Chapter 13

One of our Ranger squads disappeared entirely.

Two of the companies sent out yesterday were attacked in the night and routed to Father-knew-where across the deserted countryside. Messengers found only corpses and ruined camps.

Mid-morning, I felt kir flare in the distance. I sent word of that to Kiefan in the vanguard along with a reminder for those King’s Guard I’d trained to check the patterns of all who approached him. Sir Garrick, still my lieutenant, had learned the trick of it and could check any near me. I warned Elect Teleri as well.

By then, she was atop a hill that overlooked the Southbound Road while it followed close by the Neva’s shore. The hill narrowed the way and offered a fine place to attack from, so a company had been sent to hold it. Teleri had joined them. They’d watched the vanguard as it crossed the neck and now they guarded Duke Seagrace and me with the main army.

Word came back with the same messenger I’d sent to Teleri: centaurs spotted on our flank.

Duke Seagrace gave orders. I drew more kir from Qadeem and draped it around me in a cloak. Let me be the target, if they came, not these men. I angled Jenner to the edge of the road and stopped him there, watching and calling kir. But no attack came.

I had to catch up when orders arrived for us to form up in those fields Kiefan had pointed to on the map. It wasn’t far past the narrow neck. Less than a mile. But we wound through a light, brushy forest and all eyes were on the trees. All hands on swords and bows.

The forest gave way to broad, open land with few stone walls. Farmhouses clustered in a few low spots. Singréne’s gates, on the Southbound Road, were shut. Trebuchets on the wall stood ready. The wall looped long around the city, gave way to a bridge where it met the water, and became a wall again on the other side. The castle stood on a low hill across the broad Neva and well out of our reach.

Kiefan’s vanguard had stopped at a cautious distance from the city walls. Seagrace’s men marched off the Southbound Road and across the fields to form up in blocks. Scyfe and Glyman’s Suevi marched off the other side, taking up formation between the road and the river.

I stayed on the road with Duke Seagrace and Kiefan. Teleri joined us, riding up at a canter ahead of her company of a hundred. “Did see three hundred centaurs, at least,” she reported.

“When?” Kiefan asked.

“Some time past — did send word.”

“Word never arrived.”

And they poured out of the scrubby trees behind us. Centaurs pranced high in the front and Arceal armsmen marched behind them. The sun glinted on their iron lamellar. My stomach sank at first, and I had to remind myself we were strong here. They were only ten thousand. Our baggage and supply were safe on the far side of the narrow neck, protected by the Tadhlon Guard.

I watched them as more orders were given to adjust our men’s arrangement. Teleri and her company rode to join the open flank. The fields were wide enough for cavalry charges and the centaurs took pride of place in their center. Across a bowshot’s distance they faced us, chanting in a rumble of deep voices. Their armsmen made blocks to either side, matching us width for width. Half of them were Suevi, by their banners, and faced their turncoat kinsmen across the gap.

Noon passed before all was set. The day warmed and my mail tunic weighed on me. Scyfe rode up to confer with Kiefan and Duke Seagrace. I listened with half an ear; they seemed sure this was their entire force. This was bold of them, then, to face us like this. Unless they knew something we did not.

Teleri sent the news of a block of men and centaurs deploying along a string of low hilltops off our east flank. Dozens of banners, the messenger said, and I knew that each Arceal banner meant a thousand men. They could only have come from Reowan, to march up on the southeast as they had.

Kiefan muttered a few curses. Scyfe went pale. This fight had evened out, of a sudden. “My men won’t gladly kill brothers in arms,” he told Kiefan.

“Then be slaughtered,” he shot back. “Or fall back and be pinned against the city walls.”

We looked to Singréne’s closed gates and its trebuchets. We ought to be out of range. Scyfe spurred his horse and returned to his men with a grim face.

The army we faced began beating their shields in a rising thunder. Jenner fidgeted, not liking the noise, and I patted his neck. His turning away from the enemy gave me the first view of the trebuchets slinging upward, throwing small jars. I pointed, my voice lost in the din.

It stopped, so sudden as to stun the ears. When the small jars reached their peak they shattered. Kir-fire sprayed out over our men on all sides — not much, but anything it touched caught fire. Grass, wool, or flesh. Shouts and screams rose from the ranks.

“Guard, with me!” Kiefan drew his sword. “Archers’ company! We must stop the rain! Kate!” He pointed his blade toward our Suevi allies.

It was on me to defend them. I kicked Jenner and he cantered off the road. I crossed the block of Suevi men with one hand up, pulling the kir from the patches of fire. It came it hazy clumps, streamed as it tried to catch up to Jenner, and quickly grew to a cloud around my hand. Their alarm stilled behind me. A glance over my shoulder and I caught them staring in slack-jawed awe.

Not a disciple or a blessed among them; I stole no-one’s ration. These were only ordinary men.

At the end, I cornered and rode to the front of the formation. The river was less than a quarter-mile off but one last stone-walled field separated us from a row of dockside warehouses. I knotted my cloud of kir down into stars and drew it into my core.

As I rode across the front toward Scyfe’s banner, I heard the Suevi across the field chanting. The harsh words rumbled near to understandable — enough to unsettle my stomach. Violent words. Scyfe and Glyman were both at the banner, arguing by how they gestured, but they left off as I approached.

“Hold fast,” I told them. “I can protect the men.”

To test that, on cue, Singréne’s trebuchets launched their next volley. My memory gave me Saint Gauvail’s charm-splitting needles and my kir obeyed. I couldn’t match the star-tight twists that he made, but they made good, strong darts. I shot them at the kir-fire jars on light threads of kir to be sure of their aim. Two, I struck before they reached their breaking-point and their fire fell short. The third burst and I threw a broad shield through the shower as men panicked and scattered below. Sparks flew as my charm and the kir-fire broke each other.

It cost me to throw so much at once, but the men went unharmed.

Qadeem sent me more with an unspoken promise to keep me as brim-full as he could.

“And can you knock arrows down the same, girl?” Glyman gestured toward the chanting Suevi. “Can you stop the fire as they cut us down? We were fools to come here, Scyfe.”

Some of the captains near Glyman rumbled in agreement.

“We’re trapped!” Glyman threw up his hands. “The wall, or the Twenty-fifth’s spears? This boy king thinks we’re only mowing-hay!”

I let my kir surge out, strong enough that even his eyes snapped to me. I strengthened my voice to carry with a little more. “He thinks Suevi men worthy of an Elect’s protection. You’re his rightful subjects and he means to be your king.” Jenner jittered as I said it, unnerved by the kir, but I pulled him around to keep near the captains.

Across the field, kir flared in answer to mine. Its bearer walked from the front line across the field, cloak twinkling. A black Arceal robe, a long braid hanging past her shoulder — Gauvail’s elect.

“Traitors.” She put kir in her voice. Men muttered, behind me. “For traitors you are and I speak for the Empress. Those who wish to live shall lay down arms and serve as slaves upon her mercy. Or die today.”

The muttering rose, angry. Scyfe drew his sword and shouted back. “I’ll be a Blessed of Saint Woden before a slave in the gladiator pits!”

She struck, serpent-quick, and my arrow-sweeping reflex was all that caught the kir-needle inches from Scyfe’s head. The charm broke, half blinding him with its sparks and spooking all the horses at hand. I kicked Jenner, which distracted him, and he pranced out a few steps from the line.

It was a fool’s offer. “Death, or death as a slave?” I asked the Suevi on both sides, in Arceal, and I know they all heard me. “Or have the blood of the Eald for your king again?”

She lashed out three needle-tipped vines and I lashed back in reply. Two broke against my kir-vine. The third nicked Jenner’s ear and he squealed, reared, and bucked. I threw myself off rather than fight him. Kir cushioned my fall. I was up on my knees as he ran.

The Elect strode closer, a thread of kir arcing to her from — not so far. I began to search for the source, but pulled my eyes back to my enemy. Shield, the echo of Woden’s voice reminded me, and I spun out a buckler as I gained my feet.

“We have unfinished matters.” She spoke from under lowered brows. A few yards of young spring grass separated us, between the opposing army-lines. Kir gathered in her hands, igniting to stars. “For I am Fijolais, ever the bound elect of Saint Gauvail.”

I dreaded ever feeling Qadeem die through my bond. “And I am Kate,” I answered her. The rest seemed foolish, but to tweak her I added, “Who unraveled your saint’s charms.”

She snarled and struck. From her shoulders, two needle-tipped vines of kir swooped in broad arcs. They shot for me from each side, too far apart to see. For a heartbeat, I was a frightened rabbit under her pounce. Then Woden’s shield-lessons snapped my arms up against the sidewise blows, a second buckler sprouting from my free hand. A sting shot up both my arms when my shields broke.

I slung a little Shepherd’s knife back at her with a hiss. It struck a third needle, halfway to me, and both burst into sparks. I glimpsed more coming, left, right, staggered, and caught the proud twist of her mouth too. That twisted my fear into anger. I pulled my kir-cloak tight around me, cut another knife with my mind and threw it square at her heart.

One needle struck my cloak, tore it, and I pulled at the sparks as they sprayed free. Some of them answered. Qadeem answered, too, and kir spilled into me as Fijolais’ second needle — scraped by, only just missing. Her next two wavered. My Shepherd’s knife slashed the kir on her upraised arm, broke her shield-charm.

I lashed, taking the attack with a bladed kir-vine. Fijolais’ dark eyes flew wide and she threw herself aside of it, reeling off balance. It shot past her head. Through the vine, I flexed, as if an arm. My vine coiled, I reeled it back and it plunged toward her.

Three needles shot from her hand. Lighter, faster. I lunged forward, keeping my eyes on her, and made her look away from them to fend off my vine. The needles shot past me.

My vine dodged her clumsy swing, then darted in. I stabbed through her left arm at the elbow and her hand went limp. She screamed, her kir surging, and my vine shattered.

“Bitch!” I snarled, another little Shepherd’s knife honing to a razor-edge in my hand. Those came easy, the oldest of my weapons. Harvested from my teacher.

I’d forgotten the three needles she’d missed me with. They pierced my back and wild kir jolted through me. My pattern blazed on my retinas, brilliant colors on black, and all I could do was clench it in place. I was suddenly on the grass, looking at clouds. Pain glowed from every whorl of me.

Fijolais blocked out the sky. Her good arm raised. Kir-spun dagger in her fist. My own fist shot up as hers plunged. I hit her solar plexus and surged up into her. Her blade stabbed the earth.

All I could see were her murderous eyes, all I could feel was pain — and her kir, as my hands found her neck. She stabbed down again, too close to miss.

My rage seized all the kir and the pattern of an entire body spun through my memory into it.

Fijolais blossomed.

Her structure, all its interlaced fibers, flashed before my eyes as they flew free. I saw her star behind her dark eyes, mine to harvest, and ripped it from her. The cloud of blood hit with her shockwave and I blinked.

Then I saw her eyes again. They fell out of her crimson skull onto me. Meat flew, scattered. The long rope of her gut. Her skin fell like a flag, pulled down by her braided hair. Lungs, heart, all the ribcage held, tumbled out with a splat.

My hands went limp and her bones toppled over. I stared down at her, panting.

I vomited.

/ clarity /

Kir strengthened me, curtained out around me safe and warm, but I came up trembling.

The Suevi armsmen, jaws slack in terror, backed away. Spears fell from their hands. They turned and ran, shoving their way through the ranks. Behind me, a roar surged up. Scyfe’s turncoats charged after their fleeing countrymen, running by me first in ones and twos and then —

I raised my hand, knotting a star of kir in it, and lunged to my feet. The tide of them broke around me, around the slippery mess of Fijolais, and for a long series of breaths I only stood. Not able to think much beyond that I must stand or be trampled.

Dark memories swirled through my head. Fijolais’ memories. The stink of sour beer, voices arguing, Father’s belt against my back. No, her back. Her mother looking away, slack-faced, rather than fight for her daughter.

I pushed the darkness away, gleaning out her charms. The better memories of Saint Gauvail’s tutoring her. He’d been firm but fair. Never broke his word, as her father had so often. She’d loved him for it.

The last of our Suevi rushed past me, shouting. My knees wobbled and I sank down. In the gap they’d left, I looked across the fields to Singréne’s walls. Patches of fire ate at the grass and a few burned bodies lay smoldering, but on the walls beyond I could just make out the faces of those who’d watched me destroy an elect. The three trebuchets closest to me stood uncocked.

And Jenner was grazing as if nothing were amiss. I whistled to him and he looked up, then ambled over. My mail tunic was sticky with blood, my face dripping. The knees of my hose were a mess of bloody, muddy grass. Every joint ached, from the stun-strike that had put me down — a mild sort of lightning, from what I’d gleaned — as I pulled myself up into the saddle.

Scyfe’s division chased the fleeing armsmen into the light wood, leaving a lumpy carpet of dead and dying. The centaurs, in the center, had not broken and the other Arceal wing held too. Seagrace’s side of the field pounded their shields, working up their spirit for a charge. At their head, kir flared as Teleri raised her sword; their voices rose in reply. The block of men, their shields lapped and spears bristling, set off at an easy jog toward the opposing line of armsmen.

A block of our knights remained, opposite the centaurs. I turned Jenner toward them. The captain-general, posted by his banner, watched my approach, taking in my gore with nary a blink.

“I don’t know what you did, Elect, but Father’s bloody balls you’re a mess. And you scared the shit out them.” He spared a glance at the remaining enemy. “I sent word to his Majesty, asked him to rejoin us.”

Blood dripped in my eye; I wiped at it but only made matters worse. If this captain wanted orders from me, I had none to give. “Are there any wounded?” I asked. Perhaps I could ease a little suffering before my mind lost all focus.

I didn’t hear how the rest of the battle went until much later. That afternoon, I kept to what my hands could do alone. An ambulance let me climb into the back — alarming as I looked — and once they recognized me they let me stay there. I pinched bleeding arteries shut and stitched cuts.

Brauer’s infirmary had found a fair enough spot in a small cherry orchard. They were part of Seagrace’s army, not the baggage that we’d left behind, and had their own escort of a hundred mixed armsmen and archers.

Brauer looked at me once and threw a washrag. I caught it and was glad for something clean and wet against my face.

My mind cleared, slowly, as Fijolais settled into my memory Blessing. A cup of mint tea helped. It wasn’t so difficult as when I’d harvested my teacher. There was far less of her, as she’d been much younger than him.

Late in the afternoon, a messenger found me; a command pavilion was up and I was expected.

Seagrace’s men were in loose formations along a line, now. Our army had shifted to center on a village a quarter mile from Singréne’s walls. The hill line that Arcea’s reinforcements from Reowan had threatened us from was empty now. I saw a few company banners of Scyfe’s men, but only a few.

We had commandeered a farm house, an old-style longhouse of split logs chinked with river mud. Inside, one met the fire-pit first; further back, a screen carved from golden wood sectioned off the rear of the house. Likely where the family slept. I knew this was a well-off farmer by the handsome trestle table and chairs that stood by the window. Duke Seagrace and Scyfe had a map laid out in the puddle of sunlight that fell through the window.

“Glyman’s still out there,” Seagrace told me as I approached the table. “Seems he’s chased them…” He traced a line across the map with one finger.

“He didn’t hear the regroup I sounded,” Scyfe said. “We lost formation as the men scattered.”

It sounded like an apology. “Kiefan is the one to tell, sir. Where is he?”

“Seeing that the Reowan force is retreating. They were bluffing — it was only one company.”

“And bluffing well.” Scyfe heaved a sigh. “The Empress would not empty Reowan for us. She made a fool of me.”

Through the open door, the scuffing and snorting of horses arriving. “We must send out our trumpeters to call Glyman back — can you describe the signal to them?” Seagrace asked Scyfe, over the noise.

I turned toward the door as a knight filled it and only caught a glimpse of Kiefan before I was in his arms. He lifted me off my feet, clutching me tight, whispering my name. I could hardly breathe, for his grip. He kissed me, half a dozen touches that pressed deeper, each wanting more, each a sore temptation — and then we remembered our audience in the same heartbeat. I flinched back. He pressed his mouth shut.

Duke Seagrace didn’t look as surprised as I’d expect, or else he had a good poker face. Scyfe avoided my gaze, smoothed out his furrowed brow with some effort. None of the King’s Guard following Kiefan through the door even took notice, so far as I could tell.

Kiefan put his forehead to mine. “I felt the shockwave,” he said. “I felt it, and — mercy, Kate, I’m sorry if I ever made you worry so. I’m sorry.” That fell to a whisper.

I nodded. “Are you hurt?”

“A few scratches. Gregor — see to him first. Gregor!” He let me go as he called.

I slid down him to my feet, looking to the door. Captain Aleks stepped through it with Gregor’s arm across her shoulder. The broken arrow in his thigh jostled as he hobbled along with her. I had a medicine bag, as I’d been working the infirmary, and I opened it with one hand, pointing to the nearest stool with the other.

Gregor wore a mail tunic but it only reached to mid-thigh. The arrow had sunk deep, hit the bone, and its barbed head was a dark shadow amid his wounded, swirling pattern.

“Give him something to brace with,” I said, laying out my scalpel, needle, and catgut.

He didn’t like that I stripped off one leg of his hose and shoved the leg of his braies up so far with little regard for what my hand might brush against. Some color rose on his face and he stammered out an apology.

I spared him a smile. “I’ve seen all men’s secrets since I learned to check patterns. Steady, now. This will hurt.”

He took it well, biting down on a leather glove for the worst of my cutting. I prodded aside a vein and eased out the arrowhead. Then, the curved needle to stitch up the wound layer by layer.

“Mark it with ash and it’ll scar.” Captain Aleks jerked a thumb toward the fire-pit.

Gregor managed a weak chuckle. “It’s only an arrow.”

“Fairly gotten in battle,” Kiefan said, leaving off his conference with Seagrace and Scyfe to see how his squire fared.

I paused before stitching his skin and glanced up with my brows raised. Gregor shook his head and I finished. Catgut sometimes left a scar, as well, if the skin didn’t take it well.

A call from the door drew Kiefan away, and then Captain Aleks. At the end, I knotted my thread, cut it, and put my hand over the line. A cleansing charm to be sure it would heal well. Kir seeped down through his whorls, tearing apart the patterns that didn’t belong.

Gregor sighed in relief when I reached for a rolled bandage. “I can’t help noticing,” I said as I wrapped it around his ginger-haired thigh, “how you changed over the winter. Not just that you sprouted so. Your confidence sprouted, too.”

“It’s kind of you to say, Elect.” He had blue eyes, and they turned hazy in thought for a moment. “I fell in love. Twice. But one — well, both were hopeless. I saw that on my own. And so much else happened — and now this —” Gregor shook his head.

“What did you see of Kiefan and Crown Ciara?” The words tumbled out before I fully thought them.

“That she wouldn’t speak to him. He made a jest of it, laid a bet with the garrison officers, but it was no jest for him.” His brow creased in a frown. “It’s not for me to say more, m’lady. I’m sorry.”

I nodded, though it was disappointing. Nobody would speak, then. Tying off the bandage, I patted his wound. “Gently, on this.”

“M’lady.”

We were both on our feet when Kiefan returned with a second squire in tow. This one carried a bucket of water. “Wash up and get some rest,” Kiefan said to me, nodding toward the screened-off end of the longhouse. “Might well be trouble later on and one of us must be fresh. Teleri’s bringing the essential baggage in, but it’ll be light camp tonight. I must see if we can call those Suevi back.”

He tugged me close by one hand and we both glanced to our audience — only King’s Guard, this time. A brief kiss and he went. I sighed, stood there on my feet a moment to let the touch of his lips tingle on mine. And weighing another night in a bedroll on the cold ground against whatever was behind the screen. And whatever might happen, sleeping there.

Captain Aleks, Sir Garrick, and a few more King’s Guard had carried over a bench from against the wall to sit by the fire-pit. Gregor, wounded leg cocked to keep his weight off it, lowered the teapot over the flames to heat faster. None of them thought anything amiss, by how they settled with muttered complaints and jokes. The water bucket stood beside my foot.

The hunger for warm arms around me gnawed at my gut. I picked up the bucket and carried it back, lighting a kir-lamp in my hand. Behind the screen, a final show of the farmer’s wealth: a four-posted bed frame in honey-gold wood, its mattress covered by wooly blankets.

With a rag and the water, I washed off as much dry blood as I could once I’d stripped to my linen cote and braies. I scrubbed my knuckles and picked at my nails. My hair I let down, wiped off the flaking blood, and re-braided. The wool surcote and hose I put outside the screen with the bucket for a squire to see to. The sunlight on the kitchen table was fading, by then.

It was early but I slipped under the blankets and fell asleep easily enough. The flitting wraiths of Fijolais’ dark history couldn’t stop me.