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The guard who had waited with the horses reported no watchers, no attempted break-in, no interference at all.
Inkeri started a fire for jeffah as the marshal Gaulter set a new watch and the men collapsed around the long gallery. Rhodren had climbed the stairs to the rooftop parapet. She poured cups of jeffah for herself and him then let Simins take over the brewing task.
She spilled a few drops on the stairs as she climbed. As soon as she saw him, elbows propped on the parapet’s balustrade, head dropped down and back bent, her worries from earlier broke through her barriers. “Rhodren, are you hurt?”
He straightened and turned, reaching for the jeffah as soon as he saw it. “Not hurt, no.”
“Scratched anywhere? Some of those wolfen were filthy.” She set her cup on the railing. “That Prime swarmed you.”
“Not a scratch.” He brushed a hand down the tattered brigandine, fingering the ripped fabric that revealed glints of the metal platelets sewn in as lightweight armor. “This will never be the same. I was lucky. And you? Are you hurt?”
She would not have called his escape from the Prime’s claws luck. To smother the words she wanted to say, she drank her jeffah. “Not hurt, no,” she echoed him.
He inhaled the aromatic liquid before taking a first sip. Together, arms brushing, they stared over the outer rampart wall to the hazy desert.
The gate tower glistened in the late afternoon sun. The sun had tracked across the sky as they’d searched the upper tiers of buildings in the citadel. Its brilliant rays hadn’t directly reached the inner lanes and courts, only this first tier with the ramparts of the outerwall.
She didn’t remember the glittering stones of the gate tower yesterday. Was that only yesterday? From her weariness and worries, weeks could have passed.
The jeffah warmed its way to her stomach. Her elbow brushed Rhodren’s arm. That faint touch eased the worries.
He drained his cup and straightened. “Do you sense the watcher now? How about when we were in the streets?”
“Only before the wyre attacked. They know we’re here. They have no need to watch us.”
“You think that’s the reason?”
She shrugged. “Should we find a different building for our camp? They attacked last night. They could do so tonight.”
“They won’t. We cut their numbers in half.”
Inkeri snorted. “Only last night you’d never before fought wyres.”
“Think like the enemy. Anticipate them. They know we’ll expect another attack. Were I in charge, I would plan an ambush or lure us into a trap.”
“They’re wyres, enslaved to Frost Clime. They don’t study battle strategy.”
He sighed. “You said thirteen to a warrior pack? Two sorcerers, two packs, twenty-six wyre. Six attacked last night; only one escaped. What did you notice about the wyres during today’s attack?”
“Two were in partial shift.”
“Two Primes. Did you count their dead? Did you see the difference in their fighters?”
“Your men killed nine. Some wore shoes; some didn’t. Some had good garments; some were in tatters.”
“One Prime dressed and shod, but the one I fought wore rags and was barefoot. Two packs. Of the ones who escaped, most wore good clothes and good shoes. Of the dead, most were nearly naked and barefoot. They died because they had little training against blades. Two packs, but very different. Desperation gave them more strength; that’s the only reason they threatened us. The pack that remains, those wyre are trained for battle.
“What did you tell us last night, Inkeri? The wyres enslaved to a sorcerer are kept illiterate and untrained. Lords who want to avoid rebellion have a simple tactic: they keep their slaves unable to fight back. They become fodder to throw into battle with the hope that overwhelming numbers will win the field. The wyres from the North who allied with Frost Clime must be trained for battle. They know strategy. They won’t attack the same way twice.”
“I don’t know much of battle, Rhodren, but I’ve heard of barons holding troops in reserve, to send in fresh men when their enemies are tired. The sorcerer could have kept some wyres back from the battle.”
“Do you think sorcerers study strategy? Or do they practice their spells? If that sorcerer had had more wyres, I doubt he would have retreated.”
His thinking sounded logical, too logical. A flaw lurked somewhere, but Inkeri was too weary to find it. “Your men had no hesitation in fighting the shifters.”
“They weren’t in wolf-form. Had they been—.” His shoulders gave a jerk. “And Despa’s dead, evidence that men without blades can kill men who use blades. They will definitely hesitate to fight a sorcerer. He was there one moment and gone the next.”
At the waterhole, the sorceress used a similar spell to incinerate the arrows shot at her.
“They’ll remember and hesitate,” he said, as certain as before. “Despa died right before them. Mere feet to one side or the other, and that spell could have struck one of them. We need to find their lair, strike when they least expect us. We need a better strategy against that sorcerer. We need him distracted until Timote or Naklon get arrows into him. First, though, we need to find our missing men.”
“You believe they’re still alive?”
His jaw set. “I have to believe that. Our search will be down, into the cellars and the channels.”
“We saw no sign of them on our way to the furnace,” she reminded him.
“Nothing above, nothing in that one passage. This place likely extends as far into the depths as it did to the heights.”
Inkeri set her shoulders. She had avoided the hardest question about the missing men, but she couldn’t let it slip past any longer. “Why do you believe they are still alive? You had that sigil to warn that your captain was dead. Why would his men survive him?”
“We didn’t find their bodies. We didn’t find their weapons or armor, their horses or supplies. We should have found something.”
“And they live? Could they be lost in a maze of routes to the Shining Lands, lost when they were lured past the Forsis?”
He leaned over the balustrade and stared at the striated rocks that had fallen from Helmed Forsis. Like Madriger Head, the mountain guarded a passage to the Shining Lands and the Wastes beyond. Yet the Forsis passage was labyrinthine with no clear way through, a multitude of twisty turns without a map. Those who entered were never again heard from.
Rhodren touched his fist to his chest. “I know it here. Walsing wouldn’t have taken them into Forsis. I ordered him to this citadel; this is where he would have gone.”
Inkeri thought of all the ways that people didn’t follow orders, by choice and by happenstance, but she didn’t question him. In the past days, her own instinctive beliefs had won confirmation when logic had shouted the impossibility. Yet doubt still reared a head as ugly and broad and massive as Madriger, guarding the Shining Lands better than any desert could.
And doubt lured her as much as that flickering voice did, calling her to look into the abyss, find answers there, discover all you have dreamed there. She shook her head. “Lost in the channels below, without light? Or kept as prisoners? Why would a sorcerer keep them as prisoners?”
Rather than answer, he asked his own question. “What spells can you work when we confront that sorcerer again?”
“I don’t work spells. That’s magic, wizardry and sorcery. I wield elemental powers. Water. The wyre have no defense against the elements.”
“And sorcerers?”
“We are not evenly matched. I could best an adept, not a full sorcerer.”
“You killed the sorceress.”
“Rhodren, I didn’t defeat her. I tricked her. I may be able to trick him. I will have to be clever.”
“Does he have any weaknesses? Could you tell?”
“He’s a sorcerer, not an adept. An adept’s spell would not build as quickly. It wouldn’t be as strong.”
“Almandis was an adept.”
Inkeri winced, remembering Almandis’ apology when he’d admitted he wasn’t a wizard. “I’m not certain he was even an adept. He didn’t really understand what he could do with magic.”
“He certainly wasn’t wary enough in a fight. And this sorcerer? Will he have a weakness?”
“Magic has a limit. The sorceress used her own blood to fuel her spells when she neared her limit. He would do the same.”
“Spilling blood weakens a fighter.”
“He’ll gain strength for a time, but overall, he’ll be weakened. That’s how I tricked the sorceress. I knew she wanted to use Almandis’ blood rather than her own.”
“Limited magic,” he mused. “Does that happen to you?”
“My limits are my access to the element. To water. The sorcerer knows I wield water. He will seek to use that against me, limiting my access to it. Expect the wells in the courts to be sealed. The Fae can draw the elements from nothing. I cannot. I am half-Fae. I must have contact with water to use it.”
“Then we’ll carry every bota we have. And blood is water, isn’t it?”
He trod on a taboo he didn’t know about. Inkeri shuddered. “We have lines we do not cross, lines that mark us for good or ill, Rhodren. To work with blood, that is to cross into forbidden power. Blood magic is forbidden to the Lucent Fae and to wizardry and to wielders who vowed to keep their powers from the darkness of evil intent. Blood is not a source of water.”
He looked out, over the desert flat. “Then that is the reason the men are still alive, the reason we’re alive. The sorcerer wants a readily available supply of blood to work his spells.”
“I fear so.”
A black speck high above caught Inkeri’s attention. She gasped. Rhodren looked quickly at her then followed her shaking finger to the growing black speck.
“Crow,” he breathed.
“The watcher watches,” she whispered.
The prickling sense crawled over them.
The crow grew larger, and others flew up from the desert to join its soar along the ramparts. It wheeled, and they followed, flying against the wind until they alighted on the gate tower, all turned to watch them.
Inkeri touched a finger to a drop of jeffah. Power sparked, burgeoned outward to become a growing fog that she cast between them and the crows.
Rhodren inhaled deeply. “Can you maintain that? Until the troop is in the cellar passages?”
“You want to continue searching now? Not wait until morning?”
“I won’t give that sorcerer another night for an attack. Or for the watcher to decide we’re enemies.”
The watcher knew they were enemies, else it would not try to lure her into its trap.
“We’ll have to carry torches. We should go now.”
“Give me your cup.” She added more drops of jeffah to her power and thickened the fog, expanding it outward. Reflected through the bluish fog, the sunlight cast an eerie cyan glow.
The crows cawed and called. Deep-throated ravens croaked.
