Greendaughter (Book 6) (20 page)

Jeena’s own bearing was long and difficult, but she survived, as did her healthy son. She confided in Chyrie that she had felt in her unborn the potential for malformation, but that a careful course of diet and potions, together with carefully applied healing magic, had remedied the problem. Her words came as a relief to Chyrie, especially when Jeena assured her that she had sensed no such problem in Chyrie’s children. Chyrie needed such reassurance, for her unborn children continued to be a heavy draw on her body despite Jeena’s and Valann’s attentions, and she often suffered nausea and, more alarming, occasional dull, tight cramps for which Jeena could find no cause.

Ordered to stay near Val and the Gifted ones, Chyrie quickly found a new way to put her beast-speaking gift to use. She found that when she reached out to the brighthawk to converse with Dusk, she could direct the keen-eyed hawk through the forest in search of rare herbs or fungi to be used in the potions and salves being made by every human or elf with the necessary skills. Jumping from the brighthawk to squirrels, brushleapers, or diggerfoots, the potent plants were easily harvested for the brighthawk to carry back to Chyrie. Even the rare starleaf plant, which could be magically distilled into an incredibly potent healing tincture, could not hide from the keen eyes of Chyrie’s winged or four-footed envoys, and Jeena admitted that several mothers or infants might have been lost but for the powerful potions that Chyrie’s rare ingredients made possible.

Sharl was delighted to see the eagerness with which the elven Gifted Ones and human healers and midwives pooled their knowledge. The elven healers had a marvelous knowledge of every growing thing in the forest or near it that could be used for an almost endless variety of potions or salves. Even the poisons of various plants, fungi, snakes, and insects proved invaluable, and Rivkah was astonished to learn that the same mold that grew on old bread, properly prepared, had almost miraculous curative powers. The human healers contributed new healing spells, surgical techniques, and the strong liquor distilled from grains, equally useful drunk, to ease pain, or applied to wounds to cleanse them. Human woven-fiber cloth, porous, absorbent, and easily produced in quantity, proved a superior replacement for the leather the elves had always used, and could be quickly boiled and reused. The humans also supplied healing potions and powders made from ingredients bought or traded from distant lands, although these were used most sparingly, as there would be no way of replenishing them during a war.

Human healers were astonished to learn that most elven healers were practiced and confident in many kinds of surgery, from the technique of cutting a child from its mother’s belly to removing malignant growths, and were eager to learn to apply this knowledge to their own patients, but Jeena and Lusea were reluctant; it had been quickly discovered that a potion’s effects on an elf and a human often differed, including the sedative potions the elves used for such procedures, and the Gifted Ones feared that those differences might render such treatment dangerous. A request from the human healers induced Sharl to order the corpses of any humans who died brought to the elves for study, but this proved a mistake, as those humans who resented the elves’ presence started a rumor that the elves would desecrate their dead and use the corpses for foul and evil rituals. The families of the dead joined the uproar, and Sharl had to rescind the order.

Five days after the garrison was established at the south edge of the forest, Sharl received a short note via messenger bird that the garrison was under attack. Several tense hours later, a second message followed: The attacking force had been clumsy but savage, and the troops had driven them off with great difficulty. The barbarians had retreated northward, however, and the commander had no doubt they were reporting to a much larger force. If the garrison was to be maintained, more troops would have to be dispatched speedily, as they had suffered heavy losses in the attack. A rider would arrive soon after the message with additional details. A guard indeed arrived shortly after nightfall, soaked, bloody, battered, and utterly exhausted, but he insisted on reporting to Sharl before he would allow the healers to tend him.

Nearly two hundred fur-clad humans, armed mostly with swords and spears and completely without armor, had attacked shortly before midday. They had attacked straight on, no strategy or subtlety, throwing themselves into combat with a strength and ferocity that amazed the soldiers. They apparently had a mage of some sort directing balls of flame at the soldiers, but the garrison’s mage had easily deflected the rather primitive magic. The barbarians had fought with fanatic determination, fearless in the face of superior weaponry; only the fact that the bowmen and crossbowmen had shot down a goodly number as they approached had allowed the soldiers to gain enough advantage to turn the barbarians away after a bloody skirmish. Of the 250 men Sharl had stationed next to the forest, less than a hundred were still alive, and most of those were wounded to some degree.

Sharl heard the report impassively, then left the guard to the attentions of the healers. He met privately with Val, Chyrie, and Rivkah in preparation for a meeting with his generals, and tersely repeated the guard’s report.

“The site by the forest is too exposed,” Sharl said. “We can’t maintain it without throwing our troops away needlessly. I’m going to order the troops back, and leave only a small camp—a handful of men to watch. It will give us a few hours warning, at least.”

“But what of the border clans?” Valann demanded. “What will you give them?”

“I thought you were only concerned with the Wildings,” Sharl said sarcastically. “I can scarcely get a company around the forest to them in time to do any good.”

Val flushed darkly.

“It is your duty to aid the elves allied with Rowan,” he said coldly. “You are bound to do so. Must I insist?”

Sharl ran a hand over his face exasperatedly.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “All you would be doing is forcing me to send out my troops to be needlessly slaughtered. Your people have the shelter of the forest and the skill to use that to their advantage. My people are completely exposed. The barbarians aren’t going to attack the forest now, not when their forerunners get back and report that they met resistance on that strip of land. The road and the presence of that garrison will let them know, if they didn’t already, that there’s a city nearby. They won’t stop now to bother with the forest; they’ll go for the richer looting at the city. They’ll be coming straight for Allanmere now.”

“Then why did you station your troops there?” Chyrie asked curiously. “Why did you not keep your men in the city and hope that the army would pass by to the east?”

“There’s still the road,” Sharl reminded her. “It’s heavily traveled enough to be easily discernible, and it leads around the forest to Allanmere. I hoped that the advance force would be small enough that my troops could kill them to the last man, and that if none of their scouts returned, the army might indeed pass us by in favor of easier looting elsewhere. That seemed like a better chance than simply hiding and hoping they’d miss the south pass entirely.”

“Then what will you do?” Valann asked.

“Just what I said,” Sharl said resignedly. “Pull my troops in and prepare for a war. There’s no further point in dispatching any troops outside the city. A garrison would only be wiped out, and wouldn’t gain us any noticeable amount of time. I can’t send troops through the forest; even if we could get all the various clans to let them pass, my men aren’t trained for fighting in the trees, and a company that size couldn’t possibly reach any area where they’re needed in time to do any good anyway. All I can do now is get the city ready, and keep the barbarians’ attention on us instead of the forest. I’ll continue sending weapons as long as I can, I’ll shelter as many of your people as can get here before the army, and if our mages can do any good from here, we’ll do it, but that’s the best I can do. Can you understand that, Valann?”

Val glared at him for a moment longer, then sighed.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I understand. And Wilding would not have your aid if you sent it, in any wise. At least the rain is continuing; that is helpful to our kin, to wet the wood well so it will not burn easily.”

“That aid is not without price,” Chyrie said wryly. “The brighthawk does not like to fly in the rain, and it is growing more difficult to gather healing herbs. Rowan says the forest is turning to mud.”

“We can try to stop the storm,” Rivkah said doubtfully. “I think it would be difficult now—it doesn’t seem inclined to stop anytime soon—but if you want—”

“I think your magical storm only began our typical spring rains.” Val chuckled. “Every year the Brightwater and its creeks swell and flood. Every year the swamp rises. This year is different only in that the water came earlier than usual.”

“The city’s turning to mud, too,” Sharl said with a shrug. “The downpour isn’t going to help our troops any once their forces reach the city, but I think it’s going to hurt the attackers more; we have shelter, after all, and they won’t likely have anything better than hide tents. At least we’ll be less vulnerable to fire arrows and the like.”

“What’s the status of the wall?” Rivkah asked worriedly.

“There are only three sections that aren’t finished,” Sharl said. He produced a second map, this time a map of the city, and indicated three sections marked in red ink. “Two places on the east wall and one on the south. It’ll take at least four more days to finish them, and that’ll be a hurried job. The northernmost section on the east wall is the one that concerns me. My mages say there’s a weakness in the stone under the wall that may not support the wall’s weight. It may be one of those hot springs. I don’t know why it wasn’t discovered before. Now they’re trying to decide whether to tear out that section of wall and rebuild around the weak spot, or whether there’s some way to fill in under it. There are many more places where the battlements aren’t completed or hoardings built. I had to pull men off that work to cut stone in the pits.”

“I can send Riburn back to the walls if you need her,” Rivkah said hesitantly. “She’s not specialized in stonework, but she’s a good levitator.”

Sharl frowned.

“Why did you take her off in the first place?”

“She’s got a talent none of the others have,” Rivkah told him. “She can chant fish right into the nets. We’ve been pulling the nets in full almost as soon as they’re thrown out.”

“Then leave her there. We need the food as badly as we need the stone.” Sharl turned to Chyrie. “Could you do that?”

Chyrie was shocked to horrified silence, but Val answered for her, his voice sharp.

“Certainly she could not.” The elf’s eyes were narrowed. “Beast-speakers are forbidden even to hunt, for the pain it causes them. To touch a beast’s mind and then bring it to harm—none of us could bear to do such a thing if we would.”

“No need to be so angry,” Sharl said mildly. “I was only asking. In any event, from what I’ve seen, Chyrie can only contact one animal at a time, and there are better ways for Chyrie to use her talents than pulling in one fish at a time.”

“Indeed there are,” Val muttered, still angry.

“What about your other mages?” Sharl asked Rivkah. “What kind of help can we expect from them?”

“The stoneworking teams aren’t good for much else,” Rivkah said, shaking her head. “They’ll be heading back west before any conflict, unless you want to pay them well to stay. They’re just not battle mages.”

“We’ll keep them,” Sharl said firmly. “If the wall should need work during battle, we don’t have anyone else who can do it. Go on.”

“The mercenary mages we brought in are split about evenly between offensive and defensive magicks,” Rivkah said. “About a dozen good mages total, plus five or six amateurs. Four healers and as many apprentices, half a dozen miscellaneous specialists, and then Loren and myself. We’re the only jack-of-all-trades, though.”

“No seers?” Sharl asked worriedly.

“No foreseers.” Rivkah nodded. “True foreseers are in demand everywhere. The few who came were clumsy fakers, and I sent them back. Loren’s got a fair gift for farsight and sensing, and he can use a crystal over a short range, and I’m a pretty fair magic-spotter, but one or two of the defensive mages are really good. I’ve already assigned the mages to their stations, and with the mages who can use crystals, we should have a fair relay of information from all sides of the city. That’s about all I can tell you.”

“Then I think that’s all,” Sharl said wearily, rolling the map. “If you have nothing else to add, I’ll meet with my generals and report. I’ve got to get them to persuade their troops to work with elven bowmen—or bow-women—on the battlements.”

“There is one thing I would ask,” Valann said quietly. “If all goes as you expect, and this army should attack your city, with our people harrying them from behind, and if this army finds the shell of this city too hard to break, and they turn to seek the softer fruit at their backs, what will you do then?”

“Then our ballistas, catapults, and bowmen have a fair target at their backs,” Sharl said, looking Valann directly in the eye, “and our mages will strike at them as fiercely as if they were attacking our gates. Only our short-range defenses will be useless, and in a pinch I’ll send out troops on horseback, so that if they need to retreat back to the city, they can get back in in plenty of time for us to close the gates. There’s not that much open land between the city and the forest’s edge. I wish the Blue-eyes would have allowed us to station troops within the forest. If they had, we’d have stood a fair chance of crushing the invading troops between the two forces like a nut between two stones.”

Valann nodded slowly.

“Then I am reassured,” he said.

“This battle is only half the war,” Sharl told him. “If this city is even to survive, we need the elves’ tolerance. If it’s to thrive, we need their friendship and their trade. If the barbarians burn the forest or strip it bare, I won’t get either. It’s as simple as that.”

“Rowan may make what schemes she will,” Valann said quietly. “We are no part of them, although I wish her success and prosperity. My kin have chosen to bear alone the weight of their own future. If my mate and her children are kept safe, I am satisfied.”