Sayce’s unbridled anger cowed the gang of four. Blood drained from faces and the woman covered her mask with her hands. Her shoulders shook as if she were sobbing, though Alexia thought the gestures exaggerated.
“This is what we are going to do.” Sayce’s lips peeled back in a fierce snarl. “I will guarantee your safety, since you are clearly worried about it. I will have some of my Lancers guard each of you. I assure you that if there is any chance that the enemy would take you, you will be slain and avoid the humiliation of a painful death.”
The magistrate’s eyes widened. “You cannot threaten us with murder!”
“No?” Sayce’s head came up and she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Better a threat of murder than a charge of treason. It is your choice. I prefer the latter, since then all your lands will be forfeit to the crown. Your children will be reduced to paupers, but at least they will be alive.”
The duke snorted. “Let the crown have my lands. Chytrine will have them soon enough.”
Alexia stepped forward and laid her left hand on Sayce’s right shoulder. “There you have it, Duke Thow. Chytrine will have your lands, your city, soon enough. The question is how much of a price will she pay for them? You can give them to her and you will get no gratitude in return. Or you can join us in opposing her. If you were to kill one gibberer you would be selling your life more dearly than you could ever imagine, and the price she would be charged would be greater than she will be able to bear.”
The flame-haired princess nodded. “There you have it. Live up to your mask and the fidelity to your nation it demands, or bare your face and slink into obscurity. Better death while free, than an eternity as a slave.”
The four of them—pale and meek—stared blankly.
Sayce pointed to the door. “Be gone.”
They filed out quietly, without a bow or an apology.
Sayce looked at Alexia. “I am mortified for my nation that you witnessed this.”
“You mean witnessing you tame a pack of cowards?” Alexia smiled slightly. “This is a new side of you, one I had not taken into account.”
The smaller woman nodded. “I know, when I arrived in Meredo, that I made a bad impression. You were not what I expected. Will was not. Nothing was what I thought it would be. You have, however, showed me that you are more than I could ever have expected.
“Will did as well, and Crow.” Sayce looked down, and her voice became wistful. “I heard whispers of you all before I came to Meredo. The raid on Wruona. The evacuation from Fortress Draconis. I imagined a band of heroes, but not the way you are. It’s less a band than a family. It hurts you to be apart from Crow, doesn’t it?”
That question surprised Alexia more than the duke’s suggestion. “I don’t like being separated from him, no.”
“He is all right out there, isn’t he?” Sayce glanced sidelong at her. “You would know if he wasn’t, wouldn’t you? Love is like that?”
“I feel I would, yes, and he would know if I were in danger here.”
“I’d know the same about Will.”
Alexia kept her face impassive. Sayce’s comparing her feeling for Will with Alexia’s for Crow made no sense. Sayce might say it to engage Alexia’s sympathies, but to what end? They were both trapped by the same army in the same city, with enemies outside the walls and vipers within. Any differences they could possibly have would be rendered insignificant by their situation.
The only reason that makes sense is…Alexia felt a chill run down her spine. “You really do love him, don’t you?”
The Murosan Princess looked up, then nodded quickly. “My sister was supposed to go to Meredo and seduce Will to get him to come to Muroso. I hated that idea, so I went myself. I was prepared to offer myself to him if need be, but I wanted to convince him to come of his own accord. I thought he would be so different: like his half brother in form, with Resolute’s brash attitudes. He wasn’t any of that. He was quiet and funny—and so very kind when he came and sat with me as I recovered. I hadn’t expected…”
She brushed away a tear, then smiled, though the corners of her mouth quivered. “Listen to me, I sound like a girl with her first crush. But I dream of him, you know, and I worry. The past several mornings I have woken up positively sick. And now that they are heading into Sarengul, I don’t know what to think, what to hope.”
“What to fear.”
Sayce nodded. “That’s the worst.”
“I know.” Alexia slid her left arm over Sayce’s shoulder. “I think we fear what they fear. Yes, never seeing us again, that’s a big one, but greater is dishonoring them with failure. I know Crow won’t let that happen.”
“Will won’t, either.”
“So then that fear is useless.” Alyx hugged her across the shoulders. “As for not seeing them again, well, the only people who will prevent that are the army out there. And that’s good enough reason, as far as I am concerned, for making sure they don’t succeed.”
64
With the new morning, Adrogans forced from his mind the incongruity of the previous day. The food provided by the Aurolani had been a bit plain but filling. The wine had been very good, much of it rescued from cellars in Svarskya or shipped in from Sebcia. Adrogans disliked drinking the spoils of battle, but toasts had been raised to the Aurolani defeat. As Caro had noted, better they drink it than any Aurolani troops and he found himself unable to argue with that logic.
Morning had come early and painfully—though not because of any hangover. His mistress, having slept the previous day away, now rode him with claws and spurs. There would be much discomfort meted out in the coming battle. If he did not concentrate, pains would impale him and cut at him, as they would countless others.
But concentrate he did, for his task was not a simple one. The ways into the inner city were limited. Two breaches in the walls had been created during the original siege. Barricades had been raised to block them using timbers and other debris from Svarskya. The one to the west of the main gate was impassable. To the east debris formed a causeway to a wide hole. The barrier there seemed less well built. Whether that was intentional, to be used as bait to lead them into a trap or not, he had no way of knowing.
That breach, however, was the weakest point in the inner city’s defenses.
The main gate stood open as its massive doors had been smashed down decades before. More debris had been arranged there, forming a series of small walls across the main road. While the soldiers stationed there would not survive long, the presence of the walls meant troops would have to slow to cross them. This would leave them very vulnerable to archers and dra-conetteers.
Adrogans also wondered about skycasters, thunderballs, and boombags. Their judicious placement would devastate his force, but he had no way to discover or disable them. And if he approached cautiously, as if they existed, and they did not, the assault would take far longer than it should. Yet, if he went in recklessly and they were employed, his force would be slain. There was no middle ground.
I must win with blood what I would have preferred to take with strategy.
Nor was it a good day for battle. Before dawn a cold north wind had begun to howl through the streets. Snowflakes started to fall. Though not thick, the wind drove the snow south, so his men would be marching against the wind. Worse yet, their arrows would be shot into it and, worst of all, the clouds to the north crept toward the city, promising much more snow.
“Signal the advance.”
The signalman blew the advance and other buglers picked it up and repeated it. Above the battlefield his remaining Warhawks flew. They dove repeatedly at the wall above the main gate. Their firecocks exploded brilliantly, their spears and arrows skewering soldiers. Burning oil sent fiery streamers down the wall and his men cheered as if that were an omen of victory.