Madeline Howard - A Dark Sacrifice

“But who…” Kivik groped for words. “Who could be powerful enough, ruthless enough, to involve two countries in a bloody and senseless war, all because of a nineteen-year-old girl who doesn’t even know who she is?”

Skerry shook his head. “Someone who does know, only I can’t even hazard a guess who that could be.”

Then his eyes went wide; he felt all of the blood drain out of his face. “Unless—unless it might be someone who keeps half of the world at war. Someone who has been sending out her armies and conquering other kingdoms for longer than either one of us has been alive. And all of it, they say, for mere vanity and greed!”

“Phaôrax?” The very name seemed to darken the air, though it was a name seldom thought or spoken in the north. “But that’s so far away, it’s almost impossible to imagine such a distance.”

It was an immense distance. The island where Ouriána, the self-styled Empress, self-styled goddess, ruled might as well have been on the moon or at the bottom of the sea, it seemed so far removed, so inaccessible. Skerry gave a little mirthless laugh, shaking off the thought. “We are building theories out of sand, snatching fantasies out of the air. It’s too incredible.”

But then another thought struck him. “Whether or not any of this could possibly be true, I think it wisest to say nothing to Winloki. She’s been so odd lately, so skittish.” He did not mention meeting her near the infirmary, or what she had said then; it was all of a piece, anyway, with the way she had been behaving for so many days. “If she took it into her head that she endangers the rest of us just by being here, she might do something reckless, something foolhardy.”

Unfortunately, they both knew that where Winloki was concerned, that possibility always existed, even under ordinary circumstances. She had a good heart, but she was headstrong and prone to act on impulse. On the other hand, neither was she a fool.

“Although there is no saying that she won’t eventually make some of the same guesses we have,” Skerry continued. “She may have done so already, which would certainly account for her extraordinary behavior.” His fingers curled, reflexively, into a fist.

Kivik nodded glumly. “With that in mind, I will assign guards to watch her for her own protection.” His scowl deepened. “In fact, I will double—no, triple—the number she had on the journey here, just to be safe.”

Far removed from Kivik’s airy vantage point in the tower, down in the mazes and the firelit chambers of the fortress below, his people were reacting with excitement, fear, and anticipation.

In the outer bailey, a martial atmosphere prevailed. The fighting men were energetic, almost eager, finding relief, after such a long period of idleness and uncertainty, in the familiar preparations before a battle.

They polished their swords until they gleamed, sharpened spears, mended their gear. Messengers came and went, relaying the Prince’s orders. Even the horses in the stables caught some of the excitement, growing restive and nearly unmanageable.

Elsewhere, his gaunt host of refugees gathered together in uneasy congregations, exchanging news when they had it, speculating when they did not. Whatever spell the fortress had cast over them before, it was unravelling now that the jaws of the trap had closed and no one could escape. Sometimes they tried to bolster their own spirits, muttering about the towering height of the outer fortifications or reminding themselves and each other of the mighty gates, murder holes, and arrow slits.

“There’s seven great walls they have to get through or over,” someone would say. Or “A warrior of Skyrra is worth three from Eisenlonde.” Not one of them had been up to the ramparts to see for themselves; they could not know that the men of Skyrra were outnumbered by a great deal more than three to one.

Meanwhile there was great activity among the camp followers, those weathered and sinewy women who had seen battle before, even if their position at the rear driving the heavy wagons had usually spared them actual involvement. They fletched arrows, tested bows, put their knives to the whetstone. In the infirmary, Thyra and her healers began to cut up linens and roll them into bandages, grimly sacrificing the last of their chemises and undergowns. So the preparations went on into the evening and all through the night.

At dawn, there were signs of sluggish movement in the enemy encampment. While the Eisenlonder camp stirred back to life, two separate companies of ice giants went stalking across the fields in the early morning light and disappeared into the forest. Crows screamed in the pinewood; there was a roaring, a rending, and a crashing of many trees falling at once; the air filled with the scent of murdered pines.

Shortly thereafter the first group of Skørnhäär returned, dragging some of the tallest trees behind them.

Stone axes rose and fell, and in a remarkably brief time the logs were bare of branches. Then the giants began building ladders, splitting some of the discarded limbs for rungs, chopping them into smaller segments, and hammering them to the frames. In the meantime, the second company emerged from the woods and set to work stripping branches, too.

In the gatehouse, Kivik had gathered his captains together in a small candlelit room within the thickness of the walls, to study plans of the fortifications and add the final touches to their plan of battle.

They did not take long to reach an agreement. Because the great encircling outer wall was miles around, there could be no question of defending every part of it. Some sections, however, rose much higher than others, particularly to the north, where the ramparts reached such incredible heights it did not seem possible the enemy would even attempt to scale them. Therefore, men would be concentrated at strategic locations on the east and west walls, and especially on the south, which was by far the most vulnerable.

“Particularly here by the gates, where the assault is likely to be most fierce,” Kivik was saying, when a rising clamor of voices came in through the arrow slits along one wall. His curiosity thoroughly aroused, he led the captains clattering up to the roof, to see what had occasioned such excitement.

They had no need to question the men stationed on the battlements; the cause of their uproar was there for Kivik and his officers to see as soon as they arrived at the parapet. “But what do you suppose it is that they are building?” asked Skerry.

For the ice giants had stopped making ladders and were working on something more complex and mysterious: a construction made out of logs whose purpose neither the Prince nor any of his men could readily identify. The Eisenlonders were busy too, digging what appeared to be postholes near the camp, mining the slopes just below the woods. At the same time, one of their chieftains, a great yellow-haired lout, went riding back and forth astride a white horse, shouting orders to the toiling giants.

“So they can speak to the Skørnhäär—some of them can, anyway,” Kivik said under his breath. “But in what language? What sort of speech could they possibly have in common?”

“They may speak with them,” Skerry answered, “but even so, they dare not approach too near.”

It was true: the Eisenlonders continued to give their formidable allies a wide berth. Wherever the great stony figures went, the barbarians left a broad circle of empty space around them. “I don’t envy them their new friends,” commented Roric, scratching at his beard. “The bloody skinchangers are bad enough.

But it must be cursed cold down there with the cursed giants.”

Kivik could only agree. Only the lightest scattering of flakes was falling over the fortress, yet the sky continued to pour down snow and sleet on the Eisenlonder encampment. Even keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and the giants, the men down there had to be suffering agonies of cold.