The Spirit Stone (52 page)

When Salamander turned his mind to Rocca, he saw her in dim light surrounded by stone. For the first time he saw most of the Inner Shrine, simply because she knelt in a crowd of priestesses and servant women, most of whom he’d physically seen. At the altar Lakanza stood, arms upraised before the picture of the goddess. Oil lamps burned on the dark altar stone, and the black pyramid glimmered with its sullen sparks.

‘There he is!’ Calonderiel’s voice cut into his consciousness.

The vision wavered and disappeared. Salamander looked up to see Calonderiel hurrying towards him. Maelaber, carrying a staff wound with ribands, trotted after him.

‘What’s all this?’ Salamander rose and met them. ‘Mael, it looks like your father’s decided you’re a herald.’

‘He’s got the memory for one,’ Calonderiel said before Maelaber could open his mouth. ‘Ebañy, we need you to pretend to be a bard.’

‘Uh, what?’

‘Grallezar told us about a Gel da’ Thae law,’ Maelaber said. ‘They can’t hold a parley unless a bard’s present. The gods only know if there’s one in Zakh Gral.’

‘The only other possibility is Meranaldar.’ Calonderiel paused to spit on the ground. ‘Not much of a choice at all. You’ll have to do.’

‘My most humble thanks!’

‘Oh by the silver shit of the Star Gods!’ Calonderiel set his hands on his hips. ‘There’s no time to stand on courtesies.’

‘When you stand on them, they only get trampled anyway.’ If he gave in to his heartfelt longing and punched Calonderiel in the mouth, Salamander supposed, he’d be broken into several pieces before he could land a second blow. ‘How exactly do I pretend to be a bard?’

‘I have no idea,’ Calonderiel said. ‘Figure something out.’

Smoothly Maelaber stepped in between them and raised the staff. ‘Hold and stand!’ he barked. ‘Father, if you’d just leave this to me?’

With a shrug, Calonderiel strode off, heading back to the main camp.
Mael’s going to make a good herald,
Salamander thought.
If we all live through this.

‘What are we parleying for?’ Salamander said.

‘The princes want to offer the women their protection and a safe passage out of the fortress.’

‘Thanks be to the gods! For that I’ll be glad to feign the bardic calling.’

‘It should be simple enough. Grallezar told me about their bards. All you have to do is carry the drum I found and stand there looking grim, but if you could chant something impressive now and then it would help.’

‘I can certainly—wait! Where is this parley going to take place?’

‘Out in neutral ground.’

‘Where the men on the walls can see me? What if they recognize me? I’ve been in the fortress before, you know. I don’t want a well-placed arrow as a reward for my spying.’

‘Oh.’ Maelaber paused to chew on his lower lip in thought. ‘Ah! I know! Do you remember how Danalaurel killed a wolf a couple of years ago? He was so cursed proud of doing it that he takes the skin with him everywhere. What if we put it on you for a head-dress? We could add a bit of cloth for a scarf if it doesn’t cover enough of you.’

‘That should do it. Very well, then. Will your father be coming with us?’

‘Why would I want the parley to fail? Of course he won’t.’

Salamander found the small hand drum easy enough to carry, but the wolfskin was hot, smelly, and itchy. The wolf’s flaccid head, deprived of its skull, sat on top of Salamander’s head, while the rest of it hung down his back. Maelaber tied the front paws together around his neck, then added a necklace of fancy Bardek beads that Calonderiel had once given Maelaber’s mother. When Grallezar joined them, she announced that Salamander looked both convincing and well-veiled.

‘I be coming with you,’ she said, ‘to ensure that someone attends who does speak the Gel da’ Thae tongue. Prince Voran did decide to send a Lijik herald, you see, to do the speaking. Indar be his name.’

‘He’s a grand choice,’ Salamander said. ‘He’s already talked one of Alshandra’s lords into letting his women leave a siege.’

Together they rode out of camp and trotted the mile or so to the army’s emplacement. Servants took their horses and brought them to the commanders, who were talking with Indar at the edge of the empty ground between them and the fort. They stood, however, well out of bow range. Indar acknowledged his reinforcements with a nod and a tight smile.

‘Shall we go?’ Indar said. ‘Let’s hope the commanders of this fort are Gel da’ Thae, not Horsekin. I’ve no desire to be spitted on an arrow before I open my mouth.’

As their small party approached the gates of the fortress, the two heralds held their staves high to let the wind catch the ribands and flutter them, an invitation to parley all across Deverry and the Westlands. Salamander was praying that the custom held in Gel da’ Thae lands as well. When he looked up at the dark wooden walls, he could see the longbows in the hands of the guards. The four of them stopped walking some thirty yards from the gates, well within bow range. Helmets gleamed at the top of the palisade, looking oddly like shiny beetles scuttling back and forth as the men wearing them trotted from one position to another on the catwalks.

Inside the fortress a horn called out. The little door next to the main gates creaked open. Salamander beat a quick tattoo on his drum to cover the pounding of his heart. Two Horsekin, one carrying a riband-bound staff, stepped out. They were barely clear of the door when it slammed shut behind them. The herald, an enormous man with a coarse mane of bleachedred hair, decorated with charms and little scrolls, wore the common brown brigga and tan shirt of the Gel da’ Thae infantry. A welter of blue and purple tattoos covered his face and neck.

The other, slender and young, wore a long leather shirt, fringed along the sleeves and yokes and painted in a variety of designs, over plain grey brigga. Under a short black thatch of hair, his milk-pale face sported only a single tattoo, Alshandra’s bow and arrow on his left cheek. He carried a hand drum, wound round with blue ribands like the herald’s staff. Scar tissue filled his eye sockets.

Grallezar murmured, ‘The law says go meet them’, and led her little delegation forward as the others approached. The Gel da’ Thae herald stared at her, then bowed his head briefly and spoke in the Horsekin tongue. She answered in the same, then returned to Deverrian.

‘Do you still ken the Lijik tongue, Minaz?’ she asked him. ‘Or do you scorn it by the laws of your false goddess?’

The herald’s upper lip curled, and he made a growling sound deep in his throat. ‘I do, Grallezar, and should you say to, I shall use it here. If, that be, you restrain your mockery of things you ken not.’

Grallezar snorted, then motioned to Indar. ‘Do tell him, good herald, what the commanders wish him to hear.’

Indar stepped forward, as lean and bony as Minaz was stout.

‘I come from the army of the two princes,’ he began, ‘to ask you in the name of mercy to set free the women you hold in your fortress. We see no need for them to suffer, and we promise them safe conduct and succour. They shall be free to return with us to Deverry should they wish or to return to your cities should they wish that.’

‘Well and good, then,’ Minaz said. ‘What will you offer us in return?’

‘We hold over seventy of their men, mostly Gel da’ Thae spearmen. Some are wounded, but most can still fight. No doubt you’ll need them to help defend your walls.’

Grallezar caught her breath in a sharp gasp. Minaz stared at his counterpart and blinked hard, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, but he composed himself in a matter of heartbeats.

‘I shall tell the rakzanir of your most generous offer,’ Minaz said. ‘But be not surprised if they have no answer but mockery.’ He barked out a few words in the Horsekin tongue to the bard, then turned and stalked off towards the fortress. The bard trotted after him. Together they slipped through the little door, which shut behind them with a clank and jingle.

‘So much for that,’ Salamander remarked.

‘Indeed,’ Indar said. ‘I had a great deal more to say, about Alshandra’s wishes for her priestesses and the like, but apparently they’d heard quite enough.’

Grallezar merely set her lips tight together and growled. They all trooped back to the Deverry lines, where the two princes, Gwerbret Ridvar, and Envoy Kov were waiting for them. When Indar told the commanders what had happened, Ridvar glowered, Daralanteriel swore under his breath, but Voran laughed.

‘I’m not surprised in the least,’ he said. ‘Well, we need to do one of two things. Either convince them that our offer is the best they’re going to get, or find some way to sweeten it.’

‘Just so,’ Indar glanced at Salamander. ‘Tell me if I’m wrong, but it seemed to me that they felt they had good reason to reject it. I’m not sure if it was confidence or arrogance they displayed.’

‘They may expect a relieving force,’ Voran said before Salamander could answer. ‘Braemel went over to their side not all that long ago. They may be thinking that the city will be sending them troops now that it has.’

‘No doubt it will, your highness,’ Salamander said, ‘but that’s not the reason they’re so confident. They’re expecting Alshandra to win the battle for them.’

‘Ah.’ Voran blinked rapidly several times. ‘You may well be right, Goodman Evan. I tend to forget such things. Or there might be some other reason, one we don’t understand.’

Everyone looked at Grallezar, who shrugged. ‘My lords,’ she said, ‘had you told me of the terms you were offering before we did go forth, I could have saved us all much trouble. Among the Horsekin, a man who surrenders is no longer a man. Upon their return any hale and whole prisoners would be put to death on the long spear. Of what use would they be to their commanders? The grievously wounded would be forgiven, but again, of what use would they be?’

‘Lady Grallezar, I apologize from the bottom of my heart,’ Voran said. ‘From now on, you shall be part of every council we hold.’ He glanced at the others. ‘I fear me we’ve started our haggling with a grave mistake.’

‘I have to agree,’ Daralanteriel said. ‘My thanks, good heralds, and to you too, Ebañy.’ Suddenly he grinned. ‘You can take off that ridiculous wolf pelt, but if Danalaurel can bear to part with it, you’d best keep it handy in your tent.’

‘My thanks, your highness,’ said Salamander. ‘The thing itches like a plague of black flies.’

As soon as the heralds finished their report, Kov hurried back to the dwarven encampment. He gathered Warleader Brel and Weaponmaster Larn and led them out into the litter of the cleared land, where they could talk without being overheard. Here so near to the fortress only dead leaves, scraps of bark, and slivers lay on heaps of dead bracken or gathered, wind-blown, around a few stumps too large to pull. Most likely the servants in Zakh Gral had collected all the useful firewood long before. Kov kicked a few wood scraps out of his way and surprised a nest of spiders. Larn swore and jumped back.

‘They don’t look poisonous,’ Brel said.

‘The poisonous ones never do,’ Larn said. ‘How do you know if they are or not?’

‘Stop it!’ Kov snapped. ‘Do you want to hear what the heralds said or not?

They both scowled, but they did listen while Kov told them about the princes’ conference with the heralds.

‘The lords want to hold the siege a while longer,’ Kov finished up. ‘That’s the upshot.’

‘There’s no use in sitting around out here eating every scrap of food we brought with us,’ Brel said. ‘Why are we waiting?’

‘In hopes of getting the women safely out,’ Kov said. Brel snorted. ‘They wanted to be there. They can take their chances with the men.’

‘Most of them are slaves.’

‘Oh. Well, then, that’s different. Do you think there’s any chance the stinking Horsekin will let them go?’

‘No, I don’t. We’ve already insulted them, and besides, if they figure out that we won’t attack the fortress while the women are inside, why would they let them go?’

Larn nodded agreement, then kicked the debris lying around his feet. When no more spiders appeared, he squatted down to pat the earth with both hands.

‘What by the slavering trolls of Hell are you doing?’ Brel said.

‘Seeing how damp the ground is.’ Larn got up and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘Not very. It can’t have rained here recently.’

All three of them looked up at the spotless blue sky.

‘When we fire the place,’ Larn went on, ‘it’s going to be raining sparks. What we need is a short storm, just enough to water down this stuff here, but not enough to soak the walls.’

‘By all means, ask the gods to send us what you need,’ Brel said, grinning. ‘They can fight it out with Alshandra.’

‘Too bad we don’t have a sorcerer or two handy,’ Larn said.

All three of them laughed, but Kov found himself remembering the day he’d taken his staff to Dallandra to ask about runes. His realization that his staff would have crumbled away without some sort of spell upon it combined in his mind with all the old mountain folktales about the Westfolk and their skill with magic.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Brel said to him. ‘You look like you bit into a peach and found a wasp there ahead of you.’

‘Just an unpleasant thought or two,’ Kov said. ‘They’re easy to have out here.’

‘Now that’s very true.’ Larn had turned away to look over the stretch of debris. ‘I suppose we could get every man in the army to pick up an armful of this tree dung.’

‘And how long would it take to clear a wide enough area?’ Brel said. ‘We’d have to clean it up well past the encampment, wouldn’t we?’

‘Depends on the wind. If there was a wind blowing towards the camp, we couldn’t get rid of enough of this rubbish in a month.’

All three of them took a few steps towards Zakh Gral. Up on the stone towers pennants fluttered. A huge banner displaying the gold bow and arrows of the goddess hung down the side of the wooden tower and occasionally flapped in the rising breeze. The wind was coming straight up from the south, as indeed it had been ever since the army had arrived, blowing right over the fortress on its way upriver to the army’s encampment.

‘One more idea,’ Brel said. ‘Tell me something, Weaponmaster. Suppose we were on the other side of the river—the whole army, I mean. Could you deliver a load of fire to the fortress from there? I know the canyon’s wide, but—’