Better if Kettle had kicked my brains out… Better than this.
The monstrous thing stood over him now, pouched eyes squinting from a face as bristly and wrinkled as the hind end of a wild boar. It was so huge it seemed to block the light, but there was almost no light left anywhere now, it seemed, anywhere in the world. It prodded him with the cudgel, shoving him a yard across the ground, and seemed surprised and pleased to discover he was still alive. He could feel his rib crack as the giant poked him again, then it raised its club high. The great weapon hung above him like a quivering outcrop of mountain about to break loose and tumble down to earth.
Barrick closed his eyes.
Briony.
Father. I wish…
37. The Dark City
ECHOING HILLS:
Count the spears, then build fires
For those who have no spears
Sing together the old, old words
Even without the shadow-mantle it had been dark on this battlefield hours before the true night that was now falling—the Mist Children had made sure of that. As Yasammez rode, she saw the murk they had created as a shade, a hue that only dimly stained her vision, but she guessed that to the sunlanders the Mist Children’s work must seem like something else entirely. Like blindness. Like despair.
All around her the struggle continued, a chaos of blood and fog and the clash of metal on metal, but nothing was hidden from Lady Porcupine. It had been a near thing—the decision of the mortals to ride her down in the open had been a clever one and she guessed there must be at least a few real commanders among them—but the sunlanders had suffered by having to leave behind their foot soldiers, and although they had fought bravely and surprisingly well, the tide had now turned against them.
The first step, she thought—but just barely. And the Year-Turning Day almost upon us. The king has lost There can be no question but that it must be done my way jrom now on.
She had blooded Whitefire today, but Yasammez did not lust after combat for its own sake—her anger was too refined, too pure, to need expressing in that fashion. She left the rest to Gyir and her other attendants and spurred her black horse up to a place where she could better see the sunlanders’ city and especially the castle that crouched on its mound of stone across the water—the old hill, the sacred, terrible place, soon to belong to the People once more. She considered how her eremites would cause the Bridge of Thorns to grow above the water, how her troops would cross through its sheltering branches and come to the castle walls. Many would be lost in the assault, but she had been thrifty of her army so far and it would be the last great sacrifice in this part of the world. First, though, they would invest the castle s front garden, the deserted sunlander city on the mainland. Her troops and followers would rest and tend their wounded, then they would dance and sing their victories, the first over their enemy for centuries Those parts of the city they did not need would burn, and the sight of those fires would steal the casde dwellers’ sleep for their last nights of life, as though Yasammez herself had reached out and bent their dreams into nightmare shapes.
Her horse stepped nimbly over the corpses of mortals and Qar Warriors of both armies still beat at each other in small knots across the damp downs. Screams filled the air, along with howls of many of the Changing tribe and the buzzing songs of the Elementals, which to the mortals no doubt sounded even more frightening than the other sounds. In the midst of this confusion her attention lit briefly on one of the giant servitors of Firstdeeps. The creature had killed several mortals despite his own streaming wounds, and was about to dispatch another who lay on the ground at his feet, a youth whom the giant was prodding with his club like a cat playing with a stunned mouse. She was about to turn away when something in the boy’s features and dress arrested her. The giant lifted his dripping cudgel.
“Stop.”
The servitor had never heard her voice, but he knew his mistress. He paused, the great weapon barely trembling, although it had to weigh as much as the trunk of a good-sized tree. The boy looked up as she rode toward him, his eyes bleary, face bloodlessly white. Yasammez was wearing her featureless helm and knew she must look as grotesque to his frightened eyes as the giant itself, her black armor bristling with spikes, Whitefire gleaming in her hand like one of the moon’s rays turned to stone. She lifted her helmet, stared at the momentarily reprieved prisoner. The boy’s eyes, which at first had been empty of anything but terror and a sort of resignation, opened even wider.
Yasammez looked at him. He looked back at her. His jaw worked, but he could not speak.
She extended her hand, spreading her fingers. His surprised, frightened eyes closed and he fell back on the wet grass, limp and senseless.
The Winter’s Eve pageant and its attendant temple rituals had commenced early in the morning, and even though it was not yet noon, already Briony had begun mightily to regret letting Nynor talk her into holding these most unfestive festivities. Rather than such familiar events reassuring everyone as the castellan had suggested, bringing the entire court together merely allowed rumor to travel faster and farther than ever it would have Rose and Moina had told her that although none would admit it in public, many of the nobles seemed half-inclined to believe theTollys’ assertion that Briony and Barrick had ordered Gailon killed. The fact that Hendon and the rest of the Tolly supporters had kept themselves away from the gathering only made it worse, made it seem that Briony was cruelly celebrating during their time of mourning.
Where are all those we have supported —where are those whose loyalty we’ve earned time and again ? Do they forget what my father did for them, what Kendrick did, what Barrick and I have tried to do even in our short time?
Staring at the people crowded into the great garden, which with its border of tents put up for the pageant had somewhat the look of a military camp, she couldn’t help but believe that those she saw whispering were speaking against her. She knew she dared say nothing herself—to deny such gossip was to give it even more force—and it maddened her.
“I would like to see them all horsewhipped, every disloyal one of them,” she muttered. “What, Highness?” asked Nynor.
“Nothing. Even on this chilly day, I am stifling in this costume.” She flicked at the confining dress of the Winter Queen that Anissa had worn the year before, the vast white hooped skirt and rock-hard stomacher, all covered with pearly beads like frozen dewdrops. On such short notice even half a dozen seamstresses had not been able to alter it enough to make it fit Briony s larger frame in a comfortable way. “Is it not time yet for me to finish this foolish pageant? I want to eat.”
“The ceremony is almost over, Highness.” Skilled courtier that he was, Nynor tried to sound apologetic, but he clearly disapproved of her complaints. “In a moment you will… ah! There, now go and take what the boy offers. Do you know your speech?”
She rolled her eyes. “Such as it is.” She swept across the yard and stood while little Idrin, Gowan of Helmingsea’s youngest son, handed her a sprig of mistletoe and a posy of dried meadowsweet as he lisped his ceremonial lines about the returning of the sun and the days of bloom to come. He was an attractive child, but his nose was running in a most unflattering way, after she had already clutched it, Briony realized to her dismay that the mistletoe was sticky.