Blaise repeated the question, still watching him. “Why do you smile, Staccian?”
“To make a friend of death,” Carfax answered.
FIFTEEN
“They’re coming.”
Lilias frowned at her Ward Commander. “How soon?”
“Thirty days.” He paused. “Less, if the winds blow fair from Port Eurus”
The weight of the Soumanië made her head ache. Strange, how something so light could weigh so heavy! And yet, how not, when she had had been shifting a mountain with it. Lilias grimaced, pressing her fingertips to her temples. The Beshtanagi sunlight seemed cursedly bright. “And the Pelmarans?”
“Assembling at Kranac, to await the Allies’ arrival.” Gergon cleared his throat. “Regent Heurich has agreed to send a force.”
“How long can we hold them?”
“It depends upon their numbers, among other things.” He nodded at the southernmost passage, where workers piled boulders on either side of the opening. “How fast can you seal that breach, my lady?”
Lilias considered the gap in the high granite wall that enfolded the base of Beshtanag Mountain. Beyond lay the forest, spreading its dense apron of dark green. It was through those trees that her enemies would come, in greater numbers than she had reckoned. “Can we not seal it now and be done with it?”
“No.” Gergon looked regretful. “We’ve too many men to feed and water, and too few resources on the mountain. Our stores would not last. After ten days’ time, we would begin to starve. If the …” He cleared his throat again. “ … if the Were give ample warning, you will have a day’s notice.”
“They will,” Lilias said, pacing a length of the Soumanië erected wall, her fingertips trailing along its smooth surface. “And I will. What the Were do not tell me, Calandor will. We are prepared, Ward Commander. If the raw materials are there, the breaches will be sealed, the gaps closed. In the space of a day, no less. So how long, Gergon, will this wall hold off Haomane’s Allies?”
He squinted at the fortress, perched atop the mountain. “Three days.”
“Three days?” She stared at him.
“My lady.” Gergon shrugged, spreading his hands. “You have always demanded truth. So my father said, and his father’s father before him. We are speaking of the concerted might of over half of Pelmar, augmented by Vedasian knights, the Host of the Ellylon and Midlander troops under the command of the last scion of Altorus. If we cannot hold the forest—and we cannot, without the Were—they will come against the wall. And they will ransack the forest and build ladders and siege engines, and they will breach the wall.”
“No.” Lilias set her jaw, ignoring the ache in her head. “They will not breach it, Ward Commander. I have Shaped this wall myself from the raw stone of Beshtanag, and it will hold against their siege engines. I shall will it so.”
Gergon sighed. “Then they’ll come over the top, my lady. They’ve no shortage of men, nor of wood for ladders and towers, unless you can close the very forest itself to them.”
“No.” She shook her head, gazing at the dark carpet of pines. “Not for so many. It is harder to shift forest than stone, and we must leave an avenue open for Lord Satoris’ troops. Order more stone brought, and I will raise the wall higher. A foot or more.”
“As you wish.” He bowed, his eyes wary. “It will delay them, by a few hours. Our enemies will still have ample resources if it comes to it.”
“All right. Three days,” she repeated, gesturing at the grey expanse of loose scree at the mountain’s base. “Let us say it is so, Gergon. And then, if it came to it, we would engage them here?”
“Will it come to it, my lady?”
She met his honest gaze. “No. But we must plan as if it would. So what happens, if we engage them here?”
“It’s poor footing.” Gergon sucked his teeth, considering. “Knights a-horse would be at a disadvantage, here. They’ll come in with infantry. I’d place archers there,” he said, pointing to overhangs, “there and there, to cover our retreat.”
“Retreat?” Lilias raised her brows.
“Aye.” Her Ward Commander nodded his grizzled head. “Once the wall is surmounted, my lady, we’ve nothing to fall back upon but Beshtanag itself.”
“They will come, Gergon.” Lilias held his gaze. “It won’t come to it.”
“As you say, my lady.” He glanced at the Soumanië on her brow, and some of the tension left his stocky frame. He nodded again, smiling. “As you say! I’ll have the lads in the quarry work overtime. You’ll have as much stone as you need, and more.”
“I will hold the wall, Gergon.”
“You will.” He nodded at her brow, smiled. “Yes, you will, my lady.”
Lilias sighed as he left on his errand, her skin itching beneath her clothes in the heat. Where was Pietre with the cool sponge to soothe her temples? He should have been here by now. There he was, hurrying down the pathway from the fortress and lugging a bucket of well-water, Sarika behind him struggling with a half-opened parasol. The collars of their servitude glinted in the Beshtanagi sunlight, evoking an echoing throb from the Soumanië. Her mouth curved in a tender smile. So sweet, her pretty ones!
She wondered if they understood what was at stake.
She wondered if she did.
Calandor?
Yes, Lilias?
Satoris will keep his word, won’t he?
There was a silence, then, a longer pause than she cared to endure.
Yes, Lilias, the dragon said, and there was sorrow in it. He will.
Why sorrow? She did not know, and her blood ran cold at it. Teams of grunting men moved boulders into place. Granite, the grey granite of Beshtanag, mica-flecked and solid. The raw bones of the mountain; her home for so many long years, the bulwark that sheltered her people. Now that events had been set irrevocably in motion, the thought of risking Beshtanag made her want to weep for the folly of it.
Beshtanag was her haven, and she was responsible for preserving it, and for the safety of her people. All she could do was pledge everything to its defense. Lilias closed her eyes, entered the raw stone and Shaped it, feeling granite flow like water. Upward, upward it flowed, melding with its kinstone. A handspan of wall—two handspans, five—rose another foot, settled into smoothness.
Doubling over, Lilias panted. Despite the patting sponge, the Soumanië was like a boulder on her brow, and there was so much, so much to be done!
And where were Lord Satoris’ messengers?
The tracker was right, Turin discovered when he relented. The mud did help. It itched as it dried, though, forming a crackling veneer on his face and arms. Best to keep it wet, easily enough done as they slogged through water ankle-deep at the best of times, and waist-deep more often than not. Easiest to strip to the skin to do it, and more comfortable in the Delta’s heat. Turin kept his short-breeches for modesty’s sake. Little else, save the pack on his back and his waterlogged boots. At night, whether they perched in mangrove branches or found a dry hummock of land, he had to peel the soft, slick leather from his calves and feet, fearful of what rot festered inside.
It stank, of mud and sweat and rotting vegetation.
And the worst of it … the worst of it was the desire.