Lord of the Isles (22 page)

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Authors: David Drake

BOOK: Lord of the Isles
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T
he only door into the citadel was guarded by the seventeen surviving Blood Eagles: armor and better weaponry meant that a much higher percentage of soldiers than sailors had lived through the chaos of the first few minutes after the Archai appeared. Men had made an attempt to barricade the passage with the only material readily at hand within the building—the bodies of the slain, mostly slain Archai.
Sharina tried not to wince as Nonnus dabbed her cuts with ointment. The base was cool and oily—fat of some kind, she thought, rather than the lanolin that was normally used in sheep country—but it contained something astringent that burned for a moment before it settled into the muscles as gentle warmth.
The barricade hadn't worked. Fresh waves of Archai dragged the corpses of their fellows into the courtyard, then attacked and died in turn. Swords dulled, spearshafts cracked, and sometimes an Archa's slashing arms got home on a Blood Eagle where the armor didn't cover. Even when the soldiers weren't injured, they grew tired with killing.
“I didn't see you pick up your medicine box, Nonnus,” Sharina said, speaking in part as an excuse not to hear the sound of fighting at the entrance nearby. Of slaughter, really. Soldiers grunted and cursed; steel crunched as it penetrated chitin and occasionally sang as a man withdrew his blade swiftly; Archai wheezed when they died, a high-pitched sound that made Sharina's skin prickle.
“I'm a seal hunter, child,” the hermit said with a smile in his voice. “In a small boat, you tie everything you need to yourself. A trained man can roll a woodskin over and upright again with two strokes of his paddle, but he can't keep whatever's
loose in the belly of the boat with him from sinking to the bottom of the sea.”
Still the Archai came. Sailors under Kizuta's direction were trying to shift the stone altar across the floor to block the entrance, but even if they succeeded Sharina didn't expect the respite from attacks to last long.
“Nonnus,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “How long do you think we can hold out?”
“Oh, I shouldn't be surprised if it was quite a while, child,” Nonnus said. He reached through the tear in the back of her tunic to check the skin beneath her right shoulder blade. A single long sawtooth had stabbed her there, a puncture rather than a slash like most of her injuries. “Especially if we manage to block the door.”
The sailors had given up on sliding the entire altar. Now they were attempting to lever off the top with their flimsy wooden spears. That slab alone was six inches thick and must weigh tons, so it should make an adequate barrier.
“But we don't have anything to eat or drink!” Sharina said, aware that anger and maybe fear was sharpening her tone.
Sailors shouted in glee as stone began to scrape over stone; the slab was moving. A Blood Eagle shrieked a curse and stumbled back from the entrance, clinging with both hands to a thigh that had been sliced to the bone.
“This will hurt for a moment,” the hermit said. He pinched the swollen flesh at the base of the puncture between thumb and forefinger to spread the opening, and with his other index finger smeared ointment onto the wound.
He went on judiciously, “Water won't be a problem with as much rain as falls here. We can collect it on the upper floors of the building. Soak it into cloth and wring it out if we can't just stop the roof drains.”
“Don't just drop it!” Asera shouted, walking closer to the men working on the altar. Her voice was strong, though her hands washed one another nervously. “We need it whole to
be any good! Get something underneath to cushion the shock.”
“We'll starve, then, won't we,” Sharina said, her tone too dull for the words to be a question. She'd been fired with adrenaline while she ran and fought her way to the citadel. When the hormones burned out of her bloodstream, they left behind only ashes and hopelessness.
Sharina knew it wasn't the real her speaking, only a shadow that would by morning be a whole person again. For now she couldn't help her mood, although it disgusted her.
“I've eaten lobster, child,” Nonnus said calmly. “I'll eat these insects if they're the food we have.”
She nodded.
“Child?” Nonnus said.
She looked up to meet the hermit's eyes.
“Before I'll starve and leave you without a protector, I'll eat men,” he said. “The Lady forgive me, but I will; and you will too.”
She forced a smile that became real as the corners of her mouth drew up. “I don't think we'll run out of lobster so quickly,” she said.
A sailor screamed in sudden terror. Other men shouted. An Archa climbed from the hollow of the altar, through the gap made by sliding the top slab toward the other end. The crewmen focused on shifting the heavy stone stumbled away, unable to deal with an event so unexpected.
The altar was also a tomb. The wizard's runaway magic had raised the body interred there as well.
Wainer turned, alert to the new threat even when his attention was so concentrated on the main assault. The Archa poised like a bird of prey on the lip of its tomb, then launched itself toward the procurator with its forelimbs spread to slash.
Nonnus' javelin caught the creature in midleap, punching in at the base of the throat and out the back by a hand's breadth of sharp steel. The impact rotated the Archa's upper
body so that its abdomen, not the thorax segment and flailing limbs, hit Asera and knocked her down.
Sharina hadn't seen the hermit move. She blinked. Her skin was only just becoming aware that his fingers were no longer medicating her wounds. She gripped the hand axe and stood up.
Kizuta, Wainer, and two other of the Blood Eagles ran to Asera. Nonnus was there already, using his grip on the javelin's butt to jerk the Archa away from the procurator. A second quick tug cleared the blade, now smeared purple. At no time did the hermit himself come within range of the creature's chitinous weapons.
Meder saw Sharina as she rose. “Oh dear mistress, you're wounded!” he cried. He held the copper athame as though he'd forgotten about it. She stepped back from the young wizard rushing to her side, afraid that he'd manage to prod her with the point.
“I'm all right,” she muttered. She held the hand axe up to examine the edge. She ought to sharpen it for use as a weapon, but she wasn't sure there was a suitable abrasive surface in the citadel. The fine-grained gneiss had too high a polish for the purpose.
“Look, my art can heal you, mistress,” Meder said. “Otherwise you'll have scars!”
He put his hand on her shoulder to turn her so that he could better see her wounds. She jerked away from the contact angrily.
“Meder!” Asera said as she rose without aid of the hand Wainer offered to help her. “What are you doing? This is all your fault and you're just standing here gaping!”
“I have to—” Meder said, turning his head.
“Leave me,” Sharina said. “I'm fine.”
“I—”
Nonnus stepped between Sharina and Meder. Very deliberately he lifted a fold of the wizard's tunic and used the velvet to wipe purple blood from his javelin point.
His eyes met Meder's eyes the whole time. The wizard
backed away, then turned to face the angry procurator.
“My art saved us from the storm,” he said. “From both storms. I apologize for the—situation—but, my art is the only thing that can save us now.”
“I need to sharpen my hatchet, Nonnus,” Sharina said in a small voice. Kizuta's crew was struggling with the lid again and the Blood Eagles had returned to defense of the entrance.
He nodded. “After we've finished your cuts,” he said. “The edges that the altar slab covered might do, or we'll find something better.”
Sharina knelt again and bowed so that the hermit could see her back. The wounds he hadn't reached yet had a hot, dull ache very different from the ointment's tingle.
“I'm going up to the highest tower to use my art!” Meder called. His voice sounded high against death's clashing cacophony.
Sharina didn't turn her head.
“You will have scars, child,” Nonnus said as his gentle fingers touched her wounds.
“As bad as yours, Nonnus?” she asked.
The hermit laughed. “Raise your arm, now,” he said. Then he added, “Not from this, child. But we're not off Tegma yet, are we?”
They laughed together. Death clanged and grunted around them.
G
arric leaned his bow against the ancient holly oak, looking down the sloping pasture to the sea. The tide was out. Crows and shorebirds patrolled the flats while gulls wheeled overhead.
There were no seawolves in the surf today. The water twinkled like jade, cool and green and innocent. It was hard for Garric to believe that he'd almost died on a stretch of gravel that was empty even of birds today.
A sandpiper sprinted a few paces and rose in curving flight, keening a bitter cry. Garric turned and craned his neck in an effort to see the track leading westward to Carcosa. Even the hilltop wasn't high enough for that. Well, he'd be back up with the flock within the hour.
Benlo assumed that the thing Garric needed to do before he left the borough had to do with a person; a parent, a lover from whom the boy was taking his leave. The drover didn't mind so long as Garric rejoined before the first halt four miles west of the hamlet. Cashel could handle the flock alone—even Garric could have. The sheep didn't require two boys to badger them along.
Garric walked around the tree and squatted. The chape of his quiver touched the ground and the embroidered lid caught him in the ribs. He didn't usually wear it on his belt, so he wasn't used to allowing for it when he moved.
He twitched the case to the side. Benlo said he'd provide the boys with swords like those his guards wore. The idea was exciting, but Garric couldn't imagine the blade being more than an awkward weight in practice.
He was good with his bow and arrow. Nobody in Barca's Hamlet ever carried a sword, and Garric wasn't fool enough to believe that merely waving a length of steel made an enemy fall over. Even carving a roast took skill and experience.
Cashel hadn't asked where Garric was going; he'd just said that the flock would be no problem. Cashel rarely asked questions and even less often volunteered information of his own. A stranger might easily conclude that he was dull and harmless.
A ewe blatted in the grass nearby, responding to some stimulus known only to herself. Perhaps she was just happy that spring was here at last. Martan and Sanduri, two boys from
the western end of the borough, were watching the remaining sheep while Cashel and Garric both were gone. Sanduri at least had a talent for the work.
Ilna hadn't asked where Garric was going, but her eyes had followed him as he left the flock in front of the inn and headed down the path south to the main pasture. He wondered why she was making the trip to Carcosa. Nothing Ilna did could truly be called a surprise, because her vision of the world was so obviously skewed from that of anyone else Garric knew. Like her brother, she kept her own counsel, but nobody would ever mistake Ilna for dull or stupid.
Garric took his shepherd's pipes out from under his belt and bowed to the little squared stone. At this time of day the carven face was in shadow, invisible against the pattern of gray-green lichen.
“Duzi,” Garric said, “you're a small god and perhaps you can't help anyone beyond the borough. But I'm a peasant, an innkeeper's son; a small man. I'm leaving the only place I know, and there are things happening that I don't understand. Duzi, I would be grateful of any help you can give me in the coming days.”
He set the pipes against the rock, in the position a shepherd would hold them in the moment before bringing them to his lips to play. Garric stood, feeling tears at the corners of his eyes. He didn't really know why it was he wanted to cry. For himself, he supposed.
He wiped his eyes angrily. “Guard the flock well, Duzi,” he whispered. “Martan and Sanduri are young, but they'll learn if you watch over them.”
Garric started back toward the road, taking a line that would bring him up with the sheep a quarter mile beyond the hamlet. No point in again striding past the houses and eyes of the folk he'd grown up with.
After a moment, Garric snugged the slack bowcord over his right shoulder to free his hands. He plucked daisies and
braided them as he walked along. Liane might be amused by a chaplet. Perhaps he'd better weave two chaplets, one for either girl … .
Whistling, Garric strode through the spring pasture.
C
ashel awakened suddenly in the stables of Dashen's Place. The sound that roused him wasn't one that his conscious mind could quickly identify in the night's muted buzz. He got up quietly, taking care not to disturb Garric in the straw beside him or Ilna and Tenoctris in the loft. With the quarterstaff in his hand, he walked through the part-open sliding door into the farmyard.
Dashen's Place was a working farm, but because it was located on the drove road to Carcosa the owner and his family provided inn facilities of a sort to travelers. The stables could hold ten horses, which were fed hay and grain from Dashen's fields; the paddock was large enough for two large flocks together; and there was a common room across the dogtrot from the main house where up to a dozen men could drink home-brewed ale, eat Dashen's produce, and sleep in straw beds.
Tonight Dashen and his family shared the common room with Benlo's guards. The drover had the couple's own chamber, while Liane slept where the four daughters of the house normally did. Garric might have been able to squeeze into the common room, but he'd said he preferred the stable.
As for Cashel, even if space had been available he'd have bedded down in either the stable or with the flock in the paddock. The sheep were his duty, and he wasn't going to be distracted from them by the sounds of close-spaced humans.
There was no breeze. The open air was noticeably cooler than the stable heated by the bodies of horses, mules, and humans, but the frogs were in full throat. Cashel could identify three of the smaller species nearby, and from the bottomland
half a mile away came the grunt of a bullfrog signaling his hopes for love.
Insects were out as well. Bats dipped in the moonlight; occasionally Cashel heard their pulsing chitters.
He wondered if the frogs and bats of far lands were the same as those of this borough. He'd made up his mind to leave the folk with whom he'd lived all his life; now for the first time he wondered if he was giving up his whole life as well. Would even the stars be the same? Was he going to drift across the Isles like a branch fallen into the sea, never again at home?
Cashel gripped his staff with both hands and stifled a groan. He didn't know the future, but it didn't matter. He'd made up his mind to leave Barca's Hamlet, and so he would. He walked toward the paddock, making no more sound than fog gathering above a pond.
Ilna had worked off her costs. Dashen didn't need extra help to handle these out-of-season travelers, but the farmer wasn't about to refuse when Ilna offered to wash the pots for a bowl of stew, porridge in the morning, and straw in the stable to sleep on. His daughters would have pilloried him if he'd made them do the work instead.
Besides, this close to Barca's Hamlet, the folk all knew Ilna. Their pots would be as clean as they were the day they came from the kiln.
An owl called. The sound had no source, even to ears as trained as Cashel's. A few clouds hung in the moonlight, too straggling to be properly called cumulus. Clouds and driftwood, crossing the world without a home or a fellow …
The sheep were restive though not exactly frightened. For a moment Cashel thought they were just nervous because of unfamiliar surroundings and the absence of some of their usual fellows. They crowded toward the near side of the enclosure; those at the back of the flock kept glancing toward the other end.
A weasel? Some predator too small to be a direct threat but nonetheless a concern to timid sheep …
Cashel saw it: a gray fox outside the paddock, scratching and whining as it tried to climb one of the posts. Cashel searched for a pebble in the moonlight. When he found a suitable one he rose and with it in his right hand paced silently around the enclosure. A shout would have spooked the fox, but it would also rouse folk sleeping in the house. No need for that.
Dashen had an extensive woodlot but less fieldstone than was common a few miles east on the coast. His paddock was built with vertical wooden posts supporting rails split from straight trunks. Hill-country sheep jump, so the rails were five feet in the air and the posts were taller yet.
The fox was trying desperately to reach a bluebird hole near the top of one of the posts. She was a vixen in milk, hunting for her kits back in the burrow, but Cashel was still surprised at her extreme degree of focus on a bird's nest. Gray foxes will climb trees, but her claws slid on the post's barkless surface. She hadn't figured out how to use the rails as a ladder to her goal.
Cashel rounded the paddock's corner twenty feet from the fox. He chose his point of aim and threw the pebble overhand, as straight as a sling bullet. It whacked into the vixen's haunch.
The fox yelped and turned a corkscrew in the air, snapping in terrified reflex. Tail streaming, she bolted into the darkness in a low crouch like a running cat.
Cashel brushed his palm on his tunic with a smile.
If foxes swear, I'm being cursed now.
He walked toward the post to see exactly what she'd been after.
He could easily have killed the fox instead of shooing her off with nothing worse than a sting and embarrassment. The pelt would fetch something, but the sheep wouldn't like the smell of it curing on the road.
Besides—and he wouldn't dare admit this to his sister—she was a vixen in milk. Let her find a meal for her kits; just not where she kept Cashel's flock from getting a good sleep.
He bent close to the hole, wondering if he could hear the
sound of birds within. This was too early in the year for the eggs to have hatched.
A woman four inches tall, as naked as a wax candle, stuck her head out of the hole, looked around, and started to climb down.
Cashel snatched her away from the post by reflex. He couldn't
believe
what he'd seen. He could feel her, warm and wriggling in his grip like a bird coming around again after being stunned against its own reflection.
He lifted his hand and spread his fingers slightly to let the moonlight through. He was holding a naked girl!
“By the Shepherd!” Cashel said. “What
are
you?”
“You can see me!” the girl said in amazed delight.

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