“Aye,” one of the yeomen muttered. “My nephew’s an acolyte, and he says the ice has grown half a foot in the past forty-day. Grown, when the Firestealer stands overhead at midnight!”
“How long?” Tylara demanded. “How long until the Time?”
“The writings are not clear,” Yanulf admitted. “The worst may not come for a dozen years. There will be other signs first. The Demon Gods will visit and offer magic in exchange for soma . Strangers will come, with strange weapons and a strange language.”
Trakon laughed.
Yanulf gave him a look of contempt. “It is written,” he said. “Thus came the Christians, and thus
came the Legions; and thus came your forefathers. It matters not whether you believe. Before the Fire-stealer plunges through, the True Sun five times, these things will have come to pass.”
“Plenty of time, then,” Trakon said.
“Nay,” Yanulf said. “When the signs are seen, all will seek refuge in the great castles. The petty wars you fight now will be forgotten as those who have built castles upon bare rock know their folly and bring their armies to strike. Soon, soon all will know that there is no safety beyond the caves of the Protectors.”
Tylara let them talk, half-listening in case one said something new. There was little chance of that. The situation was simple enough, if you left out religion.
But dared she? The priesthood of Yatar was universal. Whatever local gods might hold this land or that, Yatar was everywhere that humans lived. In her own land were ice caves, deep beneath the rocks, and sacrifices of grain and meat were taken there to be preserved against the days of Burning, even though few believed in the tales carried by the priesthood. If the Time approached—a time of storms when no ship sailed, and the seas rose to lap at the foothills; when Tamaerthon itself became an island; when fire fell from the sky; a time when rains would not fall, and then deadly rains fell in torrents —She had heard the tales. No one she knew believed them except for the priesthood. Yet everyone knew of them.
But there was time. Religion could wait. And for the rest the situation was simple enough. Wanax Loron had not been a good ruler, and three years before his death civil war had broken out. The bheromen who fought him had justice on their side. Even Chelm had wavered, closing the gates of Dravan against Wanax Loron when he sought refuge from the bheromen, yet never quite joining the revolt either. That had been under Lamil’s father, before plague took him.
(Plague. The legends said that as the Demon Star approached, the plague ran through the land; and certainly the plague struck every year now, with more killed each time. . .
But Loron had hired mercenaries and had driven the bheromen back and back, until the great ones of the land had done the unpardonable thing and invited outside help. They had offered the crown of Drantos to Sarakos son of Tons, Sarakos in his own right one of the Five Wanaxxae, and son of Tons High Rexja of the Five.
Before the invasion began, Loron died; but Drantos was left with a boy king and depleted treasury. When the bheromen rallied to their new Wanax with one of their number as Protector, they were too late. Sarakos continued to press his claims. Twentyyears before, the council of Drantos had arranged a royal marriage between Lana of Drantos, sister to Wanax Loron’s father, and Tons Vanax High Rexja of the Five. It had been a brilliant diplomatic stroke, but now Sarakos could claim the throne of Drantos by blood, as the most legitimate adult claimant. A few minutes with a pillow would make him the only possible claimant.
And who could blame some of the bheromen for preferring Sarakos and peace to a boy king and war? Especially now, with the Demon growing visibly brighter in the night sky, and the priests of Yatar reading from their musty books and telling of the Time which would come. These were no times for a boy king. If only Lamil had joined Sarakos! He would be alive, and he— “I say we fight.” The accent was uncultured—the blacksmith at the foot of the table. “I have heard how they live in the Five. Better be dead for one such as me. Is my forge to be used to hammer slave collars for my friends?”
“Well said,” Bheroman Trakon said. “Aye. Well said. For our honor, then. Yet—honor does not demand that we hold after all is lost. I say fight, and I will be on the walls; but when Sarakos brings up towers and siege engines, I say make the best bargain we can. For all of us.”
“You may bargain, my lord,” the blacksmith said. “But when the Demon stands high in the day sky, what do we folk do? Sarakos would like well enough to hold Castle Dravan for his people, but will he take my family into the cool of the donjon?”
“If he will not swear to that, then I make no bargain with him,” Trakon said. “We of Chelm protect our own, even against the gods. But I think you fear too much the tales of the priesthood.”
“When the Demon grows large and sky fire falls, you will regret those words,” Yanulf said.
“We fight,” Tylara said. “For the rest we must wait, but we fight. See to the defenses. And bring all who wish to come within the walls. Have the herds we cannot bring inside driven into the mountains. Leave nothing to sustain Sarakos. Nothing to eat. Hide all wealth. Cover and hide the very wells. Let Sarakos find our land unpleasant for his stay.”
“It is evil to destroy food,” Yanulf said. “Evil.”
There was muttering from the low end of the table, but the peasantry could see it was necessary. One of the guildmasters spoke for all the townsmen and crofters. “Do we make it hard enough, he may depart, leaving our own as our masters.” He fingered his neck. “It will take a heavy collar to circle this. I cannot wish to carry such.”
“See to it,” Tylara repeated.
“Aye, Lady,” Captain Camithon said. He paused until the bheromen were leaving, but had not gone so far that they could not hear him. “The young lord made no mistake in his choice. You’re more of a man than half the bheromen of Drantos.”
The great hall was empty except for Tylara and her archer commander. Cadaric was almost as old as Captain Camithon. His skin was tanned by wind and sun until his cheeks were cracked like worn leather. He wore the jerkin and kilts of his own people; they had never cared for trousers. “You’ve made no mistake, Lady,” he said. He seemed pleased. “We’ll show these westerners what Tamaerthon shafts can do.”
“Until we have shot them all,” Tylara said. Now that the others were gone, she could slump in her chair. She seemed smaller and more vulnerable. She was afraid, and there was no need to hide that from Cadaric. He had known her from the day she was born, and had served her brother and her father before him. There was no one else within five hundred leagues whom she could trust completely. “I’ve brought you here to be killed in a strange land, old friend.”
He shrugged. “And will that be worse than to be killed at home? I doubt not that the Chooser can find me here as easily as in our mountains. When it is time to guest in his lodge, then guest you will. And yet,” he mused, “and yet the Dayfather holds higher sway here. Do you think old One-eye has lost sight of this land? It would be pleasant to know.”
“They say he sees the wide world,” Tylara said. “Cadaric, I think they trust me not.”
“They know you not. You are a young girl to them, and all they know is that their lad chose you. And because he did, they love you. Och, Lady, I know you mourn him.”
And that was more than true. Tylara touched her cheeks, determined not to let the tears start again. A widow before she was properly a bride. It was the stuff the minstrels sang of.
Certainly Lamil had loved her. Eqeta of Cheim, one of the great counts of Drantos, he could have had his choice of a hundred ladies; but his ship had been wrecked on the rocky Tamaerthon coast, and after a summer (overly warm—could the priests be right?) he chose the daughter of a Tamaerthon chief. Tylara had no dowry, nothing to bring to the marriage—only two hundred archers, and a hundred of them free to leave after five years’ service—but Lamil had chosen her above the great ones of his homeland.
She had loved to watch him; young and strong, calf muscles as hard as granite and standing out like thick cords from his slim legs. He browned to a deep copper in the sun. At night they ran on high ridges lit by the Firestealer. By day he laughed in the surf, climbed high on the ledges above the sea in search of young eagles. And he had laughed. Those were her favorite memories, of his laughter; laughing and swearing that he would have no other but her when she knew it could not be, laughing again at the furor he caused in rejecting the great ladies of Drantos and the Five.