Even relaxed, he looked so fierce, every inch the warrior. But I knew his heart held much kindness. Did he love me as I loved him? I pressed my mouth against his. How warm his lips were under mine, how gentle the strong arms that came to encircle me.
I soaked up his strength, letting the steady beating of his heart soothe me. His warmth and his scent enveloped me, and like a small animal in a nest, I burrowed into the safety of his embrace.
He kissed me back softly in return, then said, “I had been raised for war. I have been taught from childhood that death in battle was glory. I have never been scared on the battlefield.” He brushed his lips over mine, lingered. “I have not known true fear until you came to Mernor.”
Maybe that was as close as a warlord could come to admitting love, I thought, and smiled. I moved my hand across his chest, my fingers gliding over hills of muscles.
He held still, allowing me to explore him without hindrance. Then, as my hand slid down his chest and across his hard stomach, he captured my wrist with a groan and placed my palm back over his heart, trapping my hand there with his own.
“If the Kerghi will not be the death of me, you surely will be,” he said against my lips before he took them, with an urgency this time.
My body heated. I moaned in protest when he reined in his passion and pulled back.
“You should rest,” he said in a rough whisper. “You should have spent the day in bed instead of walking to the Forgotten City. You are still recovering.”
I held his hungry gaze. “And if I do not wish to rest?”
He reclaimed my lips before the last word was out. And then he claimed the rest of me.
* * *
The following day, we lost the Gate.
The Guardian’s hold had been broken. The five hundred Kadar warriors guarding the Gate—all the small plateau would hold—had been slain. It happened in the night, suddenly, without time to send word to Karamur for reinforcements.
The first of the Kerghi were on our island, waiting for the rest of their troops to arrive. Our enemies had gathered, and like the night, their darkness spread over the land.
Instead of attacking the seat of the Kadar high lord immediately, Woldrom sent a unit of soldiers across the island to scout any possible points of resistance. Some of these Kerghi soldiers were slain by Kadar warriors, others reached far south. Grim accounts of their deeds found their way to Karamur with the first wave of refugees. That first wave was mostly Kadar, but the Shahala followed right on their heels. The Kerghi wrought unspeakable destruction in some Shahala towns.
To protect the Seela, the Guardians sealed the Forgotten City with the strongest wards they had, making it nearly impossible for any stranger to enter or even see the city, but that also meant that the Guardians could not leave to visit me.
In Karamur, the villagers who lived outside the walls now moved inside, into a city that was already filled to the brink with Kadar and Shahala refugees.
Our soldiers were preparing for the battle, while everyone else made sure the harvest was gathered in and safely stored for a prolonged siege. Everyone had chores, even the children. They patrolled the streets and reported any piles of hay and dry wood or waste that might catch on fire from fire arrows. Anything that might easily burn was carried to the cellars. Water pumps were going all day, and every available pail and tub filled up.
Under heavy guard, I led to the forest all the Shahala healers who’d run to Karamur to seek protection. We stayed within sight of Fortress City, not daring to risk the deep woods, and gathered as much medicine as we could carry. Spending time with my people and other healers bolstered my spirit. As all their healing energy surrounded me, I felt stronger than ever. My heart lightened from hearing the language of my childhood spoken around me.
But that lightness did not last long. The following morning, the Kerghi horde appeared at the edge of the forest. Many in Karamur rushed to the roofs and the top of the walls to see the endless barbarian force that thirsted for our blood like a ravening beast. Our battle for survival was about to begin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
(The Siege)
The blood-thirsty horde waited for Woldrom’s orders at the edge of the forest. Outside Karamur spread our army with Batumar at its helm. Lord Karnagh and his men made up the right flank, along with their restless tigers. Thus the defenders of good faced their enemy.
For a moment, silence as deep as a grave covered all living creatures. No birds took flight; no leaves rustled in the wind, for the wind had stopped in shock to watch such evil as was about to take place.
A cloud of enemy arrows pierced the air, so thick it covered the sun.
The Kadar archers responded in kind, and so it went, back and forth, until a wall of bodies lay before each army. And then a deafening roar rose from the Kerghi warriors as they climbed over the bodies and charged. When weapons finally clashed against weapons, the sound was that of thunder. Instead of rain, blood soaked the ground.
I rushed from the roof, for I knew soon I would be needed to treat the wounded. But night fell before the first of the injured was brought in, for none would leave the battle until the fighting ceased for the day.
The wounds gaped deep, from weapons that must have been the work of the darkest spirits. One man had his arm nearly torn off by but a single blow; another had the bone of his thigh smashed to pieces.
Through the night I healed, the Shahala working by my side. And there were many healers among them, so we were able to save a great number of warriors. Those we fully healed returned to their captains, but some had suffered injuries more grievous and needed the power of time to complete what the healers had begun.
At first light, the battle resumed, and from the palace roof I saw that the enemy had lost more men than we. But so great were their numbers, I did not think it would make a difference. Our army stood vastly outnumbered, even hopelessly so, although I refused that thought each time it tried to enter my mind.
The warriors fought on for seven days. And we healed for seven nights. Each day we lost fewer than the enemy, as many of our wounded were able to rejoin the fight, but still the Kerghi advanced toward the city.
By the morning of the eighth day, we could no longer see the battle from the palace roof, for it raged directly under the city walls. I climbed the parapet, many women with me, to watch our loved ones and pray to the spirits and the goddesses for their safety.
But the enemy fought their way through the Kadar defenses and reached the city gate, cutting off Batumar and his guards from the rest of his warriors. I held my breath as I watched him fight with true Kadar fury.
The Kerghi tried to break through the thick oak planks of the gate. Leena and I hugged each other with relief when we saw that they could not. But relief faded into fear when they carried armloads of dry branches from the forest and piled them high against the gate. They set the pile on fire.
“Water!” I ran and shouted to all in the streets over and over.
Everybody helped, the Shahala working alongside the Kadar. We soaked the gate on the inside. Then women and the stronger children made a human chain. Buckets and pails and tubs of water were handed from person to person up to the wall above the gate. Those at the top threw the water on the fire that burned below them outside. Many were hit by enemy arrows and fell to their death, but their valor defeated the fire and saved Karamur.
As I leaned over the wall, tipping a large jar to make sure the last of the smoldering embers were out, I saw Batumar fighting with the most fearsome of men, the leader of the enemy horde.
I recognized the red hair that spilled from his battle helmet and spread upon his shoulders. Woldrom.
He had come, then, I thought, to kill with his own hands the man who had set Mernor castle ablaze around him. I saw another Kerghi circle behind Batumar. I shouted but could not be heard over the clamor of battle.
As I watched, the Kerghi swine thrust his sword into Batumar’s back and twisted it before pulling it free. Batumar fell onto one knee, and Woldrom swung his double-edged sword. Its blood-soaked blade, like the dark bird of death, flew through the air.
The Shahala have a saying: A lifetime can pass but in a moment, and some moments last for a lifetime. Time stopped as I watched the sword fly toward Batumar’s neck.
A great power rose within me, dizzying me, power great enough to corrupt a person’s spirit. I thought of my great-grandmother. So this was what had turned her heart. Even as I fought against it, the power surged through me, filled me, until I felt more, bigger, brighter than I had ever felt before.
Then in a moment all the Guardians’ lessons came together in my head like the separate colorful threads of a tapestry come together to paint a story. And I understood that the power was neither good nor evil, but would follow the path of the person who wielded it.
I found a fear under all my resistance, a nagging voice that asked what if I claimed my full power and still failed? And the next moment, I knew that the only true failure would be to run from my destiny.
Spirit, be strong. Heart, be brave.
My mother’s last message came to me.
With a cry, I sent my spirit into Batumar across the distance and drew his pain, and as I sank to the stones with agony, I watched him rise and defend himself. Blood poured down his back, for he was still injured. But he did not feel his injuries. I closed my eyes and began to repair the hideous wound.
If Batumar was defeated, Karamur would fall, all the men, women, and children killed or enslaved. And with Karamur would fall Dahru, our legacy erased from memory forever. We would become like the First People, carvings on cold cave walls hidden in the dark for future nations to look at with wonder and not understand.
No!
I healed the man I loved and opened my eyes just as he ran Woldrom through. The great savage fell at Batumar’s feet, blood trickling from his mouth. He stared at me, hate boiling in his gaze.
But the khan’s fall did not halt the battle nor did it slow down the fighting, for the fight was so fierce his men barely noticed his demise.
I expanded my power until I could almost see it, a shimmering cloud above me. And then I shared it, connecting all the Shahala healers on the parapet together with invisible strands. They drew in my bright power, their eyes on the battle, some clutching their shoulders, some their legs, pain on their faces as they healed. On the battlefield, I saw a young Kadar warrior with a lance piercing his side. As soon as the lance was withdrawn, he seemed to regain his strength and fought on to vanquish his enemy.
The fight went on all day and into the darkness. The enemy battled through the night, for they felt victory was close. The Kadar fought back with their swords, and the Shahala fought back with their healing spirits. We even healed the wounded tigers.
Every time a Kadar warrior suffered injury, he sprang back again. And every time it happened, his Kerghi opponent was either slain or lost heart upon witnessing such magic. Soon the cry spread through the enemy that the Kadar were not human, that they were able to rise up from the dead. Woldrom was not there to rally them. That too was at long last noticed.
Slowly the tide turned, the enemy army pushed back by the fear in their hearts as much as by the Kadar. And it seemed there might yet be a chance for our victory. But a small group, perhaps knowing that the miraculous powers of the Kadar had something to do with the Shahala men and women who stood on the parapet, began to scale the walls with ladders crudely made from the tall trees of the forest behind them.
We poured water on them, the only weapon we had, but that did not stop the Kerghi. Then some town people brought boiling water and even boiling oil from the kitchens. That did have some effect.
Dizzy with exhaustion, by chance I turned toward an abandoned section of the wall. The top of a new ladder appeared in that instant, angled cleverly so that it would be difficult to see by the defending force.
Any soldiers who came up that ladder would quickly disappear behind a guardhouse, in cover.
I rushed forward.
Shartor climbed at the top, leading Kerghi warriors. If they secured a portion of the wall, more could climb after them and overpower the people within the city, for the men and women inside were not trained to fight. The walls would be lost then for certain, and the city with them.
I charged as Shartor straddled the wall. I tried to push him back. He laughed at me—his eyes dancing to a mad rhythm—and bent me back as if I were a willow sprig.
I scratched at his face. Not something my mother would have ever done. All my life, all I wanted was to become like her, but I had Kadar spirit too, from my father.
Spirit, be strong. Heart, be brave.
“Sorceress.” The soothsayer hissed the single word.
“Traitor.” I leaned into him, with but one thought—his feet must not find purchase on the wall.
But my strength was no match for his. And so I did the only thing I could—I threw my entire weight against him. This at last upset his balance, and as he reeled backward, he took the ladder with him. The ladder and me, for our arms were entwined.
We fell from the dizzying height, the ladder somehow falling sideways, and I could see the corpses below us. But I did not land on the dead. I landed in the last of the hot embers that still glowed in front of the city gate.
I heard the sound of Shartor’s neck breaking as we landed, he but a moment before I. All my bones felt broken as I fought to pull in air.
I rolled out of the fire, my clothes alight, and rolled and rolled until the blood-soaked ground doused the flames. Then finally I lay there, panting, seeing little but the shadowy outlines of the corpses next to me, among whom I now belonged. The pain of my flesh paled in comparison to the pain of my heart as I lay on the ground among our dead and the fallen enemy I had helped to kill.