“So you think we should do nothing?”
Bausef looked away, perhaps hearing a goad in the question, though Tebeo had intended none. “I’m just telling you that if you’re worried about the lives of your men, it may be more of a risk to send them out of the castle than it is to keep them here, even knowing that these attacks will continue.”
Tebeo turned to Evanthya. “First Minister?”
“I’ve nothing to add to what the armsmaster has said, my lord.”
The duke stepped out of the tower and gazed northward. The Solkarans were singing now, and he could see two clusters of torchlight, no doubt men working to put the next boulders in the palms of the hurling arms.
As much as he disliked the thought of placing his men in peril, he could not help feeling that there were other costs to this night’s assault aside from the injuries and the damage to his castle. Numar’s men sang and laughed with the confidence of a victorious army, while his men looked defeated and exhausted. He needed to do something.
“Choose your finest archers, armsmaster, as many as you think appropriate, and send them out. Tell them to loose three rounds of arrows, no more. Even if they do no damage to the machines, they’re to return here after that.”
“Yes, my lord.” Nothing in his voice. Nothing at all.
Tebeo’s side ached, a reminder of his shortcomings as a commander.
Whether or not Bausef approved of Tebeo’s orders, he moved swiftly to carry them out. The archers left the castle within the hour, using a sally port on the west side of the castle, where the waters of the Black Sand River would mask any noise they made approaching the Solkarans’ position.
Bausef had gone with them, leaving Tebeo and Evanthya to watch from the battlements as the battle unfolded. Several more of Numar’s flaming missiles had struck the castle, two of them reaching the top of the wall and one of them soaring over the wall to land in the ward below. As of yet, no more of his men had been killed, and as Tebeo inspected the damage, he saw that the master of arms was right. The black scars the assault left on his fortress might have been ugly, but they weren’t deep. It was too late to call the men back. Tebeo felt his stomach tightening.
He could do nothing but stare out into the darkness, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of his soldiers and mark their advance on Numar’s men.
“Do you see anything, First Minister?” he asked, for perhaps fifth time.
She shook her head. Then, as if an afterthought, “No, my lord.”
They lapsed into silence again. The Solkarans were still singing. Good, he thought. Let them have their songs. It’ll be that much easier to catch them unawares.
Still they waited. Only now did Tebeo think to look up at the moons, to wonder how their light might affect Bausef’s plan. It was late in the waxing. Both moons were high overhead, white as bone, red as blood. But a thin haze of cloud now covered the sky, muting their glow somewhat and keeping them from casting much light on the ground. Perhaps the gods were with them.
“There!” the first minister called out, thrusting out an arm to point.
He saw it as well. Several small flames had appeared in the wood; they resembled candles from this distance. Almost immediately they angled skyward, flying toward the hurling arms. The singing stopped abruptly, to be replaced by cries of alarm and then screams of pain. The Solkarans lit more torches and began to converge on Tebeo’s archers. A second flurry of arrows flew, and now the duke could see flames on the hurling arms. Never mind the third volley! he wanted to shout. Get away from there!
But Bausef was a soldier, and soldiers followed orders. The torches advanced, a third round of flaming darts lifted into the night and fell toward the siege machines.
And then the fighting began.
He could hear the ring of steel on steel, the war cries and death shrieks. He even thought he could hear Bausef shouting commands to his men. But he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the line of torches flowing like a bright river toward the fighting.
“It’ll be a slaughter,” Evanthya whispered.
The duke wanted to say something brave, he wanted to reassure her that Bausef would find a way free, that he would rally his men and lead them back to the castle. But there were so many torches, and already the sounds of the battle were starting to fade. The master of arms had spoken of taking only a few men. It wouldn’t be much for Numar’s army to kill them all.
The hurling arms were ablaze, but already dark shadows were appearing around them to douse the flames.
“Have men posted at all the sally ports,” he said, his voice barely carrying over the soft whistle of the wind. “Tell them to watch for survivors, but to be alert for Solkaran attacks.”
“Yes, my lord,” Evanthya said, her voice like the scrape of steel on stone. She started to leave, then halted. “I would have done the same thing, my lord.”
He nodded, still staring out at the torches. But he couldn’t find any words to reply.
After a time, he left the battlements, descending the tower stairs to the ward. His men were cleaning away rubble from the tower entrances at the base of the walls. Seeing him, they paused, grim-faced and silent. He sensed no hostility on their part, no reproof. Only a desire to follow his command, to draw strength from his courage. He feared that he had nothing to offer them.
He heard a dull thud as something struck the grass nearby. At the same time, he realized that Numar’s men had resumed their singing.
Two of his men walked to where the object had landed and bent to look at it, lowering their torches. Then, both of them jumped back, one of the men crying out like a frightened child. Tebeo hurried to where they stood, hearing another object hit the grass as he did. But already he knew what he would find. He had heard of attacking armies doing such things-in past sieges, it had proved quite effective in breaking the spirit of defending soldiers. Still, he had hoped that Numar was incapable of such cruelty, such ruthlessness. But the man was a Solkaran, and Tebeo should have known better. The duke’s stomach heaved and he willed himself not to be sick, even as he tasted bile.
“My lord,” one of the soldiers sobbed. “It’s. . I know him.”
Tebeo knelt in the grass and stared down at the severed head of one of his men. He, too, recognized the soldier, though he had never learned the man’s name. Yet another head hit the grass behind him, and a moment later two more. There had been sixteen archers in all, and, of course, Bausef as well. And so eventually there would be seventeen of them in the courtyard of his castle, grisly reminders of the armsmaster’s warning. It may be more of a risk to send them out of the castle than it is to keep them here. The words echoed in the duke’s mind, like bells calling mourners to funeral rites.
“Clean them up,” he said quietly, knowing he ought to say more, but having no words that could possibly have any meaning in the face of this.
He returned to the ramparts, looking out toward the Solkaran army once more. There was a great fire burning near the siege engines-perhaps a pyre for his men. A moment later he saw that something loomed in front of the flames, and he knew that he had been wrong a moment before. There would only be sixteen thrown back into his castle. The seventeenth head, no doubt that of his master of arms, had been impaled upon a pike and raised above the Solkaran camp. A monument to Tebeo’s folly.
Chapter Fifteen
Curtell, Braedon, Elined’s Moon waning
It had been more than half a turn since Kayiv’s death, since Nitara had killed him. In the days since, those who lived in the palace of Emperor Harel the Fourth had spoken of little else. Whispered conjecture about their love affair and Kayiv’s ties to the shadowy Qirsi conspiracy drifted among the corridors and bedchambers of the great palace like smoke from a distant fire. And just as the smell of a fire will linger long after the last flame is extinguished, the subtle scent of fear that accompanied these whispers clung to every bed linen, every tapestry, every shred of clothing until the palace reeked of it.