Weavers of War

the Weaver’s plain surrounded her.

Before she understood entirely what she was doing, she had begun to walk, trudging up the hill toward the spot where the Weaver awaited her. By the time she reached the top, and the Weaver’s brilliant white sun stabbed into her eyes, she had gathered herself, remembering all that she had intended to tell him.

“You expected to dream of me.”

“Yes, Weaver.”

“Is that why you took so long to fall asleep? Did you fear this encounter?”

“No more than usual, Weaver,” she said, and sensed his amusement. “I tried to make myself sleep, but I couldn’t.”

“Because of the battle?”

She nodded, summoning the images that had troubled her so.

“I see. You understand that there will be more of this. Eventually, it will be my army-including you-that does the killing but the results will be much the same.”

“Yes, Weaver.”

“I take it Kearney still lives.”

“Yes, Weaver. He was hurt, but his wounds were easily healed.”

“I didn’t expect you to kill him today, knowing that the first battle might be difficult for you, but my expectations haven’t changed.”

She had been waiting for this, planning what she would say. And so she nodded her understanding, and began to tell him all the ways she had thought of to kill her king, the sudden gust of wind that changes the flight of an arrow, the dark words whispered to Kearney’s mount, the shattering of his horse’s leg, the harm that could be done by a healer, the poison that could be slipped into an herbmaster’s tonic.

“Just when I had been ready to give up on you, you exceed all of my expectations.” She could tell from his voice that he was beaming at her. “All the methods of which you speak will work, though some will require that you find another Qirsi to help you, unless you’ve added shaping and healing to your magics since last we spoke.”

“No, Weaver,” she said.

“I’d suggest you use language of beasts. That’s least likely to draw anyone’s attention.”

“Yes, Weaver.”

“You hesitate. Why?”

“That man is here. The gleaner. He might know that it was me.” The Weaver would know already that Grinsa had joined the Eibitharian army. But having spoken to her of the gleaner in the past, he might find it suspicious if she didn’t mention his presence on the battle plain.

“What makes you say that?”

“He speaks of you, Weaver. He warns the king about you. And I just wonder if he knows you’re a Weaver, mightn’t he be one as well?”

“Does he fight beside Kearney?”

“No, Weaver. He stays with the Curgh boy and fights with Javan’s army.”

“Good. That should make this easier. Make certain that the gleaner is far away when you do this and you should be fine.”

“I will, Weaver. Thank you.”

“I want this done soon. When next we speak, Kearney should be dead.”

Before she could answer, the Weaver was gone, and she was blinking her eyes open. The sun had yet to rise, but a faint silvery light had already begun to light the Moorlands, shimmering on the dancing grasses and great stones. Keziah could smell the rank smoke from Eibithar’s pyre, and, after a moment, she realized that she could hear singing.

She knew immediately that these were not the soft notes sung by Kearney’s men the night before. This was a battle hymn, and the voices were those of Braedon’s men, loud and boisterous and too damned confident.

Keziah sat up, pushing the tangle of hair back from her face.

“The king is asking for you, Archminister.”

She looked up to see her shadow standing over her. She hadn’t noticed before how young he was, but it was said that fear did that to a soldier, robbed him of his years as well as his nerve, making him a babe once more.

“All right,” she said, stiffly getting to her feet. “Tell him I’ll be along in a moment.”

He nodded and started to walk away.

“Are the empire’s men moving yet?” she asked.

“No, not yet. But soon. Captain says they want to wear us down before Shanstead arrives.”

It was more than he had said to her since they marched from Audun’s Castle.

It’s only going to get worse, Grinsa had told her the day before. And the Weaver had echoed that in her dream. You understand that there will be more of this. Imagining the unimaginable, a war between Weavers, Keziah knew that they were right. The soldier was watching her, not with suspicion, as he usually did, but with need, his eyes begging her to reassure him, to tell him that Marston and the Thorald army would arrive in time.

All she could do was turn her back on him and reach for her belt and blade.

Chapter Seven

Galdasten, Eibithar

It was a siege without blood, a war without swords, at least for the people of Galdasten. Bodies still washed ashore occasionally, bloated and foul, still held together by the purple and gold uniforms that bound them. Braedon’s men had recovered their own from the waters after the naval battle ended and Eibithar’s fleet, or what little was left of it, fled Falcon Bay. But they had left Eibithar’s dead to the surf.

It was but one indignity among many. The emperor’s men had set fire to much of the city before marching past the castle and on toward the Moorlands. Those soldiers who remained-perhaps six hundred-had garrisoned themselves in the few homes and buildings they left standing. They patrolled the city as if they owned it, enforcing a strict curfew, closing the taverns, taking the ale and food for themselves, and confiscating the wares of those peddlers foolish enough to enter Galdasten. They maintained a presence outside the walls of Galdasten Castle, but they needn’t have bothered. Renald, Galdasten’s duke, had no intention of challenging their supremacy within his city, nor had he shown any willingness to pursue the bulk of Braedon’s army, which had long since marched southward.

Pillad jal Krenaar, Galdasten’s first minister, felt certain that even as the men and women of the city took refuge in the wards of the duke’s castle, they cursed Renald’s name, seeing him as a traitor to his realm and his people. Had the minister been in their position, he would have done the same. He was just as certain that Renald suffered for his own compliance with the enemy. He seldom left his chambers, speaking only with the duchess, his swordmaster, and Pillad, who had managed at last to regain the trust of Galdasten’s Eandi leaders.

Pillad’s betrayal of the Qirsi barkeep in Galdasten City had been but the beginning of an ordeal he thought might end with his own execution. Indeed, had he known what his accusations against Mittifar jal Stek would do to his own life, he might never have made them in the first place. But on that day in Elined’s turn he hadn’t been thinking at all. He had been angry, still smarting from the humiliation of the tavern keeper’s refusal to serve him Thorald ale. He had also grown weary of being ignored, of being viewed by Qirsi and Eandi alike as useless. He was eager to reclaim his influence within Renald’s court, and he had known that by sacrificing Mittifar, like Pillad, a member of the Weaver’s conspiracy, he would enhance his own influence.

He had been pleased with himself when the duke’s men left the castle to arrest the man. When they returned empty-handed and reported to Renald that the tavern keeper was dead, Pillad felt his entire world shudder, as if Elined had pounded at Galdasten Tor with her mighty fist. The duchess accused him of being a liar and traitor, of arranging the tavern keeper’s murder in order to gain the duke’s trust while at the same time masking his own treachery. She even speculated that he had broken Mittifar’s neck himself, though this much Renald and his swordsmaster told her was impossible. Ewan Traylee pointed out that the tavern keeper had been too large and powerful for a man of Pillad’s stature to best in a physical fight, and the duke made it clear that Pillad didn’t possess