six

DEFENSE PLANS

Other civilians and soldiers on the walkway had turned to see what was happening. Kel shoved one corporal back toward the wall. “Keep your post!” she yelled, doing the same to a pair of civilians who stood gawping. “Do you want the enemy to come up this way while you stare?”

She barreled down the wall, shoving those who didn’t listen back into their places, ordering them to watch the enemy outside. The crossbow was already set, a bolt in the notch. She wasted a breath on regrets for her griffin-fletched arrows, which seemed to aim themselves, and made the turn onto the eastern walkway.

“Move!” she snapped, thrusting onlookers aside. Ahead, a knot of soldiers and civilians battled the killing devices. It was disastrous. The things were quick, and the fighters had almost no protection against them. A man went down, gutted by a dagger-hand. A soldier flew off the walkway to the ground twenty feet below.

Kel yanked civilians and soldiers away from the closest device, which was only half over the wall. She leveled her bow at its helm, just five feet away, and pulled the trigger. Crossbow bolts, heavy enough to punch through armor, were devastating at such short range. This bolt slammed into the head-dome of the device to punch through the thick iron. Kel lunged within reach of the three-jointed arms, prayed, and grabbed the bolt, yanking it out of the device. It left a small, round hole.

Something white and vaporous flowed out of the opening, crying like a child. The wind shredded the spirit as the device went dead in a clatter of metal and chains.

Kel fumbled for her quiver, dropping two bolts before she finally grasped one. “Get back!” she yelled at those who fought the remaining device. “Now!”

They obeyed. One refugee wasn’t quick enough; the device cut him lengthwise from behind as he turned to flee. This monster had made it onto the walkway. Sparrows fluttered around the narrow pits that served as its eyes, confusing it. Kel shot from just six feet away, but the thing turned its head. The bolt hit at an angle and bounced off, leaving only a scratch in the metal. The device shook its head and faced Kel. White-lipped, she grabbed the quiver and sought another bolt with trembling fingers.

“Look out!” Saefas shouted from the far side of the thing. He’d gotten a big axe and was guarding civilians until they could make it down the nearest stair. “Lady, look out!”

Kel glanced up and threw herself back. A sledgeload of logs, raised from the ground by magic the color of glittering black fire—Numair’s Gift— hung over the killing device. As Kel dodged, Numair’s magic dropped the logs. They slammed the metal creature and the walkway on which it stood down onto the ground behind an unoccupied barracks.

Wasting no time, Kel raced down the flight of stairs behind her, where the walkway was undamaged. She set a bolt in the crossbow’s notch and yanked the heavy string to the trigger as she reached the heap of logs. It shifted. A claw-hand shot out of a gap. Logs rolled and tumbled as the device fought its way out from under them. As soon as she saw the head-dome, Kel shot and hit squarely. She lurched over the treacherous logs until she could yank the bolt free. The trapped spirit that fueled the killing device escaped, crying for its mother. Once it had fled, the logs and the thing under them were still.

As she was about to remove her helmet, Kel remembered that this wasn’t the only fight she had to worry about. She ran toward the gate, trying to ignore trembling knees and rolling stomach as the effect of fighting the devices hit her. They could have cut her to pieces, mail shirt or no. They had cut up some of her people.

Connac, still at his post over the gate, was looking for her. As soon as he saw her, he gave the hand sign for “battle won.” Kel sagged for a moment, relief making her giddy. But it would not do for her people to see her lose her strength, even if they were safe for now. Somehow she found the strength to walk on to the gate. Tobe met her halfway, a water flask in his hands. Until she saw it, Kel hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. She drained it and smiled at him. It was good to know that when she needed him, Tobe was always there without argument or complaint. Part of his eagerness to help was still his worry that she would vanish, she knew, but she also liked to think it was because the little old man in him approved of the way she did things.

“I don’t know how I managed before you came along,” she said, handing the empty flask back to him. “I did a good day’s work when I hired you.”

Tobe swiped at his face with one hand, embarrassed, and went for more water as Kel dragged herself up the stairs to the watch post. Below, her men were checking the enemy on the ground. They gave the mercy stroke to those too badly hurt for the healers to tend or to those Scanrans who begged for it. None of them wanted to be made a prisoner. Like Kel’s Yamani friends, Scanrans thought surrender was a loss of honor that could never be recovered. Most preferred to die fighting.

To hide the trembling of her fingers, Kel polished the lens of the spyglass with a handkerchief. She accepted a ladle of water from Sergeant Connac and drank it, then returned her gaze to the field below. Merric, his patrol, and the squad of soldiers from Haven were on their way up the inclined road. Dom hand-signaled Kel, asking for permission to check the north woods. Kel signaled for him to go ahead but take care. Connac was right. This battle was done.

“Nets,” she said abruptly, turning to survey the camp. People were laying out those who had been killed when the devices came over the wall. “Maybe nets would do it.”

“Milady?” asked Connac.

“I want nets made,” she said as Tobe reached her with a newly filled water flask. She gulped half of it. “Hemp, yes, but metal, too. Chain, wire, rods . . . Let’s salvage what we can from those devices for a start. The nets should measure twenty feet by twenty feet, and we’ll keep two for each side of the wall. And I want five pickaxes for each wall, equally spaced, where folk can get at them.”

“You think they’ll help with the devices?” Connac wanted to know.

“Those things can cut hemp, but metal woven into it ought to slow them down,” she said, putting the stopper into her flask. “Gods willing, it’ll slow them a bit so that someone can get close enough to crack their heads with the pickaxe, and let the magic out.”

“It’s a good idea,” Numair said. He looked disheveled and sweaty but lively enough. Kel handed over her flask. The mage drained it. “I’ll help make the nets.”

“You’ll have to train the soldiers on them,” Fanche pointed out as she unstrung her bow. “Drill them. They’ll only get one chance to trap ’em, those devices move so fast.”

Kel nodded. “We’ll drill them till they drop,” she promised absently, watching as Merric and his fighters rode through the gates. “And not just the soldiers. Anyone who can fight.” The new refugees who weren’t helping to carry the wounded to the infirmary or weeping for those killed on the road thanked the soldiers who’d saved their lives.

Perhaps now was the best time to speak to the newcomers and to the other civilians, Kel thought, before they learned that a fifth of their soldiers would be returning to Fort Steadfast in the morning. Kel looked at Tobe. “Would you tell Master Zamiel—that’s the new head clerk—I need four of his people, with note-taking materials, at the flagpole?” she asked. “I’ll need them to write up training rosters.”

The boy nodded and ran to do her bidding. Kel looked at Fanche, who observed her with a crooked smile.

“Amused?” Kel asked, feeling tired. “I could use a joke.”

Fanche shook her head. “I was just thinking that maybe you’re worth your feed.” She poked Saefas in the ribs with an elbow. “Let’s get our folk over to that pole.”

Saefas waved to Kel and trotted down the stairs after Fanche.

“Kel?” Merric called from below. He’d removed his helmet to empty his water flask. His normally copper hair was dark and matted with sweat. His bright blue eyes glittered in his pale face. “I’m taking another patrol out for a look at the south woods.”

“Go, and be careful,” Kel told him. Merric nodded and began to reassemble his men.

After a moment spent watching them, Kel began to walk around the upper wall, talking to each person there, soldier and civilian, thanking them for their service as she took the opportunity to inspect the ground. She didn’t want any more surprises. Fortunately, none seemed to be available. When she reached the gap in the walkway, she climbed down the stairs, walked around the tumbled heap of logs atop the device, and climbed up to finish her inspection of her people and their surroundings.

One of the Goatstrack refugee girls found Kel after she had returned to the walkway over the gate. “Mistress Fanche says they’re waiting,” she said, panting from the trot up the stair.

Kel refilled her flask at the well and followed her to the flagpole, Jump at their heels. As she made her way through the cluster of refugees, she listened to the trumpet signals that came over the wall. Patrols had found no more of the enemy lurking in the north or south woods. A knot she hadn’t noticed in her gut loosened. She’d been afraid there would be more Scanrans out there, waiting for them to relax after they’d beaten off one attack.

Kel stepped up onto a bench so everyone could see her, nodding to the four gray-robed clerks who stood nearby. “If each of you will take a place at one of the stocks?” she asked them. The clerks obeyed as Kel waited for the people around her to quiet down. When she had their attention, she called, “How many of you shoot bows?” she asked. “Raise your hands. I want anyone over the age of ten or so, no matter if your shooting is good or bad.”

Hands went up in response. “All of you, sign up with . . .” Kel pointed to the female clerk at the southern stocks.

“Hildurra Ward,” the woman said, getting to her feet to bow.

“When I’m done talking, give Mistress Hildurra your names,” Kel ordered them. “How many can use a sling?” More hands went up, including those of girls and boys who looked to be under thirteen. Mountain children, who watched the family herds, learned to use slings to fight off predators. She assigned those people to a clerk, then did the same for those who could wield a staff or pitchfork. Those who were skilled with more than one weapon Kel directed to sign up on all the appropriate lists. “No doubt you’re wondering why I ask this,” Kel went on, looking into the many faces turned up to her. “Or perhaps you’ve guessed already. Tomorrow, after breakfast, we start holding weapons training for you.”

A moan went up from the refugees.

Kel waited for them to be quiet, taking a drink of water as she did so. When they were silent, she continued, very much aware of the soldiers watching from the ramparts. “Training can’t be put off. We’re not a fort, we’re a refugee camp. That means we don’t have as many soldiers as the forts, and one-quarter of our men will always be out on patrol. If we’re to defend ourselves properly, we need everyone who can use a weapon. I’ll put your training-group assignments up in the mess hall in the morning.” She smiled ruefully. “I had meant to give you time to settle in, but as you see, the enemy had other plans.”

A mutter of curses ran through the crowd.

“One more group I need,” Kel went on. “Young people who are good with horses, who can saddle them. Hands.”

Hands shot up all through the gathering.

“Sign up with our neglected clerk,” she said, pointing out a boy not much older than Tobe who wore the blue ribbon trim on his sleeves that indicated he was an apprentice. “You saw how little warning we get. The moment any of you who work this detail hears the signal for an attack, drop whatever you’re doing, head for the stables, and start saddling horses. You’ll have a trainer when you report to the stable tomorrow, someone to check your work and teach you better ways to do it. Soldiers shouldn’t waste time finding their weapons and saddling up. Understood?”

The young people nodded with considerably more enthusiasm than had the adults.

Silver flashed in the sky overhead. Kel looked up. Stormwings glided over Haven, bound for the dead who lay on the valley floor. She flexed her hands into fists. It didn’t matter that only Scanran dead lay out there. They had fought as their own nobles had ordered. They deserved better than the treatment Stormwings would give them.

“Now,” Kel said, bracing herself for a fight, “I need a burial detail to go out with me.”

“Leave ’em t’rot!” cried a man. Others added their approval.

Kel put her hands on her hips and waited until they were quiet. “Then, sir, you shall plow the section where the bodies are, two days hence,” she said mildly. “The feel of a plow as it hits rotting flesh and bone must be . . . interesting.”

Some of her audience turned green.

“Bodies mean sickness in the water and the ground,” Kel said more crisply. “We won’t have it. Burial detail volunteers can report to me. If no one volunteers, I will choose some.” She looked them over and decided the news that they would also need to fill out work lists could wait. “That’s it. Burial volunteers, let’s get moving.”

Kel wiped her hands on her napkin yet again as the cooks took the last supper dishes from the headquarters common room. For the first time she wished she had perfume. The odor of Stormwings and death clung to her despite a pre-supper wash and change of clothes.

As the last cook left with the last dish, she made herself put the napkin down and observed her companions. Merric, Dom, and the sergeants all had a goblet of wine before them. The mages—Baird, Numair, Neal—had similar goblets, but theirs were filled with cider, as was Kel’s. Baird and Neal looked fresher than she had expected after an afternoon spent keeping the soldier with the hole in his heart comfortable while they tended the wounded. Still, she had to remember that they couldn’t be allowed to overwork.

Assistants, Kel thought, watching the healers. There are midwives in the Goatstrack company. Maybe the new people have a healer or two. Lord Wyldon’s gift of clerks had made her realize that people didn’t have to do each and every thing themselves. “Why weren’t we taught about clerks?” she heard herself ask. The men grinned.

“Regular knights don’t need ’em,” Merric said, sipping his wine.

“It’s true,” Dom added. “You only really need clerks at company level. Till then, you do your own paperwork.” He made a face as the others laughed. “Kel, you know I’ve got my orders, right?” he asked, meeting Kel’s eyes with his very blue ones.

I’m going to miss looking at him, she thought. And I’m going to miss his support. Dom always backs me up. “Yes, Lord Raoul wrote me,” she replied. To the others she explained, “Dom’s squad’s to report back to Fort Steadfast. War’s officially declared.”

“If you hadn’t said so, however would we guess?” drawled Neal. “Oh, wait, now I remember— I saw dead Scanrans lying about somewhere.”

“They were more interesting when they were alive,” Merric told him grimly.

“I’ll take your word for it, thanks all the same.” Neal raised his cup in a silent toast.

Kel looked at Numair. “Master Numair, you said you have other messages to give?”

The mage drew a circle at the center of the table with a quill, then etched signs along its sparkling edge. When he snapped his fingers, an image sprang to life within the circle, standing a foot tall. Kel grimaced. It was a killing device.

“In addition to the two killed here today, nineteen of these things have been reported in the country between the City of the Gods and Seabeth,” Numair said quietly. “Nineteen that we are sure of. Villagers near Sigis Hold caught one in the kind of pit they use to trap bears, then shoveled it full of oil, hay, and coal and burned it until it half melted. None of the others have been taken, well, ‘alive’ is the best term. But we finally know more about who is creating them.”

He sighed and rubbed his temples. “The City of the Gods expelled a mage student, Blayce Younger of Galla, six years ago. The charges were necromancy, particularly the enslavement of the spirits of the dead. It seems he has an aptitude for it.”

“So he uses his aptitude to kill children,” Kel whispered through numb lips. “He murders them and uses their spirits to fuel the killing devices.” Around the table everyone but Numair and Kel drew the sign against evil—an X with a straight line through it: a six-pointed star—on his chest. It isn’t going to do you any good, Kel thought, watching them. And Master Numair knows it, too.

“You sound sure,” Numair said, his long, dark eyes sharp as he looked at Kel.

“I was there when three of the things were killed,” she reminded him. “The white vapors that come out of their heads? They have the voices of children.” I don’t have to mention the Chamber now, she thought with some relief. They know who’s doing it, they have his name, and that’s the only useful thing I know. So I’m not doing harm to their search for him by not speaking up.

“He could use any spirit,” Baird pointed out, his mouth twisted in disgust. “I wager he uses those of captive foreigners so Maggur will ignore, and make his own people ignore, what this Blayce does.” He drained his cider. Neal refilled his cup. “It disgusts me,” whispered Baird, “what people allow, if they think those who commit vile acts can help them to achieve some goal.”

Numair snapped his fingers and the device at the center of the table vanished. He reached over and rubbed a hand over the glittering circle, retrieving its power. “All this means that refugee camps are just storehouses of fuel for Blayce. We’ve sent a request south for wagons to take every refugee out of reach of the border,” he said. “I think I’ve explained things in frank enough terms that even the Council of Lords and the Council of Commons will see there’s no choice. They’ll vote us the funds and find the land to house them. His majesty says he won’t let the councils adjourn for the summer until they do. Until then, we’ll have to manage as best we can.”

“But we know who’s responsible,” Merric pointed out. “And these devices could change the course of this war. Surely we ought to be sending teams of assassins to settle this Blayce.”

“Do we know where he is?” asked Dom. “There’s an awful lot of Scanra out there, and most of it’s straight up and down.”

Numair shook his head. “All we know is that he’s not in the capital at Hamrkeng. Our spies searched the place from cellar to attic. He’s not with King Maggur.”

“And anyone who might know is too scared to talk,” murmured Neal.

“That’s the size of it,” Numair admitted. “We’ll continue to search, and to bolster the defenses of the camps. At least Haven can look to someone who’s killed three devices.” He nodded at Kel.

“With lots of help,” she reminded him automatically.

All of them sat, eyes somber, arms crossed over their chests or cupped around their goblets.

I needed to know where Blayce was so I could find him before I got tied down here, Kel thought ferociously at the distant Chamber of the Ordeal. But you wouldn’t tell me. You aren’t of my time. Now I have to defend these people from his creations, and with what? Scant magic, forty soldiers, half of them convicts, and a bunch of civilians used to hunting and shooing wolves from their flocks. Curse your stone heart.

“Stones,” she said aloud. Everyone looked at her. “Let’s start moving stones to the base of the raised ground here, start piling them up. It’s easy to climb dirt,” she explained as Neal opened his mouth to argue. “Didn’t we see that today? And then they just claw their way up wood. Stones at least make a smooth surface. The killing devices’ claws will slip on stone.” Neal closed his mouth. Seeing that the men continued to stare at her, Kel went on, “That’s how the Yamanis build their castles. They cover everything from the wall straight down below the moat in stone. We can’t cut it flat, maybe, but we can make the climb up these heights much harder.”

“Wyldon made a good choice when he put you in command here,” Duke Baird said with a tired smile. “He knows you have a fresh way of looking at things.”

Kel glanced at Merric. She knew her being in command here was a sore point with him, though her job was the refugees and his was the patrols and command of the soldiers outside Haven’s walls. Merric smiled crookedly, raised his goblet to her in a mocking toast, and finished its contents.

“I can help,” Numair said abruptly. “I can move large rocks more quickly than muscle and oxen can do it, at least.”

“Not the Sorcerer’s Dance!” cried Neal. “That one is so old it creaks!”

“The spell may creak as much as it likes, if it works,” Numair replied calmly. “What would you use?”

They began to argue magic. Dom and Merric stood with groans; Kel did likewise. If the mages even noticed they were leaving, they gave no sign of it.

Kel bade Merric good-night and promised Dom she would see him and his squad off in the morning. Then she looked at the extra clump of shadow by the rear door. “Tobe?”

He stepped into the light of the few cressets on the walls. “He said Blayce. Is that your Blayce, lady? The one as makes you talk in your sleep?”

Kel sighed. “Yes, it is.”

Tobe shook his head. “No wonder you’ve got nightmares.”

“If you’d sleep in a room of your own, you wouldn’t hear them,” Kel pointed out. This was an old discussion. Tobe refused to trade his pallet by her hearth for a real bed and room. “And what are you doing, eavesdropping?” she wanted to know. “That was a closed-door meeting. No listening allowed.”

Tobe gave Kel his best “don’t you know anything?” look. “I’m in service, lady,” he said patiently. “When you’re in service, you have to eavesdrop. Elsewise your masters get up to things and you get took by surprise.”

Kel had begun to recognize the signs of another conversation she could not win. She switched tactics. “You should be in bed,” she informed him.

“So should you,” he retorted. “But them scribblers is still working, and they asked me to say, they’re wishful of seeing you. Do I tell ’em to stuff their wishfulness?”

Kel rubbed her eyes. “No, I’ll see them,” she replied. “Off to bed, Tobe.”

He vanished into her rooms. Kel walked into the clerks’ office. They were all working, but when they saw her, they scrambled to their feet and bowed.

“My lady, there was no time for proper introductions today,” said the oldest, a man. “I am Zamiel Fairview of Blue Harbor. This is my colleague Hildurra Ward, and my apprentice, Gragur Marten.” Kel recognized them from the gathering at the flagpole, as she recognized Master Traver and Mistress Thurdie. She did her best to fix the other clerks’ names and faces in her mind but knew she’d have to be reminded of them later. She was tired.

“What may I do for you?” Kel asked, with the feeling that this wasn’t simply a matter of introductions.

“We hope to take just a little of your time, if you please, lady knight,” replied Zamiel. “We have suggestions that may ease everyone’s lot.”

Kel bit her lip. Hadn’t her day been long enough?

A sigh escaped her. Wyldon had trusted her to do this task—all of it—properly. She returned the clerks’ bows. “I am at your service,” she told them.