"You're weeping." Miravia touched soft lips to Mai's damp cheek.
"There's no shame in weeping," whispered Mai.
"No. Our tears water the garden of life. Or so the poets say. Look. Now there he goes. I think it must be Master Feden, but I can't be sure. He's too far away."
The Olossians were distrustful. Rather than opening a gate or extending a ladder, they lowered their negotiator down by basket from the inner walls. For a long time after this Mai could make out nothing of what was transpiring, but at length a procession emerged from the outer walls and struck straight for the central, and largest, of the tents. Most of those in the procession were soldiers dressed in the drab leathers of fighting gear. One was a merchant whose bright silks advertised his wealth because of their splendid colors.
"That's a saffron yellow," said Miravia with the sure tones of one who knows her wares. "It's said Feden is a man well filled with himself, but I must say it takes courage to march to your likely death dressed in your most expensive cloth. He might have left it for his widow, although everyone says they hate each other. And his heirs, no less. Oh dear. Have I shocked you?"
An attendant pulled aside the curtain that blocked the entrance to the largest tent. Mai shuddered as the merchant vanished within, to whatever fate awaited him. Who would meet him there, inside the tent? What questions would be asked? And how would Master Feden answer?
They watched the distant tent. Miravia's fingers dug into her forearm, but the pressure seemed too distant to be bothered about. Mai caught her breath in, held it. What was going on inside? Was Feden spinning a tale to protect Olossi, or spilling the truth and thus betraying his new allies for the sake of mercy from his old ones? It seemed that the wind died abruptly, that a dead calm enveloped them as a shrouding cloth is thrown over the face of one who has crossed under Spirit Gate and left this world behind. It seemed that the skin along her neck tingled as if kissed by a demon. She felt that a hidden gaze sought to pinion hers, and dig deep into her, but she rejected it, she shoved away that sense that her heart was being probed. She had nothing she was ashamed of! Yet, troubled by that pressure, she stepped back from the lattice barrier, shaking off Miravia's hand, and reflexively rubbed her arm until she realized that the other woman had held her so tightly that her nails had left marks in the skin. Miravia swayed, as if hammered, and Mai caught her under the arms and helped her sit on a nearby bench.
"What was that?" Miravia gasped, although she could barely force the words out. "I felt as if hands were clawing in my head."
No sound enlivened the air. Mai's ears seemed stuffed with wool, and her throat was choked as with dust and ash. Olossi was strangling.
Then, the catapults woke. Their arms creaked and swung. Mai sucked in air to cry out a warning but no sound came out of her mouth. Six impacts shook the town. Wood shattered. Stone cracked. Dust burst skyward. Shouts and screams cut the silence, and folk hiding in their houses or standing frozen on the streets all came to life at once with shrieks and calls, the buzzing chatter of fear.
"They know," said Mai. "They know we mean to fight them. Maybe he's already dead."
Supine on the bench, hands lax on her belly, Miravia said, weakly, "Look."
A swift shadow darted across the troughs of herbs, succeeded by a second, and a third. Mai flung back her head and stared up into the blue pan of the sky. Four more passed overhead.
Eagles.
The Voice of the Walls boomed its warning cry. Seven times it rang.
Mai ran to look. Along the inner walls, guardsmen and civilians alike were passing bundles of arrows and rags up to the wall walk. At regular intervals, reservoirs of oil were set alight. Smoke uncoiled upward in threads of black and gray.
Beyond, the catapults made a clattering grind as they were winched back. Ranks of archers leaped to position, targeting the eagles as they glided low over the besiegers. An arrow flashed in the air. A stream of arrows was released out of the army, against the approaching eagles, but Mai could not see if any hit their target.
As the first flight of eagles swept past, each one released an egg from its talons. Up the eagles beat, seeking altitude. Down these large eggs tumbled, and when they hit the ground they shattered as ceramic does. It seemed a pointless effort as only one out of thirty struck a man, even if that man dropped as though felled by a hammer blow. The rest broke uselessly on wagons, or on the earth here and there with a splatter.
All along the wall, arrows flared as they were set alight. A volley of burning arrows hissed out from the walls into the outer town, where the army had gathered along the wide roadways. Arrows fell among them, and where the twisting flames met the splatter from the shattered vessels, fire burst with such brilliance that Mai cried out.
Now dropped a second flight of eagles. From below a fierce volley met them. One eagle lurched sideways and began to drop fast. Another released its egg early, so the ceramic vessel fell somewhere within the inner town; this eagle broke away from the rest and with faltering strokes beat a wide turn, trying to get away. Of the rest, some released their pots over the outer town while the rest waited until they were beyond the outer walls and over the encampment of the enemy with its tents and supply wagons neatly laid out as targets. A dozen eagles from that first flight had circled back and, daringly, dropped down into Assizes Square, rising again as quickly, with the reeves holding bronze basins filled with burning rags. Arrows sought them. An eagle plunged into the outer town. Yet the rest made it through, and cast their rags to the earth. Where a pair of burning clouts tumbled into the roof of one of the tents, fire blossomed with bright rage.
Miravia stepped up beside Mai. She leaned on the railing. Far away, men were beating at the flames, but it seemed they could not put them out.
"It's the breath of the mountains," said Miravia. "The fire lanterns. Oil of naya. In its crude state, it rises from seeps, particularly along the western shores of the Olo'o Sea, where the earth cracks and bleeds."
Along Olossi's walls, the archers fired at will as a third flight passed over the encampment outside the walls. Fire and smoke began to obscure portions of the outer town, and where, in the open spaces, it was still possible to make out movement, Mai saw the enemy running away from the deadly flames. One man was burning as he ran, and even when that tiny figure dropped to the ground and rolled back and forth on the earth he did not stop burning. She could not look away. She was overwhelmed with joy, with horror, no space separating these two. A distant wagon, laden with the distinctive round, sealed pots in which oil of naya was carted, caught flame; when the axle was burned through enough to crack, and the wagon fell to one side, the pots rolled free and broke, and then the oil exploded with a roar that briefly drowned out the panicked cries of the enemy and the cheers of Olossi's guards.
Fire raced along the tents. It seemed to leap to any spot-tents, catapults, wagons-where the splatter had touched. Even a taste of flame, a drifting spark, set a new conflagration. Men frantic to escape the burning broke from their ranks and scattered on the road or through dry fields.
The inner gates opened. Olossi's militia ran out in force to drive back the invaders. They pushed forward confidently, cutting down men without mercy. Behind them, townsmen set to with axes to clear a firebreak between the inner wall and those motley houses and hovels built up into the dry-moated forecourt that separated the inner city from the outer sprawl. Bucket brigades lined up, but not even water thrown directly on it killed the flames.