Turning the Storm (33 page)

∗    ∗    ∗

I woke with a start; for a moment, I thought that Lucia had shaken me awake, or Giovanni, but for once I seemed to have woken myself up without disturbing my companions. I wondered what time it was, knowing that I would not be able to sleep again that night.

Was there any chance that Mira had already fled the enclave? Alone, a mage could pretend to be just a frightened civilian, could slip through the noose and escape. Somehow, though, I knew that Mira wouldn't have done that. She would stay till the end—probably hoping that from her place in the battle, she'd be able to wreak havoc on the other mages' plans. Or perhaps just hoping that she could protect me. There was no guarantee that she'd be the focus-mage who faced me at the gate, but if she fled, she'd know without any doubt that she would not be able to save me.

In her place, I'd have stayed. So I knew she would be there tomorrow.

I wanted with all my heart to protect her, as Isabella had requested. But it was hard enough to protect someone in my own army, like Lucia or Giovanni. It was impossible to protect someone on the other side of the battlefield. Mira was a focus, a mage who could aim her magic with the precision of a hawk's dive; she had demonstrated her ability to choose her targets the night she spared me, Giovanni, Lucia, and Isabella while taking out half of the Lupi. I didn't have that power; I couldn't aim the tide of destruction I was about to unleash.

I closed my eyes, wishing that I could slip back into my dream. Wishing that I could embrace Mira, and run away with her, as I'd failed to do when I'd had the chance. There was no harm in spending my nighttime hours doing what I couldn't possibly do for real.
God
, I whispered when sleep didn't come.
Please keep Mira safe tomorrow. Somehow
.

∗    ∗    ∗

We marched at the first gray light of dawn, Lupi followed by the Imperial Army. The sky was rose and gold as we knelt in the rocky hills just south of Cuore. “B'shaem Arkah, v'Bar Shelah, v'Nihor Kadosh,” Lucia sang, drawing a cross and raising her arms as if to embrace the two armies. “Our sins are forgiven; God stands with us in our battle. We are the children of God's Holy Light. Amen.”

“Amen.” The word rolled through the army like water poured down a hill.

I stood and looked around. I couldn't see the ends of my army; soldiers knelt as far as I could see. They looked at me, with loyalty and fear, with contempt and reluctance, with eagerness and innocence. I took a deep breath; there was no way that the soldiers on the edges of the crowd would hear me, but I hoped my words would be relayed back and not garbled too badly.

“In the Name of the Mother,” I said. “And Her son, and the Holy Light.” I drew a cross, like Lucia. “God has shown us the way to victory. God has held out Her hand; it is for us to grasp it.” I looked up at the sky. This wasn't very inspiring. I'd need to do better than this before sending people down this hill to fight and die.

“Some of us fight for our families, slain by the Fedeli
and the Circle in the service of their power,” I said. “Some of us fight for the Emperor, and the vows we've spoken binding ourselves to his service.” I stepped forward. “Some of us fight for ourselves, to avenge the pain we've endured in the name of the ones we fight. Some of us fight for God, for Her grace and for Her glory.

“We fight for so many reasons that sometimes it's hard to remember that we are
all
fighting for the same thing—for the same purpose. Because we are all fighting for our land. We're fighting for what we see when we close our eyes at night—a Cuore ruled honorably for the sake of the people, not brutally for the sake of power. We're fighting because we know there's a better way than what the Circle has shown us. We're fighting because we know what magefire does, what it will do if the Circle is not stopped. We're fighting because we love
honor
, because we love
justice
, because we want to wake to an Empire that is
ruled
with honor and with justice. We are fighting for
tomorrow
. We are fighting for the tomorrow that we
want
to wake to.”

The armies cheered, despite the fact that if you'd asked me an hour earlier, I would have guessed that most of them didn't
actually
see that when they closed their eyes at night. Oh well; maybe they would now.

“God is with us because we fight for honor,” I said. “God is with us because we fight for justice. God is with us because we fight for the land.” I drew my sword and held it over my head so that even the soldiers in the very back could see it catch the first sun of the day. “God is with us, and with God, we will fight them. With God, we will
defeat
them. With God, we will
bring
the dawn of honor and justice to the Empire.
For the glory of God we will march into Cuore. For the glory of God we will dance in the Light. No magery can stand against us; no mage will stand against us. For the glory of God, today will see the
final
defeat of the Circle!”

The cheer of the armies became a roar like approaching thunder, and I knew that the Circle heard us in the city below. I sheathed my sword and mounted my horse, and the signalers blew a blast on their trumpets. There was no turning back now. It was time to take Cuore.

∗    ∗    ∗

Giovanni claimed that walls had once been built around the whole city of Cuore, not just the Imperial enclave; they were used for defense, in the days before magefire. In the years after the fall of the Old Empire, the city grew and spilled past the crumbling fortifications, and the walls were slowly dismantled for building materials. “Good thing for us,” Giovanni said. “It's going to be hard enough getting into the enclave, never mind breaching any extra walls.”

We attacked the city from three sides, closing like a noose around the Circle and the Fedeli. Cuore rose slowly out of the edges of the valley, farms giving way to huts, then small houses, then shops and old stone buildings. The civilians of Cuore had fled in earlier weeks, leaving the city to the Fedeli and the Circle.

The enclave walls were not terribly high or thick. They had not been built to withstand a real attack; they had been built to keep out the riffraff of Cuore. Still, even with the Circle's magic neutralized, Fedeli crossbows could keep us from scrambling up the walls more
or less indefinitely. They had walled up all but the main gate, which was strong enough to stand against anything we could throw at it. And an extended siege was not practical; the dancers would drop dead from exhaustion trying to protect us day and night. We would have victory in a day, or we would retreat and try again another time.

Michel was leading some of our best scouts through the Emperor's secret sewer tunnel. The rest of us, for now, were just creating a distraction—though if Michel and the others failed in their mission, the distraction might become the backup plan.

A university education turned out to have its uses; Placido's backup plan was evidence of that. In the days before magery, everyone had used walls for protection, and armies had been forced to find ways to deal with them. In one of his old books, Placido had found a picture and building instructions for a device called a catapult said to be good for breaking down walls when you hit your target, and killing a great many people when you missed. Builders in the Emperor's service had constructed several duplicates for us, and it seemed to work reasonably well in tests. I had watched a demonstration a month earlier. “Back my first year at the conservatory, I had a teacher who kept poor order at meals,” I'd said, watching the catapult. “I used to take a spoon and smack it to throw bits of food at Bella.”

“Yeah, I did that at the university, too,” Giovanni said. “Same principle.”

I accompanied the first catapult that we dragged in through the streets; its purpose was distraction, and my presence could only serve to make it more so. Giovanni accompanied us as well. Between the dancers and the catapult, our progress was slow but inexorable.
Heavy smoke choked me as we worked our way through the streets; Cuore was burning. It was the smell of the ashes of my family's village, but now it was my side that had set the fires, burning out pockets of enemy soldiers who had hidden in houses in the city, planning to attack us from behind. The sun was incongruously bright through the smoke-haze, casting sharp morning shadows on the paving-stones and glinting off the window-glass in the better houses.

We reached the center of town. Flames leapt from the high roof of the Cathedral of the Lady; the stained-glass windows were shattered from the heat of the fire. Dead soldiers and Lupi lay scattered through the piazza, including some dance-circles that had been incinerated with magefire when the musician had been shot. We moved the catapult into position. There were three dance-circles in the piazza already, giving us overlapping circles of protection. Along the wall, I could see Fedeli bowmen gesturing wildly for others to join them. Some seemed to be pointing at me. The catapult offered some shelter, and I ducked behind it, speeding up the dance. Giovanni stood beside me, watching the wall. “Who taught those people to fight?” he said. “They're running around like scared ducks.”

A rain of crossbow bolts came down. “Some ducks,” said one of the soldiers.

The arm of the catapult had to be cranked back, which took time. Six soldiers working together lifted a boulder into the cup of the catapult, then one blew a whistle to warn everyone to get clear. When the catapult released the rock, the catapult would be thrown backward. “Now!”

The catapult arm snapped forward, launching the rock high over the wall. “Damn,” Giovanni said.

“It doesn't really matter if we hit the wall or not,” I said.

At the edge of the wall, I was fairly certain I could see a mage. Fire suddenly blossomed overhead like a swirling red flower. I focused the power of the dance up and out, and the fire scattered like leaves in a wind, fading to yellow and gray.

“Rachamin Arkah,” the dancers sang, breathless. “Rachamin Gèsu.”

The soldiers had loaded a second boulder. This one missed the wall as well, flying just over it. We were aiming high, not wanting to risk taking out our own troops. “We'll get it next time,” the soldier said to me. I nodded. Crossbow bolts fell again; some of the dancers fell this time, and the uninjured dancers scrambled to re-form their circle. The faces around me grew rigid and set, but no one broke and ran. From the sheltered area behind the piazza, more dancers joined us.

Where's Michel, dammit
?

“Come on,” Giovanni urged the soldier cranking back the catapult arm.

“Shut up, Generale,” the soldier said.

The soldier blew on his whistle and launched the third rock. The aim was true, and Fedeli bowmen scrambled frantically out of the way. The boulder smashed into the wall—but bounced off, leaving the wall still intact.

“This will work. It'll just take a few more,” the soldier said.

But that was when we heard shouts, and the triumphant blast of a trumpet. Michel had opened the gate.

“Go,” I shouted.

I thrust my violin into its case and slung it across my
back, drawing my sword. I had yet to become more than barely competent at swordplay, but I felt better having it in my hand during battles. Giovanni waited, his eyes flicking urgently along the wall. “With the dancing broken up, any mage who keeps his head will head straight for this wall,” he said. “You have to hurry.”

“I'm done,” I said, and we started to run around the edge of the enclave toward the open gate. I felt like I had after I started the uprising in Ravenna—swept along by a river of anger and excitement, no more able to command my army than I could command a storm. I was not Eliana la Generale, I was wind, or lightning.

“Hey, Eliana,” Giovanni called, and then whatever he was about to say was cut off in a cry of pain. I whirled to see Giovanni collapse to the ground, his knees folding under him.

“Giovanni!” I shoved my sword back into its sheath and dropped to the ground beside him.

Giovanni's eyes were closed, his breath coming in shaky gasps, but he was saying something, and as I leaned close, I could hear it: “Lady's tits, Lady's tits, Lady's tits—”

There was a crossbow bolt deep in the muscle of his left arm. “I've got good news for you, Giovanni,” I said. “You're going to get a chance to repent your blasphemy.”

Giovanni swallowed hard. “It's minor?”

“I know it doesn't feel minor.”

Giovanni forced his eyes open to squint up at me. “You're laughing at me.”

“No. It hurts like hell and it missed your heart by inches, right? I'm not laughing at you.
All
my injuries have been minor and they still hurt like hell. Grab my
shoulder.” Giovanni obeyed, and I hauled him to his feet. “Let's get you over to that corner.” The edge of a smoke-drenched building would give us something of a screen from the bowmen. Giovanni let me drag him over, and I lowered him to the ground again as gently as I could.

Giovanni still clasped my shoulder. “Hold still,” I said, and snapped off the shaft of the arrow. Giovanni screamed and his hand clenched around my shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise.

“I'm going to have to push it through,” I said.

“Can't someone else—”

“Don't you trust my healing?”

“I trust you,” Giovanni said, managing to meet my eye with a faint smile. “But don't you want someone else to get bruised this time?”

“There's no one else handy,” I said, and put my sword hilt in his hand. “Squeeze that, if you'd rather.”

“I'd rather make you suffer along with me,” Giovanni said, but he kept his hand on the sword hilt. “Do it, then.”

It was a good thing he said that, because I was about to lose my nerve. I pushed the shaft through with the flat of my palm, as fast as I could. Giovanni screamed again. I pulled the last of it out. The arrow had broken cleanly; there shouldn't be any splinters left in the wound. I ripped a piece off my tunic and bound up his arm.

“It's too bad you didn't get shot back when I still hated you,” I said. “It would've been a lot more fun to hurt you.”