Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (26 page)

At least the Islanders had stopped pouring boiling water from the windows above. The mud was deep there, the scalded skin of injured Fey gleaming redly around her. People were moaning. Bodies lay where they had fallen, eyes open and reproachful toward the sunny sky.

She stabbed the Islander across from her, then ducked behind a column to catch her breath. She had been fighting steadily since they’d entered the wall, allowing her troops to move inside without her, relinquishing their command to Jewel without telling a soul. Shima had known that would happen on one of the campaigns. She had simply had no idea it would be this one.

The clang of metal against metal mingled with the cries of pain. She used the back of her hand to wipe the sweat off her forehead. Her skin came away dark with grit and dried blood.

As she was about to step back into the melee, she saw an Islander soldier near the gate coat himself with the blood of a fallen colleague. The action made her pause. She had seen no evidence that the Islanders used the same weapons the Fey did—indeed, she had no idea that they had the same kinds of powers.

A Doppelgänger, then? It would be useful to know which one.

She eased around her column, protecting her back, and peered over the fighters. The soldier grabbed a slender man of medium height, and then they both disappeared.

A bleeding Islander slammed into her, then fell to the ground. The Fey who had injured the Islander was already engaged in a battle with a man wielding a club. Shima stood for an extra second, long enough for the slender man to stand—alone, naked, and uninjured.

As she had suspected. A Doppelgänger. She gripped her sword tightly and pulled her knife from its sheath. Then she fought her way through the crowd, adding the final blow in more than one battle, stopping once herself to stab a man in the stomach.

The Doppelgänger bent down. She could see only his naked back. Then he stood, slipping a shirt over his head, and bracing himself as he pulled on a pair of breeches. It seemed as if it took forever, but she finally reached his side.

“Which one are you?” she asked as softly as she could.

He gazed down his long, slender nose at her, and for a moment she thought she had made a mistake. Then he smiled.

“Silence,” he said in Nye, and held a finger to his lips.

Not a command, but an acknowledgment. He glanced around and apparently saw no one watching them. He leaned toward her and whispered in Fey, “Outside are Danites. They carry holy water—a potion—that can kill us. I have seen too many of our people die today. You must retreat and do so through the other gate. Go to the river. Convene in the Shadowlands.”

A potion that killed? Fey didn’t die in campaigns. Not in great numbers. Not in numbers huge enough to panic a Doppelgänger. The fear that had been building all day made Shima suddenly dizzy.

“Jewel,” he said. “Where is she?”

“Inside.”

“I’ll get her out. The only way she can be safe is as one of my prisoners.”

Shima took a deep breath. Something was giving her a way out. She would make it if she acted now. She had to believe that.

She peered through a hole in the gate. Islanders wearing black robes and no shoes stood in the street. They all held bottles and did not look as frightened as she felt.

“Those are Danites?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“They do not look dangerous.”

“That potion can kill on contact. Call retreat.”

Retreat. Never in her fifteen years as a leader had she called retreat. Never had she heard anyone do the same. If she hadn’t seen Silence change, she would have thought him some kind of knowledgeable Islander spy, out to infiltrate their ranks.

She swallowed. “You will handle the inside?”

“Just Jewel,” he said. “The rest is up to you.”

She nodded. “Get away from me now,” she said, “before they wonder why I don’t kill you.”

He pushed past her without looking back. The Islanders crowded around him as if he were someone to protect. He must have picked a powerful Islander to overtake.

Then she looked away from him. Call retreat.

She climbed onto some broken wood and shouted with all her strength, but her voice didn’t carry above the sounds of fighting. She tried again, projecting with all her power: “Troops! Through the west gate and down to the river. Immediately! Avoid the Islanders! They have a powerful magick!”

The Fey near her looked up, startled, some losing their advantages and getting clubbed or stabbed. The word rippled through the crowd like a wave. She was about to yell again when something wet hit her back. She turned.

A black-robed Islander scurried past her, a vial clutched in his wet hand. The Visions had been right.

“Retreat now!” she screamed as pain seared through her. She convulsed and fell, her body changing like an untutored Shape-Shifter’s. Her last coherent thought was that they had all been fools to risk everything for this wretched Island. Then she began her last, fruitless fight for survival.

TWENTY-SIX

Alexander paced. His steps raised decades-old dust. It coated his hands and face and made him sneeze. If the room had a window, he would open it. Then the noises from below would be even louder, and he would be a visible target.

He hated this forced inactivity. His people were doing his bidding; he could expect no more. Sometimes he wished he had the spontaneity and naïveté of Nicholas. If Alexander hadn’t felt the weight of obligation, he would have been below, fighting until he could no longer move.

Not that it did any good from up here. The closest they had to a war leader was Stephen, who had studied war as Matthias studied his religion. Even the guards knew little about actual fighting. They had to protect the royal family against angry peasants at times, or from fights within, but nothing like the Fey. The Fey had defeated the greatest armies in the world.

Stephen sat on a stool in front of the table. He was tracing plans on sheets of paper, then crumpling them and tossing them into a corner. Soon all of the old maps and documents that filled the room would be piles of discarded paper. Alexander’s father would have been appalled at the destruction. Alexander figured: let Stephen crumple everything in the room. History didn’t matter if Blue Isle had no future.

They should be discussing, thinking, planning, but the task was too great. Alexander wasn’t sure how to begin.

“How long are we going to remain up here?” he asked. “Until the sounds of battle die out below?”

Stephen looked up from his doodles. “Or until someone brings us word.”

“Seems foolish to me,” Alexander said. “To keep me alive when I might rule over nothing.”

“There is always a Kingdom as long as the King is alive,” Stephen said. “They can’t—and won’t—kill everyone on the Isle. It’s not their way. They conquer, and then they make their territories work for the Empire. They’re very efficient. They’ll install Fey governors here who will make the survivors work harder than they have ever worked. Blue Isle has resources to offer, resources the Fey can’t tap alone. They will keep some of our people alive. People who will rally around you.”

“Even you seem to be planning for our initial destruction.” Alexander sat on the bench across from Stephen. Dust rose and Alexander sneezed. Then he brushed his hair away from his forehead.

“We’re fools to think we can survive this kind of initial attack. We will be among the defeated, Sire. We need to accept that. But we must not accept that defeat.” Stephen rubbed his stubble-covered chin. “And that is why you must remain here.”

Alexander sighed and placed his head on his arms. Dju had warned him of this. On the representative’s last visit before the fall of Nye, Dju had asked for a private audience with Alexander.
They will overrun us,
Dju had said.
They will come for you next.

But no one can penetrate Blue Isle without our help,
Alexander had said.

The Fey can. They have strengths beyond our ken. Already they have breached our eastern borders, and we have been preparing for this for decades. Our soldiers are trained and ready. You have no real soldiers, Sire. The Fey will destroy you in an afternoon.

Why are you telling me this?
Alexander had asked.

Because your lack of vision concerns me, and your ideas that you are not part of this world concern me even more. It may be too late for Nye, but it is not for Blue Isle.

He hadn’t listened. He had been warned several times, and by people he trusted, and he still hadn’t listened. He had preferred to believe that the Isle would protect them, as it had always done. And in his lack of foresight, he had condemned his people to death.

His son to death.

“I wish Nicholas were here,” he said.

“As do I,” Stephen said. “We need him as well as you.”

Alexander brought his head up. Stephen was looking away, his cheeks flushed. His businesslike words had hidden his own concern for Alexander’s son. Stephen had given Nicholas as much care—maybe more care—than Alexander had done.

And if Nicholas survived the day, it would be because of Stephen, not Alexander.

He needed to think. They came in by the river. They not only planned to invade, but to conquer and settle. Stephen had said they were vulnerable to the same things Islanders were, but had more power at their command. If the Islanders could find a way to reduce the size of the Fey’s force while avoiding the Fey’s power, they might have a chance.

And Stephen was right: it would take surviving the day.

Alexander drummed his hands on the table, then stood. “We need a specific plan,” he said. “Something more than hoping that we will survive and using me as a rallying point.”

Stephen threaded his fingers together and placed his hands behind his head, leaning back. “What are you envisioning?”

Voices rose outside the door. Alexander froze. Stephen stood slowly, pulling his sword and moving beside the door frame. Then someone pounded on the door itself. Alexander put his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

“Come,” he said as the door burst open. Monte, head of the palace guards, staggered in, his clothing covered with blood, his forearm slashed and dripping from a handful of small cuts. Dirt streaked his face. He had a Danite in tow, a round barefoot man whose black robe was in tatters. In his hand he held a bottle usually used in Midnight Sacrament.

“Well?” Alexander’s hand remained on his dagger. Stephen hadn’t moved from his crouch beside the door. The guards crowded against the opening, their backs to the room.

“We . . . have . . . them, Sire,” Monte said. His words came in large gasps, as if he couldn’t get enough air.

“‘Them’?” Alexander asked, not willing to hope.

“The . . . Fey, Sire. . . . They’re . . . dying.”

“All of them?”

“Not yet,” the Danite said, his head bowed. His voice rumbled from a place deep inside him. “But soon. Holy water kills them, Sire.”

Stephen stood and let his sword down. “It what?” he asked.

“Kills them.” The Danite glanced at the swordmaster. “It’s like they melt.”

Alexander felt something let go in his chest, a holding, a panic. He didn’t even acknowledge the Danite, but addressed his remarks to Monte. “Is this true?”