The Bandit King

standing in her bedroom, thinking of the lies I had told to bring us to this place? And yet, if Jierre’s faith were shaken, he would not be half as effective in her defense. “I promise you that, di Yspres. We are simply too marvelous to die.”

His weary laugh rewarded me. “What was his name? Arkaeon dev Kadat. A petty chivalier of Badeau.”

“Only outnumbered eight to one, we were.” The memory brought me a grimace too pained to be a smile but too cheerful to be a frown. When one has survived such a thing as the Battle of Lithielle, tis the only possible expression to wear.

“You sent back the herald to say you would wait, and he should bring back another four hundred of his kin to make the battle even.” Jierre moved again. “Adersahl was near to killing you himself.”

“He enjoyed it. And the reception from the town afterward left little to be desired.” In fact, that had been the only time I had allowed every member of the Guard to become blind-sotted at once. They had deserved it, after all. Arkaeon dev Kadat had never troubled the north-and-west of Arquitaine again. And Badeau had taken quite a more reasonable tone with Henri afterward, parrying Damar’s requests for trade concessions that would sting Arquitaine’s merchants.

Jierre’s weary laugh was balm and a fresh scoring all at once. “Di Montfort and the m’dama of the pleasure-house on Rieu di Chier. I am a hero, woman! And her reply.”

“You are a sot and a base rogue, and a boylover beside.” I could still remember the woman’s very tone and the stained kerchief knotted about her head, her broad fist raised.

His tone dropped, an imitation of di Montfort’s broad north-coast accent. “I care little what I bugger at this moment, m’dama, and you look fine enough.”

A laugh startled me. Thin and inexpressibly weary, my chest gripping and aching as the pale shadow of merriment took voice, answered by his. “And the sourhead afterward. Twas lucky Badeau did not think to field an attack while you were all recovering.”

“Aye to that.” The old comfortable silence fell between us. Jierre’s breathing took on the rhythm of sleep, and I rested my left hand on my rapier-hilt. I longed for slumber, but Kimyan’s gift was long in coming.

Honest men were faithful, and Jierre even more so. I never did. He had played his part well, for Vianne’s sake.

I was not honest. Perhaps twas too late to become so, as well.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I woke to shouting, and my rapier cleared the sheath before I blinked and found myself spilling out of an uncomfortable chair, while Jierre pounded on Vianne’s door. “Wake!” he yelled, and twisted the knob, striding through. His hair stood up in spikes and his eyes blazed, and fair blond Luc di Chatillon had just skidded to a stop, out of breath and pale as a woodchopper faced with demieri di sorce.

“The Gate!” he choked. “All that could be spared! Damarsene—”

I needed to hear no more, spun on my heel and followed Jierre.

Vianne was already upright, her hair a tangled glory. “The dawn serenade,” she said, and laughed bitterly. “At least it interrupts my dreaming. Quickly, now!” She brushed past me in a breath of skirts and the smell of her, hedgewitch-green and spicy, filled my head. “Come along!” And, wonder of wonders, her hand closed about my wrist.

I remember little of the stumbling behind her, still mazed with sleep, the tearing in my chest familiar and so, pushed aside. I remember even less of the wild ride a-horseback through Merun’s burning streets. A predawn attack, and it blurs together in my dreams with Arcenne and the Graecan fire. At least I had resheathed my sword, and someone had saddled Arran for me.

Hooves sparking on paving-stones, flames and the stink, Vianne’s tangled head bobbing as the white palfrey bestirred herself to a gallop she had rarely been called on for in Arcenne. The slope of the ramparts behind the gate, switching back and doubling on itself to provide the horses with enough footing. Silvery witchfire crackling around the Hedgewitch Queen as she rode, a globe of protection forming even as she pulled her horse to a halt atop Merun’s eastron gate and flung out both hands, the Aryx’s singing reverberating through my body like the tramp of boots on a stone bridge, a harmony that could crumble granite.

A shattering rumble, hedgewitchery burning like a green flame and the witchfire surrounding her brightening. Arcs of Graecan fire halting, spinning, smashed aside, Merun’s walls shuddering as sorcery plucked at them.

Behind us, the cup of the city smoked and fumed, alive with screams. Massive orbs of Graecan fire, smears of deadly orange-yellow on the hush of the darkest portion of night—the long dark shoal of fourth watch, when the old die and the living feel their blood slow if they are unlucky enough to be waking—poured up in high arcs from the siege engines massed below the walls. The white horse standing frozen as a statue, and the high whistling sound is coming. I cannot stop it; I know what comes next, as dream and reality twist together in a fevered braid.

For I was fevered. The weakness in me was infection, always a risk with hurts newly mended. The charm holding my chest together had not frayed much, but perhaps the ditchwater had done the work d’Orlaans could not finish. I fell from Arran’s back, the tearing in my lungs becoming a river of hot acid in my throat. I spat blood, stumbled as the whistling became a scream—

—and the crossbow bolt pierced the still-building shell of witchfire, shrieking like a mountain-spirit, burying itself in Vianne’s shoulder.

The Aryx, bell-like, tolled, almost throwing me to my knees. I skidded, caught her as she spilled from the horse in a gray blur. Her cry was lost under the noise of the Seal screaming its distress and the howls of Graecan fire, now rising unchecked and falling in long slow liquid streams into the city.

Knees hit the stone flooring of the walkway, jarring through me. She was paper-white, her mouth moving slightly, perhaps praying. My hand closed around the shaft of the bolt. Get it free, then staunch the blood. And hope tis not poisoned.

Twas a fine time to wish I were a hedgewitch. The bolt was an ugly thing; she would be lucky to escape a shoulder-halt. My lips moved as another bubble of warmth broke on my lips, Court sorcery flaming against my fingers, the bolt shivering. It had not gone all through, the barbed tip grated on bone, and I twisted, wood suddenly flexible in my hands and the metal of its head giving out a low note of distress unheard in the cacophony.

Jierre was suddenly there, ashen, his hand under her shoulder as she thrashed. Her skirts tangled, her hair curtaining her face as she sought to breathe, a double shock of pain and sorcery she should never have had to bear. More warmth ran down my chin. I let out my own frantic cry, Jierre’s Court sorcery stinging my fingers as I pulled the suddenly-drooping bolt free. Weakened by sorcery, it bent instead of breaking, and did not tear muscle and skin overmuch.

I clapped my hand over the wound. “Hedgewitch!” I screamed, blood spraying from my lips and dripping down my chin. “Fetch a physicker!”

Vianne’s head tipped back. The Aryx boiled with light, silver blazing from its writhing curves. Shadows leapt, there was a breathless moment of stasis as they reloaded the siege machines below. Archers from our walls let loose, and the flaming city behind us convulsed.

Her hand came up, clamped over mine at her shoulder. Her blood, slippery and hot against my fingers, sent a flare of nausea and weakness through me.

Merely a nightmare. I will wake and find this a dream.

But there was no waking. Her hair brushed the ground; I bent over her as her fingers bit with surprising strength. The Aryx spoke again, and her entire frame stiffened, the heels of her familiar pair of garden-boots digging into stone.

The body will seek to escape mending from such a blow, if possible. It will thrash with surprising strength, thinking the charming is a fresh assault. I held her, and Jierre shouted something over my head. I turned my face to