King's Shield

  Cama sensed dire significance in that long look.

  Han turned around again. “Gdir went anyway. With her brother and cousins. I went to bring them back. We saw Venn on the walls. Then a line of Idayagans came down the landslide. Gdir yelled to let her help, let her help. Then some Idayagan yelled little Marlovan shits! And shot Gdir dead. Her brother ran. To help. And her cousins. They killed them all. Left them lying right there.” Han’s skinny chest heaved. She took a big swallow of the coffee, and choked, then swigged down some more. “I didn’t-I couldn’t—”

  “Hold hard.” Cama leaned forward, his one eye steady in the distant firelight. “The Idayagans shot those children out of hand? Were your friends armed?”

  “Gdir had her bow. So did I. But hers wasn’t even strung, and mine was loose-strung, and I was doggo. I mudded up, see.”

  “Good,” Cama said. “They didn’t?”

  “No. I don’t think Gdir thought there would be anyone. Her brother didn’t have anything—he’s six. Was.” A hiss of indrawn breath. Her lips trembled, her knuckles whitened.

  Cama rubbed his jaw, trying to get control of the rage her words caused. Rage made one issue stupid orders.

  But he was aware of the listeners behind him, so he said, “You gave Gdir orders—the same orders you were given—and she disobeyed?”

  The child shaped a protest, clearly intending to loyally defend her dead friends, but obedience to orders was the first concept drilled into them all.

  She hesitated, then finally flicked her thumb up. “Yes.”

  “So the Idayagans began searching for you?”

  “Yes.” Han opened her dirty, rock-scratched palm. “The Idayagans came back. They spread out. Searching. They came down to the landslide from higher on the Twisted Pine Path. It was night, see. But we kept watch. Venn didn’t patrol the landslide. So me’n Lnand and Freckles and Dvar, we went out and shot ’em. Outside in. So they wouldn’t get Gdir and the others. I wanted revenge, too.”

  “We both did,” said the girl with the baby on her lap.

  Cama turned back to Han. “That was part of your orders?”

  “Yes.” Her shoulders hunched up to her ears. A grimy hand drifted near her mouth, exposing nails bitten down to the quick. “If they found us we could fight. They knew we were somewhere.”

  “Good work.”

  Her voice lifted faintly. “The Venn came. Chased them over the slide. We were doggo. All mudded. They didn’t see us. When they were gone, we Disappeared them. We did it right. Except the sing. Then we had to move, because they knew we were there. They’d search. We took what we could carry, and we sang them when it was light. We heard scout dogs once. We moved during storms. We kept moving until there was big noise in the pass. The Venn were coming back.”

  “So you hid again?”

  “Orders were no fighting Venn. We were running out of food. We’ve been doing halfies, then halfies of halfies. We were going to start halfies once a day while Hal and I did a sneak back to raid our cave, Dvar and Freckles covering us with their bows in case.” She finished the coffee, then grimaced, her eyes watering. But her voice was a little stronger as she said, “Lnand saw to the smalls. Hal and Dvar were our scouts. Hal saw you. I came down to make sure you were us.”

  Cama had spent his life making and hearing field reports. He knew when details were bustled by—and he could gauge fairly accurately why.

  He lifted his voice, aware of half a dozen children listening. “You did well. You did so well that I’m going to do what the Jarlan would have done. I’m giving you a nickname. So when you go to the queen’s training—and I’m going to see that you do—they’re to call you Captain Han. You tell ’em that comes from Cama Tya-Vayir.”

  “You’re Cama One-Eye,” the new Captain Han marveled. Keth told stories about him and the other Sier Danas, gleaned from Flash-Randael.

  “Listen, Captain Han. New orders. I was sent by the king to secure Castle Andahi, so I can speak with his voice. You’re all going to sleep, you right in my tent. Commander’s tent, see? You can have my bedroll, because I’m taking a couple of my Riders down to grab a squint at the Venn and the castle under cover of dark.”

  He grinned, and she smiled. He was a Marlovan, sent by the king. He knew what to do, and she had orders. Tension leaked out of her, leaving her leaden with weariness. “Watch out for those horse-apple Idayagans,” she mumbled.

  This time his grin was even wider as he said in a voice rough as a rockfall, “Oh, I hope we meet them.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  CAMA was back the next evening, just as the sun was setting.

  “All right, we’re on our way. The Venn did not camp. They kept moving through the night. The last of them are getting into their boats in the bay. I think we need to take possession now. Those Idayagans are sure to be coming back.”

  “We got to help!” the other older girl shrilled, coming to stand at Cama’s stirrup. She looked exactly like the rest to him, a scrawny pup of a girl with braids the color of flax and light-colored eyes, but her voice irritated him as she piped, “You have to let us. You can’t shut us away like the little ones. I can’t bear it! Not after what we’ve been through!” He shifted the irritation to himself, knowing she had endured a rougher time than many adults ever did. And it was not her fault she reminded him of the way his wife, Starand, used to talk in their schoolroom days.

  “Mount up,” Cama said.

  The girl marched away, chin elevated. The children were all thin and dirty, but their cheeks showed color after a night of sleep and a couple of meals. The older girls all wore their bows tucked over their childish shoulder blades, and quivers full of arrows. The Runners packed the older children three to a remount and carried the smaller ones themselves.

  As soon as they began the short ride toward the last bend, Cama said, “I’ve got a defense roughed out. The Idayagans have to be watching from the heights somewhere. I’m hoping we can get in before they see us, which is why we’re riding down now under cover of dark. The Jarlan probably told you girls and boys that when attacking a castle, whatever the numbers, whoever has the inside has an advantage.”

  “Not enough,” Han whispered.

  And that other older girl shook her bow. “We’re going to guard the walls.”

  She repeated it with a self-conscious flick of her braids that caused the rest of the big girls to give her a revealing, narrow-eyed glare.

  “I’ll just die if you leave us out. You can’t!” she declared.

  “Lnand,” Han said. “Mount up.”

  If Lnand really was like Starand, she would keep that up until she got a response. “Wasn’t going to,” Cama said. “You girls can take the towers and walls, just like you’ve practiced. That’s your best position, and it also leaves any hand-to-hand to us. Yes, I know you’re training with knives. Odni is best when you’ve got some hips to balance with. None of you are anywhere near that.”

  Lnand tossed her head. “Just so you don’t think we’re babies. You don’t know half of what we had to do—”

  “Lnand,” Captain Han said again.

  “What?” Fists on hips—just like Starand.

  “Shut it.”

  Lnand opened her mouth and began a long defense—she was just defending the girls’ honor—but a freckle-faced girl and Haldred Mondavar made “Yeah,” noises.

  Captain Han said, “We’ll all take care of our own honor.”

  After another odd look exchanged between the two, Lnand sniffed, but subsided.

  Presently, they spied the castle at the bottom of the pass, a distinct pale shape, one side buried in a mighty landslide, the whole bathed in starlight.

  “All right, into the tunnel,” Cama said, leading the way.

  The last stretch of the pass broadened out, except for a jut of rock at the left, the west side. What looked like a crevasse was actually access to the tunnel, carved by the river that had once flowed there. The pass itself was broad, stone-floored part of the
way, the upper portion trampled down over centuries.

  As soon as they were inside the tunnel they lit readied torches and rode single file downward, surrounded by stone walls worn smooth by water. The cold, motionless tunnel air smelled faintly of horse, wool, and sweat, and a tinge of vinegar from the exhalations of thousands who had breakfasted on vinegar-soaked cabbage the day before.

  The tunnel ended at the castle, opening into one of the basement levels. It smelled dank, and mournful drips here and there were evidence that it had been flooded, then emptied out.

  Cama motioned ridings of men to explore, torches held high, weapons out. The silence seemed thick and heavy, oppressive with the weight of old stone and the rusty tang of spilled blood.

  The ridings returned looking bleak.

  In brief words they all reported, giving Cama a dismal picture. But no enemy remained.

  Cama said, “We’ll set a close perimeter, everyone within earshot. Here’s how we’ll set up watches . . .”

  Dawn brought a rise in the summer winds, kicking up dust whirls in the air over the enormous landslide looming over one side of the castle. From time to time tiny bits of rubble clicketty-clattered down the slide. At first, Cama’s sentries stiffened. There were four sentries posted on the landslide portion of the back wall, with overlapping fields of vision. But nothing moved on the long, rock-strewn sweep all the way up to the mountain. Though they never ceased their visual sweeps, they stopped pulling weapons at every rattle.

  The rest of the sentries patrolled near the front gates, which gapped open, the mighty hinges destroyed. From the walls, scouts watched the last of the Venn boats launching onto the turned tide.

  The Venn had restored the baths on one side at least, patching up the hole that had let water into the basement to drown the tunnel entrance.

  Once the children had been sent to bathe and eat, Cama rotated his dragoons through the baths in small parties. Since there was not so much as an oat left in the pantry rooms, the dragoons’ Runners brought in the remainder of their stores. Their cook was exercising his imagination when midday made the shadows vanish under their feet.

  The noon watch change was rung by a Runner. That had been chosen as the signal by Idayagans who figured the Venn would be gone by then.

  A swarm of Idayagans raced out of what had seemed in the darkness to be shrubs growing below the level of the outer wall. These were actually the front entrance to some old tunnels, known to the Idayagans but not to Cama and his group.

  It was an enormous force of Idayagans. Weapons raised, yelling wildly, they attacked in a mass.

  A sentry shot a whirtler up over the castle. Cama abandoned his grim inspection and shouted for everyone to get to battle posts.

  Captain Han and the bigger girls had been gathered in the kitchen, Han trying not to lose her temper at Lnand’s loud grief at the destruction of the bakery.

  Sure enough, Lnand’s tears winked away the moment they heard Cama’s shout. She was right behind Han as they raced to the top of the east tower.

  The girls were just beginning to pick their positions when the slope of the landslide erupted as if by magic. Idayagans shook dirt off taut bows, nocked arrows, and let loose at the sentries.

  Most of the first volley missed, but not all. Two of the sentries running for cover recoiled and fell dead. The rest dove behind battlements, though this was only partial cover as the enemy was shooting down almost on top of them. One sentry took an arrow in the arm, the other in a bent knee sticking out from cover.

  The archers had copied what they assumed was the tactic used by the Marlovan children. Under cover of night, while the Marlovans were in the tunnel, they’d crept down the landslide and burrowed down, covering themselves lightly with the loose rubble to wait for the signal: the noon bells.

  They loosed arrows as fast as they could, concentrating on the hidden targets.

  One of the eight-year-old girls started shrieking. Captain Han yelled over her, “Line!”

  The well-drilled girls scrambled into a line.

  “Arrow!” Han’s own first arrow was the one that had killed Gdir. She’d dug her nail into the shafts of those arrows to mark them off. “Lnand, this one killed Tlennen. Freckles, Dvar, here are yours.”

  Fingers had been hastily tightening strings; arrows were clapped to.

  “Loose!”

  Spang! The girls shot together.

  The front five Idayagans staggered, and one dropped: each of the girls’ arrows hit something. One girl squealed in triumph and two brangled over whose arrow had gotten the kill until Captain Han yelled, voice desperate, “LINE! Arrow! Loose!”

  Long-drilled habit snapped the girls back into a wavering line.

  The girls spread behind the battlements. Han pretended not to hear Dvar’s keening breathing. Dvar was shooting with everyone else.

  The Idayagans scrambled for cover, then began shooting back from behind rocks, unsure of what else to do. The more decent ones did not want to shoot at children. Others longed to shoot down the brats who had better aim than they did.

  The best Idayagan archers had been in front, the rest were to provide a lethal rain to keep the Marlovans pinned down. Consequently, at first the girls hit more targets than the Idayagans, as shouts and clashes of steel echoed from the castle gates.

  The Idayagans began shifting, spreading out, so that they could get a better angle on the tower and walls. Meanwhile, the underfed girls, inexorably tired, found their shots falling short and going wild.

  One Idayagan arrow grazed Freckles’ scalp just as she bobbed out too forcefully. She fell to her knees, bleeding spectacularly. Some of the eights began shrieking; Captain Han and her older girls, driven by anger, renewed the conflict, and this time, Zip! Zip! Zip! Zip! four Idayagans—lulled from cover by the increasing wildness of the girls’ shots—fell, arrows square in their chests.

  Then more arrows, fast and deadly accurate, began picking off the Idayagans from a new angle.

  Barend, his reinforcements, Ndand and Keth Arveas had arrived, galloping wildly down the pass when they reached the ridge and heard the unmistakable sounds of battle.

  As Barend and the dragoons raced to the aid of the men fighting at the gates, Ndand sent Keth inside with the horses. She sped up onto the tower opposite the girls’ and took up position without being noticed.

  “Lnand! Get her downstairs,” Captain Han ordered, pointing to Freckles rocking back and forth on the tower floor, fingers pressed to her oozing scalp.

  “Why does it have to be me? I’m as good a shot as you,” Lnand announced.

  Goaded at last beyond endurance, Captain Han said in a low, fierce voice, “Just wait till I tell Ndand-Randviar—”

  “I didn’t do it! And you’re a snitch!”

  “I’ll tell her,” Dvar said, stung out of her fugue.

  Lnand went still. Han scowled.

  Dvar flung her braids back. “I’ll tell her you always argued.”

  Han said, “C’mon, let’s get Freckles down before she bleeds to death.”

  Freckles squinted up through blood-sticky eyelids. “Not that you care about me, Lnand. You just want Cama One-Eye to give you a nickname. But I’ll give you one first: Frostface!”

  Lnand veered between fury and relief that Dvar didn’t know about . . . it. That meant Han hadn’t told anyone. Did Han know, or didn’t she? Lnand did not dare ask.

  She’s afraid I’ll tell about Rosebud at the bridge, Han thought. The ice ball formed behind her ribs—the same ribs that splintered in Gdir when the Idayagans shot her. She sensed Lnand wanting it secret—maybe even demanding something as the price of secrecy. But Han knew that secrets are weapons. Her parents were gone. So was the Jarlan. She would tell Ndand. And if Ndand told her she wasn’t good enough for queen’s training, well, it meant she wasn’t worthy.

  The ball of ice was gone. Discipline was as well, that was all right. The sight of the reinforcements caused most of the Idayagans to panic and throw down their
arms.

  When the cease-fighting trumpet blew, the girls understood that the battle was over. Yes, here came warriors to take charge of the men on the landslide, who looked around uncertainly, not sure if their own people had surrendered, not sure what to do next.

  Captain Han flung her bow over her back and bent to help the angrily sobbing Freckles to her feet. The other girls followed, half of them whimpering too, though they didn’t know why.

  Cama stood in front of the prisoners, who clumped together sullenly, fearfully, miserably in the middle of the rubble-strewn parade ground just inside the second gate.

  There were twice and half again as many Idayagans as Marlovans. The former were dismayed, then angry, to discover that. It had seemed to them a full army swept out of nowhere onto them, and many couldn’t throw down their weapons fast enough. Most had had little or no training. Cama strongly suspected the leader had been at the front gate. The ruse with the landslide had been clever, but there had been no one to follow up their advantage. If the leader had known how to command his two fronts, the battle would have gone a lot worse for the Marlovans.

  And it would keep being like that, unless Cama could force them into peace through fear.

  He walked back and forth, glaring at them with his one good eye. Then he said in Marlovan, which Ndand translated into Idayagan, “I want to know who killed those unarmed children the other night.”

  No one answered.

  Cama lifted a hand, rigid with disgust. “Fine. You’re under our law. That’s specific about the consequences of cowardice.”

  “They were shooting at us!” came a voice from the back, which Ndand translated in a whisper.

  Hissings and violent language issued from the Idayagans, but the same voice shouted, “Those soul-rotted brats shot at us!”

  Cama said, “I am not talking about your attempt to take this castle. That comes under rules of war. I mean four children just after the Venn came. Unarmed. You killed them in cold blood, and I’m going to exact a price for that. From every one of you if I have to—”