THIRTY-EIGHT
DAWN BROUGHT LITTLE by way of relief.
The sense of a chasm yawning open inside me hadn’t vanished with sleep. I eyed the ground warily as I sat up, convinced any step would be the booby-trapped one – and down I would go, tumbling end over end until the earth closed off the sky and there was nothing left but to scrape and dig, dig and scrape, my fingers working blind as maggots.
Roshi put a bowl of stew into my hands. ‘Eat,’ She said. ‘It’ll help.’
The scent of lamb and coriander cleared my head a little, and thank the ravens it did because I’d barely managed three mouthfuls before a soldier poked his head in. Fixing the space behind my left shoulder with a stare, he announced, ‘The general wants you.’
I rose, stiff as if I’d run a marathon the night before. Roshi put a steadying hand on me and Sepp made a trencher from a hollowed heel of black bread and filled it with stew.
Waiting near the swathe of churned earth which had once been a ramp, Sidonius was garbed for battle. He carried a mace and had a short stabbing sword strapped to his waist. Robbed of the cover of darkness, he had not ventured as near the walls as our position last night.
‘Do you need to be close, to work your tricks?’ he asked, not bothering with greetings.
‘No,’ I answered, after Roshi gave a tiny shake of her head.
I squinted at the Turholm, and the scored dark earth before its walls. Surely it would be more difficult to work from further away? I didn’t voice the thought, however, in case Sidonius commanded me closer to the fray.
‘Good,’ he said, and turned to give the command to stand ready. Movement ran through the ranks like an ebb tide as the soldiers gripped weapons and shifted their shields forward.
‘It doesn’t need to be glamorous, lady, merely serviceable. Make a ramp wide enough for four men abreast and take it to the top of the wall. We’ll take care of the rest.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ I snapped.
The look he gave me helped me to focus, and I stared at the patch of earth I needed until I had it memorised. Someone – presumably Achim – had made a start at rebuilding the ramp, but it was only a dozen paces long.
I closed my eyes, and reached for the connection. The quiet place, where the mechaiah dwells, I thought. The tight place, where the earth thrums deep inside me. I pictured it in my mind, the earth melting until it flowed, drawing together and running up to the walls, building on itself, and finally settling back to solidity. Four men abreast, and serviceable.
When I opened my eyes, no ramp breached the wall’s face. The earth had not shifted so much as a single grain. Sidonius, Roshi, Sepp and rank upon rank of soldiers were all staring at me.
Squeezing down a panicked breath, I shut my eyes again. This time I imagined Clay’s breath cold and close on my nape, his massive hands pushing me, grovelling and suffocating, into the ground. That only made me remember the golems I had killed the previous night, with the gaping pit and the endless tumbling.
I swayed on my feet, my eyes snapping open to steady my balance, and shook my head weakly. I couldn’t summon an apology for my failure. It must have fallen down the same pit as the golems.
Sidonius’s hands curled into fists, and his gaze told me he’d like nothing more than to pierce my ribs with a pike.
‘Then you’re no use to me,’ he said, dismissing me with a curt wave of his hand. ‘Wait quietly somewhere nearby, until you find something you can do to help.’
I retreated back to the treeline, where I found Achim sitting cross-legged with his back supported against a tree trunk, watching events with his pitch-smeared eyes.
‘Why aren’t you out there building his ramp for him?’ I snapped. ‘It won’t cost any golem lives this time.’
‘I tried,’ he said, ignoring my tone. ‘And succeeded, for a time, despite Dieter’s counter-efforts. He never was particularly strong in manipulating the earth. Which is how I ended up stuck by one of his arrows.’
Belatedly I noticed the bandage around his shoulder. Not waiting for any apology, Achim went on, ‘The beginnings of the ramp took me two hours. I need rest before I can continue. I suggested to the general that Dieter would be too strong for you and he should have you collapse the wall instead.’
‘But that would damage the Turholm.’
‘What will he do now?’ Roshi asked.
‘Build his ramp by hand, I suppose, for now. But that won’t be his only strategy.’
In fact, Sidonius appeared to have abandoned the idea of the ramp. He was deep in conversation with a group of green-crested officers, and from the way they scratched maps in the dirt at their feet, I thought his next tactic had less to do with the ramp and more to do with flanking the Turholm. Was he planning a siege after all?
Whatever he was planning, no more golems appeared to defend the walls. Whether it meant Dieter was too weary for more tricks, or something more sinister, I couldn’t judge.
‘And you?’ I demanded of Achim. ‘What will you do?’
‘Until Sidonius takes the palace, very little. Unless he requires counsel on Dieter’s latest conjuring.’
I didn’t point out that his counsel last night had been sorely lacking. ‘And when Sidonius takes the palace?’
The shadow-worker met my gaze. ‘I will bind Dieter, and take him back to Amaer. Every man must meet his chosen fate.’
I looked away. What did it matter to me what happened to Dieter? He was not my friend, neither was he someone who commanded either duty or loyalty from me. So why did Achim’s words provoke a gnawing feeling deep in my guts?
Sepp was watching me closely, as if he suspected the direction my thoughts were taking.
I countered the sickness the only way I knew how. ‘You could teach me, while we wait,’ I said to Achim.
‘How will you use my teachings?’
When I didn’t answer, he shook his head. ‘I thought so. Would you give me your oath, before I taught you?’
‘I’m a little short on oaths right now,’ I said.
‘You are like Dieter – there is no boundary you can’t justify crossing. You would use my teachings to kill and subdue others. I will not help you.’
‘Fine. I doubt I’d find your help useful, anyway.’
After that, Roshi and Sepp and I made for our tent, where Roshi tried to teach me more of what she knew. It was little enough, however, and none of it helped me connect with the power again.
At midmorning we learnt Sidonius had received good news. The men he had sent to find the source of the Turholm’s water pipes had succeeded in blocking them. Provided no one broke out of the palace and unplugged them, the Turasi would soon suffer the stab of thirst. We left our tent and headed back towards Sidonius and his men.
Bad news arrived hard on the heels of the good, however. Scouts, windblown and harried, with the shadow of pursuit in the circles under their eyes, brought a straining silence in their wake.
‘Turasi from both north and west, General. Judging by their paths, they mean to join forces before they reach us.’
‘When?’
‘Two days, perhaps.’
Sidonius cast me a dark look. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve remembered anything of use yet?’
Numb, I shook my head and he turned back to his men. ‘That’s not all, is it?’
‘The Skythes approach from the northeast, General. Further away than the Turasi, and a smaller force, but every one of them mounted.’
As Sidonius cursed under his breath, Roshi plucked at my elbow, her eyes wide, the whites bright with worry. ‘Tilde,’ she said, a strangely timorous note in her voice. ‘Those are my people – and yours.’
I said nothing – words seemed superfluous – but reached for her hand instead.
She shook me away. ‘They’re coming because of you.’
‘They’re coming because Dieter called them,’ I said.
‘Because he’s your husband.’
Stubbornness set my chin. ‘They treated him as my husband even after I tried to point out I had no choice but to marry him. They chose to support him then, they can support him now. I don’t figure into it.’
She grabbed my arm, stopping me from turning away. ‘They don’t know he’s not your husband anymore,’ She hissed.
‘A binding is eternal, Roshi. He’s still my husband,’ I protested. Then a new and uncomfortable idea occurred to me: ‘Do you mean to say your people can … can …’ I sought for a word. ‘Unbind?’
‘You’re allied against him, Tilde, and sending men in to kill him –’
‘Not kill.’ Not right away, at least, I thought, remembering Achim’s purpose.
‘If they knew your alliance, they’d not send him aid,’ Roshi insisted.
‘Their inattentiveness isn’t my concern.’
‘They’ll die,’ she whispered, fear tightening her cheeks and pinching at her eyes. ‘You can stop it.’
I shook my head. ‘How? I’ve no way to get a message to them. Unless you mean me to ride out and meet them? Actually, that’s not a bad idea. We could turn them to our aid. I’m sure Sidonius would –’
‘No!’
Her cry drew other eyes, but she stared them down before turning back to me. ‘Ilthea doesn’t ally. Sell your Turasi if you want, they’re used to masters and lords and orders. My people will die, starving for the sky.’
‘You’re being melodramatic,’ I said. ‘Stone roofs didn’t kill you. Besides, I don’t know what you think I can do. If you don’t want me to ally them with Sidonius, he’ll see them as a threat.’
‘Tell him about the bolthole,’ she said.
I shook my head, drew back a step. ‘No!’
‘Damn you, matilde!’ she hissed. ‘Would you pick a side and stick with it? You’ve allied with this Sidonius, stop hampering him.’
‘I’ve picked a side,’ I replied coldly. ‘Mine.’
‘And it’ll get us all killed, stuck between Dieter’s walls and my people’s spears!’ she cried, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw, determined. ‘If you don’t tell him I will. This conflict is yours. I’ll not let it draw my people to their deaths.’
Stubborn as I was, I didn’t want to see more bloodshed either. That had been one of the reasons for allying with Sidonius in the first place, so I relented. As it turned out Sidonius refused me the courtesy of privacy when I asked to speak to him alone, though he did at least gesture to his men to move away, though they didn’t draw out of earshot.
When I told him of the bolthole, and the precise location where it breached ground, he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
‘You didn’t think to mention this before because …?’ he asked, his eyes still closed and his voice tightly controlled.
‘It didn’t occur to me,’ I said, the transparency of the lie making my voice weak.
Giving me a contemptuous glare, he summoned his men back. ‘The lady has miraculously remembered a bolthole. I’ll organise a force to take the tunnel and break in, then we’ll overrun them from the inside. Give us two hours’ – this with a glance at me to ensure the time would be adequate – ‘Then bring out the scaling ladders and the battering ram to distract them. Given his injuries, it isn’t likely that Achim will have finished the ramp by then, so we’ll open the gates for you –’
‘Easier said than done,’ I interrupted. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? ‘The passage leads to the stables. The main gates are courtyards away from there.’
‘It’s a good thing we’ll have you to guide us, then.’
‘Me?’
‘You,’ he said. ‘You’ll forgive my lack of trust, I’m sure, but I’m not sending my men into a bolthole you’ve conveniently forgotten until now without insurance. I can’t think of a better safeguard than sending you into the dragon’s maw with them.
‘Oh, and in case that’s what you were planning all along? My men will have orders to kill you at the first hint of betrayal,’ he said, his expression as cold and sharp as winter sunshine. ‘Nothing else you want to tell me?’
I shook my head. All of my careful plotting and planning, all my luck and daring to keep me alive this far – would it end here? If Dieter’s men didn’t kill me on sight, Sidonius’s might stab me in the back anytime one of them got twitchy.
All you need do is get inside the Turholm, child. Men die in battle all the time. I turned my face away, hoping the thought didn’t show.
Sidonius’s hundred men looked pitifully small for an invasion force, even more so when the bulk of them gathered behind me, each of them watching me with heavy, foreboding looks.
One of them summoned Sepp forward. Eyes downcast, cheeks and brow pale, Sepp obeyed without comment. I looked at Sidonius.
‘He’s coming with us,’ he said. ‘More specifically, with me. A little incentive, to make sure you don’t view my safety too lightly. Roshi is confined to the tent, and she’ll share Sepp’s fate. Whatever it may be.’
Sepp wouldn’t meet my gaze and I was almost glad of it. There was no way to explain, with or without words, that I needed Sidonius dead.