His Conquering Sword (33 page)

“Tess, you don’t need to watch,” said Aleksi. “You can go back to camp.”

“No.” She looked grim. “I need to watch. I won’t turn my eyes away from this.” She folded her hands over her abdomen, laced her fingers together, and an instant later unlaced them and stood up again. “Why couldn’t you people just have stayed out on the plains where you belong? Why did I have to fall in love with
him,
damn it? Why couldn’t I have married a nice sweet jaran man like Kirill?”

“Couldn’t you have married Kirill?”

“I’m not talking to you!” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Aleksi. I just don’t understand why we must always be blessed and cursed together.”

“But if the gods only cursed us, then we would hate them. And if they only blessed us, then—well, then we’d care nothing for their laws because we’d respect nothing but our own pleasure.”

She sank back into the chair. “Oof. Oh, I hate this.” She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, rubbing her belly. “It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but I suppose that answers it as well as anything does.”

“And that is why you are blessed and cursed? Are there no wars on Earth?”

“There are no longer wars like this. That’s something we learned at long last to stop. But Charles—well, in the end, what he’s planning may well lead to the same kind of thing. Who am I to judge what I see here? ‘More nor less to others paying/Than by self offenses weighing.’ So I watch, though it hurts. But I refuse just to look the other way, knowing what I married into.”

“Hurts?”

“All I can think of is all the people who are going to die, and the pain they’ll suffer.”

“Oh.” Aleksi crouched down beside her chair. She rested a hand on his hair, and he leaned against her, melting into this sign of her affection.

In the distance, the first line of siege towers jolted into the walls. They sat too far away to see anything but a tiny blur of movement; dust rose—or was that the blur of arrows?—and smoke streamed up into the clear morning sky. To Aleksi’s ears, the attack sounded like the distant roar of a cataract. Above, on the battlements, Mitya stared toward the conflagration. A small gold banner whipped in the wind above his head, snapping rhythmically. Next to him, his dark shadow, stood Vasha, the boy’s gold shirt like an echo of the banner. Katerina and Galina had also come to watch, but the rest of the children had stayed with the camp.

“Well,” added Aleksi after a while, “the gods send us to our fate. They sent you to Bakhtiian, after all.”

She blanched and removed her hand.

“Tess? Are you well?” he demanded, alarmed.

“It’s not that. It’s true, what you say. We might as well have been sent by the gods to aid Bakhtiian in his victories. Look at the modifications David made to the catapults, changing them from the lever to the counterpoise system. Look at Cara’s hospital. Gods, look at Ursula, advising him with all of her textbook knowledge.”

“What is
textbook?
Has she fought in such wars before? Certainly she knows a great deal, and Bakhtiian listens to her advice.”

“She’s only studied war before now, but still, the breadth of her knowledge…it’s inevitable that her knowledge, given to him, alters the balance of power.”

“But then if it’s true that the gods favor Bakhtiian, why should we be surprised that the jaran are always victorious?”

She only shook her head, but as much as if she agreed with his comment as disagreed. She stood up again and paced down the length of the wall toward the tower, turned, and returned to Aleksi. Their escort ranged out around the base of the tower: Anatoly Sakhalin’s jahar, resplendent in their armor and red silk surcoats, lances gleaming in the first light of the sun. Behind the jahar lay fields and the jaran camp; between them and the inner walls stretched the now deserted suburbs, emptied out by the army.

“Aleksi, go ride to see him.”

“To see who?”

“Ilya. I’m just restless. I just—feel strange; I’m afraid that something bad might happen to him today. Just go and make sure that he’s well and then come back to me.”

She needed him. Heartened, and yet disturbed by her mood, Aleksi examined her. Finally he rested a hand on her shoulder. “Very well. I’ll go. Shall I send someone up to sit with you?”

“Mitya and the girls are close by. Go on.” She smiled at him, grateful, and he felt content.

He left. Below, he mounted, reported to Sakhalin, and rode out. He circled the outermost walls, crossing a stretch of fields and bypassing a straggle of refugees thrown out of the suburbs, passed back into the outer city, and came at last to a rise overlooking the great main gates of the inner city. Here, Bakhtiian had stationed himself and his jahar. His gold banner lifted in the wind, stirring gently, and every rider’s spear bore a pennon of gold silk. No one spoke here; they only watched, and the pennants fluttered and snapped in the breeze. These ranks of riders wore gold and red surcoats, richly embroidered; their burnished helmets bore a tuft of horsetail, and the harness of their gray horses was ornamented with tassels and gold braid.

At the height of the rise, two riders sat side by side looking out of place in the midst of such panoply because they were so plainly outfitted. Bakhtiian wore lamellar armor covered with a plain red surcoat, and his stallion was distinguished only by the fact that it was the only black in the troop. He sat with his helmet tucked under one arm and turned his head to address a comment to Charles Soerensen, who wore a heavy quilted coat, belted at the waist, and no other armor. They might have been any two kings, allied in conquest, watching over their latest victory.

As Aleksi rode up to them, he considered what Tess had said. Perhaps they were. Although Charles Soerensen had no army here, and apparently no great army in his city of Jeds, perhaps he commanded stronger forces than soldiers.

“Aleksi!” Bakhtiian beckoned him over as soon as he saw him. “What are you doing here?” Soerensen turned his head to regard Aleksi as well.

“Tess was restless.”

“She can’t come in this close. I forbid it.” Bakhtiian looked out toward the great gate. From this vantage point, the figures fighting up against the wall appeared to be the height of Aleksi’s hand. Two troops of horsemen armored only in heavy coats and brocaded robes waited between Bakhtiian’s jahar and the troops besieging the wall. The arrow fire itself obscured the walls. The siege tower burned. Men swarmed up ladders, only to fall, stricken, or be drenched with steaming liquid. The constant pounding of the siege engines sent stones falling like rain into the city. Columns of smoke rose from inside the walls, and Aleksi saw, for the first time, the lick of flames on the roof of a minaret that stood within the walls. To the far right, missiles hurled from the siege engines crumbled the ramparts of a long stretch of wall. Like a still eddy in the midst, the scaffolding on which they had trussed up the Habakar king sat about two hundred paces away from the main gate. Aleksi could not see the king from this angle, to know whether the monarch was dead or alive. Certainly the heat of arrow fire around the gates was withering.

All at once, far to the right, to the north and west, a roar went up from the jaran army. In seeming concert, a rumble shook through the ground and to the left a portion of the wall sagged and gave way. Clouds of dust streamed into the sky. Bakhtiian drew his saber. Rags rose, passing the order down the line. A distant mass of Farisa auxiliaries, their wicker shields held angled in front of their bodies, charged forward toward the collapsed wall.

A small gate within the main gate opened. Khaja soldiers poured out, racing toward their king. Foot soldiers fanned out in a line and then men on horseback raced out, charging for the scaffolding. At once, the jaran troop below started forward, and a line of archers fired into the khaja ranks.

Bakhtiian turned. “Konstans. Go.” About a third of the jahar detached itself from the group and drove forward, heading for the sortie.

“You send your own men?” Soerensen asked.

“The other jahar is lightly armored. They can’t sustain under the fire from the walls. In any case, the insult remains against me.”

“Ah.”

Jaran fire peppered the ranks of the khaja riders and foot soldiers alike, from the women shielded by the front line of the troop. “That’s the Veselov jahar,” said Aleksi.

“So it is,” said Bakhtiian. “No doubt their dyan will choose caution and pull them back.”

Already Konstans’s unit pressed forward past the back ranks of the Veselov jahar, which split to either side to give them room to pass. But the foremost of the khaja horsemen had already reached the scaffolding, and four men flung themselves down off their horses and climbed to free their king.

A single rider broke away from the front rank of the Veselov jahar, spearing straight for the khaja ranks. They spun to face him, but he made it somehow through a barrage of arrows and leapt off of his horse onto the scaffolding, saber drawn, fighting. As two khaja warriors dragged the limp body of their king toward the horses, two more khaja arrived to confront the lone jaran man.

The pounding of hooves threw up dust, obscuring the scene below as Konstans and his riders charged into the enemy ranks beyond the scaffolding. Out of the cloud, figures appeared, running for the gate. A riderless horse caparisoned in the Habakar manner bolted free of the melee, followed by another. A man weighted down in armor stumbled wildly toward the small gate, but it closed before him.

The jaran unit emerged from the dust, wheeled, and drove back through. Arrows rained down from the walls, like a second cloud, like a storm of rain.

Out of the chaos the gold pennons appeared again, riding away from the walls. In their midst, they dragged along on the ground a figure dressed all in gold, gold surcoat, gold crown, tumbling in their wake—dead already or killed in the sortie, who could tell? Out of arrow’s range one of the riders turned back in his saddle and cut the rope free, leaving the corpse all forlorn out on the churned-up field. By the time the unit rejoined Bakhtiian, enough dust had settled that Aleksi could see the scatter of bodies strewn haphazardly between the gates and the scaffolding. Veselov’s jahar had pulled back out of catapult range. One of the archers set an arrow alight and fired; the arrow lodged at the top of the scaffolding, and flames licked at the pitch-covered wood. Three bodies lay at the base, two in khaja armor, one jaran.

“Konstans!”

Layered with dust and spattered with blood, Konstans rode up beside Bakhtiian. His face bore a cheerful grin. “That got the bastards.”

“Casualties?”

“A few, but we got everyone back except for him.” He nodded toward the lone jaran corpse.

“Who is it? It was foolhardy, but bravely done.”

“Veselov.”

“Anton Veselov!”

“No.” Konstans glanced at Soerensen, at Aleksi, at the scaffolding that was smoking and really taking fire now, and then back at Bakhtiian. “Vasil Veselov.”

Perhaps Tess could have read the expression that crossed Bakhtiian’s face at that moment. Aleksi could not. Rage? Agony? Relief?

“Aleksi.” Bakhtiian’s voice was as cold as the winter wind. “Ride forward and tell Anton Veselov that he is dyan now.”

Then, below, the jaran man moved, raising himself up on his elbows, and struggled away from the scaffolding back toward the jaran lines. His legs dragged behind him in the dust.

At once, four riders broke free from the Veselov jahar and rode for him. Arrows rained down from the walls. Bakhtiian swore, and his stallion shifted, reading his mood. He clapped on his helmet. And stopped.

“Konstans! Aleksi!”

Aleksi and Konstans exchanged a lightning-swift glance. As one, they rode forward, breaking into a gallop.

“Here,” shouted Aleksi, detouring for the back of the troop. “Give me a shield. Konstans!”

They grabbed the great rectangular wicker shields used to protect the archers and rode on. Of the four riders racing for Veselov, one had fallen and another was hit. Konstans cursed, almost overbalanced by the awkward shield. Aleksi raced forward, gaining speed, gaining on the others. There, in the lead, that was Anton Veselov; he reached his cousin and bent down, hanging from his saddle to grab Vasil’s outstretched arm. An arrow pierced his mount’s shoulder, and the animal screamed and spun, almost trampling Vasil.

Then Aleksi and Konstans arrived. “Go ahead!” Aleksi shouted. “We’ll cover your backs.” He swung his horse around and balanced the wicker shield on his back. Konstans did likewise. The fourth rider swung down and hoisted Vasil up over his mount, got back on, and in this wise they sprinted out of arrow range. A rock thudded to the ground, spewing dirt, and another, and then they were out of catapult range.

Up on the rise, neither Bakhtiian nor his jahar moved but only watched as the riders straggled in with the two injured men thrown over the horses like sacks, and half of the horses limping and squealing. Vasil’s eyes had rolled back. He looked dead.

“I need a new mount,” said Anton Veselov. “Take them back to the hospital.” He glanced up toward the rise, toward Bakhtiian, and then down at his cousin. Vasil’s legs were a mass of wounds, scored with blood. Two arrows stuck out at an awful angle from his left thigh. His right shoulder weeped blood. His face was pale and his left cheek torn by a ragged, ugly cut.

“You’re in command now, Veselov,” said Aleksi, tossing the wicker shield to the ground. He counted seven arrows stuck in its fiber, and two shallow wounds in his mount’s rump. Konstans’s shield had ten arrows lodged in it. “I’ll escort them partway, if you wish.”

Anton stared at him a moment. A roar rose up from the left. The Farisa auxiliaries wavered, driven back from the breach in the wall by a scathing round of archery and catapult fire. Flags signaled. Anton started. “Archers, reinforce left,” he shouted. He urged his new mount up to the horse across which Vasil lay and jerked the staff of command from Vasil’s belt. “Damned fool,” he said to his cousin’s lifeless form. “But maybe you’re better off dead. Go on, then,” he said to Aleksi.

Konstans nodded at Aleksi and rode off, returning to Bakhtiian. Aleksi guided the others forward, and the lines parted to let them through. Up on the rise, Bakhtiian watched them go and then turned away as a rider bearing the green pennant of Raevsky’s jahar galloped up to him. They fell into conference.