Springwar (68 page)

But not for him.

Not for poor Rrath.

They hated him.

They despised him.

They devoured his
self
from within.

Except for a very few things.

The things that were strongest in him.

The things that were most ingrained.

Rrath opened eyes he didn’t know had been shut. Saw light that might not exist suffuse the chamber.

And remembered why he’d come here.

All at once he was running.

His
body
was, as the magic drove him on …

His self …?

What remained of him found, deep in his brain, a cave.

And hid there, quaking.

You’re a weather-witch
, something down there whispered.

“I’m scared,” Avall told Rann. “What if it happens again?”

Rann simply looked at him, dark eyes like a moonless sky above fresh-fallen snow. As calm, and as clear. The eyes of his friend above all friends. His bond-brother. The person to whom, without guilt or fear or agenda, he’d given what might prove to be too much of his love. He could die here, or Rann could. That bond could be forever severed. It had almost been already.

“It won’t,” Rann said at last. “You know what to expect, and you won’t let it happen.”

Avall let his gaze sweep past his friend, to the right and down. Off the tower on which they stood, along the three undulating walls, to where the Royal Guard clustered around the King himself before the gates of this citadel. Three snakes. Three rivers of stone. Three chains. The images were endless.

But endless, too, were the armies of Ixti as they continued to march across the snow—like a hand slowly opening now, thumb going west toward the mountains—toward Merryn and Strynn.

Little finger hooking ever so slightly toward him.

Avall closed his eyes, brushed the gem for reassurance, and stepped out of himself and found Strynn.

The King was there, too—alerted by the touch of thoughts he’d touched before. Together, Avall and Strynn showed Gynn what they saw.

Wait
, he replied.
Wait until I—

He broke off. If thought was a pool of still water, and their selves three fish therein—this was as though someone had dropped a stone among them, so that ripples skimmed across the surface in intangible, ethereal rings.

Power
, one of them thought—it didn’t matter which.
But from where?

But other eyes—human eyes—saw as well. And Lord Tryffon of War said, very quietly, “My Lord King, they are now a long-shot from here.”

Lykkon heard the sharp drumbeat of command. Held his breath, and waited. But only for an instant. A rustling rose up behind him, then a thrum in the air like the most subtle and distant thunder. A rushing hiss, and the sky went dark with arrows shot from the rearmost ranks toward Ixti’s advancing army.

They were barely in range, but arrows flew and arrows fell.

Shields rose to meet them, but not all those shields were placed correctly. A few men in Ixti’s first rank fell. Blood ran across the snow. And in that brief gap, other arrows scoured the sky, from the second wall—Lykkon’s wall. They struck farther back in Ixti’s host, some of them into men left unprotected by those who had fallen before them.

And a third flight, farther back in turn. Shields bristled with crimson fletching.

But no arrows were launched in return. Bows required two hands. Ixti, it seemed, was relying on force. On what Lykkon feared most: combat hand to hand.

It was one thing to draw and fire on a shape far off that only looked somewhat like a man. It was something else when that man’s breath was in your nostrils and his sweat and blood mingled with yours.

And then more arrows flew. Lykkon considered for only a moment, and then he, too, reached for his bow.

And paused, for there was movement far to his right.

Every step was agony for Eddyn, but standing still was worse. Pain from where Barrax’s men had used him pulsed through his bowels every time he moved, for they’d not only stuck their man-parts there, but other things as well. Things that had hurt him past enduring, and yet he’d survived. But there’d been no time for healing, and little time for thought. Time enough, however, to know his life was ruined, that there was only one way he could ever clear his name, which was to make the shield to end all shields, and then die, with that as his legacy.

So here he was, moving at an ever-increasing trot to the west, where the commander of the group of Common Clan lads he’d joined had pointed him. He grunted, but no one heard. Felt blood start to ooze down his leg again. Maybe it would show, and maybe it wouldn’t, but he wore a long surcoat, and that would hide a lot.

Yes, it hurt past enduring, and he was scared past ability to tell. Yet there was joy in it as well. He was free: free of expectations, because none of his comrades knew him. Oh, a few had remarked on his height last night, when he’d joined them by their fire. But they’d offered him food and beer, and the comfort of their tent. And he’d accepted everything without concern for what anyone else would say.

Here there was no Tyrill. No Avall. No Merryn or Strynn.

Here, he was a fighter—a warrior without excuse. And that was enough. Tomorrow …

Maybe he’d be Eddyn again.

Or maybe he’d stay Eed.

Maybe he’d be dead.

And then he forgot all that and was simply a soldier: jogging along the muddy, snow-pocked ground between the lowest wall and the middle. Jogging west.

—Where a wing of Ixti’s army was advancing toward the farthest tower.

The tower, he realized with a start, where the High King had stationed Strynn.

Strynn’s eyes hurt already. It was early morning—scarcely past sunrise—and the point she’d been assigned was the farthest one to the west. Which meant she had to look east to reconnoiter—straight into the sun. Double sun, really, for its rays lanced across the snowfield and reflected back. Yet she couldn’t raise a gauze mask, because she had to be alert for every detail. For any aberration on Barrax’s western flank that might be of use to Gynn.

So she squinted and scowled, and watched Ixti’s army advance.

It
was
advancing, too. And more to the point—as Merryn had predicted and Gynn had feared—what had heretofore been a uniform front was starting to diffuse, with one part starting to stretch toward this very corner, where the fortifications ended in a rock escarpment that could, however, be scaled by the determined. And which it was nearly impossible to defend until those attackers leapt down in one’s midst.

But there weren’t many of them yet, and they moved in a risky formation: slogging through the snow one before two before three, and so on. The closer they got, the more disordered they became.

And they
were
close, too, she realized with alarm, when Merryn prodded her, and told her that perhaps the King should be alerted
now
. Closing her eyes, she reached for her gem, found the welcoming pain and the more welcome power, and then reached for the King in turn.

He was otherwise occupied, and she had to force her way to his attention. And then suddenly, she felt that link solidify.
Show me!
he demanded. And then he was looking through her eyes, and, without either of them willing it, sharing her brain. But he/they couldn’t see as much as he desired—not quite. It hadn’t been wise to station the western lookout on the lower rampart instead of the upper. The plain undulated there, so that whole groups of men could be hidden until they were alarmingly close.

Perhaps if he were higher …

And so Strynn—who was much more Gynn, at the moment, for it was he who controlled her mind and body—reached out to steady herself against Merryn’s shoulder and stepped up into an embrasure.

Which made her a perfect target.

It was impulse, not sense, Strynn knew—
both
of them knew—immediately, which was an aspect of using the gems that one tended to forget: that they sometimes acted on stronger hidden desires in lieu of weaker, more overt ones.

It was too late, in any case. An arrow whizzed by her, even as she moved to step down, even as Merryn screamed a warning at the top of her lungs. And at that moment, she lost her balance on a patch of uncleared ice and fell.

Outward.

Reflex asserted and smoothed the fall into a clumsy jump. But that jump was still over three spans, straight down into knee-deep snow. She tried to stretch out before impact, and at the same time tried to roll. And so hit hard, but felt no incapacitating pain.

The wind rushed out of her, however, and the impact dazed her. She’d wound up on her side, a span from the tower’s base—but all herself again.

Panic hit her. She was alive, but the enemy was bearing down on her, and the tower that had seemed so low when she’d leapt now seemed impossibly high. And the nearest Ixtian was no more than a quarter shot off.

Her head spun, cleared, spun again. She stood and fell once more, as a knee didn’t work as intended. Forgetting the gem, she reached for the sword at her side, that Merryn had made her wear, at the same time wishing she wore women’s garb, because Ixtians might pause before killing a woman who was not overtly a soldier.

Bows twanged and arrows flew in both directions. Merryn was bellowing from atop the tower. Others bellowed back, in what sounded like far-too-eager Ixtian.

And then she saw the shadow floating down beside her.

“Cover me!” Eddyn shouted to a very startled Merryn, as he rushed past her and jumped.

He’d seen it all coming together, even as he and the rest of his group had begun to run. He’d heard himself muttering,
Oh, Eight, no!
And heard his companions remark about stupid women and unwise Kings, and his nominal commander yelling at him to come back.

But he’d had none of it. This was it. This was his unique chance to do one good thing to redeem all his past crimes.

He had the barest glimpse of Merryn’s eyes peering out of a half helm as he passed, and the barest sense of air rushing past his face as he vaulted out and over. Something ripped inside him as he twisted and stretched, and then the ground came up and kissed him, barely cushioned by the snow.

If Merryn covered him, fine. If not … he wouldn’t blame her—though failure to do so would cost her her best friend.

He landed in a bent-kneed crouch, rolled forward and came up, sword in hand, a span in front of Strynn. There was blood in the snow where he’d hit, but
his
concern was for the group of three Ixtian soldiers who’d broken away from the advancing forces and were running as fast as he’d ever seen men run in snow away from the mass of the charge—and straight toward him.

Arrows flew at them, but none hit, and even as Eddyn rushed toward Strynn, he saw something that astonished him. The three had spun around in place, drawn short Ixtian crossbows, and were shooting at their own troops, then ducking, running, and burying themselves in the snow to avoid being hit themselves.

By their own men.

That didn’t stop those above, however, and someone took a shot at the centermost, fitting him with an arrow between the shoulders.

None of which made sense. These were foes, but they were acting like allies, and he could finally make sense of what they were yelling: “Friends, friends, friends!” Punctuated by what was clearly a woman screaming, “Oh Gods, sister, they’ve shot you!”

Eddyn paused with his hand on his sword, even as, from the corner of his eye, he saw someone toss down one of the rope ladders every tower had for just this eventuality. But then his attention swung back to the two remaining Ixtian soldiers. “We surrender!” one cried, and there was something familiar about the voice. Something familiar about everything, but he couldn’t tell, because pain was rolling up from his groin in waves, and he had on a helm that masked sounds, as did theirs.

But the deserters’ comrades had finally tumbled to attack from within and were raising bows of their own, though most were staying in ranks, or straying only a few strides in their direction, which indicated better discipline than Eddyn had expected. Better than his own, in fact.