Paladin of Souls (46 page)

With a visible effort, the parley officer wrenched himself back to his script. "These are the terms of the prince of Jokona. You will surrender the Dowager Royina Ista at once, as hostage for your cooperation. All officers and soldiers of the garrison will lay down their arms and march out your gate in surrender. Do this, and your lives will be spared."

"To be corralled as demon fodder, perchance?" muttered dy Cabon, crouched looking through an embrasure farther down the walkway. A rather more merciful fate, Ista couldn't help reflecting, than what a divine of the Bastard caught in such a conflict might normally expect from overexcited Quadrene troops.

"Come, come, Jokonan, would you trouble me to spit upon you?" asked Arhys.

"Pray save your spit, Lord Arhys. I hear such liquids will be hard to come by in there soon."

Lord Illvin had climbed up behind the parapet in time to hear this exchange, and smiled sourly. He cast a quick look out over Ista's head, taking in the enemy's arrangements in a sweeping pass. Arhys glanced down at him; Illvin leaned his shoulders against the wall below his brother's feet and gazed back out over the forecourt. In a voice pitched not to carry to the Jokonans, he reported, "They got both cisterns. Leaking like sieves. I have men bailing with every intact vessel they can find, and trying to line the tanks with canvas to slow the outflow. But it's not good."

"Right," Arhys murmured back. He raised his voice again to the parley officer. "We refuse, of course."

The parley officer looked up with grim satisfaction at what was obviously the expected answer. "Prince Sordso and Dowager Princess Joen are merciful beyond your deserving. They will give you one day to reconsider your stance. I will come again tomorrow to hear your new answer. Unless you send to us first—of course." With a bow, he began to back away, inadequately covered by his two guardsmen. He retreated quite a distance before he dared to turn his back.

Not just the expected answer: the desired outcome, apparently.

"What happens next?" asked dy Cabon in worry. "An assault? Will they really wait a day?"

"I wouldn't trust them to," said Arhys, jumping down onto the walk again.

"An assault, yes," said Ista. "But not, I think, by their troops. I would wager anything you please that Joen wishes to play with her new toys. Porifors is her very first chance to test her array of sorcerers in open war. If the results satisfy her ..." A purple line, though only one this time, flashed across Ista's inner vision.

Most of the stretched bowstrings along the sentry walk snapped at once, twanging. A couple of men yelped from the sting of the recoiling cords. An exception was a cocked crossbow that let loose. Its quarrel shot into the thigh of the man standing next to its bearer; the man screamed and fell backward off the walk to smack onto the stones of the court and lie still. His horrified comrade gaped at his bow, flung it from himself as though it burned his hand, and hurried after his fallen mate.

Another, darker flash crackled past.

"Now what?" muttered Foix uneasily, staring up and down the line of appalled archers. Some, already fishing in their belts for replacement strings, found them shredding in their hands.

A few moments later, across the rooftops of the castle's inner courts, a plume of smoke billowed into the air.

"Fire in the stable," said Illvin, his laconic voice at odds with his sudden lunge forward. "Foix, I want you, please." He sped away down the stairs, long legs taking them three at a time.

Now it begins in earnest
, thought Ista, her stomach clenching.

Liss's eyes were huge. "Royina, may I go with them?" she gasped.

"Yes, go," Ista released her. She bolted away. Every competent hand would be needed . . .
And then there is me.
She took herself down off the wall, at least.

Arhys, running past her, called, "Lady, will you look to Cattilara?"

"Of course." A task of sorts. Or maybe Arhys, a prudent commander, merely wanted to get all the useless deadwood stored in one safe place.

Ista found Cattilara's ladies in hysterics; when she had finished with them, their noise was at least muted to well-suppressed hysterics. Cattilara lay unchanged, except for an already visible shrinking of the soft flesh of her face, tightening across her bones. The demon light was knotted tensely within her, making no attempt—yet—to fight for ascendance. Ista blew out her breath in unease, but made sure that the soul-fire continued to pour out toward Arhys without impediment.

*     *     *

THROUGH THE ENDLESS AFTERNOON, ISTA MADE FREQUENT FORAYS from the marchess's chambers to check the effect of the various ripples of sorcery light that scraped through her perceptions. Only that first great assault on the water supply seemed fully coordinated. After that the attack broke into a disorder mirrored by its effects. People fell and broke bones. The horses saved from the burning stable block, let loose in the star court, knocked down a gallery in their squealing and plunging. A wasp nest fell with it, and three men died screaming, choking, and convulsing from the stings; more men were knocked about and injured by the sting-maddened horses.

Other, smaller fires started in other courts. The little remaining water dwindled rapidly. Most of the stored meat, no matter how preserved, was found to be starting to rot and stink; bread and fruit grew green mold that seemed to spread even as one watched. Weevil larvae burgeoned in the flour supply. Leather straps and fiber ropes rotted and came apart in people's hands. Pottery cracked. Boards broke. Mail and swords began to rust with the speed of a maiden's blush.

Any men with histories of tertiary fever began violent relapses; Cattilara's pleasant dining hall was soon filled with men on pallets, moaning, burning, shivering, and hallucinating. Dy Cabon was pressed into service to help tend the sick and, unbelievably soon, the dying. By evening, the faces of the soldiers and servants that Ista passed had gone beyond edgy and frightened to a pale, deadened, bewildered shock.

At sunset, Ista climbed the north tower, the highest, to take stock. Liss, stinking with smoke and limping from being stepped on by frantic hooves, mounted slowly after her. A man in a gray-and-gold tabard clumped up behind to drop an armload of stones onto a growing pile by the battlement, exchange uneasy grunts with two comrades whose unstrung warped bows were flung aside into a corner, then turn and clump back down the winding stairs.

In the level light of the westering sun, the unpeopled countryside appeared weirdly beautiful and serene. In the grove of walnut trees, the Jokonans' well-ordered camp seemed to be enjoying a feast; the only smokes were thin aromatic trails rising from cooking fires. Little clusters of horsemen rode about, patrolling, delivering messages—out for an evening jaunt, for all Ista could tell. All abroad wore sea-green tabards.

The town, behind its walls in the valley, also sent up plumes of smoke, but ugly and black. With better access to water than the castle crowning the hill, the townsmen had kept most of their blazes from spreading out of control, so far. But the few tiny figures Ista could see moving fearfully through its streets and alleys were stiff with fatigue. The men behind its walls crouched, or sat barely moving, or lay as if in exhausted naps. Or dead.

Leaden boot steps scuffed on the stone stairs, and Ista looked around to see Lord Illvin emerge onto the tower platform carrying a small, greasy cloth sack. Even the flushed light of sunset failed to make his face look anything but filthy and pale. Soot and sweat had melted together, to be rubbed in odd streaks by whatever swipe of his hand had dashed the grime from his eyes. He had abandoned chain mail and scorched tabard hours ago, and his plain linen shirt, dotted with small black spark holes, was half stuck to his torso.

"Ah," he said in a voice that sounded as though it came from the bottom of a mine shaft. "There you are."

She nodded greetings; he came to her shoulder, and together they stared down into the disaster of Porifors, behind its deceptively blank and solid outer walls.

The whole stable block was burned-out. Blackened timbers were strewn across it, and messes of broken roof tiles spilled over them like blood. Temporarily, no other smoke was rising, but one corner of the kitchen block was also blackened and fallen in. The star court was a mess—one gallery knocked down, the fountain empty and choked with filth. Horses were tethered along one side; their backs looked odd and lozenge-shaped from this high angle of view. What people who could be seen scuttled about bent and anxious.

"Have you seen Learned dy Cabon lately?" Ista asked Illvin.

He nodded. "Still holding up in the sickrooms. We have pallets strewn through three chambers now. Half a dozen fellows just came down with dysentery. With no wash water left, it won't even take demons to spread
that
all over the fortress. Bastard's hell. At this rate, Sordso will be able to take Porifors by assault tomorrow with six ponies, a rope ladder, and a Quadrene temple children's choir." His teeth gritted, white against his blackened face. "Oh." He held out the sack. "Would you like some baked horsemeat? It's not rotted. Yet."

Ista eyed it dubiously. "I don't know. Is it Feather?"

"No. Happily."

"Not. . . right now, thank you."

"You should keep up your strength. Five gods know when we'll eat again." He dug out a chunk and dutifully munched it. "Liss?" He held out the bag to her.

"No, thank you," she echoed Ista thinly.

Failing to take his own advice, he passed the bag on to the former archers, now stone-throwers, who accepted it with murmured thanks and somewhat less revulsion. A crack sounded, as another timber in the stable block gave way and fell in a cloud of soot. Illvin returned to the inner side of the tower to stare down into the debacle again.

"That was one day. Less. Bastard's tears, what will we be reduced to in one week?"

Ista leaned on the sun-warmed stone with arms that shook, past prayer. "I have brought this down upon you all," she said in a low voice. "I am sorry."

His brows flicked up; he rested on one elbow beside her, looking across at her. "I'm not so sure you can claim that honor, lady. The situation here was well along this road before you ever arrived in our midst. If your presence had not baited the Jokonans into attack now, you may be sure they would have struck within another month or so— against a fortress with both of its most experienced commanders dead and rotted, or worse, and none even to explain the horrors pouring down out of nowhere upon it."

Ista rubbed her aching brow. "So we're actually not sure if I make any difference, except this way I hand myself as hostage and pawn to Joen." Perhaps. She stared down at the patterned paving stones, far below her.
There are other ways to avoid becoming a hostage.

He followed her gaze, and his eyes narrowed in a penetrating frown. He reached out with two fingers and gently turned her chin toward him. "You made a difference to
me,"
he said. "Any woman who can wake a man from a sleep of death with a kiss deserves a second glance, I think."

Ista snorted bitterly. "I didn't wake you with a kiss. I only disrupted and redirected the flow of your soul-fire, as I did later with Cattilara. The kiss was just. . . self-indulgence."

A little smile curved his lips. "I thought you said it was a dream."

"Uh ..."
Oh.
So she had. His lips curved up farther, maddeningly. She said, "A stupid impulse, then."

"Come, I thought it was a brilliant impulse. You underestimate yourself, lady."

Ista flushed. "I am afraid I have no talent for"—she swallowed—"dalliance. When I was young I was too stupid. Now I'm old, I am too drab."
Too stupid then too mad then too drab then too late.
"I'm just not the sort."

"Really?" He turned around, leaned against the battlement, and took up her hand with an air of great curiosity. One sooty finger began to trace the dirt-streaked lines within her palm. "I wonder why not? They say I am a man of wit. I should be able to figure it out, with a little study. Map the ground plan of Castle Ista, mark the defenses ..."

"Find the weaknesses?" Firmly, she took her hand back.

"All right, a deal of study."

"Lord Illvin, this is not the time or place for this!"

"Truly. I'm so tired I could hardly stand up. Nor climb to my feet, either."

There was a short silence.

His lips peeled back on a flash of teeth. "Ha. I saw your mouth twitch, then."

"It did not." It did now, helplessly, as she was reminded of the bird in its nest.

"Oh, better—she smirks!"

"I do
not
."

"Poets speak of hope in ladies' smiles, but give me a smirk any day,
I
say." Somehow, his thumb was massaging her palm again, tracing the subtle muscles of her hand. It felt wonderful. She wished he would rub her shoulders, her feet, her neck, her everything-that-hurt. And everything hurt.

"I thought you said Arhys was the great seducer in the family." She tried to muster the energy to take her hand back again, and failed.

"Not at all. He's never seduced a woman in his life. They leapt on him from ambush all by themselves. Not without cause, I grant you." He smiled, briefly. "There is this, about being the sparring partner of the best swordsman in Caribastos. I always lost. But if ever I meet the
third
best swordsman in Caribastos, he's going to be in very deep trouble. Arhys was always better at all things we turned our hands to. But there is one thing that I am quite certain I can do that he cannot."

It was the fault of the hand massage; it lulled her. She said unthinkingly, "What?"

"Fall in love with you. Sweet Ista."

She jerked back. She had heard that endearment before, but not on
those
lips. "Don't call me that."

"Bitter Ista?" His brows climbed. "Cranky Ista? Cross, ill-tempered, cantankerous Ista?"

She snorted; he relaxed, and his lips quirked again. "Well, I can no doubt learn to adjust my vocabulary."

"Lord Illvin, be serious."

"Certainly," he said at once. "As you command, Royina." He bowed slightly. "I am old enough to have many regrets. I've made my share of mistakes, some"—he grimaced—"hideous indeed, as you well know. But it was the little, easy things—the kisses I did not give, and the love I did not speak, because there was no time, no place—and then, no chance . . . Surprisingly sharp sorrows those are, for their size. I think all our chances grow narrow, tonight. So I shall reduce my regrets— however brief—by one, at least..."