The Fire Mages' Daughter (33 page)

We were so terribly vulnerable.

“Very well, here is my decision. The forward camp is gone, and there will be no attempt to rebuild it, not with winter almost upon us. Nor is the supplies camp needed any longer, so it will be closed down.”

The commanders exchanged glances.

“Most Powerful—” one of them began.

“It will be closed down,” I said, with more emphasis. “The supplies may be brought here for safe-keeping, and the buildings shut down for the winter. The black-bark collection will be stopped. Surplus troops may be sent to reinforce other fortresses along the border.”

“Most Powerful, should we not ask the Drashona for direction?”

“I am war leader,” I said, lifting my chin. “You take your instruction from me, in the first instance. You may raise your concerns with the Drashona at the next brightmoon strategy meeting. Is that understood?” A few nods, and one or two saluted. “Very well, then. The ditch and bank are to be inspected and any repairs put in hand. You are to adopt a defensive strategy for the next few moons. In the spring, perhaps, we may reconsider, but for now, the war is over, Commanders.”

~~~~~

I left the commanders scurrying about barking orders to juniors in a frenzy of irritated obedience. They could not countermand my orders, but I was certain that messages would be flying to Kingswell within the hour. I had no idea what Yannassia would do in response. Would she publicly oppose me and rescind my orders? I thought it unlikely, but I wouldn’t mind if she did. This was not a task I was suited for, or had ever wanted. Let Axandor play his war games with the army.

Not that there was much of it left, I realised, with a shaft of pain. The best of it had been at the forward camp. I had been there only a few moons ago, talking to the High Commander. She had not had all the resources she’d wanted, I recalled, and I had made some glib remark about it, that she was sure to prevail or some such. I should have listened. Perhaps if I had taken more notice of her words… but I had only just escaped from Ly-haam, and my only thought was to get back to Kingswell, and safety. Besides, surely no one could have predicted that the camp would be attacked with such devastating effect.

Was it Ly-haam’s doing? I couldn’t be sure, but who else could it be? And was he still out there, planning his next move against us?

Arran and I went back to our modest rooms, eating bread and cheese from trays on our knees and drinking some kind of sour beer, since the wine was all locked away in the cellar until the evening.

“You were quite amazing, my love,” Arran said, with a wide grin, as he stacked the trays on a side table.

I walked across to the window, where the rain was lashing down again. I could hear the gurgling of drainage pipes outside, as loud as a river. “I did what had to be done. The commanders were never going to agree, and someone had to make a decision.”

He came up behind me, slipping his arms around my waist, and kissing my neck. “And you did it magnificently, sweetheart.” Another kiss, nibbling my ear. “Do you see now how perfect you are to be Drashona? How much you have changed since I first met you.” Another, longer, kiss and his arms tightened around me.

“I was never exactly timid, though. I’ve always been more than ready to speak my mind.”

“True, but you are so
commanding
now. You have so much presence. Almost more than Yannassia, in some ways.”

That made me laugh. “Now you’re just being silly. I have a long way to go before I reach that point, if I ever do.”

“No, no. Look at how all these crusty commanders jump when you tell them what to do. I love to watch you at work. You are so…
inspiring
.”

One hand slid upwards to cup my breast, while the other was already reaching for the ties on my trousers.

“Oh,
that
sort of inspiration. Are you trying to distract me from my war planning, my love?”

“Absolutely. Besides, we ought to celebrate. The war is over, you said so yourself.”

I laughed, and spun round to face him. But even as I lifted my face for a proper kiss, I couldn’t shake my fear that the war was very far from over.

“Do you think we should return to Kingswell?” Jayna said. “Report to Yannassia?”

“What do you think?” I said to her, as Arran poured wine for me, then passed the decanter round the table.

“I cannot decide. In some ways, your work here is done. You have given your orders, after all. But then, perhaps you are needed here, to keep the commanders in order. They would argue themselves to a standstill without your leadership.”

Poor Jayna! I was tempted to smile as she struggled with the problem. As a mage, she was here to advise me, but her fields of expertise were magic and the law, not military strategy.

I had claimed exhaustion to escape the formality of evening board with the senior ranks of the fortress. I couldn’t bear to don finery and talk of trivia, when so many fine men and women lay feeding the vultures. Besides, the commanders were cross with me for calling for a withdrawal, and the thought of their reproachful faces staring at me over the meat platter was too much.

Instead, a table had been squeezed into our sitting room, and Cal, Jayna, Arran and I rubbed knees and banged elbows trying to eat in the tiny space. The kitchen seemed to be cross with me, too, for the food was very plain, nothing more elaborate than roast meat, gravy and some unidentifiable vegetables in water, although whether soup or stew was unclear. Bread, cheese and fruit made up the rest of it. But we were none of us so grand that we looked down on such fare, and the wine was plentiful, and surprisingly good for a border fortress, so we were content.

“Cal, what is your opinion?” I said. “Should we return to Kingswell?”

He shrugged. “Not for me to say. You’re the war leader, Drina. It’s for you to decide.” Then he smiled, his thin face breaking into a thousand tiny creases round his eyes and mouth. “My
opinion
is that you are perfectly capable of judging the situation without any advice from me.”

“I think she should stay,” Arran said. “These people need strong leadership, otherwise they will fall apart.”

“There is another reason, too,” I said. “I want to try to contact Ly-haam, and I suspect that will be easier if I am closer to him. When I talked to him from Kingswell previously, the eagle was still connected to his mother as well as to me. Since that bond was broken, I’ve heard nothing from Ly-haam, until the eagle was near the forward camp. Even then it was faint. I plan to send the eagle back that way, to see if I can connect to him again.”

“That’s a good idea,” Cal said. “Can we help at all?”

“Not really. I just need quiet, so I can concentrate. And Arran to watch over me.”

~~~~~

I’d never consciously tried to contact Ly-haam before. The first time – indeed, the only time I’d initiated the connection – I had been exploring the eagle’s awareness, and I’d pushed my mind just a little further. Then I’d noticed another consciousness beyond the eagle.

Now when I tried it, there was nothing. I could leap into the eagle’s mind in a heartbeat, without effort, for I’d had so much practice now. Besides, she was amenable, for she was full of affection for me, responding with immediate pleasure when I reached for her. But when I searched beyond her, I found nothing. I could stretch my mind out as much as I wished, but there was no response, not the faintest hint of another mind.

I sent her aloft, wheeling over the fortress, and then the lake, as I tried and tried to connect, without success. Then I asked her to fly over the black-bark forest, but she screeched angrily and veered away. She would follow the road, though, so I let her do that, while I sat motionless in a chair in my room, all my thoughts turned inwards.

For hour after hour she flew, and I searched with my mind and found nothing. All the way to the desolation of the forward camp, with not a hint of another mind. By then the eagle was tired and hungry, so I let her go off to hunt and make her own way back. I had not had any great hope of success, but it was still dispiriting.

~~~~~

The following sun brought a wonderful surprise – my mother, grumbling at the hardship of riding so far and the state of the roads, but smiling, too.

“Ah, it is so good to see you both again!” she said, when she emerged from Cal’s enthusiastic hug. “Kingswell is very tense, at the moment, very tense. But Yannassia insisted I come here to help out. And you look remarkably well, Drina.” She touched a finger to one cheek, and I relished that little tingle of magic, my mother’s special type of magic, like no other I’d encountered.

“We aren’t exactly relaxed here,” Cal said. “So if you are hoping for a little recreation, you may be disappointed.”

She threw him a sideways look. “Is this one of your jokes?” Then her expression shifted to alarm. “Has something happened?”

“I daresay the message riders passed you on the road, so you won’t have heard,” I said. “The forward camp has been destroyed, and I have shut down the supplies camp in case of attack. We are all safer within the defences.”

The rest of the hours of sun were spent telling her all the details, as she listened with one hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Then we had to catch up with the news from Kingswell. Yannassia was much better, it seemed, but the nobles were in disarray over the proposal to appoint Axandor as the new Bai-Drashonor.

“And…” Mother hesitated, lowering her eyes. “Perhaps I should not tell you this, but there is a faction that does
not
like you being war leader, Drina.”

“That does not surprise me,” I said. “The Gurshmontas, I suppose.”

“Amongst others, yes. And there are shortages of some supplies, so there have been protests about that.”

I clucked in annoyance. “Of course there are shortages. The army has commandeered a great amount of wood and metal and horseflesh and other things for the war. That will right itself, in time.”

“True, but there are food shortages, too. Farmers have been moving away from the border, in the expectation of an invasion, so less than usual has been reaching Kingswell.”

I remembered the abandoned fields I’d seen on the ride north, the fields still full of summer’s crops, flattened by the rain. “I will tell the commanders to reduce their orders, then. They can scavenge from the farms. A great deal of it will still be usable.”

And their needs were reduced now, with the forward camp gone, but I didn’t mention that.

~~~~~

For three suns the commanders worked to follow my orders. The supplies camp was closed up, although many of the goods remained in the huts, since there was no room for them within the fortress. I suggested sending some to Kingswell to offset the shortages there, but the commanders were so incensed at the idea that I didn’t insist. There would be time enough over the winter, if the roads were dry enough.

I had all but given up trying to contact Ly-haam. Each sun I sent the eagle out in a different direction, but without success. Perhaps he was beyond my reach, now, too far away for me to detect.

But at night I dreamt of him. Not the quiet, almost shy young man from the island, intent on his cooking, desperately unhappy at what his magic drove him to do. This was another Ly-haam altogether, wild, angry, filled with rage against the world. Wanting nothing but to fall on some creature and tear it apart with bare hands and teeth. No, it was claws. Somehow, Ly had claws in my dreams, claws that dripped with blood.

He had a voice, too, shrieking with rage against the world. Against Bennamore. Against me.

I woke shaking with rage, too, my head full of it. I couldn’t lie beside Arran’s peacefully sleeping form, I had to pace about the room, six steps one way, then six steps back, again and again, until the anger dissipated and I stopped trembling. Then I would sleep again for a while, only to fall back into the same, horrible dream.

And each time it was stronger, the anger was more violent and took me longer to shake off.

“You were upset by what you saw at the forward camp,” Arran said, when he woke to find me practically snarling. “The horror has infected your mind. It will wear off. Come back to bed, and let me kiss away the nightmares.”

But on the third night, the dream was so real, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Ly-haam was really out there somewhere, shrieking his defiance at the world.

I reached out for Sunshine, and she, too, was quaking with fear, hunched down on top of one of the watchtowers. Normally she reacted to my calls with pleasure, but not tonight. Instead, she made little peeping noises of distress.

It had become so routine now to search for Ly-haam through the eagle that I did it almost without thinking, and instinctive quick scan, expecting nothing. So I was unprepared for the flood that barrelled into my head, all the violence of my dream but a hundred times stronger, more vivid.

With a scream, I shut down the connection. For an instant, I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart was hammering so hard I could hear it pounding in my skull.

Arran was out of bed and across the room. “Sweetheart, what is it?” He scanned the room, and I realised he carried his sword. “Another dream? Or something else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you hear something?”

“I don’t
know
.”

“I am sorry.” He placed the sword on a side table, and took me in his arms. “Hush now. Tell me what is bothering you.”

“Like the dream,” I stammered. “More so. Wait. Let me try again.”

I pushed outwards again with my mind, first to the eagle, still full of distress, then beyond… There it was again! It slammed into me like a wall, but this time I was prepared for it. It rocked me, but I let it in, let it wash through me. So much aggression! I had never in my life felt so much anger.

But it was a mind, a human mind, and beneath the pulsing rage, I knew who it was.

Backing away again, I whispered, “Ly-haam. It’s him. He’s close.”

“Close? Where? Can you tell? Can you
see
?”

Could I force myself to suffer the rage for long enough to see through his eyes? And would he be aware of my presence? But I had to risk it.

Taking a deep breath, I plunged back into that maelstrom, letting it flow through me. Then I searched for vision. I wasn’t sure how easy it would be with Ly-haam, but I’d done it so many times with the eagle that it took no effort at all. As soon as I tried, I could see.

Light. A strange glow, diffuse, with no source. Even though I was somewhere dark, there was a dim light.

I was moving, walking— no, riding. Beneath me was… not a horse, but something else, something huge, with golden fur, striding lithe and strong. More people riding on either side, also riding. Lions! They were riding lions. I could see the manes swinging as they loped along. But my beast – Ly-haam’s beast – had no mane. A lioness, then.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could make out trees around me. Trees with great, tangled roots, black as night. In front of me, the trees swayed, although I heard no sound of wind or leaves or creaking. But the way was blocked. Great masses of roots, all knotted impenetrably together, as thick as a wall and stretching far above my head.

Ly-haam roared. For a moment, I lost sight of the trees as he threw his head back and closed his eyes. All around me came a great surge of noise as Ly’s companions roared in answer, and the lions with them. The cacophony blasted through my head, but I held on, determined not to lose Ly now that I’d found him. His eyes opened and I could see again.

In front of me, the tree roots glowed with a stronger light, and even as I watched, they writhed and untangled themselves and parted to let me through.

And beyond, a different light, more normal, wide and shimmering under the dying moon.

I dropped abruptly back to myself. “The lake!” I screamed, but my voice was no more than a croak. My chest was tight, too tight to breathe, to speak.

“What is it?” Arran said, his face so close it startled me. Behind him, one of my bodyguards, and a couple of soldiers who had been on night guard duty. “What did you see?”

“The lake!” I said, more loudly.

“The lake? This lake?”

“The black-bark forest – they are coming through the forest. They are
here. Now!
”

One of the guards swore.

“Alarm!” Arran yelled. “
Run!
”

They ran. Outside there was shouting, booted feet thundering, more shouting.

I was too shaken to move, but Arran jumped up. “Quick, get dressed! Here!” He tossed a heap of clothes at me, and automatically I began to untangle them, to pull things on. I was almost done when a bell began clanging urgently somewhere up above us.

“Quick, let us get somewhere where we can see!” Arran hissed at me.

He grabbed my hand, and towed me along. He’d had no time for battle mail, but he had his training leathers on, and his sword gleamed in his other hand.

“You need a helm,” I said.

“No time. Come
on!
”

We ran for the stairs. The corridor was open to the inner ward of the fortress, and everywhere soldiers boiled out of doors, still fastening shirts, leathers, sword-belts. The sword and pike wielders headed for the entrance gate, but we followed the archers upwards to the parapet.