Land of War: Chapter One
Land of War
Chapter One: Besieged
Heart beating, the Lioness braced her foot against the body of the ogre that sprawled before her and pulled on her sword-hilt with both hands. She grunted, and the blade came out, oozing bluish ogre blood. She spun quickly, to face the battle. Her men-at-arms had split in two, and half were fending off a second ogre within shouting distance. The other half were nowhere to be seen; she assumed they’d penetrated Mandash Hall, as per the plan, to protect the remains of the family.
The last ogre was advancing on her. Grimly, she resettled her shield and gripped her sword. The creature was carrying a heavy mace. Alanna prayed to the Goddess that her shield would not buckle under its weight, hating the thought of the shambles it would make of her left arm. The ogre roared, and charged. She evaded, and the mace hit empty air, throwing its wielder’s balance briefly. She stabbed and missed. He struck again; she caught the blow on her shield.
Alanna gritted her teeth; the weapon struck as hard as she’d imagined. She feinted to the left, causing the ogre to throw all of his formidable weight into a strike in that direction. By the time he hit she was thrusting her blade into his under-protected flank. The ogre roared again, his ribs coated in stark, shiny blood. She caught two more of his blows on her shield before he finally teetered, letting her within reach of his chest to deliver the killing blow.
Catching her breath, the Lioness surveyed the battlefield. Two of her men bore scrapes, and three ogre bodies lay in the courtyard.
“Sentry, open up!” she called to the castle.
The great doors of Mandash Hall opened, and a lady flanked by ten men-in-arms in Swoop livery exited. Making a good impression of not noticing the state of her inner courtyard, the lady of Fief Mandash walked up to Alanna and held out her hand.
“We are forever in your debt, Lioness,” she said, her voice cracking. “I know how often you have cautioned my husband and son that just this may happen, and…”
“Thanks are not necessary,” replied Alanna. “At least, not to me. I was just doing my duty. If you’ll excuse me, Lady --”
“-- Penelope,” supplied the woman.
“Lady Penelope, I really must return to my own home. I am needed there.”
“Yes, of course,” the lady said. “Goddess Bless.” With that, she turned and walked back into the hall. Alanna could just hear her ordering people to burn the bodies of the ogres and prepare the last rites of the men who had died. She hadn’t the time for that, just now. Her work here was done.
“Let’s go, men. I have a feeling we should hurry home.”
***
“Have we a count?” The baron’s voice was hard.
It was dawn, or would be soon. Awake even before her trainees could possibly need her, Thayet was sitting in his study. They’d been chatting idly about their children and the prospects of the current trainees when the captain of the guard came in, his craggy face a dark, foreboding mask. The news was worse that Thayet dared to dread.
The captain did not answer George’s question.
“How many, Josua?” Thayet demanded, queen again.
“The count ain’t accurate yet, Majesty, but…” the man hesitated, met with his queen’s glare, “hundreds. Maybe four or five.”
“Laid out?” asked the baron.
“In a ring, milord, all around the keep,” answered Josua.
George’s fingers tapped the wood of his desk. Then his eyes met Thayet’s. “There’s reason Alanna ain’t here, just now,” he said.
She nodded. She opened her mouth, but could only force a single word out. “Reinforcements.”
“I’ll send word to Corus -- ask who’s about,” George said.
“And Alanna, send word to her to make back with all due speed,” ordered the queen. “Numair, as well. He lives nearby, he ought to be able to answer our call.”
She could tell from the men’s faces that they were not planning on asking how those two, or anyone else, were supposed to go through a four-hundred-man siege to enter the keep. Instead of dwelling on the same thing herself, she went on speaking. “You know what else to do -- get the villagers in, double the guard, make sure civilians are out of the way. Where are my children?”
***
“Master Salmalìn!”
The urgent call came from nowhere, reaching Numair in his dark bedroom, far too early to be called morning. “Mmph-hmph?”
“Master Salmalìn, please answer!”
Was that a child’s voice?
“Master Salmalìn!” That was no call. Though hardly a soldier, Numair recognized a command when he heard one.
“Yes, yes! I’m awake!” he answered hurriedly, sitting up in his bed.
“Get dressed and be ready to come to Pirate’s Swoop right now. Yesterday, in fact. Roald and George will give you the details.”
“Roald?” Numair was baffled.
“Yes?” answered that childish voice.
“You Highness?”
“Yes!” the prince was beginning to sound irritated.
“Numair, get dressed. We got a situation we need yeh help with.”
“George?”
There was the sound of much swearing, a dismayed squeak and a growled apology. Then he heard a muttered, “Why can’t that cursed wizard be a little more alert in the morning?”
“Mithros, Mynoss and Shakith,” muttered Numair in reply, getting up and fishing around for a pair of breeches. “I’m coming, George!”
***
Mithros was swift, so the legends went, his sun coursing through the sky in a measured, unrelenting pace. But they were quicker, and were ready for his dawn when it came. As much as they could be. Locked and bolted within their keep, weapons in hand, the residents of Pirate’s Swoop Keep watched and waited. The light of day was growing, allowing the commanders standing on the battlement a clear view of what they were facing.
The land siege was a clear-cut one. Thayet knew what to expect from six hundred heavily armed soldiers flanking her from every side. The sea siege was much more baffling. “We need Numair for this,” she said.
“We’re bringin’ him in, Majesty,” reminded her George. “He’ll be here in two or three hours, at the most.”
“Mama?”
Thayet scowled. “Roald, get back down where it’s safe!”
Roald was unfazed. “Mama, there’s word from the mages, and Master Numair agrees,” he said.
“On what?” asked George.
“There are dampening spells over the keep,” answered the boy.
Thayet looked at him sharply. Her son was pale and clammy, the picture of misery. “You feel them?” she asked.
“I’m starting to. Kally and Thom, too. And Maude.”
She bit her lip. “No healers,” she said to George softly.
“No battle mages,” he added. “And no Numair.”
“He can hold them off, mama,” said the prince, his voice as soft as those of the adults.
“Numair?” Thayet was startled.
“He said he could,” said Roald, “once he got here.”
“Will he be here before the fog is gone?” the question was directed at George. “That’s when we estimate they’ll strike, right?”
The baron nodded. “That’s our best hope.”
There was a pit at the bottom of her stomach. Right now, she felt herself sink into it. “Roald, go back down. You’ve been a great help.”
Obediently, the prince trudged down the stairs and out of sight.
“Have we any hope?” the queen asked the baron.
George shrugged. “Precious little.”
***
Hidden in the woods, only a few hours’ ride away from her beloved keep, Alanna the Lioness swore under her breath. Sheets of parchment were spread on the ground before her, details and accounts of the situation in the Swoop. The accounts were sharp and merciless, the facts hard as stone.
Corsairs on Carthaki and Copper Isle vessels had sent to her husband the unthinkable demand -- that all members of the royal family currently in the keep surrethemselves. Numair Salmalìn was wearing himself half-to-death countering the effects of the dampening spells the enemy mages had laid. Every armed man and woman in the keep was doing battle against Stormwings from air and soldiers from land. The prince and princess were down in the hidden recesses of the keep, protected by Onua Chamtong’s best wards. None of the kingdom’s armed forces were within reach. Her own chances of penetrating the siege were slim.
“Do we try and break the siege, milady?” asked her sergeant.
Alanna shook her head. “They’re a wall. We’d just break ourselves against them,” she said.
“We could thin their rows, milady,” replied the sergeant. “Lend a hand to the besieged.”
“We might, if the real danger was the soldiers,” the Lioness said. “But it’s those cursed barges that are the bane of us, you see. They’ll pummel the keep even if we kill every man outside our walls.”
“Milady…”
“I know,” answered Alanna with a sigh. “We must do something! I feel the same way.”
There was a silence. Then something changed; perhaps the wind shifted. A fierce, hopeless sort of determination came over the Lioness’ face. She turned to her sergeant and started to speak, but he beat her to it.
“We march, milady?” he asked, almost hopefully.
Her smile was grim and frightening. “We march.”
***
“When did you last sleep?”
Thayet elegantly ignored the question.
“Majesty, you cannot let yourself go like this!” the voice that spoke to her belonged to the healer, Maude.
“How are our wounded, Maude?” asked the queen, nothing of the strain of the last days telling in her smooth voice.
“Well enough, Majesty,” answered the healer. “Some will be shooting again by dawn.”
“Good.” The queen gestured to the darkness before them. “Those barges will start their work again at dawn.”
Violet fire flared. A ship caught the flame, and it turned a natural color as it spread. An explosion sounded as the burning wood reached the ship’s store of liquid fire.
“That’s one ship that won’t be botherin’ us, come sunrise,” said George cheerfully.
“Yes,” agreed the queen. “What does that leave us with?”
“Still a couple hundred soldiers on land,” counted George, flicking his fingers. “Maybe two or three dozen Stormwings -- if they get hungry again -- as well as three barges and six ships.”
Thayet sighed. “After two days and two nights, that’s not so bad,” she remarked, lightly. She got up. “Hold the fort, George, I’m going to make a short visit.”
George and Maude watched her climb down the stairs to the inner keep, where all that weren’t fighting or helping were staying. There were few of those. The baron shook his head and jumped when another explosion sounded.
“That’s my Lioness,” he said, watching one of the smaller vessels burn down to the waterline.
“Dawn won’t come for three hours, baron,” said Maude.
“True,” agreed George. “You should use that time to sleep.”
“And you, baron?” asked the healer, sharply.
“What about me?” he replied, with a smile far from happy.
***
Kally and Roald both flinched as the floor and walls echoed with the impact of yet another catapult stone.
“Goddess,” whispered Roald. “We’re doomed.”
Kally sniffed. “This is all our fault, you know,” she said, unhappily.
Her brother stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Mama and the baron and Sarge and Buri and Onua and Thom and the twins and everyone, they’re going to die, and it’s all just because of us,” said Kally.
Roald shook his head. “For one thing,” he pointed out, “we’re going to die, too.”
“Be serious, Ro!” cried Kally.
The boy squeaked his protest. “I am being serious!”
“It doesn’t matter that we’re gonna die,” she said, “because we’re our own responsibility. But the others, we’re hurting them, too, and it’s not their fault all this is happening.”
“Kally,” asked her brother suspiciously, “where’d you get the idea that this is our fault, anyway?”
Kally shrugged. “They said as much, didn’t they?” she said.
“Who?”
“The raiders,” she answered. “The Carthaki.”
Roald scowled. “And you’re going to take their word over mine?” She blinked. “Kally, this isn’t our fault and it isn’t our responsibility. Responsibility comes from something you do, and we didn’t do anything to make this happen. The ones attacking us --“ they both flinched at the catapult strike “-- it’s them that are to blame. Understand?”
She nodded slowly.
Roald put his arm around his sister’s thin soldiers. “But don’t worry. We’re all going to die, soon, anyway.”
***
It was midmorning on the third day.
Exhausted, Numair was sleeping heavily in the healers’ tents. He’d held off the dampening spells as long as he could but eventually there was nothing more he could do. What was left of the spells had struck every Gifted man, woman and child in or outside the keep shortly before dawn.
Alanna had abandoned her blasting of the attack fleet and joined her men-at-arms to pummel the remaining land forces. The archers had staved another Stormwing offensive, but that had not lasted long. At dawn the catapult barges, free of magical attack, began unleashing their own, special magic on the stone keep. Strong as their walls were, Thayet knew they would not last. Already the damage to the sea-facing wall was great.
Slipping her signet ring off, she dipped it in wax and sealed the letter she’d been laboring to write for so long. It was brief; what could she say? The ring imprinted a rearing horse in the red wax, right next to the Conté seal she’d applied just before. A black and gold silk ribbon was tied around the missive, taken from George’s extensive supply and signifying its great urgency.
She left the letter on George’s desk, and exited the abandoned study. A few hours ago she’d gone down into the belly of the keep to visit her children and found them very much awake. She gambled that they still were and went to see them again. The three of them needed to have a very serious talk.
“Onua,” called Thayet, softly. She shook her friend’s shoulder.
“What?” Onua woke at once, and started getting to her feet.
“Onua, I need you to undo the spells,” commanded the queen.
She rose, more slowly. “What spells?”
“The wards you put on the prince and princess,” clarified Thayet.
“You want me to take them off?” asked Onua.
Thayet nodded.
“Are you sure?” Onua asked again. “You know I can’t recast them.”
“Take off the wards, Onua,” the queen ordered sharply. “Let me in. I need to speak with my children.”
With apparent reluctance she crossed the room to the door she was guarding. Signs were written on it in charcoal, and a line of some sort of powder stretched across its feet. With her handkerchief Onua wiped off the signs. Then she scuffed her foot across the powder to break the protective circle. Breaking magical spells was infinitely easier than casting them, if one knew how they’d been cast.
Once Onua had stepped back from the door, Thayet entered the room. Her two eldest children sat on one of the cots that had been set up for them, leaning against the wall and talking softly. Startled, Roald rose quickly to his feet.
“Mama!” cried Kally.
“Mama, why did you come in, instead of using the window?” asked Roald. A shuttered window in the room had been warded to allow speech but disallow entry.
“What I have to say is too important to be discussed through a window,” answered the queen.
“What is it?” asked the boy.
Thayet took a good look at her son. He was tired, scared, and suffering from the effects of dampening spells. What I have to offer him is no better, she thought, feeling tired and scared herself. She shook the thought away and spoke. “Your father and I have spoken to you about responsibility, right?” she said.
Roald and Kally both nodded.
“You know that there are all sorts of kinds of responsibility, right?” she continued. “To yourself, to your family, to your country, to your vassals and to the gods.
“I have a very heavy responsibility, right now, children, and not all of it goes the same way. I have the responsibility of a mother to you two, and the burden of a monarch to Tortall. Tortall means, among others, everyone in this keep and the village. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Ye, mama,” said Kally, and Roald repeated after.
“What I have to do…” she started heavily, and paused. “To uphold my duty as queen I must do a terrible injustice by you two, and your younger siblings. As much as I’m disgusted by the thought of yielding to Carthaki corsairs, the threat to Tortall is too great. Pirate’s Swoop is not just another keep. It’s key to our defenses. Allowing these brigands to reduce it, perhaps even lay claim to it, would be as great a defeat as my personal surrender.
“Heavy things lay in the balance, on either side,” said Thayet, her eyes meeting those of her children, tired but determined. “On one hand, the Swoop, the King’s Champion, his spy-master and our greatest mage. On the other…”
“Us,” said Roald.
“Yes,” replied Thayet, biting her lip. “The queen, the heir to the throne and the princess royal.”
“Are we surrendering to the Carthaki, mama?” asked Roald.
“No, Roald,” said his mother. “We’re treating with them, to see if they’ll accept only me.”
“Mama, no!” cried Kally.
Incredibly, Thayet was crying. She felt ashamed that she could not be stronger for her children, as she’d always been before, but her throat constricted, and the tears came down no matter how hard she tried to fight them. “Kally, I have to,” she said. “Any other choice would be… intolerable.”
“What?” the princess asked defiantly. “Giving us up, too? What if these corsairs don’t agree to your terms?” Her arms were crossed tightly across her small chest. “What will you do? Give up everything you said before? The keep, and Lady Alanna and Master Numair and all?” The girl shook her head. “It’s not intolerable, mama. Not if we may have to do it.”
“I can’t,” said Thayet, tiredly. “How will I face your father in the Peaceful Realms, after I’d given his first-born children into the hands of our greatest enemies?”
“But you’d leave his children motherless?” asked Roald quietly.
“I trust Jonathan with my responsibility now,” she said, “every bit as much as I did when I first chose to make his the father of my children. He can manage without me.”
“But, mama,” argued Roald, “there are three other royal children. And papa is young, so he can remarry and have more. The throne would be safe.”
“It’s not necessary,” said Thayet, voice clipped. “They’ll accept my terms, and once you two are safe you are never to come within five leagues of the coast again, as long as you live.” Deaf to her children’s continued arguments, she got up and marched out of the room, brushed Onua’s questions away and silently strode up to the battlements to meet with George about conveying the new terms to their besiegers.
***
“Where’s George?” were Alanna’s first words, when she stormed through the gates of the keep.
A Rider trainee balancing a tray of food pointed to the sea-facing battlements. Briskly, the Lioness ordered the remains of her small force to report to Captain Josua for further instructions, then scaled the stone steps to the battlements and rushed to her husband.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “How did this cease-battle come about?”
“The queen arranged for it,” said George. “She wants to treat with them.”
“Treat?” asked the Lioness, her voice dangerously soft.
“Alanna --“
“-- Surely she doesn’t intend to give these wretched, filthy, marauding outlaws even a fraction of their absolutely preposterous demands!”
He sighed. “She does, and she’s right,” he said.
“George!” cried the Lioness. “That is absurd! The prince and princess --”
“-- Are not part of the deal,” said the queen firmly, appearing in the doorway of the northern tower. “Only I am.”
“Majesty,” said Alanna, “Why?”
“It’s my duty,” replied the other, her fine face twisted in an expression Alanna couldn’t remember ever seeing before. “Go rest, Alanna. You’ve been working hard.”
Not sure if to scream, pound the wall or slap the woman out of her madness, Alanna surrendered to her exhausted body and dragged herself down to the courtyard, her head and limbs drooping with fatigue. She didn’t think she had the energy to be as angry as she was.
Once she’d bathed and eaten, Alanna tried to sleep. Her sleep was heavy and restless, though, and around noon she decided it was hurting more than helping. Sick of staring at the ceiling and being plagued by morbid thoughts, she dressed and went to the healers’ tents. She soon realized this was a mistake. The enemy’s spells had yet to wear off, and cross-looking healers bathed and bandaged wounds, their helplessness all but tangible.
“That’s it,” muttered Alanna, clenching and unclenching her fists. “Where is she?”
***
She found the queen in George’s study, sitting at the desk with her head in her hands, lank locks of hair falling out of their pins all about her worn face. Unceremoniously, Alanna picked out a chair and sat across from her, mimicking her posture with her elbows on the desk and her chin propped in both hands. It was then that she noticed the scrap of parchment Thayet was looking at.
It was a crumpled looking thing, creases showing where it had been folded into an envelope and dusted with flakes from a broken wax seal. An ominous dread filled her heart as she pulled the thing toward her with two fingers and turned it so she could read the single line that was written on it.
Your terms are rejected.
Thayet looked up, and Alanna became aware of the dark crescents under her eyes and the drawn, tight-lipped look of her usually composed face. “Are you going to berate me?” she asked. “Spare yourself the precious breath. I didn’t make this choice lightly.”
Alanna could almost feel the blood running out of her face. “You…” she croaked, “you didn’t. You can’t.”
Thayet ran a ragged hand through her ragged hair. “I have to,” she said.
“But why?” insisted Alanna, childlike.
“Because it’s the lesser loss,” said Thayet.
Alanna shook her head. “Ridiculous,” she said flatly. “The realm would not be what it is today, if not for you.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” Thayet said defensively. “I know my own worth. But I’m also a realist. Sacrifices must be made. Just as soldiers must die at war, lands bequeathed to nobles, and peace made with those who have done us nothing but ill. Too much stands at balance.”
“And the children?” Alanna asked.
“Don’t be difficult!” ordered Thayet, fisting her hands. “This is hard enough as it is!”
“But, if we surrender to them, they’ll just get bolder next time!” insisted Alanna. “If they can get the queen so easily, what’s to keep them from next asking for the king?”
“You,” said the queen, “and the lessons you learned from this debacle.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a question of recovery,” Thayet explained, “what we can afford to lose and what we cannot. Tortall can recover from the loss of the queen. Roald said as much to me, earlier. Nothing keeps Jonathan from remarrying once I am gone, and there are still two heirs to the throne and a princess as well. But Pirate’s Swoop won’t be able to recover if this attack goes on much longer. Another day with those catapults and our foes will be able to drag us all through the rubble that once was our walls.
“It’s not all or nothing, Alanna. We can’t win this battle, only end it. And end it we must. Between losing everything and losing only us, what the better choice? You tell me.”
“I never learned how to surrender,” said Alanna. “I suppose that’s why you’re a better strategist than I ever was.”
A knock came on the door.
“Enter!” called Thayet.
Captain Josua walked in and bowed to the queen, who nodded curtly. “Their Highnesses are outside, with Mistress Maude, Majesty,” said the captain.
“I will be out for them shortly,” replied the queen.
Catching the dismissal, Josua left and shut the door firmly behind him.
“So this is it,” Alanna’s voice was rough.
“I owe you so much,” whispered Thayet, holding her head in her hands.
“I can’t dissuade you?”
Thayet looked up, her eyes brimming with tears, and Alanna abandoned all arguments. Instead she stood and dragged the other woman to her feet. At times like these, she was sure, it was fine to forget protocol and manners and go back to the girls they were when they’d only met, ten years ago. Was it that long? Or perhaps it was a short time. After all, Thayet was not even thirty, and yet so much had happened in that one decade.
Alanna’s mind reeled with the possible consequences of what was happening. Couldn’t they have just a few more hours? She needed time to cope with this. How does one sum up a seeming lifetime of friendship? she thought. “We did great things together, Thayet,” she finally said. “That counts for something.”
“Yes, we did,” agreed Thayet, sniffing discreetly.
“It’s a great thing you’re doing now, no matter how terrible,” Alanna added. “Though I don’t know how Jonathan will feel.”
“I wrote him a letter,” Thayet explained softly. “Please make sure he reads it.”
Alanna nodded -- a quick, harsh movement.
Thayet ran her hand through her hair one more time, then across her face. Producing a comb from somewhere, Alanna handed it to the silent, grateful Thayet. Soon her hair was pinned up as neatly as ever, the folds of her gown shaken out to be as fresh and smooth as they could. “Time,” she murmured as though to herself.
“I’ll send someone for your cloak,” said Alanna.
The queen looked at her one last time. “Gods all bless Tortall and its king,” she said formally.
“So mote it be,” they chorused. Together, they left the room.
***
Bright summer light fell through the windows in wide stripes over the richly colored tapestries and dark wooden furniture of the royal study. The king himself stood by the window, in shadow. The desk was moved from its meticulous, methodic nature by parchments scattered across its top irregularly. He could tick them off on his fingers, one by one. He’d read them all, and some he could recite.
Report of Alanna the Lioness on the ogre attack on Fief Mandash. Report of Baron George Cooper on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Report of Master Numair Salmalìn on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Report of Commander Buriram Tourakom on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Report of First Sergeant Musenda Ogunsanwo on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Letter from Queen Thayet of Tortall to her husband, King Jonathan IV.
A servant entered to put something he requested on the chair by the desk, and left again. Jonathan made no motion and said no word, just continued looking out the window at the gardens. Finally he went back to his desk, picked up a random letter, and reread it half-heartedly. Letting it drop, he picked up the thing that was slung over his chair. It was a simple tunic of black silk.
Jonathan sighed. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to do it. Doing it would be admitting that the reports he had near-memorized were true. It was surrender. And he had no choice. He stripped off the sky blue tunic he had on, and pulled on the black one in its stead. Decked in black and white he left the study and walked down the main corridor of the royal apartments, in the direction of the nursery.
Two nursemaids were looking after his youngest two children in the room Jonathan walked through. He pointedly ignored their curtsies and strode through the connecting door to the chamber reserved for the study of the older children. The Mithran priest looked up from his great book and met the eyes of his monarch.
“Majesty,” he said.
Again, Jonathan ignored him. It was the boy who sat next to him that interested him, now. His son -- now his eldest son. Liam craned his little neck to look at his father’s face, hazel eyes gleaming. Oh, Goddess save me, thought Jonathan. He has her eyes. “My boy,” he whispered, and picked him up, held him. The two went back into the nursery, where Jonathan snapped his fingers at the maids.
“One of you, fetch fresh clothing for Our children,” commanded the king, “make certain it is black.”
***
“…Would be, not necessary, but advisable. I believe Thayet said as much in her letter,” Gary was saying.
Jonathan looked up. “Yes,” he said shortly.
“I spoke with High Priestess Halvide,” added Gary, “and she said a year and a day would be sufficient mourning time. She also said we might negotiate for a new marriage before the time has elapsed, but only if it were gone about with extreme discretion.”
“Of course,” said Jonathan.
“What else?” Gary was shuffling through pages of tightly written notes. “Rebuilding of Pirate’s Swoop Keep goes on as scheduled, the Own report no more unusual activity in Hill Country, Lord Imrah has resolved the crisis with the gold merchants.”
Jonathan said nothing, staring into midair.
“No reports from our agents in Carthak, as yet,” finished Gary quietly.
“What?” Jonathan shook himself.
“Nothing,” repeated Gary.
“What about Carthak?”
“No reports from there, Majesty,” said the Prime Minister, an edge of impatience in his voice.
“And the creatures?” asked the king. “What news?”
“Same old,” answered the other. “Violent, bloodthirsty winged horses and unicorns, some ogres, Stormwings and such. There’s word of giants and dragons, but unconfirmed, as yet.”
The king shook his head. “Bleeding us dry with pinpricks,” he said. “And one great big stab.”
Gary sighed deeply, but said nothing.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Gary swore quietly and half-rose, reaching for his sword hilt. Jon made a gesture to stop him from drawing it just as the door to the royal study opened, flooding the room with a blinding bright light. Both men hastily shielded their eyes against the glare.
When he lowered his hands, Jon saw a figure he remembered very well standing at his doorway. He’d seen him briefly, from afar, years ago. But he remembered. The god’s gold armaments gleamed as though the noon sun was shining above his head, and his black eyes flashed. When Jon scrambled to rise, he pinned him to his chair with a single motion.
His voice rang like a huge bell. “Hear me, O Mortal King of mortals! Thy time of grief must come to an end. War is upon thee. Ready thyself, or perish before the coming tempest!”
The men were sitting speechlessly, eyes torn wide and staring, before they realized he was gone.
“It was Mithros, Gary,” said Jonathan quietly. “He was making a prophecy. What did he mean?”
“Ready thyself or perish,” replied Gary, frowning.
“Carthak?” wondered the king.
“It seems likely,” Gary agreed.
“Gather the council, at once.” He got up and left the room purposefully.
***
Winds whipped fiercely around the king as he climbed the final steps of Balor’s Needle. He ignored them and walked across the small platform at the head of the tower to the door that opened out to the balcony. After wrestling the door open he stepped outside and set both his palms to the ancient stone walls of the tower. These stones, he knew, had been quarried from the depths of his own land, and were his.
He steeled himself, then spoke.
“Tortall, hear me!” The bones of the earth listened, and carried the message on, through pebble and peak, dust and sand, brook and river, tree and grass-blade. The land spoke with the voice of the king, to its dwellers, his subjects. The king called, and the realm stood and listened.
“Dire times are upon us!” said the king. “Enemies strike at our hearts, beasts of legend wake to fight us, the gods themselves bear ill tidings for our realm. Bright Mithros has stepped from the sky to prophesize the war that is coming, and warn us to be prepared.
“Tortall must prepare, if we are to survive. The work before us is great, and will demand every drop of sweat and blood we have to offer. All that are able must give their duty to the crown, and give it now. For generations Tortall survived because of the service of those loyal to it. In the dark days that approach, the need will be greater, the price we must pay higher.
“The crown needs you; every last one of you. The crown deserves your service, and shall have it. Give me your sons, as ever you have in times of peace or war. Against the rising tempest that darkens our skies, give me your daughters, as well. Let them share the cold steel burden of their brothers, in the war that is to come. Let them, too, know the pains and rewards of duty. Let their strength make our realm stronger.
“In the days to come, our strength will be tested. To pass this test and step through hardship into better times we must unite. To that end, every profession of war will be made to accommodate women as well as men. All must participate: commoners and nobles, knights and mages, soldiers and Riders and the King’s Own guard.
“This sacrifice I demand of you, men and women of Tortall, to withstand the tempest foretold by Mithros of the Sun, whose signs have already began to ravage our villages and towns. He commanded us to be ready, and ready we shall be.”
The voice of the land was silent, and all who had heard it stood dazed in place, reeling from the contact and the attempt to understand what had just passed.
In the city of Persopolis, Alanna the Lioness was unusually quiet, the paradox of the tragedy that had passed less than a month before and this seeming granting of all her wishes for Tortall causing her stomach to contract.
In a camp on the southern coast Raoul of Goldenlake wondered if he would soon be recruiting a fourth company of the King’s Own.
In Naxen Castle Lady Cythera hugged her eldest daughter, already picturing both her shield and her grave.
On the shore of Long Lake Yolane of Dunlath swore under her breath, her dreams of her king following in his father’s footsteps instantly shattered.
In Fort Minor Almanzo of Tasride struggled with the surety of what he had to do next.
In the royal palace in Corus Wyldon of Cavall was tormented by dismay, terror and guilt, and young Prince Liam shivered, caught up in the six-year-old notion of his father’s perfection.
***
The stone tiling of the floor was marvelously smooth. Thayet could feel every inch of its craftsmanship through her bare feet. Once she’d had shoes, but those had been conveniently misplaced in her weeks on Mahil Eddace’s ship. Her gown had once been red, but was now both faded and stained. And though she was surrounded by six armed guards whose duty it was to keep her head down, her back was straight, her steps faint but sure.
The guards bowed close to the ground and pulled Thayet with them. His Most Serene and Imperial Majesty seemed to think a queen bowed, rather than curtsied.
She saw him through her eyelashes, gilded and enthroned, flanked by guards and advisers. For a fraction, he reminded her painfully of her father. The moment passed when the emperor spoke.
“Thayet of Tortall. We are displeased to hear you have not cooperated with our envoys.”
“Ozorne of Carthak,” she said dryly, “I’ve had no reason to cooperate. All signs show my cooperation would but harm my own interests.”
The emperor silenced his guards’ bristling at her discourtesy. “It is not in your interest to live?”
“Not at the expense of my loyalty,” she replied.
“To your king?” asked Ozorne. “To your realm?”
“Yes,” said Thayet.
“But your unhelpfulness harms them,” argued the emperor. “We but wish to unite our two realms and make them a stronger whole, and you now stand in the way of this ambition.”
“Call it what you will, Ozorne of Carthak,” retorted Thayet coldly, “it’s to conquer Tortall that you wish, make it a province of yours. Where does that leave the Conté family? And what of my schools, and my Riders? I’m no fool. Do you think I’d believe you’d let them be?”
Ozorne smiled indulgently. “Why should We want to tear down your little enterprises?” he asked. “They mean nothing to Us. As for your king, his fate depends on his cooperation. Much like yours.”
“And just what exactly do you want me to do?” she asked. “Your… envoys… were unclear on the topic.”
The emperor smiled, causing Thayet’s stomach to squirm with discomfort. “My dear,” he said kindly, and Thayet flushed with rage, “you do not have to do a thing. We will take care of everything for you.”
“Meaning what, Imperial Majesty?” demanded his captive, crossing her arms over her chest.
“We are preparing an accord for your king to sign, in return for the safe release of his queen and heir,” said the emperor. “If he but agrees to rest in Our worthy patronage, his realm shall be guaranteed its peace and prosperity.”
“The dues,” asked the hostage. “How high?”
“Twenty thousand ros of grain, wheat and oats, a year. Five thousand heads of cattle, ten thousand sheep, and two hundred boys for the Imperial army.” Ozorne’s voice was chill and businesslike, for which Thayet was grateful.
“And?” she asked.
“A battalion of the Imperial army in Corus,” said the emperor, “and another in every large city.”
“And?”
He smiled sweetly. “Depending on your husband’s cooperation,” he said, “it may be necessary to hold a royal hostage here in Carthak. To keep you northerners honest.”
“You can save your parchment, Ozorne of Carthak,” spat Thayet. “If there was any chance my liege would surrender Tortall to you I wouldn’t be here, now.”
“We shall see,” he replied, still smiling his sickly smile.
“I am authorized to treat on behalf of my liege,” said Thayet quickly, though she knew she was grasping at straws. “On behalf of King Jonathan IV of Tortall, I refuse to sign your accord.”
She was losing, she knew, when the guards who held her bowed to the emperor dragged her out of the hall. He was looking at her as she left, smiling. Inwardly, Thayet cursed. He wouldn’t sign this treaty, would he?
***
Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe was not a man easily amused. It was for reasons of politics, not mere playful interest, that he took it upon himself to fetch his two young guests from their respective prisons and bring them to him for inspection. Their mother was proving loath to cooperate -- frustratingly so, in fact. Perhaps her bratty spawn would be of some use.
“We understand they are both Gifted,” remarked the emperor as he took the corridor at a brisk, businesslike walk.
“Yes, Imperial Majesty,” replied the officer who followed him. “The boy is a moderately powerful war-mage, though of little training. The nature and extent of the girl’s Gift is unknown at this time, although we have placed an adept in her keeping-place to ensure we are forewarned of it.”
“War-mage,” murmured Ozorne. “That may be of use.” With Tristan pursuing other goals, he felt the lack of a fellow mage with him at court, and the Gift of his current heir was entirely unsatisfactory in its volume and use.
“They have been loud and unpleasant, and will likely show a rude face to His Imperial Majesty,” the officer went on, “but lack the means to attempt escape on their own. We are doubly cautious against spies, for that reason.”
“Triple your caution,” ordered the emperor. “Let no one whose loyalty to the empire is the least bit doubtful within a hundred paces of them.”
“Right away, Imperial Majesty,” said the officer, and snapped his fingers at one of the lieutenants who followed him.
They stopped and stood before a double-winged door carved of heavy mahogany and inlayed with mother-of-pearl cobwebs. The lesser officers rushed to line up ahead of their commander as two slaves bowed to the floor, then rose to open the door for the small procession. Inside the room the lieutenants arrayed themselves along one wall as the major tailed his emperor.
Two children stood before him. His eyes rested first on the taller one, the boy. Neat posture, thin and sensible face, dressed northern-style in unimpressive, dark clothes. Ozorne wrinkled his nose slightly and transferred his attentions to the sister.
This one proved much more interesting. Her stance was defiant, her sharp blue eyes glaring at him out of a small, peaked, scowling face. She was rather like her mother in many ways, he mused, both in face and in stance. Right down to her ragged dress and bare feet.
“What is your name, daughter?” he asked her warmly.
The child glared. “Are you the emperor?” she asked.
“His Most Serene and Imperial Majest-“
“-- Enough, Major,” cut in Ozorne harshly. “Today I am no one’s majesty, only Ozorne Tasikhe. I asked for your name, dear.”
“Kalasin of Conté,” answered the girl sullenly. “Kally.”
“But what is the point of so beautiful a name if it’s not used?” asked Ozorne bemusedly. “If you shall not make use of the gift you were given, at least I may do so on your behalf, Kalasin.”
The princess made a face, and Ozorne smiled.
“Where’s our mother?” the boy suddenly cut in.
“She couldn’t come to see you, I’m afraid,” Ozorne told the boy with disdain. “We were discussing her return to Tortall, and she is well preoccupied with that possibility.”
“Return to Tortall?” asked the boy.
“We’re going home?” Ozorne heard the princess whisper excitedly to her brother.
“I dunno, Kally,” he whispered back. His sideways glance met the emperor and momentarily held it. Right about then Ozorne decided he didn’t need to deal with him directly, anymore.
The emperor walked to the window, leaving the royal children out of earshot, and the officer followed. “Bring the boy to Master Lovitaf at Alligator Island,” ordered the emperor. “Have papers drawn up ordering him to study the prisoner's magical prowess and his usefulness to Our armies.”
“Yes, Imperial Majesty,” replied the officer. “What of the girl? Do we return her to her keeping-place or transport her elsewhere?”
Ozorne’s long fingers tapped the marble windowsill thoughtfully. “Leave her here, under guard,” he finally said. “Dismissed.”
Back in the ivory study, the emperor summoned a slave. “Fetch Mistress Kingsford, and tell her We require her services arranging for the hosting of a royal guest.”
***
Gary was under strict orders not to reveal the nature of the emergency to the king’s advisers, as they convened in Sir Myles’ library. Everyone from his father to Alanna to Admiral Jackos had been prying at his lips for information, but he kept his cousin’s faith. When Jonathan entered, the discussion could begin -- not before.
“Nearly three months ago,” the king began, “an attack was launched on our coast. In the course of the battle, the queen, the heir apparent and the eldest princess fell captive to Carthaki forces.”
“We know all this,” muttered Alanna, but quieted when Myles laid a warning hand on her arm.
“Since then we’ve been operating in the dark. We’ve had no reliable information as to their whereabouts or wellbeing, and our operative assumption was their supposed death. All this has changed. We have received information that all three are in Imperial hands. What’s more, we have received terms for their release.” Jon paused for breath.
“The terms will not be met.” His voice was chilly, detached. “Tortall will not become a vassalage of Carthak for so --“ he choked, “-- so small a price.”
“Have the alternatives been made clear?” Lord Imrah asked, level and calm.
There was a short silence.
“The execution of the royal hostages will take place a hundred and twenty days after the sending of the accord,” said Gary. He didn’t have to explain how long from now it would be; it didn’t really matter.
“It’s done, then,” said Alanna.
“Yes,” agreed Jonathan. “It’s done.”
Previous || Next
Chapter One: Besieged
Heart beating, the Lioness braced her foot against the body of the ogre that sprawled before her and pulled on her sword-hilt with both hands. She grunted, and the blade came out, oozing bluish ogre blood. She spun quickly, to face the battle. Her men-at-arms had split in two, and half were fending off a second ogre within shouting distance. The other half were nowhere to be seen; she assumed they’d penetrated Mandash Hall, as per the plan, to protect the remains of the family.
The last ogre was advancing on her. Grimly, she resettled her shield and gripped her sword. The creature was carrying a heavy mace. Alanna prayed to the Goddess that her shield would not buckle under its weight, hating the thought of the shambles it would make of her left arm. The ogre roared, and charged. She evaded, and the mace hit empty air, throwing its wielder’s balance briefly. She stabbed and missed. He struck again; she caught the blow on her shield.
Alanna gritted her teeth; the weapon struck as hard as she’d imagined. She feinted to the left, causing the ogre to throw all of his formidable weight into a strike in that direction. By the time he hit she was thrusting her blade into his under-protected flank. The ogre roared again, his ribs coated in stark, shiny blood. She caught two more of his blows on her shield before he finally teetered, letting her within reach of his chest to deliver the killing blow.
Catching her breath, the Lioness surveyed the battlefield. Two of her men bore scrapes, and three ogre bodies lay in the courtyard.
“Sentry, open up!” she called to the castle.
The great doors of Mandash Hall opened, and a lady flanked by ten men-in-arms in Swoop livery exited. Making a good impression of not noticing the state of her inner courtyard, the lady of Fief Mandash walked up to Alanna and held out her hand.
“We are forever in your debt, Lioness,” she said, her voice cracking. “I know how often you have cautioned my husband and son that just this may happen, and…”
“Thanks are not necessary,” replied Alanna. “At least, not to me. I was just doing my duty. If you’ll excuse me, Lady --”
“-- Penelope,” supplied the woman.
“Lady Penelope, I really must return to my own home. I am needed there.”
“Yes, of course,” the lady said. “Goddess Bless.” With that, she turned and walked back into the hall. Alanna could just hear her ordering people to burn the bodies of the ogres and prepare the last rites of the men who had died. She hadn’t the time for that, just now. Her work here was done.
“Let’s go, men. I have a feeling we should hurry home.”
***
“Have we a count?” The baron’s voice was hard.
It was dawn, or would be soon. Awake even before her trainees could possibly need her, Thayet was sitting in his study. They’d been chatting idly about their children and the prospects of the current trainees when the captain of the guard came in, his craggy face a dark, foreboding mask. The news was worse that Thayet dared to dread.
The captain did not answer George’s question.
“How many, Josua?” Thayet demanded, queen again.
“The count ain’t accurate yet, Majesty, but…” the man hesitated, met with his queen’s glare, “hundreds. Maybe four or five.”
“Laid out?” asked the baron.
“In a ring, milord, all around the keep,” answered Josua.
George’s fingers tapped the wood of his desk. Then his eyes met Thayet’s. “There’s reason Alanna ain’t here, just now,” he said.
She nodded. She opened her mouth, but could only force a single word out. “Reinforcements.”
“I’ll send word to Corus -- ask who’s about,” George said.
“And Alanna, send word to her to make back with all due speed,” ordered the queen. “Numair, as well. He lives nearby, he ought to be able to answer our call.”
She could tell from the men’s faces that they were not planning on asking how those two, or anyone else, were supposed to go through a four-hundred-man siege to enter the keep. Instead of dwelling on the same thing herself, she went on speaking. “You know what else to do -- get the villagers in, double the guard, make sure civilians are out of the way. Where are my children?”
***
“Master Salmalìn!”
The urgent call came from nowhere, reaching Numair in his dark bedroom, far too early to be called morning. “Mmph-hmph?”
“Master Salmalìn, please answer!”
Was that a child’s voice?
“Master Salmalìn!” That was no call. Though hardly a soldier, Numair recognized a command when he heard one.
“Yes, yes! I’m awake!” he answered hurriedly, sitting up in his bed.
“Get dressed and be ready to come to Pirate’s Swoop right now. Yesterday, in fact. Roald and George will give you the details.”
“Roald?” Numair was baffled.
“Yes?” answered that childish voice.
“You Highness?”
“Yes!” the prince was beginning to sound irritated.
“Numair, get dressed. We got a situation we need yeh help with.”
“George?”
There was the sound of much swearing, a dismayed squeak and a growled apology. Then he heard a muttered, “Why can’t that cursed wizard be a little more alert in the morning?”
“Mithros, Mynoss and Shakith,” muttered Numair in reply, getting up and fishing around for a pair of breeches. “I’m coming, George!”
***
Mithros was swift, so the legends went, his sun coursing through the sky in a measured, unrelenting pace. But they were quicker, and were ready for his dawn when it came. As much as they could be. Locked and bolted within their keep, weapons in hand, the residents of Pirate’s Swoop Keep watched and waited. The light of day was growing, allowing the commanders standing on the battlement a clear view of what they were facing.
The land siege was a clear-cut one. Thayet knew what to expect from six hundred heavily armed soldiers flanking her from every side. The sea siege was much more baffling. “We need Numair for this,” she said.
“We’re bringin’ him in, Majesty,” reminded her George. “He’ll be here in two or three hours, at the most.”
“Mama?”
Thayet scowled. “Roald, get back down where it’s safe!”
Roald was unfazed. “Mama, there’s word from the mages, and Master Numair agrees,” he said.
“On what?” asked George.
“There are dampening spells over the keep,” answered the boy.
Thayet looked at him sharply. Her son was pale and clammy, the picture of misery. “You feel them?” she asked.
“I’m starting to. Kally and Thom, too. And Maude.”
She bit her lip. “No healers,” she said to George softly.
“No battle mages,” he added. “And no Numair.”
“He can hold them off, mama,” said the prince, his voice as soft as those of the adults.
“Numair?” Thayet was startled.
“He said he could,” said Roald, “once he got here.”
“Will he be here before the fog is gone?” the question was directed at George. “That’s when we estimate they’ll strike, right?”
The baron nodded. “That’s our best hope.”
There was a pit at the bottom of her stomach. Right now, she felt herself sink into it. “Roald, go back down. You’ve been a great help.”
Obediently, the prince trudged down the stairs and out of sight.
“Have we any hope?” the queen asked the baron.
George shrugged. “Precious little.”
***
Hidden in the woods, only a few hours’ ride away from her beloved keep, Alanna the Lioness swore under her breath. Sheets of parchment were spread on the ground before her, details and accounts of the situation in the Swoop. The accounts were sharp and merciless, the facts hard as stone.
Corsairs on Carthaki and Copper Isle vessels had sent to her husband the unthinkable demand -- that all members of the royal family currently in the keep surrethemselves. Numair Salmalìn was wearing himself half-to-death countering the effects of the dampening spells the enemy mages had laid. Every armed man and woman in the keep was doing battle against Stormwings from air and soldiers from land. The prince and princess were down in the hidden recesses of the keep, protected by Onua Chamtong’s best wards. None of the kingdom’s armed forces were within reach. Her own chances of penetrating the siege were slim.
“Do we try and break the siege, milady?” asked her sergeant.
Alanna shook her head. “They’re a wall. We’d just break ourselves against them,” she said.
“We could thin their rows, milady,” replied the sergeant. “Lend a hand to the besieged.”
“We might, if the real danger was the soldiers,” the Lioness said. “But it’s those cursed barges that are the bane of us, you see. They’ll pummel the keep even if we kill every man outside our walls.”
“Milady…”
“I know,” answered Alanna with a sigh. “We must do something! I feel the same way.”
There was a silence. Then something changed; perhaps the wind shifted. A fierce, hopeless sort of determination came over the Lioness’ face. She turned to her sergeant and started to speak, but he beat her to it.
“We march, milady?” he asked, almost hopefully.
Her smile was grim and frightening. “We march.”
***
“When did you last sleep?”
Thayet elegantly ignored the question.
“Majesty, you cannot let yourself go like this!” the voice that spoke to her belonged to the healer, Maude.
“How are our wounded, Maude?” asked the queen, nothing of the strain of the last days telling in her smooth voice.
“Well enough, Majesty,” answered the healer. “Some will be shooting again by dawn.”
“Good.” The queen gestured to the darkness before them. “Those barges will start their work again at dawn.”
Violet fire flared. A ship caught the flame, and it turned a natural color as it spread. An explosion sounded as the burning wood reached the ship’s store of liquid fire.
“That’s one ship that won’t be botherin’ us, come sunrise,” said George cheerfully.
“Yes,” agreed the queen. “What does that leave us with?”
“Still a couple hundred soldiers on land,” counted George, flicking his fingers. “Maybe two or three dozen Stormwings -- if they get hungry again -- as well as three barges and six ships.”
Thayet sighed. “After two days and two nights, that’s not so bad,” she remarked, lightly. She got up. “Hold the fort, George, I’m going to make a short visit.”
George and Maude watched her climb down the stairs to the inner keep, where all that weren’t fighting or helping were staying. There were few of those. The baron shook his head and jumped when another explosion sounded.
“That’s my Lioness,” he said, watching one of the smaller vessels burn down to the waterline.
“Dawn won’t come for three hours, baron,” said Maude.
“True,” agreed George. “You should use that time to sleep.”
“And you, baron?” asked the healer, sharply.
“What about me?” he replied, with a smile far from happy.
***
Kally and Roald both flinched as the floor and walls echoed with the impact of yet another catapult stone.
“Goddess,” whispered Roald. “We’re doomed.”
Kally sniffed. “This is all our fault, you know,” she said, unhappily.
Her brother stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Mama and the baron and Sarge and Buri and Onua and Thom and the twins and everyone, they’re going to die, and it’s all just because of us,” said Kally.
Roald shook his head. “For one thing,” he pointed out, “we’re going to die, too.”
“Be serious, Ro!” cried Kally.
The boy squeaked his protest. “I am being serious!”
“It doesn’t matter that we’re gonna die,” she said, “because we’re our own responsibility. But the others, we’re hurting them, too, and it’s not their fault all this is happening.”
“Kally,” asked her brother suspiciously, “where’d you get the idea that this is our fault, anyway?”
Kally shrugged. “They said as much, didn’t they?” she said.
“Who?”
“The raiders,” she answered. “The Carthaki.”
Roald scowled. “And you’re going to take their word over mine?” She blinked. “Kally, this isn’t our fault and it isn’t our responsibility. Responsibility comes from something you do, and we didn’t do anything to make this happen. The ones attacking us --“ they both flinched at the catapult strike “-- it’s them that are to blame. Understand?”
She nodded slowly.
Roald put his arm around his sister’s thin soldiers. “But don’t worry. We’re all going to die, soon, anyway.”
***
It was midmorning on the third day.
Exhausted, Numair was sleeping heavily in the healers’ tents. He’d held off the dampening spells as long as he could but eventually there was nothing more he could do. What was left of the spells had struck every Gifted man, woman and child in or outside the keep shortly before dawn.
Alanna had abandoned her blasting of the attack fleet and joined her men-at-arms to pummel the remaining land forces. The archers had staved another Stormwing offensive, but that had not lasted long. At dawn the catapult barges, free of magical attack, began unleashing their own, special magic on the stone keep. Strong as their walls were, Thayet knew they would not last. Already the damage to the sea-facing wall was great.
Slipping her signet ring off, she dipped it in wax and sealed the letter she’d been laboring to write for so long. It was brief; what could she say? The ring imprinted a rearing horse in the red wax, right next to the Conté seal she’d applied just before. A black and gold silk ribbon was tied around the missive, taken from George’s extensive supply and signifying its great urgency.
She left the letter on George’s desk, and exited the abandoned study. A few hours ago she’d gone down into the belly of the keep to visit her children and found them very much awake. She gambled that they still were and went to see them again. The three of them needed to have a very serious talk.
“Onua,” called Thayet, softly. She shook her friend’s shoulder.
“What?” Onua woke at once, and started getting to her feet.
“Onua, I need you to undo the spells,” commanded the queen.
She rose, more slowly. “What spells?”
“The wards you put on the prince and princess,” clarified Thayet.
“You want me to take them off?” asked Onua.
Thayet nodded.
“Are you sure?” Onua asked again. “You know I can’t recast them.”
“Take off the wards, Onua,” the queen ordered sharply. “Let me in. I need to speak with my children.”
With apparent reluctance she crossed the room to the door she was guarding. Signs were written on it in charcoal, and a line of some sort of powder stretched across its feet. With her handkerchief Onua wiped off the signs. Then she scuffed her foot across the powder to break the protective circle. Breaking magical spells was infinitely easier than casting them, if one knew how they’d been cast.
Once Onua had stepped back from the door, Thayet entered the room. Her two eldest children sat on one of the cots that had been set up for them, leaning against the wall and talking softly. Startled, Roald rose quickly to his feet.
“Mama!” cried Kally.
“Mama, why did you come in, instead of using the window?” asked Roald. A shuttered window in the room had been warded to allow speech but disallow entry.
“What I have to say is too important to be discussed through a window,” answered the queen.
“What is it?” asked the boy.
Thayet took a good look at her son. He was tired, scared, and suffering from the effects of dampening spells. What I have to offer him is no better, she thought, feeling tired and scared herself. She shook the thought away and spoke. “Your father and I have spoken to you about responsibility, right?” she said.
Roald and Kally both nodded.
“You know that there are all sorts of kinds of responsibility, right?” she continued. “To yourself, to your family, to your country, to your vassals and to the gods.
“I have a very heavy responsibility, right now, children, and not all of it goes the same way. I have the responsibility of a mother to you two, and the burden of a monarch to Tortall. Tortall means, among others, everyone in this keep and the village. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Ye, mama,” said Kally, and Roald repeated after.
“What I have to do…” she started heavily, and paused. “To uphold my duty as queen I must do a terrible injustice by you two, and your younger siblings. As much as I’m disgusted by the thought of yielding to Carthaki corsairs, the threat to Tortall is too great. Pirate’s Swoop is not just another keep. It’s key to our defenses. Allowing these brigands to reduce it, perhaps even lay claim to it, would be as great a defeat as my personal surrender.
“Heavy things lay in the balance, on either side,” said Thayet, her eyes meeting those of her children, tired but determined. “On one hand, the Swoop, the King’s Champion, his spy-master and our greatest mage. On the other…”
“Us,” said Roald.
“Yes,” replied Thayet, biting her lip. “The queen, the heir to the throne and the princess royal.”
“Are we surrendering to the Carthaki, mama?” asked Roald.
“No, Roald,” said his mother. “We’re treating with them, to see if they’ll accept only me.”
“Mama, no!” cried Kally.
Incredibly, Thayet was crying. She felt ashamed that she could not be stronger for her children, as she’d always been before, but her throat constricted, and the tears came down no matter how hard she tried to fight them. “Kally, I have to,” she said. “Any other choice would be… intolerable.”
“What?” the princess asked defiantly. “Giving us up, too? What if these corsairs don’t agree to your terms?” Her arms were crossed tightly across her small chest. “What will you do? Give up everything you said before? The keep, and Lady Alanna and Master Numair and all?” The girl shook her head. “It’s not intolerable, mama. Not if we may have to do it.”
“I can’t,” said Thayet, tiredly. “How will I face your father in the Peaceful Realms, after I’d given his first-born children into the hands of our greatest enemies?”
“But you’d leave his children motherless?” asked Roald quietly.
“I trust Jonathan with my responsibility now,” she said, “every bit as much as I did when I first chose to make his the father of my children. He can manage without me.”
“But, mama,” argued Roald, “there are three other royal children. And papa is young, so he can remarry and have more. The throne would be safe.”
“It’s not necessary,” said Thayet, voice clipped. “They’ll accept my terms, and once you two are safe you are never to come within five leagues of the coast again, as long as you live.” Deaf to her children’s continued arguments, she got up and marched out of the room, brushed Onua’s questions away and silently strode up to the battlements to meet with George about conveying the new terms to their besiegers.
***
“Where’s George?” were Alanna’s first words, when she stormed through the gates of the keep.
A Rider trainee balancing a tray of food pointed to the sea-facing battlements. Briskly, the Lioness ordered the remains of her small force to report to Captain Josua for further instructions, then scaled the stone steps to the battlements and rushed to her husband.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “How did this cease-battle come about?”
“The queen arranged for it,” said George. “She wants to treat with them.”
“Treat?” asked the Lioness, her voice dangerously soft.
“Alanna --“
“-- Surely she doesn’t intend to give these wretched, filthy, marauding outlaws even a fraction of their absolutely preposterous demands!”
He sighed. “She does, and she’s right,” he said.
“George!” cried the Lioness. “That is absurd! The prince and princess --”
“-- Are not part of the deal,” said the queen firmly, appearing in the doorway of the northern tower. “Only I am.”
“Majesty,” said Alanna, “Why?”
“It’s my duty,” replied the other, her fine face twisted in an expression Alanna couldn’t remember ever seeing before. “Go rest, Alanna. You’ve been working hard.”
Not sure if to scream, pound the wall or slap the woman out of her madness, Alanna surrendered to her exhausted body and dragged herself down to the courtyard, her head and limbs drooping with fatigue. She didn’t think she had the energy to be as angry as she was.
Once she’d bathed and eaten, Alanna tried to sleep. Her sleep was heavy and restless, though, and around noon she decided it was hurting more than helping. Sick of staring at the ceiling and being plagued by morbid thoughts, she dressed and went to the healers’ tents. She soon realized this was a mistake. The enemy’s spells had yet to wear off, and cross-looking healers bathed and bandaged wounds, their helplessness all but tangible.
“That’s it,” muttered Alanna, clenching and unclenching her fists. “Where is she?”
***
She found the queen in George’s study, sitting at the desk with her head in her hands, lank locks of hair falling out of their pins all about her worn face. Unceremoniously, Alanna picked out a chair and sat across from her, mimicking her posture with her elbows on the desk and her chin propped in both hands. It was then that she noticed the scrap of parchment Thayet was looking at.
It was a crumpled looking thing, creases showing where it had been folded into an envelope and dusted with flakes from a broken wax seal. An ominous dread filled her heart as she pulled the thing toward her with two fingers and turned it so she could read the single line that was written on it.
Your terms are rejected.
Thayet looked up, and Alanna became aware of the dark crescents under her eyes and the drawn, tight-lipped look of her usually composed face. “Are you going to berate me?” she asked. “Spare yourself the precious breath. I didn’t make this choice lightly.”
Alanna could almost feel the blood running out of her face. “You…” she croaked, “you didn’t. You can’t.”
Thayet ran a ragged hand through her ragged hair. “I have to,” she said.
“But why?” insisted Alanna, childlike.
“Because it’s the lesser loss,” said Thayet.
Alanna shook her head. “Ridiculous,” she said flatly. “The realm would not be what it is today, if not for you.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” Thayet said defensively. “I know my own worth. But I’m also a realist. Sacrifices must be made. Just as soldiers must die at war, lands bequeathed to nobles, and peace made with those who have done us nothing but ill. Too much stands at balance.”
“And the children?” Alanna asked.
“Don’t be difficult!” ordered Thayet, fisting her hands. “This is hard enough as it is!”
“But, if we surrender to them, they’ll just get bolder next time!” insisted Alanna. “If they can get the queen so easily, what’s to keep them from next asking for the king?”
“You,” said the queen, “and the lessons you learned from this debacle.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a question of recovery,” Thayet explained, “what we can afford to lose and what we cannot. Tortall can recover from the loss of the queen. Roald said as much to me, earlier. Nothing keeps Jonathan from remarrying once I am gone, and there are still two heirs to the throne and a princess as well. But Pirate’s Swoop won’t be able to recover if this attack goes on much longer. Another day with those catapults and our foes will be able to drag us all through the rubble that once was our walls.
“It’s not all or nothing, Alanna. We can’t win this battle, only end it. And end it we must. Between losing everything and losing only us, what the better choice? You tell me.”
“I never learned how to surrender,” said Alanna. “I suppose that’s why you’re a better strategist than I ever was.”
A knock came on the door.
“Enter!” called Thayet.
Captain Josua walked in and bowed to the queen, who nodded curtly. “Their Highnesses are outside, with Mistress Maude, Majesty,” said the captain.
“I will be out for them shortly,” replied the queen.
Catching the dismissal, Josua left and shut the door firmly behind him.
“So this is it,” Alanna’s voice was rough.
“I owe you so much,” whispered Thayet, holding her head in her hands.
“I can’t dissuade you?”
Thayet looked up, her eyes brimming with tears, and Alanna abandoned all arguments. Instead she stood and dragged the other woman to her feet. At times like these, she was sure, it was fine to forget protocol and manners and go back to the girls they were when they’d only met, ten years ago. Was it that long? Or perhaps it was a short time. After all, Thayet was not even thirty, and yet so much had happened in that one decade.
Alanna’s mind reeled with the possible consequences of what was happening. Couldn’t they have just a few more hours? She needed time to cope with this. How does one sum up a seeming lifetime of friendship? she thought. “We did great things together, Thayet,” she finally said. “That counts for something.”
“Yes, we did,” agreed Thayet, sniffing discreetly.
“It’s a great thing you’re doing now, no matter how terrible,” Alanna added. “Though I don’t know how Jonathan will feel.”
“I wrote him a letter,” Thayet explained softly. “Please make sure he reads it.”
Alanna nodded -- a quick, harsh movement.
Thayet ran her hand through her hair one more time, then across her face. Producing a comb from somewhere, Alanna handed it to the silent, grateful Thayet. Soon her hair was pinned up as neatly as ever, the folds of her gown shaken out to be as fresh and smooth as they could. “Time,” she murmured as though to herself.
“I’ll send someone for your cloak,” said Alanna.
The queen looked at her one last time. “Gods all bless Tortall and its king,” she said formally.
“So mote it be,” they chorused. Together, they left the room.
***
Bright summer light fell through the windows in wide stripes over the richly colored tapestries and dark wooden furniture of the royal study. The king himself stood by the window, in shadow. The desk was moved from its meticulous, methodic nature by parchments scattered across its top irregularly. He could tick them off on his fingers, one by one. He’d read them all, and some he could recite.
Report of Alanna the Lioness on the ogre attack on Fief Mandash. Report of Baron George Cooper on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Report of Master Numair Salmalìn on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Report of Commander Buriram Tourakom on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Report of First Sergeant Musenda Ogunsanwo on the Siege on Pirate’s Swoop. Letter from Queen Thayet of Tortall to her husband, King Jonathan IV.
A servant entered to put something he requested on the chair by the desk, and left again. Jonathan made no motion and said no word, just continued looking out the window at the gardens. Finally he went back to his desk, picked up a random letter, and reread it half-heartedly. Letting it drop, he picked up the thing that was slung over his chair. It was a simple tunic of black silk.
Jonathan sighed. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to do it. Doing it would be admitting that the reports he had near-memorized were true. It was surrender. And he had no choice. He stripped off the sky blue tunic he had on, and pulled on the black one in its stead. Decked in black and white he left the study and walked down the main corridor of the royal apartments, in the direction of the nursery.
Two nursemaids were looking after his youngest two children in the room Jonathan walked through. He pointedly ignored their curtsies and strode through the connecting door to the chamber reserved for the study of the older children. The Mithran priest looked up from his great book and met the eyes of his monarch.
“Majesty,” he said.
Again, Jonathan ignored him. It was the boy who sat next to him that interested him, now. His son -- now his eldest son. Liam craned his little neck to look at his father’s face, hazel eyes gleaming. Oh, Goddess save me, thought Jonathan. He has her eyes. “My boy,” he whispered, and picked him up, held him. The two went back into the nursery, where Jonathan snapped his fingers at the maids.
“One of you, fetch fresh clothing for Our children,” commanded the king, “make certain it is black.”
***
“…Would be, not necessary, but advisable. I believe Thayet said as much in her letter,” Gary was saying.
Jonathan looked up. “Yes,” he said shortly.
“I spoke with High Priestess Halvide,” added Gary, “and she said a year and a day would be sufficient mourning time. She also said we might negotiate for a new marriage before the time has elapsed, but only if it were gone about with extreme discretion.”
“Of course,” said Jonathan.
“What else?” Gary was shuffling through pages of tightly written notes. “Rebuilding of Pirate’s Swoop Keep goes on as scheduled, the Own report no more unusual activity in Hill Country, Lord Imrah has resolved the crisis with the gold merchants.”
Jonathan said nothing, staring into midair.
“No reports from our agents in Carthak, as yet,” finished Gary quietly.
“What?” Jonathan shook himself.
“Nothing,” repeated Gary.
“What about Carthak?”
“No reports from there, Majesty,” said the Prime Minister, an edge of impatience in his voice.
“And the creatures?” asked the king. “What news?”
“Same old,” answered the other. “Violent, bloodthirsty winged horses and unicorns, some ogres, Stormwings and such. There’s word of giants and dragons, but unconfirmed, as yet.”
The king shook his head. “Bleeding us dry with pinpricks,” he said. “And one great big stab.”
Gary sighed deeply, but said nothing.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Gary swore quietly and half-rose, reaching for his sword hilt. Jon made a gesture to stop him from drawing it just as the door to the royal study opened, flooding the room with a blinding bright light. Both men hastily shielded their eyes against the glare.
When he lowered his hands, Jon saw a figure he remembered very well standing at his doorway. He’d seen him briefly, from afar, years ago. But he remembered. The god’s gold armaments gleamed as though the noon sun was shining above his head, and his black eyes flashed. When Jon scrambled to rise, he pinned him to his chair with a single motion.
His voice rang like a huge bell. “Hear me, O Mortal King of mortals! Thy time of grief must come to an end. War is upon thee. Ready thyself, or perish before the coming tempest!”
The men were sitting speechlessly, eyes torn wide and staring, before they realized he was gone.
“It was Mithros, Gary,” said Jonathan quietly. “He was making a prophecy. What did he mean?”
“Ready thyself or perish,” replied Gary, frowning.
“Carthak?” wondered the king.
“It seems likely,” Gary agreed.
“Gather the council, at once.” He got up and left the room purposefully.
***
Winds whipped fiercely around the king as he climbed the final steps of Balor’s Needle. He ignored them and walked across the small platform at the head of the tower to the door that opened out to the balcony. After wrestling the door open he stepped outside and set both his palms to the ancient stone walls of the tower. These stones, he knew, had been quarried from the depths of his own land, and were his.
He steeled himself, then spoke.
“Tortall, hear me!” The bones of the earth listened, and carried the message on, through pebble and peak, dust and sand, brook and river, tree and grass-blade. The land spoke with the voice of the king, to its dwellers, his subjects. The king called, and the realm stood and listened.
“Dire times are upon us!” said the king. “Enemies strike at our hearts, beasts of legend wake to fight us, the gods themselves bear ill tidings for our realm. Bright Mithros has stepped from the sky to prophesize the war that is coming, and warn us to be prepared.
“Tortall must prepare, if we are to survive. The work before us is great, and will demand every drop of sweat and blood we have to offer. All that are able must give their duty to the crown, and give it now. For generations Tortall survived because of the service of those loyal to it. In the dark days that approach, the need will be greater, the price we must pay higher.
“The crown needs you; every last one of you. The crown deserves your service, and shall have it. Give me your sons, as ever you have in times of peace or war. Against the rising tempest that darkens our skies, give me your daughters, as well. Let them share the cold steel burden of their brothers, in the war that is to come. Let them, too, know the pains and rewards of duty. Let their strength make our realm stronger.
“In the days to come, our strength will be tested. To pass this test and step through hardship into better times we must unite. To that end, every profession of war will be made to accommodate women as well as men. All must participate: commoners and nobles, knights and mages, soldiers and Riders and the King’s Own guard.
“This sacrifice I demand of you, men and women of Tortall, to withstand the tempest foretold by Mithros of the Sun, whose signs have already began to ravage our villages and towns. He commanded us to be ready, and ready we shall be.”
The voice of the land was silent, and all who had heard it stood dazed in place, reeling from the contact and the attempt to understand what had just passed.
In the city of Persopolis, Alanna the Lioness was unusually quiet, the paradox of the tragedy that had passed less than a month before and this seeming granting of all her wishes for Tortall causing her stomach to contract.
In a camp on the southern coast Raoul of Goldenlake wondered if he would soon be recruiting a fourth company of the King’s Own.
In Naxen Castle Lady Cythera hugged her eldest daughter, already picturing both her shield and her grave.
On the shore of Long Lake Yolane of Dunlath swore under her breath, her dreams of her king following in his father’s footsteps instantly shattered.
In Fort Minor Almanzo of Tasride struggled with the surety of what he had to do next.
In the royal palace in Corus Wyldon of Cavall was tormented by dismay, terror and guilt, and young Prince Liam shivered, caught up in the six-year-old notion of his father’s perfection.
***
The stone tiling of the floor was marvelously smooth. Thayet could feel every inch of its craftsmanship through her bare feet. Once she’d had shoes, but those had been conveniently misplaced in her weeks on Mahil Eddace’s ship. Her gown had once been red, but was now both faded and stained. And though she was surrounded by six armed guards whose duty it was to keep her head down, her back was straight, her steps faint but sure.
The guards bowed close to the ground and pulled Thayet with them. His Most Serene and Imperial Majesty seemed to think a queen bowed, rather than curtsied.
She saw him through her eyelashes, gilded and enthroned, flanked by guards and advisers. For a fraction, he reminded her painfully of her father. The moment passed when the emperor spoke.
“Thayet of Tortall. We are displeased to hear you have not cooperated with our envoys.”
“Ozorne of Carthak,” she said dryly, “I’ve had no reason to cooperate. All signs show my cooperation would but harm my own interests.”
The emperor silenced his guards’ bristling at her discourtesy. “It is not in your interest to live?”
“Not at the expense of my loyalty,” she replied.
“To your king?” asked Ozorne. “To your realm?”
“Yes,” said Thayet.
“But your unhelpfulness harms them,” argued the emperor. “We but wish to unite our two realms and make them a stronger whole, and you now stand in the way of this ambition.”
“Call it what you will, Ozorne of Carthak,” retorted Thayet coldly, “it’s to conquer Tortall that you wish, make it a province of yours. Where does that leave the Conté family? And what of my schools, and my Riders? I’m no fool. Do you think I’d believe you’d let them be?”
Ozorne smiled indulgently. “Why should We want to tear down your little enterprises?” he asked. “They mean nothing to Us. As for your king, his fate depends on his cooperation. Much like yours.”
“And just what exactly do you want me to do?” she asked. “Your… envoys… were unclear on the topic.”
The emperor smiled, causing Thayet’s stomach to squirm with discomfort. “My dear,” he said kindly, and Thayet flushed with rage, “you do not have to do a thing. We will take care of everything for you.”
“Meaning what, Imperial Majesty?” demanded his captive, crossing her arms over her chest.
“We are preparing an accord for your king to sign, in return for the safe release of his queen and heir,” said the emperor. “If he but agrees to rest in Our worthy patronage, his realm shall be guaranteed its peace and prosperity.”
“The dues,” asked the hostage. “How high?”
“Twenty thousand ros of grain, wheat and oats, a year. Five thousand heads of cattle, ten thousand sheep, and two hundred boys for the Imperial army.” Ozorne’s voice was chill and businesslike, for which Thayet was grateful.
“And?” she asked.
“A battalion of the Imperial army in Corus,” said the emperor, “and another in every large city.”
“And?”
He smiled sweetly. “Depending on your husband’s cooperation,” he said, “it may be necessary to hold a royal hostage here in Carthak. To keep you northerners honest.”
“You can save your parchment, Ozorne of Carthak,” spat Thayet. “If there was any chance my liege would surrender Tortall to you I wouldn’t be here, now.”
“We shall see,” he replied, still smiling his sickly smile.
“I am authorized to treat on behalf of my liege,” said Thayet quickly, though she knew she was grasping at straws. “On behalf of King Jonathan IV of Tortall, I refuse to sign your accord.”
She was losing, she knew, when the guards who held her bowed to the emperor dragged her out of the hall. He was looking at her as she left, smiling. Inwardly, Thayet cursed. He wouldn’t sign this treaty, would he?
***
Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe was not a man easily amused. It was for reasons of politics, not mere playful interest, that he took it upon himself to fetch his two young guests from their respective prisons and bring them to him for inspection. Their mother was proving loath to cooperate -- frustratingly so, in fact. Perhaps her bratty spawn would be of some use.
“We understand they are both Gifted,” remarked the emperor as he took the corridor at a brisk, businesslike walk.
“Yes, Imperial Majesty,” replied the officer who followed him. “The boy is a moderately powerful war-mage, though of little training. The nature and extent of the girl’s Gift is unknown at this time, although we have placed an adept in her keeping-place to ensure we are forewarned of it.”
“War-mage,” murmured Ozorne. “That may be of use.” With Tristan pursuing other goals, he felt the lack of a fellow mage with him at court, and the Gift of his current heir was entirely unsatisfactory in its volume and use.
“They have been loud and unpleasant, and will likely show a rude face to His Imperial Majesty,” the officer went on, “but lack the means to attempt escape on their own. We are doubly cautious against spies, for that reason.”
“Triple your caution,” ordered the emperor. “Let no one whose loyalty to the empire is the least bit doubtful within a hundred paces of them.”
“Right away, Imperial Majesty,” said the officer, and snapped his fingers at one of the lieutenants who followed him.
They stopped and stood before a double-winged door carved of heavy mahogany and inlayed with mother-of-pearl cobwebs. The lesser officers rushed to line up ahead of their commander as two slaves bowed to the floor, then rose to open the door for the small procession. Inside the room the lieutenants arrayed themselves along one wall as the major tailed his emperor.
Two children stood before him. His eyes rested first on the taller one, the boy. Neat posture, thin and sensible face, dressed northern-style in unimpressive, dark clothes. Ozorne wrinkled his nose slightly and transferred his attentions to the sister.
This one proved much more interesting. Her stance was defiant, her sharp blue eyes glaring at him out of a small, peaked, scowling face. She was rather like her mother in many ways, he mused, both in face and in stance. Right down to her ragged dress and bare feet.
“What is your name, daughter?” he asked her warmly.
The child glared. “Are you the emperor?” she asked.
“His Most Serene and Imperial Majest-“
“-- Enough, Major,” cut in Ozorne harshly. “Today I am no one’s majesty, only Ozorne Tasikhe. I asked for your name, dear.”
“Kalasin of Conté,” answered the girl sullenly. “Kally.”
“But what is the point of so beautiful a name if it’s not used?” asked Ozorne bemusedly. “If you shall not make use of the gift you were given, at least I may do so on your behalf, Kalasin.”
The princess made a face, and Ozorne smiled.
“Where’s our mother?” the boy suddenly cut in.
“She couldn’t come to see you, I’m afraid,” Ozorne told the boy with disdain. “We were discussing her return to Tortall, and she is well preoccupied with that possibility.”
“Return to Tortall?” asked the boy.
“We’re going home?” Ozorne heard the princess whisper excitedly to her brother.
“I dunno, Kally,” he whispered back. His sideways glance met the emperor and momentarily held it. Right about then Ozorne decided he didn’t need to deal with him directly, anymore.
The emperor walked to the window, leaving the royal children out of earshot, and the officer followed. “Bring the boy to Master Lovitaf at Alligator Island,” ordered the emperor. “Have papers drawn up ordering him to study the prisoner's magical prowess and his usefulness to Our armies.”
“Yes, Imperial Majesty,” replied the officer. “What of the girl? Do we return her to her keeping-place or transport her elsewhere?”
Ozorne’s long fingers tapped the marble windowsill thoughtfully. “Leave her here, under guard,” he finally said. “Dismissed.”
Back in the ivory study, the emperor summoned a slave. “Fetch Mistress Kingsford, and tell her We require her services arranging for the hosting of a royal guest.”
***
Gary was under strict orders not to reveal the nature of the emergency to the king’s advisers, as they convened in Sir Myles’ library. Everyone from his father to Alanna to Admiral Jackos had been prying at his lips for information, but he kept his cousin’s faith. When Jonathan entered, the discussion could begin -- not before.
“Nearly three months ago,” the king began, “an attack was launched on our coast. In the course of the battle, the queen, the heir apparent and the eldest princess fell captive to Carthaki forces.”
“We know all this,” muttered Alanna, but quieted when Myles laid a warning hand on her arm.
“Since then we’ve been operating in the dark. We’ve had no reliable information as to their whereabouts or wellbeing, and our operative assumption was their supposed death. All this has changed. We have received information that all three are in Imperial hands. What’s more, we have received terms for their release.” Jon paused for breath.
“The terms will not be met.” His voice was chilly, detached. “Tortall will not become a vassalage of Carthak for so --“ he choked, “-- so small a price.”
“Have the alternatives been made clear?” Lord Imrah asked, level and calm.
There was a short silence.
“The execution of the royal hostages will take place a hundred and twenty days after the sending of the accord,” said Gary. He didn’t have to explain how long from now it would be; it didn’t really matter.
“It’s done, then,” said Alanna.
“Yes,” agreed Jonathan. “It’s done.”
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