David Coe - Shapers of Darkness

Evanthya crossed to where Pronjed stood. “You intend to escape, don’t you?” she whispered.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you do. It’s just a matter of time. You’re a shaper, you have delusion magic. It should be relatively easy.”

He started to deny it again, but she raised a finger to his lips, stopping him.

“Don’t say anything. I don’t care if you get away. You have no reason to harm my duke or me, and every reason to head northward as quickly as possible.”

His heart was pounding. How could she know all of this?

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want Fetnalla. You must know that she and I were lovers.”

He’d had an inkling of this.

“I want to find her. She’s joined your conspiracy and she’s gone north to find the Weaver.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It sounded hollow, forced. For several turns now he had been lying to Numar and Henthas, Kalyi and Chofya. For years before that, he had lied to his king. He felt as comfortable with deception as he did with the truth. But somehow this woman had seen into his mind, as if she were a Weaver and he a simple festival Qirsi.

“I won’t help you escape, but neither will I alert my duke to the danger. In return, you’re to leave here directly without harming anyone.” She hesitated, her eyes locked on his. “And if by some chance you sense that you’re being followed, you’re to do nothing about it.”

“What’s to stop me from killing you once we’re away from Dantrielle?”

“Nothing, if you can catch me. But if you can’t, and I make it all the way north to your Weaver, I’ll make certain that he learns you allowed yourself to be followed. I can’t imagine he’d be pleased.”

“I can’t do this.”

“I just want her back, Pronjed. I don’t give a damn about the rest. Not anymore. I just want Fetnalla. And even if I did want to stop your conspiracy, I couldn’t. I’d be one Qirsi against an army, against a Weaver.”

He shook his head, opened his mouth, then closed it again. He’d almost said, He’ll kill me . But he stopped himself in time. What if this were a trick, an attempt on her part to make him admit that there was in fact a Weaver?

Except that she didn’t seem to be lying. Did she have delusion magic as well? Was that how she had learned that he did?

“He’ll never know,” she whispered. “Just ride north, and don’t look back.”

She gazed up at him for another moment, her eyes as golden and bright as a setting sun. Then she turned away and left him.

Kentigern, Eibithar, Adriel’s Moon waxing

The smells of the siege had become as familiar to him as the scent of Ioanna’s perfume, as ordinary as the aroma of freshly baked bread rising from the kitchens. Burning tar and oil, boiled sweetwort and betony, gangrene and blood, sweat and fear. There were sounds as well-death cries, the moaning of the wounded, the distant singing of the Aneiran soldiers-and, of course, so many horrors to see. But the smells were what stuck in Aindreas’s mind. Long after the siege ended, either with the fall of his castle or the defeat of his enemy, the duke would remember breathing in this air that blanketed Kentigern, redolent with the stench of war.

After the successes his men enjoyed during the first day or two of the siege, Aindreas had begun to think that he might break the siege with ease. And though he had known that his Qirsi allies would not be pleased by this, he had secretly rejoiced at the possibility, seeing in the Aneirans’ failure a setback for the conspiracy as well. If the armies of Mertesse and Solkara could not maintain their siege, they certainly couldn’t send any men northward to join the fighting near Galdasten. There was nothing he could do to atone for his crime. He had allied himself with the renegade white-hairs; he was a traitor. But perhaps, merely by fighting to protect his house, he could thwart the Qirsi’s plans and thus undo some of what he had wrought.

But after losing so many men, and seeing their hurling arms burned beyond use, the Aneiran army rallied. Redoubling their assault on the gates and walls, they broke through the drawbridge at the Tarbin gate and turned their rams against the portcullises. During the second night of the siege, hours after the ringing of the midnight bells, a large group of Solkaran soldiers gained the top of the outer wall and held it into the morning before being overrun by Aindreas’s men. The did no lasting damage to the castle and Kentigern’s losses were not great, but the duke could see that his men were shaken by the incursion. Up until the previous year, Kentigern Castle had enjoyed a centuries-old reputation as one of the most unassailable fortresses in the Forelands. The near success of Mertesse’s siege the year before was a black mark on the castle’s history, but one that could be explained away by Shurik’s betrayal. Now, however, as the Aneirans began to exact a toll on the defenders, Aindreas sensed that doubt was growing in the minds of his men.

By the end of the eighth day, the Aneirans had managed to build four new hurling arms. As soon as all four were functioning, the men of Mertesse and Solkara began their assault on the castle battlements, heaving great stones, pots of burning oil, and dead animal carcasses at the walls. Aindreas sent out a raiding party, hoping to destroy these siege engines as he had the last, but the Aneirans were watching for this, and Kentigern’s men, suffering heavy losses, were driven back.

The following morning, the first of the Tarbin gate portcullises fell, and though three more remained, this further eroded the confidence of the duke’s men. His bowmen, using the archer chambers built into the walls of the gate, and the murder holes built into the ceiling, kept up a withering assault on the attackers. But the enemy’s rams still offered the Aneirans some protection, enough to allow them to begin their attack on the next portcullis.

By nightfall, the wood and iron were groaning. Aindreas knew that it wouldn’t be long before the second portcullis was defeated as well. The men stationed on his battlements had been forced to seek shelter within the towers, emerging only long enough to loose their arrows and quarrels before being chased back inside by the bombardment from Aneira’s hurling arms. The only saving grace was that with the arms constantly striking at the walls, the enemy soldiers could not risk raising ladders to climb to the ramparts.

Aindreas could do little but watch the siege unfold from his chamber. He would have preferred to fight; despite his girth, he remained a formidable presence on the battlefield, powerful, yet quick with a blade. But this type of war demanded patience, a virtue he had always lacked. Sitting at his desk, the smell of smoke stinging his nostrils, it was all he could do to keep from drowning himself in Sanbiri red.

Early the next morning, as the duke finished a small breakfast, Villyd Temsten, his swordmaster, came to his chamber, face grim, eyes smoldering. He had a bandage on his forearm and an untreated gash above his left eye, but these only served to make him appear even more fearsome than usual.

“What news, swordmaster?” the duke asked, rising from his chair and stepping around his writing table.

“Little has changed, my lord. The second portcullis still stands, though it won’t last the day. Our archers have had some success from the ramparts, but they’re still being chased back to the towers by Rowan’s hurling arms.”

“How are our stores?”

Villyd’s mouth twisted sourly for a moment. “Shrinking, my lord. Slowly, to be sure, but we can’t hold out indefinitely.”

“Neither can they.”