Look at him, the voice said, as her gaze returned to Kearney. Do you honestly believe that he needs your protection?
Confusion and violence swirled all around the king. Everywhere Keziah looked she saw men dying. Battle-axes and pikes and swords glinted in the sunlight, steel and flesh alike bore the stain of blood, and a thin haze of dust hung low over the plain. A thousand voices seemed to be screaming out at once, cries of fear and pain, battle lust and death mingling into an incomprehensible din.
Which is why, when Keziah first heard the name called out-“Lenvyd”-she knew she must be imagining it. How could she possibly pick out a single voice in the midst of this clamor? Unless it was the name. For she knew a man named Lenvyd. He was a healer who they had left back in Audun’s Castle, an older man whom the master healer had deemed too aged to make the journey northward. More than that, it seemed that the name had been shouted by another of the healers, a man who would also have known the old Qirsi. Looking at him now, she saw a second Qirsi beyond him, tall and thin, his back bent with age. And seeing this second man’s face as he turned for just an instant, a name-the full name-immediately leaped to mind. Lenvyd jal Qosten.
“He shouldn’t be here,” she murmured, her eyes following him.
Yet there he was, and hadn’t he been with them since they marched from the City of Kings? She had taken little notice of the healers during their journey. Certainly it was possible that the master healer had changed his mind about Lenvyd. Minqar would have known that there would be no shortage of wounded men; he might have decided that the addition to their company of even one skilled healer might well turn the tide in this war. Keziah had never seen Lenvyd minister to a patient, so she had no idea how fine a healer he was, but there could be no denying his courage. Even now, he was venturing closer to the battle line, braving the carnage to reach yet another fallen soldier. Indeed, it seemed this was why the other healer had called to him in the first place.
Only when Keziah had convinced herself that the old healer had been with them from the outset and had turned her attention back to Kearney, did she notice how close Lenvyd was to the king. It occurred to her then that every time the man had hurried to the side of another soldier he had also closed the distance between Kearney and himself.
This too, she was ready to dismiss as mere coincidence. But then Lenvyd stood. His back was to her, but she knew that he was staring at the king.
Terror seized her heart. She opened her mouth to scream a warning, fearing that already she was too late. But before she could make a sound, she sensed someone behind her, far too close.
“Archminister,” a voice said.
She spun, found herself face-to-face with Abeni ja Krenta.
“Archminister!” she said in return.
Unable to help herself, she glanced back over her shoulder in time to see Kearney’s mount rear. He clung to the beast, but almost immediately it reared again.
“You look like you’ve seen a wraith,” the woman said, forcing Keziah to look at her before she could see whether Kearney was able to withstand Lenvyd’s second attempt to unseat him.
“What? No. I … I’m just watching the … the battle.” She laughed, short and abrupt. She sounded mad to her own ears. “I’m afraid I’m not very well suited to war.”
Abeni raised an eyebrow. “No? What are you suited to?”
A cheer went up behind her, and whirling around once more, Keziah searched frantically for any sign of Kearney. After a moment she spotted his mount, but the saddle was empty.
“It seems the king has fallen,” Abeni said. “Surely you had hoped for that.”
Keziah faced her again, feeling dizzy and weak. Just because Kearney had been thrown from his mount didn’t mean that he was dead. He was a fearsome warrior, and there were as many of Eibithar’s men around him as there were soldiers of the empire. She needed to concentrate. The woman standing before her was dangerous; not only was she a chancellor in the Weaver’s movement, she was also a shaper. And just now, when she spoke, there had been something strange in her tone.
“What do you mean by that?” Keziah demanded, winning herself just a bit more time to clear her mind.
Kearney!
The archminister smiled, a predatory look in her yellow eyes. “I must ask you again, as I did earlier today, what is it the Weaver has asked you to do?”
“As I told you, I don’t think-”
“Yes, I know: the Weaver wouldn’t want you to say. That strikes me as being a very convenient excuse.”
She could barely stand for the trembling of her legs. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t believe you.” Abeni eyed her briefly, her eyes narrowing, as if she were looking for a flaw in a newly forged blade. “Do you know that the gleaner has a sister?”
Keziah opened her mouth and closed it again. The sky above her seemed to be spinning, the world falling away beneath her feet.
Abeni stepped closer to her so that when next she spoke Keziah could feel the woman’s breath against her cheek, warm and soft as the whisperings of a lover.
“I’m a shaper,” she said, so softly that Keziah had to strain to hear her. “If you call for help or cry out, I’ll break your neck.”
“But I-”
Pain lanced through her hand, making her gasp.
Abeni held a finger to her lips. “Shhhh,” she said, smiling again. “That was just the bone in your little finger. I can do far worse, but I’m hoping I won’t have to.”
“What do you want?” Keziah asked, sobbing, her eyes closed.
“Walk with me.”
“No. You’ll kill me as soon as you have the chance.”
This time she heard the bone break-same hand, the ring finger. She clutched the mangled hand to her breast, tears streaming down her face. Had there been food in her stomach she would have been ill.
“I won’t kill you unless you make me. You’re more valuable to us alive, Keziah. Surely you see that. Grinsa jal Arriet’s sister. The Weaver will be so pleased.” The smile vanished from her face. “Now walk, or you’ll die. And any you call to your aid will perish as well.”
Her hand throbbing, her sight clouded with agony and despair, Keziah made herself walk. It wasn’t surrender, she told herself. Hope remained so long as she still drew breath. She had only to find some way to escape the chancellor.
But she was addled with grief. Walking through the camp, past soldiers still recovering from yesterday’s wounds and the cold, blackened remains of the previous night’s fires, she could think only of Kearney and her brother, and how she had failed them both.
Chapter Eighteen
Grinsa had heard it said that a warrior who marched to war without passion-be it hatred of the enemy, or fear of death, or love of country-was doomed to walk among wraiths before the battles were ended. Clearly it was an Eandi saying, for his people, he still believed, were never meant to be warriors, and on this day he was proving that by relying on magic a man could survive a battle for which he had no enthusiasm at all.
The Weaver was close. Grinsa could feel the man’s approach the way a ship’s captain might sense a coming storm. This battle, born of stubbornness and pride and too many centuries of hatred, was weakening them just when they most needed to be strong. Kearney knew this. Despite his refusal to listen to reason at their parley earlier this very day, the Braedony captain who led the empire’s army might well have known it too. That they fought anyway reaffirmed for him once more Dusaan’s cunning; he knew the Eandis’ vulnerabilities all too well.
Grinsa had no desire to kill the men before him. He neither hated the empire nor so feared its warriors that he fought with the battle lust he saw all around him. He raised his blade only to keep from being killed himself and to keep the warriors around him from doing too much damage to each other and themselves. It was, he had quickly come to realize, a poor way to fight. His reactions were too slow. Each time he looked for some way to bring down one of the enemy without killing him, he left himself open to another attack. Several times already he had been forced to draw upon his shaping magic in order to shatter blades that would otherwise have bit into his flesh. And twice he had been left with no choice but to break the bones of men who persisted in attacking him even after he rendered their weapons useless.