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That got the boys moving. Tentatively at i_st, then with more resolve, they
began to pick up the weapons.
While Uzfan got Shelena and Larisa to work, Alexeika s head cleared. She
remembered her father s careful instructions, given to her in his final words
last night. A
lump rose in her throat. She swallowed it, refusing to think of him right now.
She had her duty, and she must not shirk it. To do so would be to fail him, he
who had never failed her.
Swiftly she dismounted and ground-tied her pony.  Uzfan, she made herself
ask,  are there any survivors?
The old priest lifted his head and closed his eyes. His nostrils quivered, and
she could feel the pressure of the power he summoned. Then he opened his eyes
and shook his head. His brown eyes met hers and filled with compassion. She
understood, and dropped her own gaze swiftly to hide her tears.
 Then we mustn t waste time. The looters will be coming.
Both of the older women turned to stare at Alexeika in shock.  No, Larisa
whispered.
 The dead will bring them quicker than usual, Alexeika said.
As she spoke she glanced toward the southeast, where the king s forces had
ridden.
 Help Uzfan salt as many bodies as you can.
Larisa covered her mouth with her hands and began to cry again, but Shelena
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faced
Alexeika.  There isn t enough salt to go round. We can t sprinkle them all.
Alexeika met her eyes grimly.  Do what you can. Just hurry.
Leaving them standing there, rooted in place, Alexeika turned and hurried
away, but she d barely gone more than five strides before someone came puffing
behind her and caught her by the back of her jerkin.
Unlike the other women, Alexeika wore male clothing, with leather leggings and
a thin linsey tunic reaching nearly to her knees for modesty. Over it she wore
a sleeveless jerkin belted by her twin daggers, with their sharp curved blades
and ivory handles. Her long, unruly hair hung in a single thick braid down her
back, in the way of the Agya soldiers. She was tall for a maiden, lean and
surefooted. She strode boylike. She could swagger and curse and spit and ride.
She knew how to handle weapons. And she d been taught to think like a man,
coldly and fearlessly, but to keep her feminine cunning as
well.
When the back of her jerkin was grabbed, Alexeika whirled around, her braid
flying straight out behind her, and slapped the offending hand away. It
belonged to Uzfan, and his bearded old face was scowling with disapproval.
 Where do you go? he demanded.  We must stay together. This is an evil place.
Magic still crosses the air. There is no safety here among the dead.
 I m going to my father, Alexeika said, her voice as rigid as steel. She
would not let herself feel, not now.  I must prepare him.
A piece of her heart kept hoping that old Uzfan was wrong, that a few of these
fallen warriors still lived. Her father could not be dead. He could not.
That s what she hoped, although she knew the banner would not have fallen if
her father lived. Ilymir Volvn, once a general of King Tobeszijian s forces,
and now leader of the rebellion, would be shouting orders at this moment if he
still had any breath left in his body.
She could not think of it, not now. Her inner core had a crack across its
surface, a crack that would let all her strength shatter inside if she did not
take care. No, she must follow her orders. She must not fail him.
 Alexeika, Uzfan said, his voice more gentle n^ /,  the preparations are my
task, not yours. Stay here close to the others. I will go to him.
Frowning, she turned her gaze away. Time was running out; she could feel it as
though the slipping grains fell between her fingers. His protests only wasted
the moments that remained.
 I m going, she said, and started off again. She walked quickly, picking her
way over the fallen men.
It was eerie and quiet, this field of the dead. Her ears still echoed with the
recent sounds of battle, the yells of ferocity, the screams of the dying. Foot
soldiers vying against mounted cavalry. The odds evened by training and
righteous determination. King
Muncel was evil, weak, and half-mad. He had opened Nether to the Nonkind,
bargained with the demons of Gant, and sold his soul into unholy alliances as
a means of keeping his ill-
gotten throne. He was a murderer, a liar, and a thief. He had confiscated
lands and personal treasuries, plundered the old shrines, and forced the realm
to accept the
Reformed Church without exception. He had deposed some nobles and driven out
officers, condemning to death any who defied him. Alexeika s own mother, once
lady-in-waiting to Queen Neaglis, Muncel s foreign-bom consort, had died
twelve years past on the end of Muncel s sword because she refused to say
where her husband and a third of the standing army had fled to.
And so it had begun, the civil war that went on and on, a never-ending wound
that bled the vitality from this realm.
Perhaps, with this defeat, this massacre, it had ended at last.
Alexeika walked faster, dragging her hand across her burning eyes. She would
not accept that. Her father would never want her to think that way. A battle
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could be lost, but the war had to continue. That s what he would say.
 Papa, she whispered, her heart aching as she stumbled along. Tears spilled
down her cheeks, and she brushed them away.
She tripped over a man s legs and fell, landing hard on her knees and crying
out. For a moment, she crouched there, gasping for breath, her emotions raw
beneath the control she barely held.
When she tried to rise to her feet, she looked at the face of the man she d
fallen over.
It was Count Lanyl Otverya, her father s squire, barely eighteen and still
growing his first beard. The visor to his helmet had been torn away on one
side. It hung twisted and bloody from the axe blow that had killed him.
Alexeika crawled closer and gripped his sleeve. His breastplate was dented and
hacked open by the ferocious blows he d taken. No shield lay near him; she
supposed he dropped it in the charge. The blade of his sword had been
shattered, and his dead hand gripped only the hilt.
Kneeling beside him, she bowed her head and wept. Lanyl had been fun, always
laughing and playing pranks. His clear tenor voice could sing songs of old so
sweetly that grown men wept. He should have led his own army, but his lands
had been confiscated too. Deposed of his hold, his title officially stripped
away, his parents and siblings imprisoned or dead, Lanyl had escaped the purge
with only his father s sword as his inheritance. He d been so optimistic that
one day King Muncel would be knocked from his throne and order restored to
this weary land.
Lanyl had been like a brother to her. Gently, Alexeika closed his staring
eyes, and in doing so stained her fingers with his blood.
When her tears stopped, she pulled the broken sword from his hand and with the
tip of her dagger pried the square, thumb-sized ruby from its pommel. She
pocketed the jewel, feeling like a thief. Yet they had to live. They had to
eat. They had to keep the fight going somehow.
A sob escaped her. She choked back the rest and pushed herself to her feet,
turning away from him while she still could. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]