The Best of Deep Magic- Anthology One

by Jeff Wheeler

  Riona shook herself, brows furrowing. This is my time. “You refer to the prophecy.” She’d had no idea Morna believed in such things. The revelation was . . . disappointing. “One Incarnate doesn’t make every myth into truth. If Makkah”—souls of the Underwood, she couldn’t believe she was saying that name with a straight face—“spoke truly, the Andrisi will be here tomorrow. I must take that time to further improve Crann Laith’s defense and see to the welfare of the people inside its walls. Not go traipsing around the mountains, hoping for a savior.”

  Morna frowned, perhaps as unpleasantly surprised to find Riona a skeptic as Riona was to find Morna superstitious. “The Sleeping King has fought the Crow before. He knows how to defeat her.”

  “If he wakes,” muttered one of the cinan on Riona’s left.

  “I think—” began Morna Brannon.

  Riona raised a hand. “Cinan Brannon, we have no time. The Andrisi arrive with the sun. It’s a day’s journey to the dragonskin tomb. By the time we get back—most likely without the Sleeping King and whatever powers he has—I might not be able to reenter the city.”

  Nessa Dalaigh snorted. “Are you necessary?”

  Riona rose. For a second time, the women in the room fell silent. “Mind how you speak to your queen.”

  The old woman’s lips pursed, but she didn’t reply.

  Riona allowed the quiet to stretch until it was uncomfortable. Perhaps they should send everyone who could run into the forest, get them on the road to Clan Cuillin’s stronghold at Cahair Scoth. It was deeper in the forest. The Andrisi might not reach it before the winter snows drove them from the Wildwood for a season. It could buy them time.

  But Eilis had never run. Showing your back is weak, girl. Riona straightened. “We will stay.”

  Nessa sneered. “You hesitate! You are uncertain. Queen Eilis would not—”

  Anger flamed through Riona. She gripped Cravh and drew it halfway from its sheath. “Eilis is dead. And she never used half her brain if she could use her sword instead.” Or a rod. Or a belt. Or her hand.

  Nessa’s mouth fell open. Clan Dalaigh was the most powerful of the Wildwood clans. In all her years, she had probably never been spoken to in such a way. Even Eilis had shown her respect. “You dare—?”

  Riona’s nostrils flared. The clans were hers. The Wildwood was hers. Riona would teach them to respect her, and then she would save them. Even if she had to drag them, kicking and screaming, to their salvation. “I am Queen of the Wildwood and Mountain Reach. You will listen and obey, old woman, or you will leave this room without your tongue!”

  A gasp. Mutters. Riona let her glare range the room, and the whispers ceased. She turned back to Nessa. “Well?”

  Nessa bared what remained of her teeth. “As you say, my queen.”

  “Exactly. As I say.” Strong leadership, unity. That was key. They would fall apart if she was not strong.

  Riona took a calming breath. When she spoke again, her voice was even, and everyone listened. “We are the Wildwood. We stay and fight. Now, report. How many warriors do we have, and in what state are their weapons?”

  Morna Brannon tried again, once, then twice, then a third time to speak, repeating her plea for Riona to visit the sleeping dragonskin king. Riona did her best to ignore her.

  There was much to do.

  * * *

  Riona had expected the Andrisi to come from the east, not the west—Andris lay to the east, after all. She’d pulled men from the western curve of the wall to defend the city’s eastern side. When the first soldiers emerged from the trees in the opposite direction, a trickling fear chilled her heart. Like angry bees in their yellow and black, the Andrisi were easy to see even through a flurry of fat, wet snow. “Send more bowman to the western wall!”

  And still, hours into the battle, Makkah was nowhere to be seen.

  The pages switched the flags on the east-facing side of the tower. Through her spyglass, Riona saw the soldiers on the eastern wall move, a contingent in Brannon blue leaving the wall top by the stairs and heading west through the city’s streets.

  The six most powerful cinan and a handful of cinan-heirs watched with her from the flat-topped tower that was the highest point of Talonkeep, Morna Brannon and Nessa Dalaigh among them. They passed Morna’s spyglass between them, muttering and conferring. Next to Riona, pages stood ready to change the four sets of multicolored flags hung just below the lip on each side of the tower. Similar flags hung at intervals on the inside of the city wall, an easy way to relay changing commands.

  “They don’t even have ladders.” Morna passed the spyglass to her daughter, Liadan. “And yet they throw themselves at us. Something is wrong with them.”

  Riona tried not to look at the girl who should have been her sister. At seventeen, Liadan wasn’t quite ready to command the Brannon fighters. So she shadowed her mother as Riona had shadowed Eilis.

  Somehow, she doubted the experience was the same.

  Boom .

  “Souls of the Second Hell!” Nessa bellowed.

  Riona whirled back to the western wall. A great, billowing cloud blocked her view, like the dust and smoke from the exploding dais, but a hundred times the size.

  The dust streamed toward the forest in the breeze from the canyon. And when it cleared . . .

  “I think we’ve left the Second Hell behind,” Brigid Cuillin whispered.

  Boom. Another deafening roar and the bone-jarring crack of breaking stone. Another section of the western wall fell. In the rising dust, Riona thought she saw the flash of midnight wings. Her throat seized. In her nostrils, the phantom smell of blood. Makkah.

  “Was that magic?” Liadan asked.

  “Magic, or dragon’s powder.” Morna’s hand was steady on the spyglass. “The Crow is ancient enough to know the trick.”

  Nessa rounded on Riona. “We are all dead. We should have gone. I told you we should have gone!”

  All of the cinan started gabbling at once. Retreat no fight no hide in the mountains no send someone to the Andrisi camps by cover of night no are you mad we won’t even last until sunset.

  “Silence!” Despite the strength in her voice, Riona’s mind was a whirlwind. I’ve done the wrong thing. We will all die. Eilis was right. I’m stupid. I’m weak.

  No. This was a setback, nothing more. Riona squared her shoulders. I am intelligent, iron willed, unbending. I need no one. I will bring us out of this. “We—we can hold the breach. Call the rest of the Queensguard. Send more warriors. Hold the western wall!”

  * * *

  The western wall fell in less than an hour.

  When Riona sent the dwindling Queensguard to help hold the breach, a second wave of Andrisi soldiers started to flow from the forest to the east like blood from a fatal wound. At first, it looked as though the eastern wall would be safe. In addition to the city’s usual defenses, Riona had ordered hasty pits dug and filled with sharpened stakes. Those of the first wave who didn’t fall to crossbow bolts wound up in the pits.

  But there hadn’t been enough time to dig around the entire wall. The second wave of riders sent foot soldiers before them, testing the ground. Aghast, Riona watched the metal-clad riders prod the foot soldiers forward until they broke through the branches and grass covering the pits, screaming to their deaths. When they found the end of the hidden traps, the remaining Andrisi simply went around. So many had died, but they remained relentless. Any sane army would have turned back, even with dragon’s powder.

  Brigid Cuillin had been right. They were battle mad. Makkah had infected them somehow, and they lusted for death—others’, and, from the way they fought, their own.

  Another deafening boom. Chunks of the eastern wall flew into the air, smashing homes and skidding down streets. People ran from the crushed buildings. Through the spyglass, she could see the blood. The broken bones.

  Riona dropped the spyglass. It hit the stone with a crack. “Get them out.”

  Nessa Dalaigh laughed. “Now? It is too
late.”

  “No.” Riona grabbed the older woman’s cowl. She was a full six inches taller than the bent, papery ancient, but she shook her anyway. The cinan of Clan Dalaigh, for all the force of her glare, was thin-boned as a bird. “We must save them.”

  Morna Brannon came to Riona’s side, tugged her fingers from Nessa’s cowl. Riona winced out of habit, expecting the fingers around her wrist to tighten and pinch, but they remained gentle. The realization of what she’d done catching up to her, Riona let Morna lead her aside as two other cinan rushed to Nessa’s aid.

  A little away from the others, Morna let her go. “You’ve been given a hard burden.”

  Riona bristled. “I am up to the task.”

  “Of course.” Morna’s gaze went to the side of Riona’s neck, where the white feather probably peeked from her collar. Morna half raised a hand, then let it fall. “Eilis was not kind to you.”

  Riona stiffened. “She made me strong.”

  Morna raised her brows. “Eilis’s sort of strength is brittle. Her ‘strength’ left fractures in the bonds between clan and queen. There is more to leadership than being born with a feather on your skin.”

  “I know that,” Riona snapped.

  Morna gestured sharply to the ancient leader of Clan Dalaigh. “Then what are you doing?”

  Riona didn’t respond. She took a hard, heavy breath. The backs of her eyes burned. She looked out over the city. It burned, as well.

  Souls, what a stupid girl you are.

  She wasn’t sure if the voice was Eilis’s or her own. Her vision blurred. She blinked it away.

  Morna touched Riona’s arm. “There are better ways. There were better queens.”

  “I know.” The words were a whisper. Riona had read all the histories. Eilis had forced her to read all the histories.

  The cinan didn’t respect her—they barely listened unless she threatened, and every threat made them whisper, made them balk. Despite her new defenses and best ideas, the Andrisi seethed through the city’s broken walls.

  Crann Laith was lost. In its thousand-year history, the Wildwood had seen several great queens.

  Riona would not be among them, after all.

  She let the despair burn through her. The embarrassment, the shame. Then she hid them away, at least for the moment. If she would not be a great queen, she could at least be a queen who made sure her people survived.

  Riona looked at the cinan who stood with her. Cinan she’d kept close to make sure they did as she wanted. It was useless, having them here. Dangerous, with the way Makkah was knocking down walls. Why give the Andrisi one target when she could give them six?

  “You three,” Riona indicated Nessa and two others. “Find your warriors and evacuate the elderly, artisans, and children out the northern gate through the canyon—get them away however you must. Makkah might have led the Andrisi through the Wildwood, but she doesn’t know it as we do. Take the canyon road around Storm’s Head to Cahair Scoth and wait for me. It will be difficult. If you can think of a better way, take it.” Riona clenched her jaw, then exhaled. “Cinan Dalaigh, I am sorry for losing control.”

  The old woman blinked in surprise, then grunted, the sound not precisely forgiving. “Your will is my command, Queen Riona. Come,” she barked at the others. “Let us save who we can.”

  Riona turned to the other three as the cinan assigned to evacuate the people left the tower. “Cinans Cuillin and Ruane, take command of the remaining fighters and keep the Andrisi occupied while the people escape.”

  Brigid Cuillin’s brow furrowed. “You must leave the city, as well. There hasn’t been a babe born with the queensmark yet. Who will rule if you fall?”

  Riona laughed with little humor. “Nessa will do the job, I’m sure.”

  The women remaining in the tower didn’t seem to enjoy the joke.

  In the settling dust by the city’s crumbling wall, Riona caught a glimpse of black wings. The Andrisi roared like the sea. Even without a spyglass, Riona could see the yellow-and-black-clad soldiers surging, frenzied and chaotic.

  Makkah had finally arrived.

  Riona turned from the sight of the Andrisi, from the smoking city. Her chest was hollow, and so was her voice. Her pride had cost the lives of thousands, and she would try anything to save the lives that were left. “I will go to the city on the mountain.” She jerked her chin at Morna. “Cinan Brannon will take me there.”

  Morna inhaled deeply, closed her eyes, and nodded. “Your command is my will.”

  * * *

  Cravh caught on the cathedral’s outer wall, its fine tip sparking across stone instead of cutting cleanly through the neck of an Andrisi soldier.

  “So much for slipping out unnoticed!” Liadan slammed the hilt of her sword down on an enemy soldier’s head, and he collapsed to the street, a crimson stain spreading from beneath his head into the churned, dirty snow.

  Riona growled in answer, slicing into the gap in the Andrisi’s armor between breastplate and armguard. He cried out and lurched back. Riona lunged, slipped, and had to use Cravh to catch herself. The courtyard before the cathedral was slick with red-stained ice. Night had fallen, but between moon, snow, and the burning city, there was abundant light. She recovered before the man, and her next swing ended his life.

  She raised Cravh, ready to face the next foe, but the courtyard was empty of living Andrisi. Only Morna, Liadan, and their Brannon fighters remained. And Dagny, who’d found them, somehow, in the chaos. The dragonskin woman had proven adept with the needlelike throwing daggers she seemed to produce from thin air—daggers, Riona realized, that had been hidden in clever pockets in the woman’s dress.

  A screech from overhead. Riona grabbed Liadan and Dagny and hauled them into the shadows next to the cathedral steps, hunching down next to the frozen stone. At Morna’s barked command, the other Brannon soldiers scrambled into the dimness, as well.

  A shadow blotted out the moon—a woman on wings of oil and smoke.

  “Souls of the Underwood consume her.” Liadan spat into the snow.

  “Does an Incarnation have a soul to consume?” Dagny asked as Morna appeared beside them.

  Riona snorted. “If she does, it’s made of ash and blood, and even the damned would choke on it.”

  Liadan and Morna gave her identical wry smiles. It twisted something inside her.

  Riona cleared her throat. “Come. Let’s get inside before she circles back or more of her berserkers find us.”

  They scrambled up the slippery cathedral steps. Riona shoved open the door and held it for the men and women sworn to protect Clan Brannon. So few. They’d left the keep with twenty, but just as they’d emerged, an equal number of Andrisi had appeared on the other side of the square.

  Riona and the others were lucky to have survived at all.

  She let the door swing shut. Morna crouched at a window, the stained glass and fire casting flickering, multihued shadows over her face. Riona bolted the cathedral’s great doors and crouched beside her blood-mother. In the last hour, Morna had shown her more about leadership than Eilis ever had. She constantly put the lives of her fighters above her own. She knew them, seemed to love them, and made no secret of relying on each for their strengths.

  Why Morna Brannon had not borne the queensmark instead of her or Eilis, Riona would never understand.

  A troop of metal-helmed Andrisi went by. The gleaming armor was like nothing Riona had ever seen before. Lighter than iron, but strong. Far stronger than the bronze swords her people carried. Over the course of the day, that metal and the dragon’s powder had obliterated the Wildings like straw set aflame.

  Riona let her forehead fall against the cold stone, resisting the chasm of despair that yawned beneath her. It would be a miracle if any of the people of Crann Laith survived this night, and it was all her fault.

  A winged shadow passed over the snowy courtyard. Another shrill call. The soldiers passing by paused, then turned.

  Riona’s heart sank. Makka
h must have seen them, and now her men were headed directly for the doors of the cathedral.

  Riona cursed the Lady of War and her game. “A quick one,” she’d said. It had been quick indeed. Why did she not just come down and end Riona’s suffering?

  Perhaps, for the Incarnation of War, suffering was the point.

  The soldiers tromped up the cathedral’s steps. For a terrible, mad moment, Riona wanted to stand and fling open the door. Let it end.

  Morna rose. “Hurry. The entrance to the tunnels. Where is it?”

  Riona tried to focus. Scenes from her childhood flashed before her. Groping in the lightless dark, the damp, the chill. Find your way out or starve, girl. She suppressed a shiver. “In the northwest corner. I—I don’t know if there’s time to lift the stone and get away without them following us.” There were two dozen Andrisi outside with their dragon powder. She, Dagny, and the Brannons wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “There is time for you.” Morna’s voice held no fear. With her face illuminated in the shifting, multicolored light, she looked more a queen than Eilis ever had. Than Riona ever could.

  Liadan, standing nearby, laughed softly. “What better way to end life than in a glorious last stand?”

  “None. But that is not for you. Not today, my little eagle.” Morna removed one of the eagle feathers from her hair and wove it with deft fingers into Liadan’s braid. “Fly long, Liadan, cinan of Clan Brannon.”

  Liadan paled. “Mother?”

  Morna grasped her shoulders. “Protect your queen.”

  Riona’s throat closed. The first Andrisi blows landed on the door.

  Their deaths are on your head.

  Another bang on the door, then silence. The Andrisi would be preparing their explosive powder. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Morna grasped her by the shoulders, taking Riona by surprise. “This city holds a fraction of the Wilding population. The fall of Crann Laith will not be the end of us.” She tugged. Riona resisted—no one had ever touched her but in accident or anger. Then, giving in to a desire she’d buried long before she could remember, Riona let the woman pull her into a hug. Her hands went around Morna’s waist, her face into the older woman’s shoulder.