Perhaps the Qirsi read these thoughts in her eyes, for abruptly he grabbed Renald the Younger by the arm, pulling the boy away from her and in the same motion drawing his sword. For one terrifying instant, Elspeth thought the Weaver would kill the boy right there, but he didn’t. He merely laid the edge of his sword against Renald’s neck and looked at her, his expression unchanged.
“Tell them to lay down their weapons.”
“No, Mother, don’t!” the boy said gamely. “He’s not-”
“Quiet!” the Qirsi said. He pressed harder with his blade, so that a thin line of blood appeared at the boy’s throat and trickled over the steel.
Elspeth had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out.
“Now, my lady. Do it, or he dies.”
“Surrender your weapons,” she called to the soldiers, her eyes never straying from the steel and the blood. When several of the men hesitated, looking at one another, she said, “Please. I’ve seen what these Qirsi can do with their magic. They destroyed the entire Braedony fleet, and Wethyrn’s as well. We cannot defeat them; if we try, they’ll kill us all.”
The men stared at her for what seemed an eternity, until finally one of them stepped forward and dropped his sword and dagger only a few paces from where she stood. Then he bowed to her and took a step back. Slowly, others did the same, all of them offering obeisance to her as they added their weapons to the growing mound of steel.
Adler and Rory stood on either side of her, clinging to her hands, but though the Weaver had released Renald, the boy still would not look at her, nor did he bother to wipe the blood from his neck. He stood perfectly still, staring straight ahead, like a soldier bravely awaiting execution.
Soon archers were filing out of the towers to place their bows and quivers with the other arms. As the surrender continued, the Weaver whispered something to two of the other Qirsi, one of them a waif-like woman with eyes as bright as his own, and the other a man with pale yellow eyes in a lean face. A moment later these two started off in different directions, the woman with a half smile on her face.
“You two,” the Weaver said, pointing to the captains Renald had left behind to protect the castle. “Come here.”
The soldiers approached him, as a low murmur swept through the courtyard. They stopped just before him, both of them pale and tight-lipped.
“Your duke left the two of you in command of the army?”
Neither man spoke.
“Answer me.”
The Weaver didn’t move at all, but it seemed that both men suddenly sagged, as if they had abruptly taken ill.
“Yes,” one of them said. “We’re in command.”
“Get on your knees.”
The men dropped to their knees, their heads bowed.
The Weaver still held his sword, and now he stepped forward, raising the weapon as to strike them.
“No!” Elspeth cried.
The Qirsi glanced at her. “They’re soldiers, my lady. They understand that I can’t allow them to live. So long as these captains live, your husband’s soldiers remain an army. Without them, they become nothing more than a collection of defeated men.”
He faced them again, and with swift, powerful strokes hewed off the head of one man and then the other. Their bodies toppled sideways to the earth, blood darkening the grass. The other men said nothing nor did they make any move to retrieve their weapons.
Rory, on the other hand, was sobbing, his face pressed against her dress. Elspeth stroked his head, fearing that she’d be ill.
“See what you’ve done?” Renald said, glowering at her. “You made those men surrender and now they’re dead!”
She should have said something. She should have had some answer for the hatred she saw in her son’s eyes. But she couldn’t think of anything adequate. And in the next moment matters grew far worse.
“What are they doing with Father Coulson?” Adler asked.
The duchess’s head snapped up in time to see the man the Weaver had sent away moments before leading the prelate down the broad stone stairway that linked the castle’s upper and lower wards. Even from this distance, she could see that Coulson was trembling, and that his legs seemed barely to support him.
“What are they going to do to him, Mother?” Adler asked again.
She glanced at Renald, whose face had gone white and whose eyes still held such contempt.
“I don’t know, child,” she said. A lie, for who in that ward didn’t know, save for the young ones? The cloisters had long been tied to the courts and were known to be hostile to the Qirsi and their adherence to the Old Faith. Was it so surprising that these renegade white-hairs should strike at the prelacy?
“They’re going to kill him,” Renald said bitterly.
“They are not!” Adler shot back. “Are they, Mother?”
“Hush, child.”
The Qirsi man pulled the prelate with him until they stood before the Weaver. Then he threw Coulson to the ground and handed the Weaver the hilt of a shattered sword.
“This is his?” the Weaver asked.
“Yes, Weaver.”
The Qirsi nodded. “Thank you, Uestem.” He looked down at Coulson, a smile playing at the corners of his broad mouth. “So you fancy yourself a warrior, do you, Father Prelate?”
“I’m a man of the cloister,” he answered in a quaking voice. “But I’ll gladly take up arms to defend my house and my realm.”
“Bravely said. Of course, your house is defeated, and your realm will soon be mine. So it seems your courage has been wasted.”
Without another word, the Weaver raised his weapon once more and hacked off the prelate’s head.
Adler screamed, Rory’s sobbing grew louder.
Several of Galdasten’s soldiers looked away. Others shouted angrily, a few of them taking a step toward their weapons.
There was a strange, dry cracking sound, and the nearest of these men collapsed to the ground clutching his leg and howling with pain.
“That was his leg,” the Weaver said, his voice carrying across the ward. “It could just as easily have been his neck. And it will be for the next man who takes even a single step toward those weapons. Do I make myself clear?”
The others who had started toward the weapons stood utterly still, but several of them continued to eye the swords.
Apparently the Weaver noticed this as well, for a moment later there was a second snapping noise and another soldier fell to the ground. This one, however, didn’t cry out, nor did he writhe in pain. He simply lay still, his head tipped at a wrong angle, his eyes gazing sightless at the sky. The other men stepped back.
“You’re going to kill us, too, aren’t you?” Renald said, drawing the Weaver’s gaze.
“I have no intention of killing you today, Lord Galdasten.”
“What about tomorrow, or the day after that?”
The man smiled thinly. “Gleaning has always been my least favorite of the Qirsi magics.”
Renald said nothing.
“For now, you’ll be placed in the prison tower with your mother and your brothers. Beyond that, I can’t say.”
“You intend to rule the Forelands, and to be served by Qirsi lords, just as our king is served now by Eandi nobles. You can’t have men like me about, reminding your subjects of the day when the great houses ruled the seven realms.”
For some time the Qirsi just stared at him. Then he smiled faintly and said, “No, I don’t suppose we can.”
