The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage (38 page)

“Give him a little air,” she said. “That’s better, lass. We’re in no danger right now.”

All of the women and children had taken refuge on the top floor of the main broch—the last place that the attackers would reach on the morrow—in an empty half-round of a storage room. Merodda had gotten them up there and dragooned some of the remaining male servants in the broch to haul up drinking water and food. Now there was nothing to do but wait out of the men’s way until whatever Wyrd the gods had decreed swung down upon them like a scythe.

A little way off from the others the queen sprawled on a heap of cushions. Her two maidservants had escaped from the broch in the horrible confusion earlier in the day; like the other missing women, they might have been safe or dead for all anyone knew. In the lantern light Abrwnna’s red hair gleamed like another fire, but her face and dress were filthy and the dress torn, as well. Merodda walked over, laid down the heavy sack she was carrying, and sat beside the queen.

“What’s in that, Rhodi?” Abrwnna said.

“Some things I saved from my chambers. A book. Some potions.”

“Do you have some poison I could eat?”

“Oh ye gods, Your Highness! I wouldn’t give it to you if I did!”

“Why not? It would be better than what’s going to happen to me on the morrow. I’d rather be dead when they come for me.”

Merodda merely sighed for an answer. If only the Dwarven Salts didn’t deliver such a horrible death! She found herself remembering Caetha, twisting in her own vomit. From a distance it seemed she heard a woman screaming, Caetha screaming, as if her ghost had appeared to gloat over her murderer’s death; then Merodda realized that the screams were real and very much present, coming from the trap door covering the stairs down. The screams grew louder and a man’s voice, angry, joined in. She leapt to her feet just as someone hoisted the trap from below.

“I can’t, I can’t!” A woman spoke, but her voice choked so badly that Merodda couldn’t recognize it. “I can’t leave him.”

Merodda hurried over. On the steps stood Rwla, the little king’s nursemaid, weeping and trembling. Behind her two soldiers were trying to force her up to the room above. Merodda leaned down and caught her hand.

“Come up,” she said. “What’s happened? Did Olaen send you away?”

“He told me maybe I could escape,” Rwla sobbed. “As if there’s any safety for any of us. Ah ye gods! Don’t make me leave the poor little lad.”

“Little or not,” Merodda said, “he’s the king, and he ordered you. Now get up here!”

Still weeping Rwla allowed herself to be half-shoved, half-led up to the temporary safety. When Abrwnna slid a cushion her way, she collapsed onto it. She pulled off her black headscarf and let her grey hair spill down, then used the cloth to mop her face. Merodda tried to think of something comforting and failed utterly.

“Tell me somewhat,” she said instead. “Have you seen any of the other women from the dun? What happened to them?”

“I’ve no idea. They all could be slain by now.”

Outside the daylight was fading, and shadow began to fill the room, rising from the floor like water, it seemed, and oozing out of the very walls. Merodda considered lighting candles, but the pages were already asleep, curled up together like dogs.

“Shall we try to sleep?” she asked.

Everyone agreed and began poking through the hasty armfuls of goods they’d gathered to bring to this refuge. A few at a time they found blankets or cushions and made themselves as comfortable as they could. Merodda herself fell asleep straight off, but soon after midnight she woke to lie in the dark and curse her Wyrd. So all her dweomer had come to this, that she could see her fate and not do one wretched thing to prevent it! All her scrying, all her omens and spells—nothing had saved her from this trap of a room, where queen and servant lass shared the same floor for a bed.

For comfort she had one thought: vengeance. Maryn thought himself the victor now, but he would pay for his strutting glory. If, of course, her first teacher in these dark matters had spoken the truth, and the spell he’d wrought would live up to his claims. He had boasted so much that she had lost her faith in him. Burcan would no doubt lie unavenged, and soon she would no doubt join him.

Still, there was other lore, other spells she’d learned. What if it were true, and she could take vengeance upon her enemies whether she lived or died? For a long time she lay awake and searched her memory for the dark things her master had taught her. If naught else they comforted her, here at the end of everything she had ever loved, with sweet hopes of revenge.

In the east dawn rose in a blaze of scarlet, an omen of the fighting to come. When Nevyn tried his usual meditation, such terrible images of death and despair flooded the astral plane that he broke off the attempt. He had just dressed when Maddyn came running toward him, howling his name like a banshee.

“You’ve got to get to the prince!” Maddyn yelled. “He wants to join the final attack on the royal broch.”

“Lead me to him, lad. And hurry!”

They found the prince at the edge of the encampment where Maddyn had left him, circled by impassive silver daggers. Prince Maryn was swearing and threatening them, but they kept close ranks and ignored him. Just as Nevyn came running up, Maryn drew his sword.

“May the gods forbid I injure one of my own men,” Maryn snarled. “But if you don’t let me through I will!”

“Here’s Nevyn, my liege!” Branoic said. “If after you talk with him you still want to lead that charge, I’ll step aside gladly.”

“Bastard!”

“You’ve done well, men,” Nevyn said. “Wait for us some ways away.”

The guards trotted off. When Maryn tried to follow, Nevyn stepped in front of him. Their eyes met; the king looked away and stayed where he was.

“In some ways,” Maryn said, “I’m still that little lad and you my fierce old tutor. Infuriating, but there we are.”

“My liege, my own true king, the first man through those doors is going to die, and so will most of those who come right after him. There’s no hope for otherwise.”

“Oh spare me the clever rhetoric! How can I stand here and let other men fight for me?”

“By keeping your two feet firmly planted on this bit of ground.” Nevyn added a “my liege” as an afterthought, then went on. “If you’re killed now, all the men who’ve died to put you on this throne will have suffered in vain. Is that what you want?”

Maryn let out his breath in a sigh that was closer to a moan and lowered his sword. From behind him Maddyn caught Nevyn’s glance and mouthed silent thanks.

“What happened to the parley?” Nevyn said.

“When Gavlyn came up to the door, they emptied chamberpots on him from the windows. The message seemed clear enough.”

“So it does. It’s a terrible thing, honor, when it makes a man die in a lost cause.”

Maryn shrugged and sheathed his sword with a slap of hilt against scabbard.

“I gave them their chance,” the prince said. “If they want to follow their false king to the Otherlands, who am I to stand in their way?”

The trapped women heard rather than saw the attack. Early on, Merodda risked sidling up to a window and taking a sideways look out, but all she could see was a welter of men swarming through the ward and surrounding the towers that sheltered the king’s last men. From her position the swell of the broch hid the huge iron-bound doors into the great hall, but the Cerrmor men seemed busy enough here around the side.

“They look like dogs,” Merodda called back to the others. “A lot of dogs around a bit of dropped meat.”

The tower shook, suddenly and fiercely. The other women cried out; the shock hit again. The men outside howled, cheering someone or something on.

“That’s the ram,” Merodda said.

The blows hit again and again, not hard enough to knock her from her feet, but strong nonetheless. It seemed she could hear the broch groan in pain—until she realized that she was hearing the king’s men waiting in the great hall. With each impact they too shouted, as if begging the doors to hold. When she looked out, she saw from the floors below her a rain of stones and lit torches pounding down on the attackers, who fended them off with shields. Here and there a Cerrmor man staggered and went down.

All at once the shouting both outside and in changed to shrieks and howls of rage and bloodlust.

“The doors are down,” Merodda said. “May the Goddess help us all.”

She left the window and sat down by Abrwnna, who turned to her like a child. Merodda put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. A few at a time the other women joined them, huddling together in a rough semicircle with the pages in the middle. The baby began to cry, a high endless wail that nothing would stop. From below they could hear shouting, oddly muffled and booming through the thick stone walls. At first it stayed distant, but slowly it crept closer. Cerrmor men must have cleared the hall and started up the stairs.

It went on all morning, one room, one corridor at a time, or so they could assume. They could hear the sound of fighting out in the ward, too—the screaming, the clang of metal hitting metal, dull blows and thwacks and howls of pain. None of the women spoke; no one ate, either, though once a page fetched a waterskin, and they passed that round. Toward noon the baby cried himself hoarse and fell into an exhausted sleep. That was, Merodda supposed, a small blessing and the only one they’d get. Not long after she realized that the sounds from outside were growing, swelling like a wave of noise.

“More men, it sounds like,” she said. “The other brochs must be theirs.”

One of the pages started to weep. She got up and went back to the window. Sure enough, down below the Cerrmor army held the entire ward. She saw men with weapons sheathed casually going in and out of the other brochs in the complex.

“Everything’s theirs but this tower,” Merodda said.

No one even looked her way. She wondered if she should throw herself out the window and die on her own terms, but the thought turned her body to lead. She could not force herself toward that last refuge.

All at once something whipped past the window—a rope, a grapple. The shouting below turned triumphant as another rope followed, and another. No king’s men appeared at the windows below to cut the ropes.

“Oh ye gods,” Merodda said. “They’re coming for the roof.”

Abrwnna screamed, then stuffed the side of her hand into her mouth. Merodda sank down by the window and leaned against the wall. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t move. The baby woke and began to cry, a horrible hoarse bleat, while his mother wept and begged him to stop.

“It won’t be long now,” Merodda whispered. “That’s something, I suppose.”

No one seemed to have heard her. She was aware of shadows passing over her—armed men climbing past the window. All at once she heard footsteps and a crow of laughter from the wooden roof above. The other women began to weep; Abrwnna turned so pale that Merodda feared she would faint. Some scuffling, some loud talking, though she couldn’t make out the words—and then blows, the thwack of axes, biting into the wood.

“Get over here!” Merodda screamed. “Get out of the middle of the room!”

The women and boys leapt up and scurried over. They packed together, holding each other and sobbing, as axe after axe bit deep. Merodda found herself in front of her flock and decided that there was no reason to move. More men were climbing up; the axes went on beating. All at once metal flashed and a ray of sun: the first axe had broken through.

“They might not stop to harm us,” Merodda hissed. “They have to get to the fighting below. We might escape yet.”

No one believed her, least of all herself. She heard laughter and the sound of heavy boots, trampling back and forth. Another axe broke through, then another—a whole section of roof gave way between two beams. Sunlight poured through like poisoned mead.

“We’re through!” a dark voice called out. “Get those swiving ladders over here!”

A rope ladder swung down through the hole in the roof. A man in pot helm and mail climbed halfway down, leapt the rest of the way, and made a clumsy turn as he drew his sword.

“Ye gods!” He stared at the women, then yelled up to his fellows. “Naught here but a pack of womenfolk and their children.”

Another voice called back; another man came down the ladder, then a second. The first man down yelled again.

“I know the prince’s orders as well as you do, you hairy bastard! But how by all the shit in the hells are we supposed to get them out of here?”

In a stench of sweat and blood more men were coming down and forming up by the landing. None of them so much as looked at the women. They exchanged grim smiles, then started down the stairs a pair at a time. From below someone shrieked an alarm; then the shouting started and the dull clang of blows. Sword in hand, the fellow who’d been first down walked over to Merodda. She drew herself up to full height and looked him in the face. She had a dweomer-spell ready—if they were going to rape and kill them all, she’d curse them first—but he forestalled her.

“By Prince Maryn’s personal order no women are to be harmed. You’ll be safest on the roof. Can you all climb up there?”

For a moment Merodda saw the room lurch and spin. Abrwnna caught her arm from behind and steadied her. Men were still climbing down the ropes and pouring down the stairs, a river of ironclad death. Merodda found her voice at last.

“Then we throw ourselves on the prince’s mercy.”

“Cursed good idea.” He flashed her a grin. “Now, I’ve been told to guard you, and I don’t want no trouble. Understand? Once the squads are all down, we’ll go up. You’ll be safe, I swear it, but keep those pages in line. If they don’t cause no trouble, they’ll live to fight for the true king one sweet day.”

Tears rose and threatened to overwhelm her. Their guard turned indifferently away and watched his fellows, hurrying down to death or battle glory.

•   •   •

Just after noon the last of the king’s men began surrendering. From the ward Nevyn and Maryn watched them being marched out in straggling lines. Finally the prince could stand it no longer.