It had never occurred to her to treat the battles as theater.
“More wine, Magistra Cithrin?”
“Thank you, Governor,” she said. “I think I will.”
The viewing platform had been erected by the seawall, letting them look down over the port itself and then out over the wide blue water to where the enemy waited. The sandbars and reefs stood as the first protection of the city, the ancient ballistas and greenwood catapults along the seawall were the second, and Barriath Kalliam was the third. Three circles of defense, and only one of attack.
But the one was devastating.
The first of the enemy roundships was already burning, a plume of smoke rising up from it, black and greasy. The heat from the flames lifted it higher and higher until it seemed more like a storm cloud than the ruin of any human thing. At its top, the smoke plume flattened and began to drift. The servant poured Cithrin a fresh cup of wine as Governor Siden stared through his spyglasses and chortled. He seemed to take great pleasure in watching the enemy soldiers burn or drown or both. Cithrin preferred to see the destruction at a distance. It let her celebrate the victory with fewer pangs of conscience.
Inys, flying low along the coast, angled out again. The tip of one wing dragged along the surface of the water, leaving a spreading line of white where he turned. His back was to the city and Cithrin when he loosed his fires again, and the flame was bright as a rising sun. When Inys pulled up, working his wide wings up into the sky, a second ship was afire. The governor clapped his hands. Cithrin drank her wine and made the smile that was expected of her. It might only have been that she’d had so much trouble sleeping of late, but the victory at sea didn’t fill her with joy. If anything, it seemed like a waste. All those lives. The labor that had gone to making the ships. And everything that they could have done, all of the work they might have accomplished, had they not instead been doing this.
To no one’s surprise, the remaining ships began to scatter, leaving the burning hulks of their comrades behind to char and sink. A second column of smoke began to rise alongside the first. The governor stood and held his hand out to her.
“Shall we repair to the defensive wall?” he asked with a grin.
“I think we should,” Cithrin replied.
The streets of the city were thick with people, but the queensmen cleared the path for them. Porte Oliva had always been a mixed city. Firstblood and Kurtadam and Cinnae. As she passed through the streets, she couldn’t help picking out the dark-scaled faces of Timzinae. Refugees from Suddapal, many of them. Even with the Antean forces broken, they would shoulder much of the burden for the war. Many, many people in Porte Oliva had lost their homes and businesses already in the fire outside the wall. The Timzinae were and would be the faces that had brought the conflict to Birancour. Theirs and Cithrin’s. But in the mind of the city, she had also brought the dragon, and so she would be honored, carried with the governor, plied with wine and honeybread, invited to the best viewing points to watch the slaughter. It wasn’t fair, but so little was. This at least was injustice in her favor.
The viewing tower was in the highest spire of the cathedral. Walking up the tight-spiraling staircase made her legs ache and left her dizzy. The high, open air at the top did little to steady her. Yardem Hane and Pyk were there already, as was the captain of the city guard. Far below, the square that had once housed the condemned seemed terribly far away. The wall of the city stood to the north, and from her vantage, Cithrin could just see over it to the blackened ruins beyond. One siege tower stood alone and forlorn in the ashes. The others, against the defensive wall, were hidden from her sight, though a column of smoke marked where one had been set alight.
The violence was so near to her, and also separate, as if the clear air between her and the fighting were like the edge of a stage. What happened there happened there. She could imagine the press of bodies, the weight of sword and armor, the fear. She could imagine the sudden pain of an arrow in her throat, the way sound might grow distant as death came close. She could watch it all safely, from here.
“All is progressing as we’d hoped,” the captain of the city guard said.
“Excellent, excellent,” the governor said, rubbing his hands together.
“Yardem,” Cithrin said. “Where’s Captain Wester?”
“Had some things to see to, ma’am,” Yardem said, his ears canted forward politely. She wished that the tiny stone deck were large enough to take the Tralgu aside and speak to him in something like privacy. Nothing could be said here that wouldn’t be heard by everyone present, and Yardem’s reply had been so diplomatic it could only mean he didn’t want to say it in front of the governor. Her curiosity itched, but she turned her eyes toward the northern wall.
“What have we seen, then?” she asked.
“A little light assault by their siege engines,” Yardem said. “A few small scars in the stone, I’d guess, and a few that managed to get over. One hit a stable and seems to have taken down a wall. That’s the worst of it. They keep trying to scale the walls.”
“Are we worried about that?”
“No,” Yardem rumbled. “They’re heartfelt, but the road’s worn them down. Our side’s rested, fresh, and guarding their own city. If it weren’t for the priests, I’d call the day ours now.”
“But they don’t have our dragon!” Governor Siden said. “The enemy ships are already put to fire or flight.”
“Yes, sir. Saw the smoke.”
“And now…”
Inys flew in low over the city, wings spread wide. He passed through the square below Cithrin, the sun shining on his scales, and glided north toward the wall. Even so far above the city, she could hear the voices rise like a surge in the waves. In the square and on the wall, the citizens of Porte Oliva raised their fists and called out. It might only have been her imagination that Inys flew where the adulation was loudest. The dragon screamed once, then again, and then cleared the wall, his shadow falling over the battlefield. This third shriek was the loudest, and the violence of it set Cithrin’s heart turning a little faster in her chest. She couldn’t imagine the fear it would inspire in the soldier who had to face it. Inys wheeled, wings scooping the air, and set another of the siege towers alight. The enemy’s horns blared.
Something happened at the lone siege tower. It opened, and groups of men spilled out of it. From so high up, Cithrin couldn’t make out the devices they were carrying. They appeared to be oversized crossbows or perhaps very small ballistas. The bolts they threw seemed no larger than needles from this distance. She could hardly believe they could do a dragon harm.
The needles caught the thin membranes of Inys’s left wing, and the dragon’s head turned, biting at the air below the new wounds. She glanced at Yardem, but his ears were forward in concern and confusion. Her heart began beating faster, driven by an unexpected sense of threat. Threads seemed to be rising from the ground up toward the dragon, though she couldn’t imagine that was true. Inys fought to keep aloft, blasting fire toward the ground, but more needles rose to touch him. Leg, wing, neck. More threads rose. Cithrin leaned forward, her hands on the railing, clutching so hard that her knuckles ached. The dragon turned, laboring in the air that moments before he had owned. He disappeared behind the wall. A great shout rose up. The dragon had fallen. Cithrin heard herself gasp, and the sound was almost a sob. Antean horns sounded a charge.