Callaire was among them, barking orders to any near enough with a hammer and answering questions from elves who came to him, most holding papers. He spotted them as they approached, handing a paper back to its owner and sending the elf away.
“Mistresses.” He bowed deeply and gave a quick nod to Borr. “Borr.” He turned his attention to the work at his sides. “We’ve been at them a few days now. The bastards’d been quiet so we’d not bother rushing through the work. More fool us.” He shrugged. “I’m no carpenter. Got the plans from one. He’s over…” Callaire motioned off to the east vaguely. “… you know. Doesn’t matter. Expect we’ll be done come afternoon two days on. It’ll allow us safe passage along our watch posts for what we hold along the Palisade. Not sure how you want to handle the west…”
Óraithe looked around. “Raic?” Callaire nodded. “Best not to give him free bodies or fortifications until we know what his game is.”
“I thought the same.”
“What about our wounded? And the death?”
“Mm, not so bad overall, considering the number of arrows. Hit morale sure as shit stinks. The dead was a young girl. A potter. Lit a fire in the builders when they heard the news. The rest’ll be fine.”
Óraithe looked over the fortifications as Callaire detailed where they were placed and what else needed to be done. They were doors, mostly. Some tables. Hitched together with whatever was handy. The lumber had all been claimed from houses, nearly all of it that she could see used for the structural pieces. They were ragged but sturdy, too heavy to be moved and uncaring of arrows.
She met with the builders, thanking each of them individually. Several called her Treorai, only to be chided for it by the ones who knew not to. There was no meaning in the title. She doubted if there ever would be. Even if Briste were pulled from her cave, the city was not likely to know order as it had. She did not care for order anymore. Raic… he was a nebulous thing but the thought of him excited her. She wished for him to try to stand in her way that she might kill him and every single elf behind him who thought to gain from her work.
The proclamation began with the sounding of loud bells. They were not the far off alarms of the first day. They had brought smaller ones close to the Palisade. A subtle way of saying that those bells rang for the elves of the Low District. They warned the highborn of nothing.
“Hear ye, hear ye. It is written as follows, by command and decree of Briste, the due and only Treorai of Fásachbaile.” The crier pulled a deep breath and continued his little speech. “Being that Óraithe the Treasonous is a cancer upon the fine name and image of this fair city, it is so ordered that she be remanded unto the City Guard in ready fashion that she might face punishment for her crimes against the right and just Treorai of this land.”
Eyes fell upon her as the reading went on. Nervous eyes, fearful ones. She stood behind a wall of wood as iron words commanded her arrest. The word of Raic must be known among them as well. She began to walk, Scaa calling after her and then following.
“Those who consort with the accused will meet her justice as well, unless she is given over before night of the second day hence from this proclamation. You will know clemency. You will have benefit of the whole of Briste’s kindness. You… are…”
The words faded as he saw her. Óraithe pulled the leathers from her feet as she came to the end of the barricades and walked in the dead still air of the square’s north end. She turned to face a wall of Briste’s men staring at her. The feel of hundreds of shifting feet on the dirt nearly overwhelmed her mind but she forced them into order. Murmurs came from her sides and she could feel Scaa’s nervous eyes begging her to return. She would speak loudly so that all could hear.
“Speak plain. You wish my people to betray me to the woman who sits in the Bastion sipping wine and cursing the lowborn. Well, here I am.”
Five soldiers looked behind and the crier waved them forward. A perfect number. She felt them move. The crier had begun to say something but she did not listen to the words. They were close enough now. A valley of needles shot up from the ground, piercing the legs of the guards, and disappeared in the next instant. The middle guard would serve for the potter girl. A shard, jagged and awful pulled up from the ground, tearing through the man’s chest and out the back. He slumped, screaming, but only for a moment. The other four writhed beside the monument she had made of the fifth. A pair screamed, the others breathed and groaned, hoping, perhaps, not to be noticed where they lay on the ground. None of their brothers in arms came to pull them away.
“I will make the same offer.” She yelled the words now, so that as many would hear as she could hope to reach. “Any guards who bring me Briste, alive and screaming, will know mercy.”
A roar came from behind the shoddy barricades beside her, becoming a rhythmic war chant. They had heard her.
Óraithe turned her back to the guards and a second later the war chants turned to panicked shouts. “Arrow, arrow!”
Before she could even turn to see the thing, a finger of rock shot up from the ground. The helpless sound of metal against rock came to her ears and the rock fell away. Her eyes were fierce as they scanned the faces of the guards, but her heart raced. She had not commanded the rock, not with any part of
