“I will stay until you can return with me,” Tiras replied, adamant.
It was Kjell’s turn to swear and sigh.
“We will fight them together, and you will come home,” Tiras repeated, his voice brooking no argument.
Kjell nodded wearily, bending to Tiras’s will as he had a dozen times before, but in his heart he knew he lied. When the battle was done, live or die, Kjell would not be returning to Jeru.
***
In the battle of Kilmorda, the stench of Volgar was ever-present. In Caarn, it grew, fluttering in on the breeze, warning of death and decay. Tiras, with his heightened animal senses, had been the first to detect it, but by dawn of the following day, he was not the only one. Kjell told King Aren to bring his people, every last one, inside the castle walls.
“Look at the hills, Captain,” Jerick murmured. Kjell didn’t have to. They were brilliant, the leaves vibrant in their death song.
The growers left their fields and began spinning vines, stretching them from the castle walls to the parapets, the long streamers of thorny green snagging on everything they touched. The plan was to create a net of sorts, crisscrossing the twisting vines over the castle, wrapping it in a web of green.
“How do you know the Volgar will attempt to tear through the vines?” King Aren worried as he coaxed the foliage to climb and crawl across the courtyard.
“Because we will be standing beneath them,” Kjell said grimly. “And the birdmen want nothing more than to tear our flesh from our bones.”
“They will not be able to help themselves,” Jerick agreed.
“If we take away their ability to dive and fly, we can defeat them,” Tiras reassured. King Aren had greeted the Jeruvian king with surprise and hope, but when he discovered Tiras was alone, without a delivering army in tow, he grew morose once more.
As the nets were strung, Kjell’s men barred the castle windows so the Volgar could not break the glass and crawl inside. The children and a handful of women, along with Captain Lortimer and enough sailors to man a ship, would stay inside the hall. Provisions had been gathered, arrangements made, and food prepared. Once the Volgar arrived, the doors would remain bolted. Jedah, the Earth Mover, had created tunnels from the forest, beneath the walls, and up into the castle cellars and stores. If the King’s Guard and the fledgling army of Caarn were defeated, Queen Saoirse would have a way to get everyone out of the castle and into the forest without ever crossing the yard or raising the gates. A ship still waited in Dendar Bay. Some of Caarn’s children could be saved. It was the most Kjell could promise.
Everyone else who was willing to fight—women and men—would be armed with vertical spikes, swords, lances and spears, waiting beneath the canopy of vines, packed in tight formation, just as Kjell’s men had done on the Jandarian plain. He would have preferred to protect all the women, to tuck them away with the very old and the very young inside the Great Hall and the endless rooms of the castle. But many of the women of Caarn had rejected that idea with flat eyes and sharp sticks. Queen Saoirse was among them.
What could not be done below with weapons and vines could be accomplished above with a hundred archers on the wall and a handful of Gifted in the turrets. It was not hot oil and catapults, but Kjell was optimistic that the unique skills would provide a measure of support. The Gifted in Jeru had turned the tide against Zoltev and his army of birdmen.
“Isak can light anything on fire. It’s his gift, but it is also dangerous to those around him. We don’t want the castle to burn down in the midst of battle,” Kjell explained to the little maid who could draw water. Tess nodded, her eyes wide. “Keep your eyes on Isak. Don’t let the fire spread,” Kjell instructed.
“I cannot draw water from stone, Captain,” Tess whispered, her eyes on the rock walls of the turret where she would stand.
“There is water in the air. You will have to call it from the skies.” Tess bobbed her head reluctantly, but Kjell could see her fear. He could not calm it. There was every reason to fear. But if she was afraid for her life, she would be able to call her gift, he had no doubt. Dev, the boy who could spin like a storm, calling the wind and flinging gales, would be beside Tess in the tallest turret. Boom would be there as well, making the air quake and Volgar wings tremble with his voice.
The Sea Changer would battle with the rest of the men, armed with a spear and a stake. But Kjell had pulled him aside and quietly given him a mission of his own. If Caarn should fall, the Sea Changer was to leave through the tunnels and make the journey to Jeru City. Someone would have to tell Queen Lark what had occurred in Caarn.
When the vines were strung and the sun began to sink, they waited, ready and dreading, eating and sleeping in short shifts, eyes and ears to the east where the queen had seen the birdmen come. Sasha made constant rounds, soothing and speaking softly, making sure needs were met and every eventuality had been seen to. Aren moved among his people as well, reassuring and encouraging, claiming full confidence in Kjell’s plan and the strength of Caarn, and Padrig padded behind him, wearing the dazed demeanor of a man who’d borne too much.
Tiras took direction from Kjell, playing the role of brother instead of king, but he missed nothing, absorbed everything, and his hands were never idle. Sharpened sticks, lances and blades were stacked like tinder in every corner, so he took to the skies, climbing the watchtower and winging out above the valley, determined to warn of a Volgar approach.
After two days of cramped quarters and bated breath, the nerves of every person in Castle Caarn were at a breaking point. Hope that no conflict would ever come, that the queen had lost her sight, infused the vigil, making the wait harder to endure. Even the stench had seemed to abate, though Kjell knew it was the direction of the wind and not a reversal of fortunes.
When the shadows deepened on the third day, Tiras returned from his eagle patrol with sweat-slicked skin and hooded eyes. The Volgar swarm had been spotted, and the numbers were great. Tiras donned his clothes, retrieved his sword, and without grief or regret, he descended to the bailey to wait with the rest.
The archers on the ramparts, tucked beneath the overhang and bent beneath shields, would wait for the Volgar to begin clawing through the vines before they took aim. The Gifted in the tower would wait for the second wave to come. The Volgar liked to swarm and fly, swarm and fly. Kjell prayed they would swarm and die. Swarm and die. Confident that his orders would be followed and that he’d done all he could, Kjell climbed down from the watchtower.
Sasha waited for him at the base of the winding stairs.
For a moment, in the shadowy alcove, they were alone. She watched him take the last few steps, her hands clasped in front of her. He stepped close, so close that the warmth of her body and the thrum of life beneath her skin painted him in her colors. He did not touch her, but he allowed himself to relish the sweetness of her and the memory of them. Her mouth was not his to kiss, her hands were not his to hold, and though her eyes still pledged forever, her lips could not. His face hovered above hers, close enough to feel her breath, to taste the hope that stirred from her breast as she spoke.
“We will not die today,” she said fiercely. “Caarn will not die today.”
Her words were infused with so much faith that he breathed them in, believing.
“Promise me,” he whispered.
“I promise,” she breathed.
With that assurance, Kjell stepped away, praying the Creator would honor her vow.
The young were herded into the Great Hall, the doors barred, prayers uttered, and the citizens of Caarn took up their arms, found their positions, and lifted their faces to the vines they stood beneath.
The sound of the Volgar was one Kjell refused to recall and couldn’t forget. They screamed and cawed, their wings beating the air and their talons clicking. A collective shudder rippled through the villagers of Caarn as the distant cries became a roaring cacophony. The shudder became a shout when the first birds collided with the vines, and Kjell roared for every knee to bend and ever
y weapon to brace. The people obeyed, gripping their weapons more firmly in their hands and willing the web of leaves and twine to hold.
A volley of arrows whistled from the ramparts into the writhing swarm, and the shrieking of the Volgar swelled to screams. One birdman partially broke through, then another, until two dozen of the Volgar dangled above the bailey, wings and talons caught in the vines, beaks snapping.
“Spears!” Kjell cried, and the members of his guard rose and threw their lances at the dangling horde. A few lances fell, but many more found their mark. The weight on the vines increased as the swarm doubled, then tripled, the living scratching and scrabbling through the dead, the scent of human flesh and pounding blood drawing the Volgar further into the swinging snare. Sticks and arrows bristled like quills from the bulging net and green blood began to drip from the vines and trickle into the upraised faces of the villagers, but the people held steady and followed Kjell’s commands.
Then the vines began to snap and the birds began to fall like flies to the bailey below.
“Group!” Kjell roared as the birdmen broke free, and the people circled and stabbed, circled and stabbed, their spears out and their backs together, a dance of death and survival accompanied by Volgar shrieks. The living birdmen were skewered, and the tumbling dead were shoved aside as lances and spears were pulled free, only to be used again. Confidence soared among the three hundred makeshift warriors as the vines continued to tangle and trap, and the birdmen continued to plummet. Kjell didn’t count the numbers, he didn’t celebrate, and he didn’t rejoice, but in the black of his belly and the back of his mind, he began to believe that Caarn would indeed live to see another day.
“Swarm!” Tiras bellowed, his eyes trained above them. Through the jagged holes in the vines, the sky grew dark with a hundred wings. Kjell’s blood surged and his hopes plummeted as the Volgar began to dive. The netting would not hold another swarm so large.
Boom roared, the thunder from his chest creating ripples in the air, knocking the villagers from their feet and sending the birdmen cartwheeling through the sky as effectively as Lark’s words had done in the fields of Kilmorda. As the villagers rose to their feet, the wind began to howl, and the screams of the birdmen were swept up in the gale. Lightning dashed and thunder clapped, and the winds were infused with rain.
The Gifted had come through.
Kjell screamed for the men and women to rise and hold their positions, spears raised, eyes lifted. The broken vines billowed and blew and the rain became a billowing mist, but the Volgar swarm did not return.
For a moment joyful tears mixed with the blood-tinged rain.
“Repair the vines, bury the Volgar—burn them if it’s not too wet—and ready yourselves for another attack,” Kjell demanded.
The people gasped, deflated and disbelieving, but instantly obeyed, retrieving arrows, gathering weapons, and piling the Volgar dead. Only one man was lost—an archer who fell from the ramparts. His body had been carried away by birdmen. Another man had a long slice down his forearm, and a badly-thrown lance had skewered a woman’s thigh. Both the wounded were Spinners of Caarn, healed once before, and Kjell managed to partially close the cut on the man’s arm, but couldn’t heal the deep wound on the woman’s leg. Kjell turned her over to a midwife who applied a poultice and assured her she would heal, albeit slowly.
They spent the night in restless waiting, falling asleep in snatches only to wake, gasping and flailing at winged beasts that hadn’t yet returned. The vines above them created a curtain against the sky, obscuring the stars, giving them a sense of both security and confinement, thickening the air with dread and desperate hope.
The courtyard stunk of loose bowels and singed hair, like fear-soaked skin and tightly-packed bodies. Tess’s rain had dampened the air and deterred the beasts, but the lingering wet made the night long and the tempers short, and when dawn poked prodding fingers at the nervous Caarns, most were ready for the battle to commence, if only to escape their discomfort.
As the sun rose with no sign of the Volgar horde, Kjell took his turn in the castle washroom, desperate to be clean but more than that, to find a reprieve from the faith the villagers had placed in him. He shrugged off his tunic and washed the Volgar stench and the tang of dread from his skin, the scent of soap and the cold water giving him even more comfort than the quiet.
King Aren found him there. He still wore his crown, as if he needed to continually remind himself of his responsibility. Kjell understood that. A crown could not be shelved when it wasn’t convenient. It was the reason he’d yet to remove his sword or set aside the blade in his boot. The heft and rub of the weapons reminded him that soap could not wash away duty.
“Saoirse says the birdmen will not fall into the nets again,” Aren said without preamble. Kjell’s stomach twisted, wishing Sasha had come to him directly, and knowing why she didn’t. He patted himself dry and pulled a clean tunic over his head, shoving the ends into his breeches and tightening his belt, his thoughts pinging like tired moths to a covered flame.
“She says some will dive but most will wait,” Aren added. “She insisted I tell you.”
“Where will they wait?” Kjell asked. Aren’s shoulders slumped and his eyes closed briefly.
“On the ramparts,” he said tiredly. “Where the archers are hiding.”
“Most will wait,” Kjell muttered, considering. Volgar were not men. But they could adapt. He had seen it before.
“Just once, I would like her to see something that gave me hope. Just once,” the king sighed.
“Preparation is hope,” Kjell replied quietly. “She gives us that.”
Aren nodded once and turned to leave. “She is outside the door,” he said abruptly. “Tell us what you want us to do. We will do it.”
In the weighty silence of the king’s exit, Kjell considered his options. Then, unable to focus on anything but the fact that Sasha lingered nearby, he left the washroom. Sasha stood in the corridor, straight-backed and hollow-eyed, waiting to deliver a message she knew would not be welcome. Kjell felt a flash of anger that she might have been chastised for the bad news she bore.
“Tell me,” he said, halting in front of her, his voice gentle.
“I see them, perched and patient, so thick on the ramparts that the walls crawl with them. The archers will be picked off, and then they will wait,” she said wearily.
“They cannot eat what is not there,” he reasoned. “We will move the archers to the forest.”
“Will that not simply draw the Volgar away as well?”
“Not if three hundred pounding hearts still stand beneath the vines. We know the vines will hold. We simply have to make the Volgar dive into them.”
“And how will we do that?”
“We will make ourselves bleed,” he said.
Sasha did not blanch or step back, but gazed back at him steadily, eyes inward, examining his plan.
“I need a blade,” she murmured, thinking out loud.
“You do not need a blade, Majesty,” he murmured.
“I may not need it today, but it will comfort me to have it. Please, Captain,” she whispered, the plea so heartfelt and sweet he bowed to it immediately.
He reached for the knife in his boot, the hilt comfortable and smooth in his hand, an old friend. He pressed it into Sasha’s palm and wrapped her fingers around it, showing her how to hold it.
“If you must use it, commit to it. Do not wield it to discourage your enemy. Wield it to kill.”
She nodded, her eyes on his hand around hers.
“If you must use it, I have failed you,” he muttered darkly, releasing her hand, relinquishing his blade. He watched her tuck it into her boot, copying his actions exactly.
“You have never failed me,” she replied, straightening. “And I will not fail you.”
The edge of the forest nearest the palace had been thinned and cleared as the Spinners were healed, leaving an empty ring of earth around the castle walls. Just beyond the
sparse perimeter, the archers would wait—cloaked in greenery and shielded by the trees—for the Volgar to perch on the ramparts above the canopy. Jerick and King Aren would be among the archers in the forest, Kjell would direct the action beneath the vines, and Tiras would slip between, changing form as circumstances demanded, coordinating the effort between the forest and the castle.
“If there is nothing to eat on the ramparts, and the Volgar smell blood beneath the vines, they will try to break through,” Kjell explained to those most fearful of the new plan. There was little argument but plenty of apprehension. New positions were staked out, new signals established, and a new round of fearful waiting embarked upon.
Near dusk on the third day, the cry finally went up.
“Volgar!” Tiras warned, shifting from eagle to man in a fluttering mix of feathers and flesh. The archers in the trees scrambled for cover and lifted their bows, shaking off the lethargy and the denial of the long wait. The throng beneath the nets braced their lances and clutched their blades, waiting for the sign to use them.
Just as Sasha had predicted, the birdmen shrieked and swarmed, circling the castle in the skies over Caarn until, one by one, they began dropping to the ramparts, peering down through the thick carpet of vines that partially obscured the villagers below. With the feathered haunches and wings of vultures and the torsos of human men, the Volgar were truly terrible to behold, especially when they rimmed the walls above the courtyard showing rare sentience and self-control, their eyes gleaming and their attention fixed.
“Bleed,” Kjell ordered, his voice low, his gaze lifted. The word rumbled and spread through the armed crowd, and with shaking hands, the villagers of Caarn passed their blades and scored their palms, smearing the blood into their skin, hoping to draw the birdmen down into their snare once more.
The Volgar began to shift and scream, batting their wings and snapping their beaks, the scent of blood stealing their sense and luring them into a collective lean.