“Then what should I do?” For just a moment, he sounded less like the brash duke she had come to hate over the past year, and more like a young man beyond his depth.
“Concentrate your efforts on the gate, my lord. These are just the outer walls. Even if your men gain the top, they’ve still the inner walls to climb. Continue to use your hurling arms against the inner keep, but everything depends on defeating this gate. If it fails, the castle will fall. If it doesn’t, we have no hope of winning.”
He nodded. “Yes, of course. Thank you, First Minister.” He actually managed a small smile that again brought to mind the older duke. “I can see why my father valued you so.”
She didn’t want his praise or his kindness. It was far easier simply to despise him. Still, now that Yaella had heard his uncertainty, she found herself thinking of him as a boy, as Rouel’s son, desperate and frightened. Damn him. “My lord is too kind.”
“Return to the river, First Minister. Rest there and await my commands.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Yaella turned Pon and started back down the lane. Before she had gotten very far, however, a cry went up from Rowan’s men. Twisting around in her saddle, she saw a swarm of flaming arrows arcing high into the sky and descending toward the duke’s army, the ram, and the road itself.
“Minister!” the duke shouted.
“I see them, my lord!” she called back, never taking her eyes off the arrows.
Intending to raise a gale, she reached for her power, and despaired at how little was there. She gritted her teeth, drawing on all the magic that remained within her, feeling the effort consume her, like some ravenous beast gnawing at her heart. Yet the wind that she summoned was barely strong enough to stir her hair. And even as she struggled with her weakness, a second volley rose from the castle walls.
“Shields!” the duke called.
The first of the arrows plunged toward them, toward her, the flames snapping in their descent like pennons in a storm. Her wind began to build, though too slowly to do much good. Her head ached and her vision was blurring. She could hear her duke calling to her again, though whether to demand that she do more or to warn her to get away she couldn’t say for certain.
An instant later the first volley of darts struck. Several men screamed out, though not as many as Yaella had feared. Flaming shafts pierced the ground all around her, making her mount rear. The minister nearly lost her balance, but she clung to Pon’s neck, expecting at any moment to feel an arrow imbed itself in her back.
Get off the road!
Men were shouting everywhere and she couldn’t tell if the voice she heard was in her mind or belonged to one of them. Not that it mattered. She kicked at the horse’s flanks to steer him off the road. More arrows hit, and judging from the cry that went up from the duke’s men, more still were in the air. Two struck in quick succession just in front of her, and again Pon reared. He took the next arrow square in the chest.
The horse screamed as might a wounded soldier, twisting against his reins before crashing down onto his side, and onto Yaella’s leg. Her head hit hard, but on the dirt next to the road, rather than on the lane itself. Still, she was dazed, though not so much that she wasn’t aware of the crushing pain in her leg, or the smell of Pon’s burning flesh. The horse jerked violently, as if trying to get up, but he couldn’t seem to move. Yaella had to drag herself out from beneath him as still more arrows struck. Small fires erupted in the brush.
A second arrow buried in Pon’s flank and the beast convulsed, then was still. Yaella crawled to where the horse lay and stroked his nose. He was breathing still, in wet gasps, and bloody foam gathered at his mouth. His eyes looked dull, glazed. A sob escaped her and she put a hand to her mouth as tears spilled from her eyes. Was it foolish to shed tears for a horse when all around her men were dying? Did she dishonor her memory of Shurik by weeping for Pon as she had for her love?
“First Minister!” Two soldiers were running to where she knelt. “Are you hurt?” one of them asked.
She nodded. “My leg. I think the bone’s broken.”
“We’ll get you to the healers.”
The one who had spoken lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing and, accompanied by the other man, who had drawn his sword, they started down the road.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, gazing back at Pon and wiping her eyes.
The pain in her leg was manageable, though she was sweating and her limbs were trembling. She was certain the duke would tell her that she was fortunate to be alive at all. She didn’t feel that way.
Yet it seemed that her ordeal wasn’t yet over. Just as they reached the hurling arms, shouts went up from the nearby brush, to be answered by cries of alarm from the men at the siege engines. A large party of soldiers dressed in the colors of Kentigern burst from among the trees, many of them carrying swords, the rest with bows. Abruptly the minister found herself in the midst of a battle. She had time to consider that the flaming arrows had been but a diversion to allow Aindreas’s men to strike at the hurling arms. After that she could think of nothing but the combat that raged on all sides.
Arrows whistled past, making the man carrying her flinch and lower his head. Yaella cowered against his chest, trying to curl herself into a tight ball. That may have been why the arrow that hit her dug into the back of her shoulder rather than her chest. As it was she had never imagined that anything could hurt this much. It almost seemed that the head of the arrow had been made of molten steel, the wound burned so. Agony lanced through her back with every step taken by the soldier who carried her. The man knew she had been hurt, for his companion was already telling her in reassuring tones that the injury didn’t look too bad. He might even have slowed his pace to avoid jarring her. Yet each step increased her suffering until she wanted to holler at him to stop and put her down. At last, he did just that, laying her on her side on as gently as he could under the circumstances before both of them rushed to join the battle.
Already, though, it seemed to be too late. Kentigern’s archers had killed a number of Aneirans with the first arrows they loosed, and managed to fire off several more volleys before they had to fall back toward the brush. There, guarded by the Eibitharian swordsmen, they brought forth more arrows, the heads of which were wrapped like torches. More quickly than Yaella would have thought possible, they lit the arrows and loosed them at the hurling arms, striking three of the machines and setting them ablaze.
Yaella watched all of this through a haze of pain, gritting her teeth to keep from being ill and blinking her eyes to keep her vision clear. She couldn’t move, of course, not with her leg injured and the arrow jutting from her back, and so she could only hope that the fighting wouldn’t reach her. Watching the soldiers, she cringed at every arrow that struck true, every sword stroke that bit into mail and flesh, and she muttered a curse as the siege machines began to burn. But she didn’t notice the lone Eibitharian swordsman until he was nearly on her. He approached her cautiously, no doubt wary of her magic. She knew, though, that fear wouldn’t stay his hand. Qirsi ministers were prized targets in any war, even those who were wounded, even those who were too old and weak to turn the tide of battle.
“Don’t come any closer,” she said, trying to sound menacing, knowing that she failed.
The man hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he grinned.
Yaella reached for her magic again-fire this time, which was easier to wield than mists and winds. But with her wounds, she felt even weaker than she had by the gates. Sounding the depths of her power, she found the merest residue of what she once had possessed, and she felt shame at what she had become. Still the Eibitharian approached, his sword glinting in the sunlight. Already there was blood on the steel. He had killed this day, and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again. Again she reached, and with an effort that tore a cry from her throat, she summoned a flame, trying to direct it at the man’s chest.