creak of leather and clop of hooves and resounding echoes were stuttered with silence. Murmurs of complaint from the men and the occasional harsh laugh or curse. The distant crash of a falling icicle, big as a man. Soldier’s Boy’s army was on the march toward Gettys and slaughter.
He had kept his word to Olikea. Scarcely three days had passed since they had gathered around the fire to discuss Likari’s fate. The events of the following days had occurred so swiftly that whenever I thought of it my mind spun. Jodoli and Soldier’s Boy had called a meeting with Kinrove and Dasie. Both of the other Great Ones had been startled by their demands for immediate action. The Specks, I discovered, dreaded cold, and both Kinrove and Dasie argued against the wisdom of sending their warriors forth to fight their first battle in such an alien environment. But Soldier’s Boy had prevailed, pointing out truthfully that if they struck now, the deep cold of winter would do half their work for them. He spoke earnestly of burning the supply houses and barracks and as many homes and stores as would catch fire. In detail, he explained how the intruders’ food supplies would perish, along with the tools and the men who could use them. Destroy the ability of the Gettys folk to rebuild, and they must either flee back down the King’s Road into the barren winter weather and impassable snows or stay where they were, to freeze and starve. Either way, the cold would make an end of them, decreasing the work for the warriors.
Convincing them to attack immediately was only half the battle. Demanding that all four of the Great Ones should be involved in the battle shocked the rest of them. He set out his plans succinctly. Jodoli and Kinrove would go no farther than the mountain pass. Their key contribution would be spending magic to quick-walk the entire force from the rainy side of the mountains westward through the draw and then swiftly down to the low-lying hills that surrounded Gettys. He needed them for that task. Moving at a normal pace, his forces would quickly be both discouraged and thinned by the inhospitable weather. I knew his hidden thought. If any of his soldiers considered deserting along the way, they would be faced with a long, cold journey home, unaugmented by the magical speed of a quick-walk.
Once the force had reached the western side of the mountains, Soldier’s Boy had planned that he and Dasie would command the battle itself. They would go on horseback, mounted for a better view of the action and to allow both of them to keep up with their troops. Dasie’s fire magic skills would be required, as would his knowledge of the layout of the town and the fort. Soldier’s Boy had decided that his horse soldiers were too small a force to deploy as cavalla. Instead, the horses would carry supplies and perhaps the mounted riders would serve as messengers to coordinate the troops during the battle.
The Specks had no experience with the sort of warfare that involved coordinated troop movements and warriors obeying a single commander. Every step of it had to be explained. Soldier’s Boy had talked and talked and talked. Kinrove did not wish to be involved in quick-walking the troops. He wished to stay with his dancers. Soldier’s Boy insisted on it. “Our warriors are not accustomed to the cold. I think they can sustain a brief journey through it, and a night of fighting, but beyond that, the cold will eat at their stamina. If the cavalla troops at Gettys rally against us, we will be fighting seasoned soldiers who are tolerant of those conditions. If I must take the troops through the snow for days before we even close with the enemy, they will lose heart before they even fire an arrow.” Looking from Jodoli to Kinrove, he said, “And you know that I do not have the strength to quick-walk such a force on my own. Dasie and I will require your help if we are to deliver a force capable of an attack on Gettys.”
He was willing to admit that they had strength he needed, knowing that such an admission would all but force them to help him, simply to prove their own strengths. He did not admit to them that he relished the idea of seeing the Great Men in discomfort. But I lived in him, behind his eyes, and I knew. They had both bested him in magic. Now he would show them what he was best at, and force them to be present at his victory. Soldier’s Boy wanted both to see, if not the battle, our warriors as they returned from it. He would have them witness the difficulty and the dangers of fighting a real war. He did not feel they grasped the reality of that, and for a reason he could not explain even to himself, he felt that they needed to.
I wondered if Soldier’s Boy himself did. I wondered if I did. I had never seen battle. I’d read of it, been schooled to it, heard tales of the blood and smoke all my life. Yet here I was, riding mutely along to my first engagement, leading troops against the very country that had created me. The knowledge of that crazed me, if I dwelt on it. I held myself back from thinking of it, and focused my thoughts only on what I knew I might be able to save. I did not think I could stop the attack or the massacre that would follow. I might be able to preserve a few of the people I loved.
I tried to be small and forgotten in Soldier Boy’s mind. I uttered no sound of rebuke or dismay as I witnessed him marshaling his troops. They were armed, not with guns, for the iron of the barrels and actions would disrupt our magic, but with bows, spears, pikes, and, in plentiful supply, with pitch torches. His four chosen archers carried the fire-arrows and their loads. Dasie was good at the calling of fire. She would be the one to kindle the flames when the time was right. And Soldier’s Boy was to be in the thick of it, leading his troops right into Gettys and directing his cowardly attack against the sleeping foe.
And so I rode with him those last horrid days, watching him plot and plan against my people. My people. His traitorous words had found fertile soil in me and were, despite my resolve, sending down bitter roots. “My people” had disowned me and attempted to kill me. “My people” had not been able to see past the changes the Speck plague had wrought in me to realize I was the same Nevare I had always been. “My people” had no respect for the Specks who had taken me in, no interest in learning why they so vigorously defended their forest, and no intention of letting the Specks preserve their way of life. When I dwelt on those things, it was hard for me to say why I remained so fiercely loyal to a people who had no connection at all to me. Yet when those traitorous doubts came to me, all I had to do was focus my thoughts on Spink and Epiny and the woman and children they had sheltered for me, and my determination to undermine Soldier’s Boy’s plans came roaring back to life.
But now, as the blinking images of the narrow defile became darker as the mountains leaned closer to one another overhead, I knew my time was trickling away. When they reached the western mouth of the pass, the plan was to camp for one night, to allow both warriors and mages to rest. Then on the morrow the mages would quick-walk the entire force down to the forest of the ancients. From there, after the brief day ended and the vise of cold night clenched, we would attack Gettys and the sleeping population.
Tonight would be my last chance to try to warn Epiny and Spink.
Riding along inside Soldier’s Boy on such an extended quick-walk gave me the same queasy, headachy sensation of riding in a jolting wagon all day. Jodoli and Kinrove imposed the magic on us, so I had no sensation of knowing when each stop or each flow would begin. I’m only along for the ride, I told myself and huddled small inside Soldier’s Boy.
I’d had one small triumph in my ongoing battle with him. I hadn’t let him make contact with Lisana. He missed her as if the heart had been torn f
rom his chest. I’d tried to bargain with him once. “Dream-walk me to Epiny one night, and the following night, I’ll take you to Lisana.”
“I should dream-walk you to the enemy, so you can reveal our plans? No.”
“Then you shall not see or speak to Lisana,” I told him coldly. And despite how he had squeezed and poked at me, I had retained my resolve. My memories might be his to rifle and sift, but my ability to reach Lisana remained firmly in my control. And he foolishly believed, since I had sought that bargain, that dream-walking to Epiny still belonged solely to him.
I watched the glimpses of our journey flicker past. Torches had been kindled, more for the sake of calming the horses and warriors than because we needed them. We relied on Jodoli’s and Kinrove’s memories of this passage, memories they reinforced by drawing on the magic. Each brief glimpse was like a framed painting in some peculiar gallery. Here the walls of the divide sparkled silver and black with ice and stone. In the next, my attention was directed to some carvings of trees and faces that some long-ago travelers had etched into the walls of the pass.
We did not ride. We led the horses, and long before our day’s journey was over, my feet were sore and my back ached. The other Great Ones had chosen to be transported in litters; Soldier’s Boy’s pride had not allowed him that option. It had been months since I had demanded exertion of my body. Soldier’s Boy had allowed the underlying muscle I had cultivated with my endless grave digging to lapse. I knew he would deeply regret that tomorrow when he had to mount Clove. Although I would share his pain, I privately rejoiced that it would distract him from the business of command. I had not warned him of this. It was a tiny advantage I could offer to the Gernian cavalla. They would never know of it, but even that small thing might make a crucial difference when the time came.
