She never found out whether he meant to offer her a ride. A crackle in the bushes made the priest look up in time to see Daikonas Vo step out of the trees a little ways behind them, something dark curled in his hand.
“Curse you, child!” the priest said in despair and anger. “You played me false ...!”
Something struck his head with a horrid crack and the man tumbled from the donkey’s back, the bloodied stone that had dashed out his brains lying on the road beside him. The donkey took a few skittering steps forward, then began to lope away up the road. Qinnitan did not even look back at Vo, but ran after it and clambered awkwardly onto its back, pressing her face against its hot, bristly neck as she kicked at it its flanks with her feet, trying to make it run harder.
“I will have you, you little bitch… !” Vo shouted hoarsely in the Xixian tongue, frightening the donkey so that it began to trot even faster. “You will never escape me… !”
Qinnitan kicked and kicked again, forcing the donkey to go faster and faster until she was afraid it would bounce her off into the road. All she could do was cling to its neck and pray.
The prince’s Temple Dogs followed the Silver River Road as it wound north-northeast through a half dozen Kertewall valleys, then at last passed over into the western edge of Silverside. The road crossed the river at several points, sometimes on shaky bridges that had to be rebuilt by Eneas’ soldiers to bear the weight of their wagons and heavily laden war-horses, but generally ran beside it. The river was high with spring rains and the water lively, making a counterpoint to the oppressive silence of the empty valleys: Briony found her spirits lifted a little just by the sound of the water and the sight of ordinary spring flowers, although it was impossible to overlook the deserted Kertish towns in which they often grew, or the occasional scenes of devastation, still raw from the Qar’s march through the area half a year ago.
One morning, half a tennight after they had fought the Qar, Briony woke up early after a fitful night and sat in the doorway of her tent watching the camp come to life. She missed drinking gawa, which had become her habit in Effir dan-Mozan’s house in Landers Port. The smell of woodsmoke from the morning fires reminded her of its bitter, musty taste underneath the honey and cream, and the way it made her feel as it warmed her stomach. She had not drunk any for months: here on the road mornings meant sour wine or water from the Silver River, which at least flowed swiftly enough to be clean and sweet.
If I survive all this, she told herself, I will have gawa every morning, with cream from the Dales and heather honey from Settland. And if anyone asks me about such a strange custom, I will tell them, “Oh, I picked it up when I was living with the Tuani ...”
A sudden memory of Shaso blew through her morning’s thoughts like a storm cloud, but before she could do more than note its arrival she saw a stir near Eneas’ tent, which the prince had only recently and reluctantly agreed to take back from her when she had inherited a tent of her own from one of the officers killed at Kleaswell Market. Briony had grown used to the rhythms of a small army on the road: she recognized that the scouts had come back. What she didn’t understand was why their return seemed to have caused such a stir.
“Princess,” said Eneas when she had made her way over, “I am glad you’ve come. Weasel has an interesting tale to tell.”
Weasel, who was nearly as small as a boy and had the dark hair and complexion common to the southern islands below Devonis, did not look like an interested man so much as a worried and unhappy man who was doing his best to hide it. His fellow scouts, who, like him, wore shabby clothes so that together they looked more like a band of poachers than anything military, sat and listened silently as their chief reported.
“Dreadful many of them,” said Weasel. “Thousands, I would guess—ten thousand and perhaps more, and that does not count those who are barracked in the city itself. There are dozens of ships in the Southmarch mainland harbor, everything from cogs to three-masted, square-rigged warships, and several more galleases in the bay. They have besieged the castle—in the time we watched yesterday afternoon and early evening the cannons were firing almost continuously—and have breached the outwall at least twice, from the looks of it, but the defenders have made repairs. The cannons—by Volios Strongarm, what monsters they must be! We could not see them from where we stood, but they flamed like Mount Sarissa and made a sound like the end of the world.”
“And it is the autarch’s army?”
Weasel nodded. “The cursed Xixy falcon is everywhere, Highness. We never thought to see so many—it is like what was said of Hierosol.”
“And the Qar?” Briony asked.
“No sign of them.” The chief scout turned to his men. They nodded their agreement. “Perhaps those we saw were a wing of a retreating army.”
Eneas looked troubled. “Perhaps. But it makes little difference in any case. Ten thousand Xixians!”
“More, if the scouts are not mistaken,” said Lord Helkis. “If they are barracked in the town, perhaps as many as twice that. How many men could be billeted in the mainland town, Princess Briony?”
“Many.” How could Southmarch hope to stand up to so large an army? And if the autarch now controlled Brenn’s Bay, the last source of supply to the castle was closed off as well. “Were they fighting back?” she asked. “The castle folk?”
“Hard to tell, Ma’am.” Weasel couldn’t bring himself to look right at her, but spoke halfway between her and the prince. “We saw a few trails of smoke from the walls but they must have been small-bore guns. Nobody fool enough to be up there making a target of themselves just to shoot a few arrows, that’s certain.”
It was all Briony could manage not to ask questions to which she already knew the answers: if the autarch had so many men and so many weapons, the castle could not hold out for very long. Merolanna, Briony’s own lady’s maids Rose and Moina, Sister Utta, grumpy old Nynor—all of them were in terrible danger.
“We cannot hope to defeat such a force, Prince Eneas,” Helkis said. “The men will follow you anywhere you lead them, but their courage deserves better than a pointless death—even for the honor of ...” he gave Briony a carefully emotionless look,”… such a lady.”
“It is not my honor that brings me here, sir,” she began angrily, but Eneas lifted his hand.
“Peace, both of you. I promised Princess Briony my help and of course she will have it. But she does not expect me to be foolish with it, do you, Highness?”
“Of course not.” But she didn’t like the implication very much. Eneas and Lord Helkis seemed to have agreed already that there was nothing they could do against the autarch’s superior force.
Briony was too angry to stand listening attentively while the prince and his noble officers began to discuss what they would do next, most of which seemed to be no more than making a secure camp. It was clear that they would do nothing of any importance today, and maybe not for longer than that—if ever. She couldn’t blame them for not engaging the autarch’s forces directly, but surely they could begin planning to go around the southern army somehow. Surely there must be some way to relieve the castle?
She was standing before her tent, angrily sharpening her Yisti knives, when a tall young soldier approached her with worry obvious on his face. She waited, but he did not speak even when he had stopped only a few steps away.
“Yes?”
He swallowed. For all his size, he looked scarcely older than Briony herself. “Your pardon, Highness,” he said, which seemed to empty his lungs of air. He stood for another long moment before he had breath enough to begin again. “Someone… there’s someone… who wants to speak with you. Your Highness.”