“Lilli, I’m so sorry,” the old man said. “Tieryn Anasyn, the prince has need of you.”
“I’ll go to him straightaway,” Anasyn said. “Please—keep an eye on my sister?”
“I will, lad. Don’t worry.”
Lilli laid a hand on Nevyn’s arm and looked around dazed. Tieryn Anasyn? Of course. Anasyn was the Ram now, and it was his warband who stood watching her with such sad eyes, as if she were doing the mourning for all of them. Peddyc’s captain stepped forward.
“We’ll avenge him, lass. Don’t you trouble your heart about that.”
Lilli tried to thank him, but the keening burst out of her mouth instead. Nevyn grabbed her arm and unceremoniously dragged her into her tent, where she could mourn with her women around her.
By noon the situation clarified. The prince’s men held the entire hill except for the crest and Dun Deverry itself. The regent’s forces held the broch complex and the inner ward around it, defended by one last towering stone ring. This left the deserted village and its patches of open ground a no-man’s-land of some sixty yards wide between the prince’s men on their wall and the regent’s on theirs. The side ward that contained the bolthole belonged, however, to Maryn, as did the dun’s cattle and swine.
“We can send more men through the bolthole now,” Maryn said. “It’ll be a fair bit easier to attack the king’s position over that low wall.”
Nevyn was about to reply when they both heard shouting on the fourth wall—screaming, really, a berserk howl of pure rage. When the prince took off running toward the sound, Nevyn was forced to follow. He barely restrained himself from shouting, “Be careful, Your Highness,” as if the prince were still a child. Maryn flung himself onto a ladder and climbed to the top of the wall. Nevyn scrambled after and found himself in a mob of silver daggers.
“Look, Your Highness!” Branoic snarled. “Just look.”
Across the no-man’s-land and atop the regent’s last wall someone’s head had been raised on a pike and stuck onto the wall twixt two merlons. As they watched, a couple of the regent’s men flung the headless body over. It fell spraddled into the dirt.
“It’s Caradoc.” Owaen was near choking on rage. “The piss-proud dogs!”
“You’ve got good eyes, lad.” Nevyn shaded his with his hand. “But, truly, I think it is, though I’m not sure at this distance.”
“It is,” Branoic said. “I say we go get him back.”
The silver daggers cheered, but the prince grabbed Branoic by the arm and shook him.
“You’ll do naught of the sort!” Maryn snarled. “None of you will! Upon my direct order, do you understand me?”
The silver daggers stared for a long moment, then nodded, murmuring agreement. Branoic was the last.
“Understood, Your Highness,” he said, but he sounded near tears. “Is it beyond my station to ask you why?”
“It’s not.” Maryn softened his voice. “When you get close to the wall, they’ll kill you, that’s why, with javelins if they have some or stones if that’s all they have left to throw. It’s a trap.”
“Oh.” Branoic flung back his head. “I hadn’t thought—”
“None of us are thinking very clearly.” Maryn paused to stare at the blasphemy on the far wall. “I hate to leave him there, but he’d not want his men killed in vain, would he?”
“He wouldn’t,” Branoic said. “My apologies, Your Highness.”
Nevyn felt his own rage run cold rather than hot, an icy thing that left his mind perfectly clear. Caradoc’s soul was beyond caring what happened to his dead body, Nevyn reminded himself. But to allow his friend’s remains to be mocked as they rotted? Intolerable! He may have been two hundred years old and a master of the dweomer, but he was a Deverry man still in his heart. Nevyn turned and strode along the catwalk until he stood well away from the crowd around the prince. He needed to concentrate.
On their far wall the regent’s men were laughing, calling out taunts incomprehensible at a distance though the tone carried across well enough. Nevyn’s rage turned into fire, pure and white hot. In his mind he called upon the Lords of Fire, who came to him as friends to share his rage. Shimmering pillars of silver light formed around him, and in each one floated a figure, vaguely man-shaped but fashioned of fire, the glowing red of embers, the golden lick of flame.
“My friend lies dead,” Nevyn thought to them. “I would give him a pyre like a hero from the Dawntime, but I cannot reach him with wood and oil.”
In his mind he felt their answer, a rage that some mere mortal would deny their peer anything he might want. Slowly Nevyn raised his arms above his head. He paused for a moment, staring at Caradoc’s body, at the pitiful severed head upon its pike, then slowly lowered his arms till his hands pointed across the ring to what was left of the captain. He called out one sacred word.
Silver light leapt down from the sky; a strange metallic flame tinged with blue fell upon Caradoc’s body with a roar and gust of fire. It leapt up, reaching out long silver fingers for his severed head upon the wall. Suddenly the head flamed, too, a torch brighter than the sunlight around it. The men who’d been mocking screamed as they ran, scattering on the catwalk and suddenly disappearing as they climbed down to the ground and no doubt ran for the dun. On their wall the silver daggers stood in utter silence, staring at the magical pyre. In but a little while the flames died down, flickered on bare ground, and disappeared. All that remained of Caradoc were handfuls of pure white ash, scattering in the wind, then gone.
Maddyn had just left Trevyr with the chirurgeons when one of the Ramsmen brought him the news. He headed for the fourth wall, but by the time he reached it the prince was leading the silver daggers downhill. Nevyn came last, looking grimly pleased with himself. When Maddyn fell into step beside him, Owaen dropped back to walk with them.
“It’s over,” Owaen said. “You missed quite a performance, bard. The regent’s men shrieked like frightened lasses, but it was a pleasant sound for all that.”
The prince led them to his pavilion, where Oggyn, his scribe, and a pair of servants were waiting for him. When the silver daggers started to disperse, he called them back.
“I’ve got somewhat to say to all of you,” Maryn said. “For the sake of the silver dagger itself I’ll swear you a vow. Every man of you left alive shall have a boon from me—lands, title, horses, what little gold we have—anything at all! Ask, and I’ll grant it.”
“My liege, you’re too generous.” Maddyn felt his eyes well with tears. “But you have my thanks from the bottom of my heart.”
From his place behind the prince’s shoulder Nevyn was scowling. Maryn had left himself open to greed, Maddyn knew; as the new leaders of the troop, he and Owaen would need to make sure that their men asked for something reasonable.
“I only wish Caradoc had lived,” Maryn went on. “I’d offer him the Cerrmor rhan on the spot.”
“My liege?” Maddyn said. “There’s one thing that Caradoc wanted above all else. He told me this a hundred times. He wanted us—wanted the silver daggers—to outlive him. The wars will be over soon, and maybe no one will need mercenary troops like ours, but it would gladden his heart in the Otherlands to know that silver daggers still rode in Deverry.”
“Then he shall have it!” Maryn turned to the scribe. “Write this down: as long as my line rules this kingdom, let there be silver daggers, for as long as they wish to ride. Let it be known forever as Caradoc’s Boon.”
Nevyn’s scowl deepened. When the old man realized that Maddyn was watching him, he smoothed it into the bland and empty smile of a courtier.
Later Nevyn explained, as they were walking together on the outermost wall in the cool night air. Before and below them the ruins of Dun Deverry spread out. Walls of broken stone rose from the shadows or pitted the darkness, a dead black against the living night.
“Tell me,” Maddyn said. “What have you got against us, Nevyn? When the king made that vow to Caradoc’s spirit, you looked like you
’d bitten into a Bardek citron.”
“I’ve got naught against you. It’s the men who’ll come after you that trouble my heart. The silver daggers have won themselves a place in legend, truly. The kingmakers, bards call you. What’s going to happen if some other man decides he wants to be king, somewhere down the long road of Time, and corrupts whoever’s leading you then?”
“Oh. Oh ye gods, I hadn’t thought of that! My apologies, my apologies from the bottom of my heart! I’d not have asked for such a thing if I’d thought about that.”
“No doubt. All of you lads need to do some hard thinking before you go asking for those boons. The king will honor them above any others he’s granted. I know him well enough to know that. Is the point taken?”
“Very well indeed. And I’ll do some hard talking to make sure we all do the hard thinking.”
“Good. I always recommend it. Thinking, that is.”
All afternoon Burcan strode through Dun Deverry with wads of bandages tied under his shirt as tight as Merodda could get them. Whenever she begged him to lie down and rest, he snarled at her. All she could do was trail along behind, ready to tend his wounds whenever he let her. He’d been struck one blow to his side that had broken several ribs and split the skin, then suffered a stab low down on his back, perhaps at the joining of his mail. Both bled, on and off, and she was afraid that the stab had gone deeper than he’d admit. At moments when no one but she could see him, he would lean against a wall or doorjamb for a long moment, biting his lips against the pain.
Wherever he went, his men flocked to him. He would sometimes laugh and cheer them, at others turn solemn and tell them how much depended upon them. Although she kept back out of the way, Merodda could see the change he wrought. White-faced and dispirited men slumped wearily on the ground or against walls to listen to him; men with life in their eyes jumped up to cheer him when he was done.
“I beg you for the king’s sake, and in the king’s name!” To each of them Burcan said the same. “For the king and Deverry!”
But Merodda could guess that the men were thinking the same as she, that in these moments Burcan was the king, and it would be for him that they’d fight on the morrow.
Dinner in the great hall was an agony. Since he couldn’t sit without enormous pain, Burcan walked through the tables with a goblet of mead in his hand, laughing with his allies and cheering his lords on. Merodda could see him turning pale, then white, then a drained horrible death-white. Finally, with one last jest, he turned and strode out of the hall. She rushed after to find him just outside, hanging on to the wall with one hand and swaying. The sunset sent a last flare of gold over the sky, but in the ward the shadows lay cold.
Burcan turned to her, started to speak, and collapsed. Merodda flung herself to the ground beside him. Through the bandages and his shirt both red blood oozed. She cradled his head in the crook of her left arm and stroked his hair and face with her other hand, while he squinted at her as if he could barely see.
“Rhodi?” he whispered. “Do you truly love me?”
“I do. I always have.”
He smiled, seemed to be about to speak, seemed to be staring up at her face. Then she realized that he was dead. She kissed him once, then sat up and closed his eyes. His blood soaked the front of her dress; she sat there staring at it and wondering if she’d told him the truth, if she’d ever loved him at all. No matter—he’d done so much for her that she’d owed him the lie, if it was one.
“My lady!” It was Lord Belryc, standing over her. “Oh, my lady!”
“He’s dead, truly.” Merodda stood up and looked around her.
Everything seemed oddly small and oddly far away, even the lord, who was holding out one hand as if offering to steady her. Men shouted, men came running from the broch to gather around.
“We should bury him somewhere in the dun,” Merodda said. “He loved it so.”
The world spun once sharply to the left. When she woke again, she was lying on her bed with the queen and the serving women clustered around her. Abrwnna was holding her hand and weeping. So should we all, Merodda thought. Tomorrow is the end of everything.
“Oooh, it’s going to be terrible on the morrow, my lady,” Clodda said. “I’ve heard all the men talking. A terrible hard battle, they say.”
“No doubt,” Lilli said. “I don’t want to think about it. I wish we were back in Cerrmor.”
“Well, I’ve had a longing or two that way myself.”
They were sitting just outside of Lilli’s tent with a candle lantern on the ground between them. The dapples of light from the cut tin flickered on their faces and stamped strange patterns onto the canvas of Nevyn’s tent nearby. Nevyn himself was gone, off at the council of war with the prince and the great lords, those who had lived through the day’s fighting, that is.
“I feel like a murderess,” Lilli said abruptly. “If I’d not come forward, the prince would have had to siege the dun, and none of this ghastly slaughter would have happened.”
“What, my lady?” Clodda looked up in sincere confusion. “But the gods want Prince Maryn to be king, and so you had to tell him.”
“But still, if I hadn’t told him—”
“It was the prince’s decision to strike, my lady, not yours.”
The voice came from Branoic, standing just outside the lantern light, and he’d come up so quietly that Lilli had never heard him. With a yelp she scrambled to her feet. Although he’d washed and put on a clean shirt, he wore his mud-crusted brigga still.
“Oh ye gods!” she stammered. “You gave me such a start!”
“Then my apologies.” He walked the last few steps to stand in front of her. “But I’ll not have you berating yourself for the fortunes of war.”
“Don’t you blame me for what happened to Caradoc?”
“Not in the least, though I’m sick at heart over losing him. How can you know someone else’s Wyrd? Maryn’s the one who decided to attack, not siege, and Caradoc’s the one who talked him into letting the silver daggers open the gates. None of that was your doing. Who knows what would have happened if we’d had to sit here all winter long? Fevers have slain many a besieging army when the snow falls and they’re half-starved.”
“Well, true spoken, I suppose, but—”
“Nah nah nah, none of that supposing! Your lass is right. It’s all on the knees of the gods, anyway, what a man’s Wyrd may bring.”
“That eases my heart. You can’t know how much. I was so afeared, thinking everyone would hate me.”
“What?” Branoic laughed at that. “My lady, I doubt me if you could ever do anything vicious enough to make me hate you.”
He was staring at her so intensely, so sincerely, that Lilli turned tongue-tied. With a little cough, Clodda got up and curtsied.
“I’d best go inside, my lady,” Clodda said, “and not sit here eavesdropping.”
“You can stay,” Branoic said. “I’m not going to say anything dishonorable.” He turned back to Lilli. “The prince has offered all of us silver daggers a boon once the wars are over. If the gods let me live, I’m going to ask him for enough land to support a wife. And so I want to ask you to be so kind as to just keep me in mind, like. Neither of us have much of a place in the world now, but it would gladden my heart to earn one for us.”
“But I hardly know you!”
“Well, and I don’t have the land yet, either.” Branoic gave her a grin. “Just think about it.”
He bowed, then turned on his heel and hurried away before Lilli could say one thing more.
“Oooh, how exciting!” Clodda said. “He’s awfully handsome, isn’t he?”
“Do you think so? He’s too beefy for me.”
“Oh my lady! You’re just saying that to be haughty, aren’t you? I mean, ladies are supposed to be haughty to their suitors and all.”
“I’m not! I mean it.”
When Clodda giggled, so did she, covering her mouth with one hand. I certainly don’t want to
marry Branoic, she thought, lands or not! But she had to admit that she found it comforting that someone wanted to marry her, an exile without so much as a horse for her dowry.
Later that night, when she was falling asleep, she realized that she would worry about his safety on the morrow during the battle, that once again she would wait helplessly with nothing to do but pray that a man she cared something for would live through the fighting. She fell asleep at last to dream of Peddyc and Bevyan. She woke in tears.
Not long after dawn the attack on the last wall began. With the last of the silver daggers around him, Prince Maryn took his place on the fourth wall. The rams and the assault ladders stood in position at the fourth-wall gates, and assault men stood ready to winch them open at the prince’s signal. On the fifth and last wall between the Red Wyvern and Dun Deverry, the false king’s men waited in utter silence. A revulsion so physical that he felt like vomiting made Nevyn turn away long before the fighting began. He left the prince, climbed down the catwalk, and trotted downhill until he reached the outermost wall and the refuge of the camp.
All that day Nevyn worked with the chirurgeons. The wounded men who could walk or crawl to safety kept them busy enough that he avoided thinking about the men worse off, left lying when they fell. By the time anyone could spare the effort to get them off the battlefield, most would have died. Not, of course, that there was much the chirurgeons could have done for them, anyway—Nevyn was always aware of the deadly limits of his knowledge. He had studied physic and chirurgy for nearly two hundred years, and yet he knew with a sour certainty that he lacked the keys to unlock the mysteries of wounds. Some went septic; some did not; why? The theory of humors in the books of that learned Greggyn, Gaelyn, never had answered this question nor the hundred others that haunted him as he worked, arms red to his elbows, washing wounds, stitching wounds, desperately trying to staunch wounds. Another mystery—why did some wounds ooze bluish blood but others pump out bright red? Those with slow bleeding he could save; few who bled fast lived to reach him.