He looked back and smiled down at her in apology. "I am seized by a thought. I fear you will find me a rather distractible man."
It wasn't how she would describe him, but she smiled briefly back in attempted reassurance.
All too soon, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Arhys emerged into the luminous twilight, followed by Liss and Foix. Arhys looked scarcely more corpselike than anyone else in Porifors at present, but his face was spared the usual smears of sweat. Foix's stolidity masked a deep depletion. He had spent the afternoon clumsily trying to undo sorceries all over the castle, to little effect. Dy Cabon had named the effort fundamentally futile, for various theological reasons that no one stayed to listen to, and yet had begged Foix's aid himself when faced with the rising demands of the sick.
"Arhys, come here," said Illvin. "Look at this." His brother joined him at the western parapet. "Five gods attest we know this ground. Royina Ista says there are but eighteen sorcerers in Joen's pack altogether. A dozen lie in the front of the camp, along there..."—his hand swept in an arc—"six more in the command tents, a rather better guarded area, I suspect. One big circle could pass round them all, if it were rapid enough. How many sorcerers do you think you could excise with steel?"
Arhys's brows rose. "As many as I could close with, I suppose. But I doubt they would just stand there while we galloped up to them. As soon as they thought to drop our horses, we'd be afoot."
"What if we attacked in the dark? You said you see better in the dark these days than other men."
"Hm." Arhys's gaze upon the grove intensified.
"Royina Ista." Illvin turned urgently to her—and where was all that Sweet Ista now? "What happens when a leashed sorcerer is slain?"
Ista frowned. Surely the question was rhetorical. "You've seen it yourself. The demon, together with whatever pieces of its mount's soul it has digested, jumps to whatever new host it can reach. The body dies. What the fate of the remaining parts of the person's soul may be, I do not know."
"And one other thing," Illvin said, excitement leaking into his voice. "The leash is broken. Or at least—Cattilara's demon broke from control at Umerue's death. More: at that moment, the free demon became Joen's rebellious enemy, dedicated to flight from her as fast as possible. How many demons could Joen suffer to have cut away from her array—jumping randomly into unprepared hosts, or even turning on her—before she was forced to retreat in disorder?"
"If she doesn't have others in reserve, ready to harness like a fresh team of horses," said Arhys.
"No," said Ista slowly, "I don't think she can. All must be there, tied in her net, or they will fly—away from each other if not from her. By Umerue's testimony, it took Joen three years to develop this array, to bring each sorcerer-slave to some apex of carefully selected, stolen skills. Without another visit to whatever back door of hell her master demon can unlock, I doubt she can replace them. And all she'll get at first is a spate of mindless, formless, ignorant elementals. We know she spills them, too; it cannot be a well-controlled process, not when dealing with the essence of disorder itself. Although... Cattilara's demon fears recapture; if that is not just some filial obsession of Umerue's, it implies recapture is possible. I don't know how quickly Joen might effect it."
"With several freed demons flying in all directions, it would be more difficult, I should guess," said Illvin.
Arhys leaned his elbow on the stone wall and eyed his brother. "You are thinking of a sortie. A sorcerer-hunt."
"Aye."
"It cannot be done. I am certain to take wounds—which Catti would be forced to bear."
Illvin looked away. "I was thinking the royina could switch you back to me. For the occasion, as it were."
Ista gasped protest. "Do you realize what that would mean? Arhys's injuries would be yours."
"Yes, well ..." Illvin swallowed. "But then Arhys could go on for quite a bit more than his enemies would guess. Perhaps physicians or women could stay at my side, binding up the leaks as they spring. Buying extra minutes."
Arhys frowned. "And then... what? At your last gasp, break the link? Return all my wounds to me at once?"
Ista tried not to let her voice emerge as a shriek. "Leaving you trapped in a hacked-apart body that can neither die nor heal?"
Arhys said vaguely, "I really don't have all that much feeling in my body anymore... . Maybe I might not be trapped. Maybe"—his ravishing gray eyes rose to meet Ista's, and the sudden light in them terrified her down to her bones—"I might be released."
"To the death of nothingness? No!" said Ista.
"Indeed not!" said Illvin. "I mean the sortie to swing round and return to Porifors. The others would ride to guard you, and clear your way to the sorcerers. And make sure you got back."
"Mm." Arhys stared down into the dusk. "How many men do you think it would take?"
"A hundred would be best, but we do not have a hundred. Fifty might make it."
"We do not have fifty, either. Illvin, we do not have twenty, not mounted."
Illvin straightened up from the parapet. The excitement drained from his face. "Twenty is too few."
"Too few to ride out? Or to ride back?"
"If too few to ride back, then too few to ride out. I could not ask it of any man if I were not riding myself, and I would perforce be detained in here."
"Only in a sense," said Arhys. He was looking increasingly, disturbingly, intent. "We are dying here by the hour. Worse—Lord dy Oby will ride apace to our relief. He was never laggard, but for the sake of his daughter he will brook no delay. Without warning of Joen's demonic deceits, he will race his troops into this trap."
"He cannot be here before day after tomorrow, at the soonest," said Illvin.
"I wouldn't be so sure. If today's courier was taken by the Jokonan screen and failed to arrive at Oby, he'll know at once, for I know the warnings about the ambush of Foix and the divine reached him. The fortress of Oby is already well aroused." Arhys's frown deepened. "Also, the longer we wait, the worse condition we will all be in."
"That would certainly appear to be true," Illvin conceded.
"And," his voice lowered, "the worse condition I will be in. Our men are dying now without a blade being lifted or a quarrel being fired. By nightfall tomorrow, at this rate, Sordso's forces will be able to walk unopposed into a castle manned only by corpses, unmoving save for one. And I will be left facing the same enemy—alone and unsupported."
"Ah," said Illvin, sounding shaken.
"Had you not thought it through? I'm surprised. Royina"—he turned to Ista—"I am sundered now. Freeing me from this body will not change that state. Let it be done while... while there is still some honor in it. Some use."
"Arhys, you cannot ask this of me."
"Yes. I can." His voice fell further. "And you cannot refuse me."
Ista was trembling, both at what he proposed and at what he envisioned. That solitary fate was, she had to admit, the logical progression of events.
"Arhys, no, this is too fey," protested Illvin.
"Fey is a man who looks forward to death. I look back upon mine. I am beyond fey, I think. If this hazard is to be cast at all, it must be soon. In the dark before dawn."
"This night?" said Illvin. Even he, who had advanced the plan, sounded appalled at its sudden acceleration.
"This very night. We've been shoved most forcefully onto the defensive, and the Jokonans do not look to us, in our present shock, to turn it about. If ever the gods gave me the gift for finding the moment on the field, I swear to you, this is one."