King's Shield (82 page)

The ball of ice was gone. Discipline was as well, that was all right. The sight of the reinforcements caused most of the Idayagans to panic and throw down their arms.

When the cease-fighting trumpet blew, the girls understood that the battle was over. Yes, here came warriors to take charge of the men on the landslide, who looked around uncertainly, not sure if their own people had surrendered, not sure what to do next.

Captain Han flung her bow over her back and bent to help the angrily sobbing Freckles to her feet. The other girls followed, half of them whimpering too, though they didn’t know why.

 

 

 

Cama stood in front of the prisoners, who clumped together sullenly, fearfully, miserably in the middle of the rubble-strewn parade ground just inside the second gate.

There were twice and half again as many Idayagans as Marlovans. The former were dismayed, then angry, to discover that. It had seemed to them a full army swept out of nowhere onto them, and many couldn’t throw down their weapons fast enough. Most had had little or no training. Cama strongly suspected the leader had been at the front gate. The ruse with the landslide had been clever, but there had been no one to follow up their advantage. If the leader had known how to command his two fronts, the battle would have gone a lot worse for the Marlovans.

And it would keep being like that, unless Cama could force them into peace through fear.

He walked back and forth, glaring at them with his one good eye. Then he said in Marlovan, which Ndand translated into Idayagan, “I want to know who killed those unarmed children the other night.”

No one answered.

Cama lifted a hand, rigid with disgust. “Fine. You’re under our law. That’s specific about the consequences of cowardice.”

“They were shooting at us!” came a voice from the back, which Ndand translated in a whisper.

Hissings and violent language issued from the Idayagans, but the same voice shouted, “Those soul-rotted brats
shot
at us!”

Cama said, “I am not talking about your attempt to take this castle. That comes under rules of war. I mean four children just after the Venn came. Unarmed. You killed them in cold blood, and I’m going to exact a price for that. From every one of you if I have to—”

“They were yelling!” the same voice protested. “They would’ve called the Venn on us!”

Cama waited until Ndand translated.

“So none of you were capable of saying ‘Shut up, the Venn will hear you?’ But apparently you
were
capable of calling them ‘little Marlovan shits’—in their own language—before you killed them.”

“
Murdering
shits.
All
of you—”

Ndand did not have to translate that. The man shouted it in Marlovan, which he’d learned in order to sell flour to Castle Andahi.

The Idayagans sidled and shuffled away from the speaker, as if contact with him would make them targets. Cama now had a clear view of a tall, plump man in a miller’s heavy green apron over a jacket and old breeches. His face was red, distorted with a mix of fury and fear.

“Who else?” Cama asked.

No answer.

Cama said, “Then we’ll flog the backs off every one of you cowards. Beginning with you.” He pointed at the one he was fairly certain was in command.

“Your shit-stinking murderers pretend you have civilized laws—” He too had learned some Marlovan.

“You,” Cama rode over him in a field voice, “don’t even have the guts to speak up for the men under your orders. So you can watch us kill every one before we get to you.”

Green Apron shouted in his own language, “So we’ll have an easy win, eh, Djallac? And when I’m dead, your cousin—with his oh so convenient twisted ankle, he can’t go on this stupid suicide run of yours—he gets my mill?”

Ndand caught up rapidly.

Djallac was the leader. A man of about forty, short and spare, he’d once done a stint of duty in the Ghael Hills before the Marlovans came. Like many, he’d melted back into civilian life, waiting and watching for a moment to strike back.

He turned an ugly glare from Cama to Green Apron, then back again. He licked his lips. “We want our land free. Last week those Venn soul-suckers sent out people to divide us up into land parcels. Telling us what we were going to plant for them. What we would make!”

“You thought you could stop that by taking the castle?” Cama asked, amazed at this combination of bravery and ignorance.

“We thought they were all gone up over the mountain. We didn’t know they had left some here. As for the brats, you can blame that on me since you want to lay blame on someone. I killed the last of ’em before they could betray us to the Venn.”

Cama made a grim face, then lifted his voice. “I am the new Jarl for Idayago. The new Jarl for Andahi, Olara, and Tradheval is nine-years-old Keth Arveas.” The children standing in a line against the wall turned to look at Keth, as he stared down at the ground.

“Our job will be to keep the Venn from coming back. Keep pirates away. Keep the law. And we do have law. You can grow what you want, you can make what you want. You can sell what you want, once you give us our share—the share you’d be giving your king, who used it to build palaces. If you attack us, we fight back. Hard. As hard as we fight pirates. If you kill our children you die as murderers. Understand?”

One of the younger men said in accented Marlovan, “So are you going to kill us all?”

“Not if you go home and get back to your usual life. You’ll never even see me if you do that.” And as Ndand translated, Cama turned to Djallac and Green Apron. “But you two? I meant what I said about those children. I’ll offer you a chance to fight for your lives. Right now. You a sword, me my knife. You’ll never get a fairer offer.”

Djallac died without speaking, fighting viciously but wild; Green Apron protested and threatened and finally pled in a sobbing, gibbering whine, mixing up demands that his mill be left to anyone but Djallac’s cousin with offers to do anything if his life would be spared. Even the Idayagans were relieved when Cama cut that short.

“All right, out of here. You can take these two with you and give them to their families, or we’ll Disappear ’em, but with no ceremony.”

Men exchanged looks uncertainly, then a mob of them turned to the bodies, the rest slinking away in haste, not believing they were still alive.

Before those carrying the dead vanished through the gate, one turned back to Cama, who stood watching, fists on hips.

“What about his mill?”

“You settle that.” Cama peeled off his gauntlets, and jammed his knife into the dusty ground to clean it. He looked up. “But if you fight over it, you’ll be dealing with me.”

As soon as they were out of sight, Cama issued new orders for trackers to watch the Idayagans, new routes of patrol, a party to find wherever it was the Idayagans had been hiding. The wounded were taken inside the bare castle and the few dead gathered. At sunset they would sing them.

Then he started on the self-appointed inspection, but this time he had company. Ndand Arveas insisted on going with him.

Together Cama and Ndand walked through the ruined castle, room after room with scorch-marks, collapsed floors, sharp barbs worked into doors, floors, walls. Bloodstains, as yet unscrubbed, everywhere: the Venn had not had time to get more than the lower floor cleaned up.

“Damn,” Cama kept saying, over and over. “What a fight. What a defense.” And then, when they stood in a tower archway and gazed down at the blood-blackened splinters crashed below, “How many women were here?”

“I couldn’t say exactly. Some might have been sent oth erwhere. But including the girls fifteen and over, not quite two hundred.”

“Of course including the girls,” Cama said, his voice as rough as stone. He looked up, around, and down again, and shook his head. “Of course including the girls. Do you realize what they did? Two hundred women held off thousands and thousands of Venn. For how long? However long it was, they bought us that time at the other end. Fifteen-year-old girls.” He shook his head again.

Ndand couldn’t speak. Her throat had tightened and she held her breath. She would grieve later, but right now she was needed to restore the castle, to mother those poor children. She owed the women of Castle Andahi that.

Presently, Cama moved away. She squared her chin. “The way to the walls is through here.”

In silence they toured what remained of the sentry walk, and gradually Ndand got hold of that cloud of threatening grief. A steadying list of immediate tasks formed itself in her mind.

She knew the grief would be back. The pain of Flash’s death had stabbed her over and over, sharp as knife cuts, and no matter how hard she cried, she could not cry out the pain. But in Cama’s astonishment as he looked around, in his evident respect, she found the small consolation of pride, and held onto it.

At length they stood alone in the Jarl’s old office, which had been stripped of all furniture by the Venn. The sun was setting. It was nearly time for the ceremony of Disappearance.

Cama was scarcely more than a silhouette, tall and strong, one dark-fringed eye gleaming with reflected torchlight, the other patched. When that eye met Ndand’s, she was taken by surprise: there was, just for a moment, the spark she never expected to feel again. Other feelings promptly overwhelmed it with a cascade of the tears that must fall first, in spirit and in life. But the idea that she could feel something besides pain, regret, and grief again was another small comfort, next to the pride.

Cama regarded the slim young woman standing there, bow over her shoulder. Her robes were filthy from her long ride, the fight, the grim inspection of her home. Her face, like his, was grimy. Straight-shouldered, capable, she had a kind voice for those chattery girls downstairs. He smiled, without knowing why he smiled, for he, too, was tired, and overwhelmed by the destruction he’d witnessed in detail for his report to Evred.

“Cama!” a Runner dashed in, eyes wide. “A boy just showed up. Says he’s Radran, used to be the cook’s helper. Says he was holed up on the mountain counting enemies. Says he saw
everything.
”

“Radran!” Ndand exclaimed happily. “Wait till I tell Keth.”

Ndand took off, and Cama followed on her heels. This new responsibility seemed just a little easier now that he’d met her. He had an ally. Maybe a friend.

Chapter Thirty-two

DANNOR Tya-Vayir threw Evred’s official tribute letter to the floor and kicked the nearest object.

It was a tall vase with herons standing in arch-necked poses, the colors blue and silver. One of those Colendi things Tdiran-Jarlan had droned on about so tiresomely all the years Dannor was growing up. You’d think if they were going to draw herons they would draw them with power and grace, lifting in flight. Otherwise, they were spindle-legged birds.

The vase was heavier than Dannor expected. The impact sent a shock of pain up her foot, but that was worth the spectacular smash, and the tinkle of pieces in the empty fireplace.

Her door burst open—something that had never happened before—and the twins dashed in, looking around wildly.

Dannor gave a hoot of angry laughter.

Badger Yvana-Vayir’s voice was thick with dislike. “Did you read it?”

“I didn’t read past the news about Hawkeye.”
What would be the point?
She wanted to say, but the words stayed unuttered.

The boys were standing too close. For the very first time she was aware of having to tip up her head to look into their faces, which she seldom bothered to do. They were annoying, sulky boys, tedious as all boys are. But now they loomed over her, their faces tight with anger and grief, emphasizing the strong bones they shared with their older brother.

Now dead,
damn
him.

Badger dashed a muscular forearm over his eyes. “Y-you don’t even care,” he began, but Beaver sent him a quick look, and Badger gritted his teeth.

Beaver said, “So what are you going to do?”

Yes. That was the question that made her kick that stupid vase to pieces. From the stances of the two, their scowls, they were just waiting to turf her out of Yvana-Vayir.

She wouldn’t give them the pleasure. Kicking some of the shards into the fireplace, she said, “Go home, of course.” A wave of fury burned through her.
Stupid
Hawkeye, to run at the front of that battle. If only she’d taken the war talk seriously. But she’d heard it all her life—
When the Venn come
—and they never had. So now there was no heir, which would have cemented her for life as senior Jarlan.

But Hawkeye was history. Her business was living. She had to find a new life, preferably somewhere better than Yvana-Vayir. Definitely not back at Tya-Vayir, smallest jarlate of them all, and crammed with the worst people. So where to go? Wasn’t Evred Montrei-Vayir going to her brother’s? She bent to pick up the letter, but Badger was quicker.

“That’s ours.” And his eyes teared.

Dannor sighed. “It says that the king is going to Tya-Vayir for the triumph, am I correct?”

“Yes,” Beaver said as his brother carefully rolled the letter, picked up the black ribbon from the floor, and tenderly retied the scroll. “We have to go. On account of the title.”

I wish you joy of deciding who’s Jarl and who’s not,
she thought, but she swallowed that. She smiled at them under her lashes, as if they weren’t just tiresome boys. “Then please honor me with your escort home,” she said sweetly.

She was a widow, they didn’t want her here, she had to go home. And she’d used
that
word.

She watched them realize each fact, one by one. Idiots.

They were also handsome and popular. She’d look good arriving with them as escorts, and Hawkeye’s death in battle would bring some glory to his widow. So . . . how much was glory worth?