David Coe - Weavers of War

“Still,” the first minister said, “we know who he is. That has to count for something.”

“Does this mean that he’s more powerful than you are?” Keziah asked, sounding so young, so scared.

“I don’t know, Keziah. Truly I don’t. As Tavis pointed out to me, we were hardly on equal footing. He was in my dream, so he could hurt me, but I couldn’t hurt him. The most I could do was illuminate his face and the moor, and I managed that.”

She nodded, but he read the despair in her expression, and he knew its source. If he, a Weaver, couldn’t keep this man from hurting him, how was she to protect herself? Any hope she had drawn from Cresenne’s success was already gone.

For a long time, Keziah didn’t speak. She just stood there, staring off in the distance, until Grinsa began to wonder if he and the first minister should leave her. But after several moments, she seemed to gather herself. Looking first at Grinsa and then at Fotir, she said, “There’s another matter we need to discuss, before the empire strikes at us again.” She cast a quick look at Kearney’s soldier, as if to assure herself that he wasn’t close enough to hear. “When the fighting begins, how far will we go with our magic to aid Kearney and the dukes?”

“Do you mean will I weave your powers with mine?”

She nodded.

“I think the risk is too great,” Fotir said. “The emperor sent Qirsi with his army-quite a few really. And they’ll be watching us closely. I don’t know what powers you possess, archminister, but I’m a shaper and I have mists and winds. If the gleaner and I raise a mist together, Harel’s Qirsi are likely to know it. Word of a Weaver would spread across this battlefield in no time.”

“But what if it’s the only way to keep them from breaking through our lines?” Keziah demanded. “Kearney already knows that Grinsa’s a Weaver, and if Eibithar’s other nobles find out because he used his powers to save the realm, they can hardly turn around and have him executed.”

“It would be foolish of them, I agree. But that doesn’t mean they won’t do it.”

“Careful, First Minister,” Grinsa said with a smile. “That’s something one of the renegades might say.”

Fotir’s expression didn’t change. “Well, in this case they may be right. This is no time for us to underestimate Eandi fear of Qirsi magic. With all that the conspiracy has wrought in the last few years, I’m afraid our nobles will be more inclined than ever to put a Weaver to death, even one who uses his magic to protect their realm.”

“Is that what you think?” Keziah asked.

Grinsa shrugged. “I suppose it is.”

She nodded, though clearly unhappy with his answer.

“But I can’t see allowing the empire to prevail in this fight, no matter the danger to me.”

“The danger isn’t yours alone,” Fotir said. “They’ll kill Cresenne and your child as well.”

“They may try, First Minister, just as they may try to execute me. I assure you that they’ll fail. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We have a number of Qirsi on our side; I may not need to weave at all. And if it does come to that, I believe I can join our powers without anyone realizing it.” He looked at Keziah again, wanting to brush a strand of hair away from his sister’s face. But he didn’t dare, not with the soldier so close. Even Fotir, who knew so much about him, didn’t know that Keziah was his sister. The danger was still too great to reveal that to anyone. Fear of Weavers ran deep among the Eandi, and for centuries, when Weavers were executed, so were all those in their families. Add to that the fact that Dusaan might have spies on the battle plain ready to report back to him any strange behavior on Keziah’s part, and they were risking her life merely by standing and talking to one another. “I won’t let them get past us. You have my word on that.”

“Shouldn’t the three of us be together then, fighting in the same place?”

“The first minister and I will be together on the Curgh lines, and if I need your power too, I can find you.”

She nodded again, but appeared tense and uncertain.

“I should return to my duke,” Fotir said, his gaze wandering northward, to the Braedon army. “And I’d suggest, Archminister, that you find Kearney. I expect that we’ll be raising mists and summoning winds before long.”

That Fotir was right shouldn’t have surprised Keziah at all. She had spent enough time with Curgh’s first minister to realize that he was every bit as brilliant as he was reputed to be. When he warned that Braedon’s attack would come before the day was out, she should have believed him.

Nor should she have been taken aback by the ferocity of the empire’s assault. She had seen combat before, only a year earlier. The fight to end the siege at Kentigern had not lacked for violence or blood, and though she had been horrified by what she witnessed, she had also believed that the experience had hardened her, preparing her for the day when once again she would have to follow her king into battle. Nothing, though, could have readied her for the storm of steel and flesh and blood that raged before her now.

It seemed as well that she was not the only one. Even with scouts from Heneagh, Curgh, and the King’s Guard keeping watch on the Braedon army, the enemy’s attack caught the Eibitharians off guard. The empire’s army gave no warning at all. Among the houses of Eibithar it was tradition to loose a single arrow into the sky over the battle plain before commencing an attack. Braedon offered no such gesture. Nor did their Qirsi raise a mist to conceal their numbers. Keziah did not even hear an order shouted to the empire’s archers before their first volley. One moment all seemed as it had for the past several days, the next a thousand arrows were carving across the sky and pelting down on Eibithar’s warriors.

Even before the first of the darts struck, Braedon’s soldiers had begun their charge across the moor, sunlight glinting off their blades and helms, the earth seeming to tremble with the roar of their war cries. Kearney and his dukes barely had time to call their men to arms, much less marshal an ordered defense. They had thought that the attack would be concentrated on Heneagh’s lines-clearly Welfyl’s army was no match for Javan’s or Kearney’s.

But Braedon’s commanders, rather than striking at the weakest point in Eibithar’s defenses, aimed their assault on the King’s Guard itself, the strongest of the three armies. Curgh and Heneagh weren’t spared. Far from it. Within moments of that first volley of arrows, all three armies were under attack, but Kearney’s guard bore the brunt of the onslaught. Poorly prepared for the intensity of Braedon’s attack, Eibithar’s men were forced to fall back. Kearney and Javan had managed to get their archers in place soon enough to loose one barrage of arrows at the charging Braedony soldiers, but after that, their bowmen had little choice but to draw swords and fight with the rest. Heneagh’s archers didn’t loose a single arrow before the empire’s men crashed into their lines.

“Why would they attack this way?” Keziah called over the din of battle, as she rode beside Kearney, who was rallying his men as best he could.

“Because it’s working!” he shouted back, green eyes blazing, his face damp with sweat.

She nodded, wishing she hadn’t asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said a moment later. “None of us expected this. But I think they wanted to keep our armies from working together. Had they focused their attack on Welfyl, Javan and I would have banded together to try to flank them. This way we have no chance to combine our forces.”

Keziah nodded a second time, eyeing the battle with apprehension. The king’s men were still giving ground, more grudgingly now, but there could be no mistaking the trend. It wouldn’t be long before Kearney rode forward to join the fighting. He had deployed his men as best he could under the circumstances, and already he was glancing toward the lines, his hand wandering to the hilt of his sword. And as much as Keziah feared for him, she envied him more. She felt useless. She had no place in this battle. Though competent with a blade, she was neither skilled enough, nor strong enough, to fight beside these men. None of Braedon’s soldiers were on horseback, so having the magic her people called language of beasts did her no good, and with the men already fighting at close quarters, it did no good to raise a mist or wind.