In the next few days other messengers came, and the story grew. A battle fought now, and Vazkor’s men routed. Vazkor and a handful of his captains holed up in the hills, striving to pull together what was left to them from a morass of casualties, sick men, and deserters. The winter campaign was taking its toll at last. There was a disease at work, and rations were scarce since the disaster of the avalanche.
I had thought I might see now the gleam of defiance in Belhannese eyes, but in my stupidity I had forgotten all the
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divided angers of the three Cities which still stood, and worse-the fury of Anash and Eptor, which had escaped Vazkor’s greed. Those two had joined to fight him off, and, his power smashed, might well turn their vengeance on their sister Cities, which had let him pass so easily, and where remnants of his force still lingered.
A rider came-the last messenger we were to receive. He brought word that Vazkor and his armies were no more-all slain, or dead of the sickness, or broken up into packs to run like jackals for the safety of the mountains. An abrupt end to war-might. The man enumerated those dead he could, among them Attorl’s uncle, whereupon, apparently, Attorl collapsed weeping. No doubt when they brought me news of Vazkor’s end, they looked for similar results. But I felt nothing, not even triumph, for I knew he was not dead.
For a while, then, we heard no more. A sullen depression and unease settled on Belhannor; a waiting.
I was well past the one hundred, and twentieth day (which, by the witch’s reckoning, was the middle of my pregnancy), heavy and sleepy often, while my head ached constantly. I was asleep when the first weary troop of refugees trailed into the City from her two sisters farther south. Vazkor had taken them easily, now they fled from the forces of Anash and Eptor, which, having crushed White Desert’s march, were striking north to finish the work.
Belhannor opened her gates to them, foolishly, out of pity. She had taken in the flight from Orash already. Now the numbers swelled-wagons of women, men, and children, domestic animals and household pets. The city grew crowded, slovenly; tents put up in the streets and gardens and horse fields, and the warrens of the lower quarters blocked and stifled.
Attorl, I heard, was struggling to organize defense, but he was ill with nerves and panic, and made a poor job of it. Belhannor’s major war-machines had been appropriated by Vazkor and taken south. Now a few rusty cannon were wheeled out to protrude from the walls like mistaken drainage pipes. The soldiers in Belhannor did well enough, though it was a small garrison force, not more man four hundred men-adequate to subdue civilians but hopeless under the circumstances. Attorl’s wavering attempts to recruit ordinary men, particularly from the refugee population, met with sickly failure.
Vazkor had allowed only for perpetual success, never once for the stumble that would come inevitably, with time.
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I experienced no guilt because of the storm-I felt that I had simply introduced a certain catastrophe a little earlier.
Anash and Eptor rode fast, smashing their way toward us, extravagant and impetuous with anger. We saw their tokens on the horizon now, from our high towers-smoke pall, black and filthy-some burning village; nearer, the haze of camp fires by night. It was interesting that quite suddenly some of those who had fled into Belhannor packed up their gear and fled out of her again. They were the wise ones. Others felt a false security in the sense of walls around them. I imagine I must have had similar thoughts, though not consciously. I felt too heavy and dreary to attempt flight. Sour amusement had settled on me, I, once the besieger of Orash and Belhannor, now besieged by these Cities I had not even seen.
They reached us on a crisp bitter-green evening, spring rain spangling intermittently, an evening for nostalgia and old love songs.
Attorl had begged use of my guard for the walls, and I had put it to Mazlek. He nodded, seeing, probably, no other course. Now I sat hi my bedchamber hi one of the carved chairs. A jeweled book was spread open before me on the sloping ivory desk, a useful thing I could bring conveniently close across the obscenity which was now my stomach. It was a book of fabulous animals and beasts-salamanders, unicorns-and the pages blazed with beautiful color from masterly illustrations. I was not really reading it, only admiring, when suddenly I found a single word written hi the margin. I had thought this book to be one of the gifts of Belhannor’s Javhovor, had not realized I held one of Asren’s books, one I had never before looked into. I did not know his writing-I had seen his personal seal, no more-yet I knew it at once. Without embellishment, clear, straight, wise yet open, inured to yet conscious of pain-all this I saw in the solitary word he had written. I reached out to touch the word with my fingertip, and hi that instant the great thunder came, splitting the world. The room trembled and steadied. I pushed the desk away, went to the nearest window and saw the reddish glare on the river thrown back from burning houses in the lower quarter. They had fired across the wall, and the ball had struck. I had not realized the power of those iron birds of death.
Other crashes came after that, now close, now far off, al-
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ways terrible. Gradually the sky reddened Into smoky darkness.
The bombardment ceased at nightfall, though I did not notice then. I was still at the window, clinging there in helpless fascination, when the silence came. But not silence. A crackling from burning places, the occasional soft thud of a collapsing house, and cries, and warning trumpets brought with the ashes on the wind.
I did not leave my rooms. The palace was full of frightened women. There were three men of my guard by my door, and, when others relieved them later, there might be news of a sort.
At midnight the cannon roused again. It was clever, not allowing us to sleep. Mazlek came soon after, dirty from the wall, his arm bound around with bloody temporary bandaging.
“Little action to tell,” he said. “There are many of them, and more to come from the look of it. I think there are men from the other Cities with them, recruited after the surrender.”
“Have they tried to take Belhannor?” I asked.
“No. They’re playing with her, goddess. A spokesman rode out, and called up there should be no quarter for the men of White Desert, but-” Mazlek paused, smiling slightly. “For Belhannor, if she opens her gates, sisterly love restored between the Cities of the valley.”
It was a sharp little dagger, that. It pricked even my lethargy.
“What did Attorl do?” I asked.
“Fired on the man,” Mazlek said, expressionless, “fired on him, and missed. The Belhannese cannon are useless, except to the enemy. The first blew up and killed thirteen men on the wall, and the ball never left her. Goddess,” he said, “it is only a question of time before they think to save their own skins.”
He spoke it softly, not so sharp now, but then, the blade was already in.
“I must leave,” I said, but it was a blank statement. I did not know where I should go.
“If you will put the matter in my hands?”
I nodded.
“Then collect what is necessary to you, goddess, and be ready to come with me, night or day. I will guard you with my life. You know it.”
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Despite the intermittent noise of war, I slept that night, deeply and without dreams.
It was a quiet morning, very still. The river shone like green pearl. I could not see from my apartments any of the ruins, only the faint smoke, drifting like a girl’s hair on water, across the pale sky. I bathed and dressed and they brought my drink. I remember sitting in a chair, staring around me at priceless things, combs and ornaments, and knowing none of them as mine. I would have little to carry, except–I went to the desk and touched the open book I had forgotten since the first cannon sounded.
A knock then, and, when I called for them to come in, a man entered in the livery of the Javhovor, and told me he begged my presence. It seemed strange, before they had always come to me, and yet it was a very polite summons. I followed the man, and was brought eventually to the great audience hall, its function virtually obsolete, but its splendor undimmed. Among the scarlet and green and white hangings, the pale-faced man, who was High-Lord, came to me, unmasked and bowed very low.