She closed her cloak tight around her and left the room.
Dillan sat upright in bed, spilling bedding off. His heart was hammering and his eyes were wide. A nightmare, he thought. And then he heard the alarm ringing and knew it was not dreams that disturbed his sleep.
He pushed his window open and looked out. The main court was full of men, more men than he thought were in the station. The alarm, a metal bell on the watchtower, stilled. For a moment he thought someone had ordered the alarm off—then, in the absence of the strident clamor, he heard sword work on the walls. An arrow, fired from above, streaked past a torch and down into the mass of men below. He heard a cry below, then a dozen archers returned fire from the court.
He stared and the most appalling fact of all penetrated his sleep-fogged brain. The gate is open!
He pulled on pants and took his favorite sword from the rack by the door, gripping the scabbard in his left hand and holding the blade in place with his thumb on the guard. With bare feet, chest, and sword, he left the room.
His room opened on a balcony overlooking the west gallery. His study and private reception room were the only other rooms on this level. He took the narrow stairway several steps at a time then turned right, heading for the clamor—the main hall.
The oil lights in the passage were dimmed, turned down for the night by the staff. But one of those same lamps had been smashed in the main hall, and flames devoured curtains on the far wall, casting a yellow light through the room.
The two men closest had their backs to him but they wore their sword belts low over leather breeches—Cotswold cavalry. He killed them before they even knew he was there, drawing the sword and cutting straight across, through the kidney and spine of the first man, then straight down, shomen, into the back of the other’s head before the dropped scabbard rattled on the floor.
As they fell he saw that most in the room were also Cotswold soldiers except for a knot of kitchen servants fighting desperately to hold the enemy at the passage to the kitchen—carving knives thrust between the cracks of a barricade of tables and chairs.
He took two more out, cutting one extended arm and deep into an outstretched leg behind the knee, before they noticed him, then they turned on him. He didn’t stop, didn’t let them concentrate their force on him. Three others fell back, cut, one after another, and he moved constantly, shifting so that those coming always had to move over or around the wounded and dying.
They stopped coming then, realizing that they were losing more men in this way. Someone shouted, “Get behind him,” and they moved sideways, circling, but this failed when the kitchen staff, taking advantage of the distraction, threw flaming oil past the barricade, disrupting the growing circle.
Dillan took the wrists of two others and killed a soldier plunging by, his clothing on fire. There was lots of blood on the floor now, and he was forced to move more slowly to avoid slipping. A soldier charged him, sword high, and Dillan waited, sword held low and to one side, gripping lightly with both hands, his head slightly forward. The soldier took the bait, cutting down, and Dillan entered fast, going past the soldier and cutting deep into his abdomen. This took him to a drier part of the floor, and he moved on the next two men, one of whom flinched back, giving him time to pull the hip and cut the second man’s arm as his sword flashed down past Dillan’s head.
The flincher tried to strike then, while Dillan’s sword was down, but Dillan slid left, putting the wounded man between them, then thrust over the falling man into the fleshy part of the flincher’s arm and twisted. The man screamed and his sword clattered on the floor.
The kitchen staff, shoving the barricade inward, charged into the room.
Bartholomew, thrusting a spear made out of a mop handle and a filleting knife, led the way, taking a soldier in the eye, whirling the shaft to block another sword, and then striking a face with the butt end. Irma, a cleaver in one hand and a cast-iron skillet in the other came behind him. One of the Cotswoldians, thinking her an easy target, jumped at her and cut, but his sword broke on her skillet and she buried the cleaver in his forehead.
Two of the dishwashers, using pot lids as shields and tenderizing mallets as maces, flanked them, and Dillan dropped back beside Bartholomew. “Let’s clear the hall,” he said almost conversationally, then turned back toward the remaining cluster of enemy soldiers and screamed, “Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!”
The ragtag group charged and the enemy soldiers broke and ran for the main passage. Dillan took one of them from behind, cutting the tendon at the heel, and one of the dishwashers bashed in the hamstrung soldier’s head. The rest of the soldiers made it to the passageway.
Dillan charged after them, ahead of the kitchen staff, rounding the corner.
Both arrows struck him together, one in the thigh, the other in the lung. He just managed to shout “Back” to Bartholomew before the collapsed lung kept him from speaking, but it was the severed artery in the thigh that killed him.
Dulan wasn’t asleep when the alarm went off but was instead sitting in his study looking over the latest intelligence reports from Captain Koss. He looked out the window and froze. His window was high enough to see over the wall. There were well over five hundred men out there and the gate was open.
He looked down at the reports, then dropped them to the floor—worthless and false. This many Cotswoldians here without warning and the gate open meant only one thing—a traitor inside.
He ignored the current code book lying on his desk and, instead, pulled open a cabinet beside the desk. The Glass Helm, on its stand, gleamed within. He took off his robe and wrapped the Helm tightly within, walking down the hallway as he did. They weren’t at this level yet, but, as he passed the stairway, he heard the distant sound of fighting. He entered his bathroom and dropped to his knees on the large ceramic tiles. The one between the washstand and the bath shifted as he pushed and twisted, then he was able to tilt it up, revealing the chamber below. There was a bag of coins, some of his dead wife’s jewelry being saved for little Lillian, and his father’s diary. He pushed them to one side on the floor of the compartment, then pressed the corners of one of the sides in just the right sequence. Another tile, closer to the wall, popped up, revealing yet another hiding place.
The bundled Helm barely fit—Dulan had to stuff the extra cloak material hard into the corners before it would latch. He knocked on it and also on the surrounding tiles. There was a slight difference in sound, but it didn’t sound hollow by any means.
He shut the first compartment and then went back to his room and dressed.
Lillian was in the town, in fact, had been since Leland left for Noramland. Her best friend, Odette de Swain, only two weeks older than she, was sharing her bedroom, and the girls were working out a long-shared fantasy about being sisters. Since Odette’s mother, Matilda, had breast-fed the both of them when Lillian’s mother died on the birth bed, this fantasy had some basis in fact.
The first she knew of trouble was when Matilda de Swain, candle in hand, woke them. “Get dressed, children. Hurry.”
It might have been the candlelight, but Lillian thought Matilda white as snow.
Neither girl asked questions, though, and they did hurry.
Downstairs, at the kitchen door, she handed them each a bag to sling over their shoulders and then leaned forward, putting her face at their level. “We’re going up to the shepherd’s cabin, but not by the sheep path. As soon as we’re to the edge of town, we’ll go straight up the hill. Understand?”
“My family?” Lillian asked quietly.
“We don’t know. Hopefully they’re all fine, but there are Cotswold soldiers in the town and up at the Station. We’ll know more later.”
Then they eased out the door and through the barn, threading their way through the backyards and stables of the neighbors, then the grove at the edge of the trees.
They paused often, listening, and, though they heard shouting and the clang of steel in the distance, they heard nothing nearby.
The hill, after the first few terraces, was steep, and they climbed, digging their toes in and clutching tufts of grass to keep from sliding down.
Then, after half an hour, they reached one of the high streams and followed it into a wooded gully, using the trunks and branches of small trees to keep them from sliding as they climbed beside a series of waterfalls and pools. They used only their touch and the ringlight to navigate and, more than once, had to backtrack to get around impassable rock cliffs. Here, in the shelter of the trees, they rested often, unlike their mad dash up the grassy slopes below.
Lillian had been groping from tree to tree for so long that she was surprised when she realized she could see her hand as it rested on the rock in front of her. She looked up and saw the gray of predawn sky. Suddenly the lack of sleep hit her and she yawned a great jaw-joint-cracking yawn.
“Aunt Matilda, my ’drenaline is all run out. Can I have some more?”
Matilda, working up the slope below them lest one of children slip, laughed shortly, without humor. “It’s not far, child. Try to hold on.”
“All right.”
The cabin was just below the treeline, sheltered in a mixed stand of bare poled aspen and stunted spruce. It was built into the side of the hill, bermed and buried, grass and late flowers sprouting from its roof. Two windows, shuttered, straddled the door, all facing down the mountain. The sheepfold beside it was empty, and there was no smoke from the chimney. The sheep had been moved down to the winter pens the month before, and, at this altitude, snow had already fallen more than once, though the only traces of it were deep in shadowed nooks on the north sides of rocks.
Matilda left the girls crouched behind the low branches of a spruce and went ahead, alone, to check it out. She vanished inside and was gone for so long that Lillian’s wish—more ’drenaline—was granted, but then Matilda reappeared and waved them on in.
The cabin was empty, swept clean, the bedding stowed away in the cupboards and the perishables taken away, but wood and kindling were stacked in the fireplace, ready to be lit, and the oil lamps were full.
Matilda put the girls to work making the narrow bunks while she fixed a cold meal from the food they’d brought. When they’d eaten what they could, all three went to wash their faces where the icy stream ran behind the house.
The sun was over the ridge now, and the floor of the valley was well lit. If they stood at the edge of the trees, they could just make out the high bulk of the Station, on the other side of the valley above the falls.
The aspens at the lower altitudes were aflame with color and, in the valley, oak, maples, and fruit trees wore autumn’s colors. The sky was patched with gray clouds and the wind was out of the west—where moisture from the sea came when it rained or—Lillian shivered in the chill breeze—when it snowed.
Matilda took a collapsible spyglass from her bag, removed it from its case, pulled it to length, and studied the town and the Station intently. She exhaled sharply, then collapsed the instrument and put it away. She turned back into the woods and led the way back to the cabin without speaking.
“To bed, girls.”
“What did you see?” asked Lillian.
Matilda looked from Odette to Lillian, her face blank, still silent. Finally, after weighing it, she said, “I couldn’t see much, but the banner of Laal on the Station Tower is down. Cotswold’s hangs in its place.”
It’s like throwing stones into an abyss.
The Fort Chavez heliograph station was on the west tower, exposed to the wind and cold. The operator was dressed for it in heavy woolens and a long sheepskin coat, but Koss crouched behind the shelter of the north balustrade and held his hands next to the charcoal brazier.
They’d been at it for thirty minutes, but, aside from the acknowledgments of the first relay, thirty kilometers away, they’d heard nothing.
They’ve got one of the towers between here and Laal Station and they’re not passing the coded messages on. Well, not the new code. The old messages, though…
He heard hoofbeats, coming fast, and lifted his head over the parapet. Three horseman were tearing down the road to the fort, trailing dust. “Lend me your glass,” he said to the signalman. The operator put the spyglass in his outstretched hand, and he focused on the approaching group.
They had the shoulder badges of Anthony’s couriers and, yes! Anthony himself was in the lead.
Now maybe we’ll find out what the hell is going on.
Anthony stood before the fire in the main hall of the fort, staring at the flames but not seeing them. He didn’t have any notion how they’d done it, but he was terrified that it was somehow his fault. Damn you, Father—why do you always have to be right?
He heard steps on the flagstones and turned. Captain Koss entered the room one step ahead of Ricard. Anthony blinked when he saw Ricard.
“Why are you here?” he said, voice rising.
Koss held up his hand. “A false message, supposedly from your father. The current code was broken or stolen, and they must’ve taken one of the signal stations in the past few days—one between Laal Station and Fort Lucinda probably, though the way this morning’s messages are going, I’m afraid they have one between here and Laal, too.”
Anthony closed his eyes. “There are over eight thousand Cotswold soldiers stretched along the trunk road. They stretch all the way from the Black River to Fort Bayard with most of them concentrating in the Tiber Valley.”
He took a deep shuddering breath. “There are very few refugees getting out, but the few who have claim that Laal Station has fallen.”
Chapter 17
SHIKAKU: POSITION RELATIVE TO ONE’S PARTNER WHERE IT IS DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO CONTINUE AN ATTACK
When Leland limped into the back room of the small farmhouse, the four guards, one in each corner, came to attention but didn’t take their eyes off the man sitting on the edge of Leland’s cot. The prisoner was resting his elbows on his knees, his fingers supporting his head, but Leland saw his eyes gleam, watching the guards, then Leland.
Leland dropped to one knee and bowed his head briefly before standing again.
The man sat up, narrowing his eyes.
Yes, I know who you are.
“How is your head?” Leland asked. The man didn’t speak, just glared.
Leland caught a glimpse of himself in the small mirror over the fireplace. His face was still blackened with charcoal and grease. He turned to the guard nearest the door. “Send for the unit medic, then ask my orderly to get us some hot water and wake the cook. We’ll want tea and a simple sort of breakfast.”
The man on the bed paled, then turned slightly green. Leland took the wash basin off the stand and set it on the floor near the bed.
The man glared at him and began taking deep breaths. His color improved.
Leland put the basin back on the stand.
The guard returned, followed, after a few minutes, by the unit medic and his assistant.
“Are you hurt, Warden?” the medic asked, saluting.
Leland thought about the flesh on the back of his calf, where the horse had stepped on him. “Our guest was struck on the back of the head and was unconscious for about twenty minutes. Please attend him. Be thorough. If he’s got a cerebral hemorrhage, I want to know now while we can still relieve the pressure.”
The medic bowed and moved over to the seated man. For a moment the man tensed, and Leland thought he was going to resist being examined, then he acquiesced, turning to one side and pointing to a spot at the back of his head.
The orderly came in then with two buckets of steaming water. Leland diverted half a bucket to the wash basin and the rest to the medic, then began the tiresome business of washing the charcoal and grease from his face. His orderly presented him with a towel when he was done, and he turned back to see how the medical exam was coming.
“You’re just a child!” The man’s voice was rough. His first words had clearly been surprised out of him.
“A babe wandering in the
wilderness,” Leland agreed. “But then, most of us are, aren’t we? Except for officers, how old do your men tend to be?”
“They’re all old enough to fight,” the man said mildly. Then his eyes narrowed. “To kill themselves a Noramlander.”
The corners of Leland’s mouth turned down. “Well, we’re all old enough to die, that’s for sure. Children included.” He turned to the medic. “Prognosis?”
“Pardon, Warden?” The man looked puzzled.
“His injury. How’s he doing?”
“Ah. Perhaps a slight concussion. He’s got a very respectable knot but his vitals are good and I don’t think he’s more than bruised. Cold compresses and willow bark as needed. He shouldn’t sleep for several hours and he should be watched, just in case.”
Leland smiled. “I can assure you that he will be watched. That will be all, thank you.”
The man didn’t move. “Uh, sir. I noticed you’re limping.”
Leland sighed. “Oh, very well.” He pulled off his boot and rolled up his pant leg.
The cloth had stuck to the skin.
“Oh. How did you manage to do that, sir?”
Leland twisted to look at the leg. A massive bruise, seeping blood on one edge, spread across the back of his calf. Looking at it made it hurt more than it had. “A horse stepped on me,” he said. “I suppose it should be cleaned.”
“Yes, sir.”
While the medic washed and bandaged his calf, his orderly and one of the cook’s assistants set up a breakfast table. Leland replaced his boot and thanked the medic again. This time he and his assistant left.
Leland looked at his orderly, standing there with a towel draped over one arm.
“We’ll handle things,” Leland said, and tilted his head to the door.
The man bowed and left.
Leland eyed his guest, then pointed to each of the guards in each of the corners and jerked his thumb to the door. “Gentleman, please wait outside.”