20

The 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.