There was little rejoicing, for all were weary, bone-weary, death-weary; and they had had so little hope that morning that now in the evening they had not yet truly begun to believe they had won after all. And there were the wounded to attend to; and all those still left on their legs helped, for there were few enough of them. Many of them were children, for even the healers had taken sword or knife by the end and gone into battle. But the youngest children could at least carry bandages, and collect sticks for the fire, and carry small skins of water to fill the great pot hung over the fire; and as there was no child who had not lost a father or mother or elder brother or sister, the work was the best comfort the weary remaining Damarians could give them.
Aerin and Tor were among those still whole, and they helped as they could. No one noticed particularly at the time, but later it was remembered that most of those who had felt the hands of the first sol, her blue sword still hanging at her side, or of the first sola, the Hero’s Crown still set over his forehead, its dull grey still shadowed with red, recovered, however grave their wounds. At the time all those fortunate enough to feel those hands noticed was that their touch brought unexpected surcease of pain; and at the time that was all any could think of or appreciate.
Perlith had died on the battlefield. He had led his company of cavalry tirelessly through the last endless weeks, and his men had followed him loyally, with respect if not with love; for they trusted his coolness in battle, and learned to trust his courage; and because even as he grew worn and haggard as the siege progressed, his tongue never lost its cleverness or its cutting edge. He died on the very last day, having come unscathed so far, and his horse came back without him after darkness had fallen, and the saddle still on its back was bloody.
Galanna was holding a bowl of water for a healer when Perlith’s horse came back, and someone whispered the news to her where she knelt. She looked up at the messenger, who was too weary himself to have any gentleness left for the breaking of bad news, and said only, “Thank you for telling me.” She lowered her eyes to the pink-tinted water again and did not move. The healer, who had known her well in better days, looked at her anxiously, but she showed no sign of distress or of temper; and the healer too was weary beyond gentleness, and thought no more about it. Galanna was conscious that her hair needed washing, that her gown was torn and soiled—that her hands would be trembling were it not for the weight of the bowl she carried; that someone had just told her that Perlith was dead, that his horse had returned with a blood-stained saddle. She tried to think about this, but her mind would revert to her hair, for her scalp itched; and then she thought, I will not see my husband again, it does not matter if my hair is clean or not. I do not care if my hair is ever clean again. And she stared dry-eyed into the bowl she held.
But the second sola was not the worst of their losses. Kethtaz had fallen in battle too, and everyone had lost sight of Arlbeth for a time—just at the time when Aerin and Tor met and Aerin forced the Hero’s Crown over Tor’s head. They two looked for him anxiously, and it was Aerin who found him, fighting on foot, a long grim wound in his thigh, so that he could not move around much, but could only meet those who came to him. But his sword arm rose and fell as though it were a machine that knew no pain or weariness.
“Up behind me,” said Aerin; “I will carry you back to the gates, and they will find you another horse”; but Arlbeth shook his head. “Come,” Aerin said feverishly.
“I cannot,” said Arlbeth, and turned that his daughter might see the blood that matted his tunic and breeches to his right leg. “I cannot scramble up behind you with only one leg—in your saddle without stirrups.”
“Gods,” said Aerin, and flung herself out of the saddle, and knelt down before her father. “Get up, then.” Arlbeth, with horrible slowness, clambered to Aerin’s shoulders, while she bit her lips over the clumsy cruel weight of him, and while her folstza and yerig kept a little space cleared around the three of them, and he got into Talat’s saddle, and slumped forward on his old horse’s neck.
“Gods,” said Aerin again, and her voice broke. “Well, go on, then,” she said to Talat; “take him home.” But Talat only stood, and looked bewildered, and shivered; and she thumped him on the flank with her closed fist. “Go on! How long can they hold them off for us? Go!” But Talat only swerved away from her and came back, and would not leave, and Arlbeth sank lower and lower across his withers.
“Help me,” whispered Aerin, but there was no one to hear; Tor and the rest of them were hard pressed and too far away; and so she raised Gonturan again, and ran forward on foot, and speared the first Northerner she found beyond the little ring of wild dog and cat; and Talat followed her, humbly carrying his burden and keeping close on his lady’s heels. And so they brought Arlbeth to the gates of his City, and two old men too crippled to fight helped his daughter pull him down from Talat’s saddle. He seemed to come a little awake then, and he smiled at Aerin.
“Can you walk a little?” she said, the tears pouring down her face. “A little,” he whispered, and she pulled his arm around her shoulders, and staggered off with him; and the two old men stumbled on before her, and shouted for blankets, and three children came from the shadows, and looked at their bloody king and his daughter with wide panicky eyes. But they brought blankets and cloaks, and Arlbeth was laid down on them by the shadow of one of the fallen monoliths at his City’s gates.
“Go on,” murmured Arlbeth. “There’s no good you can do me.” But Aerin stayed by him, weeping, and held his hands in her own; and from her touch a little warmth strayed into the king’s cold hands, and the warmth penetrated to his brain. He opened his eyes a little wider. He muttered something she could not hear, and as she bent lower over him he jerked his hands out of hers and said, “Don’t waste it on me; I’m too old and too tired. Save Damar for yourself and for Tor. Save Damar.” His eyes closed, and Aerin cried, “Father! Father—I brought the Crown back with me.” Arlbeth smiled a little, she thought, but did not open his eyes again.
Aerin stood up and ran downhill to where Talat waited, and scrambled onto him and surged back into the battle, and the battle heat took her over at last, and she need think no more, but was become only an extension of a blue sword that she held in her hand; and so she went on, till the battle was over.
Arlbeth was dead when she returned to him. Tor was there already, crouched down beside him, tear marks making muddy stains on his face. And there, facing each other over the king’s body, they talked a little, for the first time since Aerin had ridden off in the night to seek Luthe, and her life.
“We’ve been besieged barely a month,” Tor said; “but it seems centuries. But we’ve been fighting—always retreating, always coming back to the City, riding out again less far; always bringing a few more survivors from more burnt-out villages here for shelter—always fighting, for almost a year. It began ... shortly after you left.”
Aerin shivered.
Tor said, and he sounded bewildered, “Even so, it has not been so very long; wars have lasted years, generations. But this time, somehow, we felt defeated before we began. Always we were weary and discouraged; we never rode out in hope that we could see victory.” He paused a minute, and stared down at the shadowed peaceful face of their king. “It’s actually been a bit better these last weeks; perhaps we only adjusted finally to despair.”