A long silence followed that comment and Ivanr looked up, blinking. ‘Yes?’
Both women were staring at him. ‘You’ve met her?’ they said in unison.
‘Well, yes.’
‘When-’ began Sister Gosh.
‘What did she say?’ Martal demanded.
‘She…’ Gods, she asked that I sit at her side… and I refused her! He swallowed, shaken. ‘She… told me… that is, she said she believed I was on the right path…’ He rubbed at his suddenly hot and sweaty brow. ‘She seemed to be…’
She believed I’d come to the path intuitively, she’d said. Laughing gods! She was trying to give me reassurance! He pressed a fold of cloth to his brow, cleared his throat.
‘What was she like?’ Sister Gosh asked.
Gods! What was she like? He daubed the cloth to his face, struggled to speak. ‘She was young. Too young for what she’d experienced. On her hands, her thin arms, and body, there were scars of beatings. Of a life of hard manual labour. Of starvation. And there was blood, too, in her past. She’d done things that tormented her. I saw all this in her eyes. Heard it in her words…’ His voice trailed away into nothing — he could bear no more.
‘I didn’t know,’ he heard Martal say, quietly.
When he looked up they were gone and he was alone. He sat staring at nothing, suddenly desolate. How could he possibly… He was nothing! Wretched! Any comparison was laughable! A mockery! How dare he parade himself as her… as some sort of… no. Impossible. He should slink off into a hole.
And yet… she had come to him. She chose him. Should he not have faith — faith! Gods, do not laugh! — in her judgement? If he had confidence in her — and he did! He felt it — should he not then honour her choices?
But it was hard. Looking ahead he saw that embracing her path would be the most challenging, the most difficult calling he could ever take on. In its light everything he had done to date could only be seen as preparatory. So be it. Whether he was worthy or not was beside the point. Only in the doing can the measure be made, and then only in hindsight.
That task he would leave to others.
The storm was as violent as any Hiam had ever witnessed. Through driving sheets of sleet he watched rolling combers the size of mountains come crashing in like landslides. The reverberations of their impact shook even these stones here in the upper reaches of the Great Tower. The clouds massed so low it seemed the very Stormwall itself was blocking their passage, while above all the sapphire and emerald glow of the Riders rippled and danced. It was as if they somehow knew. Could somehow sense this was their moment.
The closest they might ever come.
But not victory. Never that. He would not allow that. She might choose to test her instruments to their very limit… but they would not break.
They would endure.
The heavy plank door to his apartments rattled and Hiam closed and barred the shutter on the storm. Quint entered, cloak wrapped tight about him, spear in one hand, helm in the other. He’d just come from the wall and Hiam noted how the lingering energies of the enemy sorcerers, the Wandwielders, glowed like an aura about the spear’s keen tip. ‘Wall Marshal. What brings you here this ill-favoured night?’
Quint pressed up close against the desk. His scarred face was clenched, the eyes darkened slits against the light of the chambers. ‘Where is Alton?’ he whispered. Hiam winced; he’d dreaded this moment, knowing it was unavoidable. He drew breath to speak but the Wall Marshal continued: ‘Where is Gall? Longspear? Went?’ Hiam raised a hand, nodding for silence, but the man ground on, his voice cracking: ‘I can find them nowhere. No one knows where they’ve gone.’ He set his helm on the desk and gripped the spear in tight, scarred fists, the knuckles white.
‘I can answer that, Quint-’ Hiam began, but was interrupted again.
‘Section Marshal Courval is missing. A fifteen-season veteran on the wall. One of our best. He, too, has been reassigned. Lord Protector… what have you done!’
Hiam raised both hands. ‘Calm yourself, Quint. I knew you would not agree and so I did not inform you. I acted on my own authority.’
‘To do what?’ He raised his chin to the window, the storm, and the sea, beyond. ‘To weaken us now? In our time of greatest need?’
Hiam watched, fascinated, while that keen spear-tip edged down towards his chest. Strangely, he felt no fear. I let the Lady decide — as she chooses. ‘You are right, Quint. They have all been pulled from the wall.’
‘Where?’ the man gasped, sounding close to weeping.
‘An exchange, Quint. Overlord Yeull of Rool has promised ten thousand troops for one hundred Stormguard. Soldiers, Quint! Not starving, cringing prisoners or bullied conscripts. Trained fighting men.’
The man was shaking his head, his eyes swimming in tears. ‘Ten… You fool… he is laughing at you right now. They’ve been invaded — he’ll never send any of them!’
The spear was almost level now. So, it is to be the blade for me, is it, Quint? Hiam fought to keep his voice level. ‘Then Courval will return. Do you really think those Roolians could stop a hundred Stormguard?’
The Wall Marshal took a shuddering breath. His arms quivered; and Hiam knew it was not with exhaustion. The blade tilted up a notch. ‘No. No one in this entire region could stop them. Section Marshal Courval will see the impossibility of this exchange and he will return. And when he does…’ The spear’s butt slammed to the stones. ‘We will have an assembly on your leadership, Hiam. I swear to that.’
Hiam inclined his head in assent. ‘I agree, Wall Marshal. Until then.’ He waited until Quint reached for the door, then spoke again. ‘I have before me entries from your quartermaster clerks, Quint. Were you aware of Master Engineer Stimins’ many requisitions?’
From the door the man grimaced his impatience. ‘What?’
‘Monies for labourers. For tools, stone, chain, rope, and other such equipment?’
‘What do I care for the man’s stones and rope?’
‘You should, Quint. If I were you I would be far more concerned about Stimins’ continuing construction work than my, ah, unorthodox efforts to bolster our numbers.’
The Wall Marshal dismissed Hiam’s words with a curt wave and slammed the door shut behind him.
Hiam sat for a time in the dim office. Beyond the shutters the wind howled and battered like a fiend struggling to break through. You kept quiet about it, Stimins. I wouldn’t have found out but for oh-so-conscientious Shool. Pray let it not be the foundation behind Wind Tower. What had been his words? We may have one hundred years — or one.
Poor Quint. Did he not see that should these desperate clutchings at straws fail, we will all be far too busy for a leadership review. Perhaps I should step down? Save him the trouble. It would be good to be facing them spear in hand again when…
But no. That is an unworthy thought. Forgive me, Blessed Lady! I mustn’t give in to weakness. We will prevail as we always have. Too much rests upon our shoulders. The lives of every man, woman, and child of this region even unto the Ice Wastes rely upon us!
Hiam pressed his hands to his hot face and felt the wetness there at his eyes. Forgive my weakness, Lady. Yea, though the shadow of doubt is upon me, I shall not waver…
For some reason Shell hadn’t anticipated that they would be split up. It was done expertly, with a brutal efficiency born of centuries of handling captives. Lazar had led their manacled file — either by chance or by design — while Shell followed, then Blues, and lastly Fingers. Their escort chivvied them up along a steep climb through a town whose bundled inhabitants hardly looked up from their daily tasks: just one more file of condemned on their way to an anonymous death upon the wall. They climbed to a fortress that squatted half sheltered under a rocky slope that rose even higher. Once inside the fortress they were pulled and pushed into a series of underground corridors. After much marching Shell was thoroughly lost and they had passed far into what seemed a great sprawling underground complex. Heavy bronze-bound doors led off the halls into tiny rooms, cells perhaps, and further corridors.