He paused and looked around at the crowd, at faces that were bruised or sunburned or pale with loss of blood. Darya saw him meet each of their eyes in turn. She knew thatheknew he spoke to those who might die within a few hours or less, and who’d likely already lost friends under his command. The tension in the hand he’d returned to her back gave her some idea of what that cost him, but his voice stayed low and calm, and his face was serene.
We’re right here with you,said Gerant. Darya didn’t want to interrupt by speaking aloud, but she took Amris’s free hand in hers. Fresh strength went through Amris at both. Darya knew that he could endure better because the two of them were there, drawing strength from them to lend the others, and the sense of it left her honored.
“I’ll tell nobody what they should feel,” Amris continued, “nor why they should fight. But what I tell myself is that even if we fall here, even if I lie unburned for the Twisted to find, I will have killed more of those corrupted things than they can make from my body. Each of them that dies before our walls is one that won’t go on to prey on a village, or to face Criwath’s troops on better ground. I will die knowing that my death means my enemy has less to work with, and that our friends without the advantages of this place have less to face. I speak for myself, and I speak as a general, and for me, no action is for naught if it leaves our foes weaker, even if that weakness comes with victory.”
The faces around the fire lightened, and the shoulders beneath them straightened. Isen’s stable hand smiled, and even Aldrich nodded, though grimly.
“And,” Darya added, slipping back into a cooler, less immediate version of what she’d felt as the oil flowed down the wall and those below it screamed, “we’re hurting the scum, and we’re probably pissing off Thyran and his commanders pretty well.”
“Oh, yes,” said Amris. “He never was prone to being philosophical about failure.”
Darya grinned, with the hot joy of a wild predator twisting inside her. “That right there is enough forme,” she said. The Mourner, unarmed as he was, smiled back with the same hatred that sustained her as she went on: Letar was the lady of vengeance as well as healing, after all. “They’re not getting through here without paying.”
Two appealing arguments,Gerant said, still faint.I’d be interested to see who picks which—though, of course, they’re eminently compatible.
Chapter 37
A hand on her shoulder woke Darya from a doze. She wasn’t sure where she was at first, but there were fewer people screaming than there’d been in her dreams, and the face in front of her was whole and not in pain, though the brows were furrowed in concern. “Olvir?” she asked.
“Sentinel,” he replied. “They’ve not yet picked up their attack, but there’s action afoot. Your Emeth had it from a crow.”
“Katrine’s Emeth, if she’ll admit to being anybody’s.” Darya unfolded herself from where she’d been sitting, back propped against a building. Her arms hurt. Her feet had gone numb. She shook life back into both. “Any specifics?”
“They’ve been killing their own wounded for the last hour,” Olvir said. He offered her a hand and she took it. After three days of fighting and scarce rest, pride was long gone, and getting to her feet a fair-sized chore.
Darkness had fallen again while she slept, punctuated by the glow of fires in the courtyard and under the cauldrons on the wall. Soldiers moved through it like she did, vague shapes on vaguer errands. The wounded had been taken to one of the buildings once Dale and his assistants had treated the worst of their injuries, and their moaning had diminished either naturally or with painkillers.
For a siege, it was fairly quiet.
Darya took a few drinks of water from the flask Olvir offered and tried to get her thoughts in line. The Twisted had been retrieving their wounded for a while, almost since the last attack had stopped. Darya had sort of assumed it was for the same reason most armies did—not that she suspected Thyran or his commanders wasted effort on tenderly nursing their monsters back to health, but a warm body was a warm body, or so she’d thought.
Olvir was leading her toward the wall. She followed, thinking of questions. “The worst wounded, or all of them? And why bother to get them back if you’re just going to slit their throats—unless they’re going in the stewpot, I guess.”
“No,” said Olvir, and sighed. “The crow couldn’t give very much detail, Emeth said, or didn’t notice very much, but she did say it was the healthiest—‘the most moving’—and that some aspect of it disturbed her crow, but all he could say was that it was ‘killing in a bad way.’”
Probablynotjust eating one another, then. There’d been plenty of that on the battlefield already. If the food had already been dead, she supposed it would have been a cold kind of practical, but usually it wasn’t.
That sounds like magic,said Gerant,though specifically for what and through what methods I couldn’t say without a closer look, which I have no expectation of getting.
“Shit,” she muttered, and drew her thumb and forefinger across her eyes to the bridge of her nose, wiping away the last traces of sleep. “Magic.”
“More or less,” said Olvir, stepping aside so she could climb the ladder. “I hate to wake you with such news, but it seemed good to have as many of ours as we could get awake and on watch—particularly as many of us.” He gestured between the two of them. “Casting no slight on the regular troops, you understand, but we’re fewer in number, and each of us has information they may not.”
“No, you’re right. I don’t like it, but you’re right.” She glanced down at Olvir, all big eyes and square jaw beneath the mop of auburn hair. Blood and other things kept the armor from shining, but he managed to look the part otherwise. “Has Tinival given you any hints?”
“No, Sentinel, but he wouldn’t. Justice is very clear in this matter, and they”—he waved a hand beyond the wall, where the fires of Thyran’s camp dotted the plain—“haven’t bothered to lie to us. He strengthens my will and my arm; that’s his part in these matters.”
“A lightning bolt wouldn’t hurt,” Darya said, but didn’t press the issue. The gods had their constraints, just as mortals did, and that was why she and Olvir were who, or what, they were. “Dale say anything?”
“No,” Olvir said again, with a regretful shake of his head, “but he is dead to the world. After the last stint of healing, he lost consciousness. Amris and Hallis say to wake him only if the need is dire, and I agree. The Dark Lady’s power is hardest of all the gods’ on mortal flesh and bones.”
“And there’s only one of him, of course.” Darya sighed. “Mages?”
“Awake, and analyzing as best they can. If Master Gerant wishes to confer with them—”
Master Gerant doubts he can add much to the discussion, but they’re welcome to come over here. And tell the young man thank you for the consideration.
“You always seem your real age at this hour of the morning,” said Darya, “and I never know why. It’s not as though you need to sleep most of the time.” She looked back to Olvir, who was politely waiting. “Glad to chat if they come over here, but doesn’t have much to add right now.”
