"Enly?" she said.
"You weren't there; he was."
She heard the rebuke in his voice and didn't dare argue. "All right. What about the swordsmen?"
Her father shook his head, glancing around the sept at his army. "I almost wish I hadn't brought any. This war will be won with magic and arrows. We lost more than two hundred bowmen today. I've already ordered as many swordsmen to take the places of those who fell. If I had more bows, I'd order more into the arrow companies."
Tirnya nodded. Magic and arrows. "What about the Mettai?" she asked. "What do you mean?"
"Some of the men were disturbed by the way today's battle went. To be honest, I was, too."
Jenoe's eyes narrowed. "Disturbed in what way?" he demanded.
Tirnya threw her arms wide. "You have to ask? We killed them in their sleep, Father! I had to kill a woman who lay in her shelter beside children!"
His face reddened and the muscles in his jaw tightened. He rarely lost his temper, but Tirnya had seen him go on tirades in the past, and she expected he would now. When he spoke, though, his voice was low and controlled. In many ways this was worse.
"You wanted this war, Tirnya. You wanted the Mettai with us. You got both. This is the magic we have, and distasteful though you may find it, this is the only way we can win. If you prefer to watch the Fal'Borna slaughter our army, then I'll tell Fayonne to take her people and go home. Otherwise, I'd suggest you keep quiet and follow my orders."
She felt as though he had slapped her.
Jenoe walked off before she could speak, leaving Tirnya to stare at the ground and try not to cry.
When at last she had composed herself, she looked up and caught sight of Enly and Gries, who were together and walking her way. Her first thought was that for two rivals who were supposed to hate each other, they agreed a lot and spent a good deal of time together. Her next thought was that she really wanted nothing to do with either of them just then.
She turned and started to walk away.
"Tirnya!" Enly's voice.
She stopped, exhaled, and turned back to them.
"What?" she said, making no effort to mask her annoyance.
Enly stopped in front of her, seemingly unaffected by her tone. "I thought you'd want to know that I put you in charge of the archers from your company and Stri's. Stri agreed to take command of a company from Fairlea."
Tirnya nodded. "Very well. Thank you."
"Are you all right?" he asked, stepping closer to her and lowering his voice.
"Why wouldn't I be?" she said, turning and walking away from him again. "We won today, didn't we?"
Chapter 14
U'Selle had spent much of her life living at the fringe of her own clan, upending traditions she'd never intended to challenge. She had been born in Lowna, an established town along the Silverwater, rather than in the impermanent septs of the Central Plain. She and her people had made their gold by trading in the marketplace rather than by tracking rilda. She knew that some on the plain considered towns like hers to be Fal'Borna in name only. In most ways that mattered, these people believed, the people of Lowna were more like the Talm'Orast or H'Bel, the prosperous merchant clans that inhabited the lands west of the Ofirean.
It didn't help that U'Selle was one of the few female a'laqs in all the land. Rather than earning her a modicum of respect from other sept leaders, her position served only to isolate her further. Most of the other a'laqs seemed to think her undeserving of the title. And perhaps she was. Yes, she was a Weaver. But if there had been another male Weaver living in Lowna when her beloved F'Jai died ten years before, she would gladly have allowed him to become a'laq.
As it was, she had been so grief-stricken those first few turns after he died that she barely understood that the clan council of the village had chosen her to lead them. When at last she realized that everyone seemed to be calling her A'Laq, it was too late to do anything.
Over the years, she had come to enjoy leading the village, and though the other a'laqs seldom showed her the respect she thought she deserved, her own people never seemed to question the choice they had made all those years ago.
Now she was dying of consumption, and though she fought the illness as best she could, she had to admit to herself that she was ready to die. She wished that there was a Weaver in her village who might take her place as a'laq, but there was nothing to be done about that. All in all, she'd had a good life, despite losing F'Jai too soon. And she had fully expected these last turns of her life to be peaceful.
The gods, it seemed, had something else in mind for her. First, they brought Jynna, a young Y'Qatt girl who came to Lowna with a wild story of a Mettai witch and cursed baskets and a white-hair plague. The tale turned out to be true, and in the end Jynna was joined by several more Y'Qatt children, orphans all, who now lived among them, almost as if they had been born Fal'Borna. Not content with this, the gods then sent to Lowna a merchant named R'Shev, who told a remarkable story of his own. An Eandi army had been seen along the Silverwater making ready for an attack on the Fal'Borna. And amazingly, they marched with Mettai sorcerers.
There would he no peace for her in the last days of her life. Instead, U'Selle had been the one to warn the rest of the clan that war was coming to the plain. Less than a turn before, she had used her magic to enter the dreams of other a'laqs and tell them of the approaching Eandi warriors and their Mettai allies. This once, they had treated her with courtesy and gratitude. It almost seemed that they finally recognized what U'Selle had known all along: Regardless of how her people made their gold, or how she had come to lead her village, she was Fal'Borna. Nothing else mattered. If there was to be a war, her people would fight in it. They would spill their blood in defense of the clan lands; they would kill or be killed, just like every other Fal'Borna on the plain.
Ever since giving this warning to her fellow a'laqs, U'Selle had waited for some word as to what would happen next. By now, she was certain, the Eandi had crossed into Fal'Borna land and were attacking septs. But she heard nothing. No Weavers walked in her dreams to tell her how the war was going or what other Axis on the plain expected her and her people to do. Had they forgotten Lowna? Had they been defeated? Impossible! Had they already destroyed the invaders? She thought this unlikely as well.
Night after night, U'Selle slept fitfully, waiting for dreams that never came, waking in the morning to frustration and a vague fear that she tried to ignore.
On this night, though, the ninth of the waxing, all that finally changed. Or so she thought.
Her dream began as had others in which Weavers walked. There was a clarity to such dreams that U'Selle had learned to recognize long ago, when F'Jai first courted her without the knowledge of her parents. He had visited her in her dreams, where they could share kisses and speak of their future life together in private. Always these visions had seemed more real, more solid, than any other dreams she'd ever had. And even now, with F'Jai long dead and Weavers disturbing her sleep for far less pleasant reasons, that solid feeling remained.
So as soon as the dream began she knew to look for a Weaver. Whoever had come had conjured for her a bland stretch of plain that she didn't recognize, a cloudless blue sky, and a gentle, cool wind. She turned, searching for the a'laq.
Her first thought upon seeing the man was that her senses had betrayed her and this wasn't real, after all. This Weaver didn't look at all Fal'Borna. He didn't look like any Qirsi she'd ever seen. He was as broad in the chest and shoulders as one of her own people, but he was nearly a full head taller than any Fal'Borna she knew, and his skin was ghostly pale.