CXXII
"... WHAT NEWS DO you have, Ayrlyn?" asked Ryba.
Five people and an infant had gathered around the head table in the great room-Ryba, Saryn, Fierral, Ayrlyn, Nylan, and Dyliess. Dyliess dozed in the carrypack on Nylan's chest although, he reflected, she was already growing too big for it, and her upper body half sprawled out of the pouch and across Nylan's chest. He patted his daughter's back gently.
The two fat candles on the table created a circle of dim light that barely included the table and those around it.
In the gloom, Nylan glanced across the table at Ayrlyn, her hair still damp from the shower she had taken immediately upon her return from her latest trading/scouting venture. She returned his glance with a faint smile, then turned toward Ryba, and began to speak.
With his free left hand, Nylan idly brushed the bread crumbs off the table as he listened, ignoring the creaks of the crickets that had begun to invade the tower.
"There's nothing absolute yet, except that Lord Sillek has either just begun to move his army, or that he will shortly. Everyone seems certain that he is getting reinforcements from the Lord of Gallos, and that the Lord of Jerans has sent gold and a pledge of peace." Ayrlyn took a sip of cold tea from her mug, then set it back on the table.
"In effect, we have three local kingdoms determined to wipe us out, just because we've armed some women and given others a place to flee to." Ryba laughed harshly. "It's wonderful to be so well liked."
"Giving women an option is radical, even revolutionary, in this culture. It has been in most noncold-climate cultures," pointed out Ayrlyn. "People with power don't like change. Just by existing, we're creating change."
"We'll keep doing it," said Ryba, asking, after a moment, "How did you do with your trading?"
"Trading-not that well. The word is out everywhere. We couldn't trade for much. All the traders felt we should be paying double or triple." Ayrlyn gave a half smile as if she were anticipating the next question.
"But the carts were full," said Fierral, as if on cue.
"Peasant women, herders' women, even a trader's consort-they gave me things. There are linens, bandages, salves, and food-all in small packages. There are even coppers and silvers."
"You can't tell me that every woman in Candar is praying for us," said Saryn.
"Hardly," answered Ayrlyn. "Some in the small towns, places without names, spat at us. Some towns closed their shutters. But we must have traveled through ten towns." She shrugged. "Figure two women a town and every tenth herder's woman, and those who gave were generous. We had to keep ahead of reports that would have sent a large force of armsmen after us. The locals wouldn't dare."
"Any other word on Lord Sillek?" asked Ryba.
Dyliess murmured, and Nylan patted her back.
"There are plenty of rumors. He's hired score ten mercenaries from someplace called Lydiar. He's raised score fifty armsmen in levies. Lord Karthanos is sending score forty armsmen and siege engines. The Jeranyi women will ride against the evil angels-"
"Forget that one," Ryba suggested. "There won't be a woman in those forces. Not a one."
"-a dozen wizards will join Lord Sillek. Not a single wizard will oppose the angels. For almost every rumor, there's one on the other side."
"Wizards? They can be nasty," pointed out Saryn, "especially if there are a lot with this Lord Sillek."
"According to Relyn," Nylan pointed out, "good wizards are rare. One thing that's kept all of Sillek's enemies from overwhelming him has been the fact that he had three. One we killed. That leaves two. I'd guess we'll face both, and I doubt anyone else will risk lending their wizards."
"Two wizards, and up to two thousand troops. We've got sixty bodies-not guards, just warm bodies, one sort of wizard"-Fierral nods toward Nylan-"a few gadgets, and one laser good for a very short time. I can't say any objective assessment of our situation would give us much of a chance."
Ryba's glance turned to Nylan. "How is your work coming?"
"The pikes have been the hard part, even without iron tips. Tomorrow we should finish the first line up on the ridge. Two more days should see the second line done. The laser emplacement walls are complete, and we can have the laser in place almost in moments."
"What exactly are your defensive surprises?" asked Fierral. "You only test them when it's raining or in the darkness."
"That's because of something Relyn said. Narliat mentioned it earlier. I'd forgotten, though. Ryba knows." Nylan looked at the marshal.
She shrugged.
"These wizards seem to know a lot. Relyn says that some have a special mirrorlike glass and that they can see events through it. They can't do it well in the dark or through running water. Rain is running water." He cleared his throat and patted Dyliess again. "What's up there are what I'd call automatic pikes. When I pull a cord, they'll snap up into place."
"That means someone will have to be up there," pointed out Fierral.
"That's one reason why there are two lines," answered Nylan. "There's about thirty cubits from the rise to the first row. I checked the line of sight, and you can't see the posts until you pass the crest. Now, if they charge quickly, then a bunch of them are going to get spitted. If they go slowly, they'll have to stop, and that should make them good targets for arrows." He shrugged. "I know it means four to eight guards will be exposed, but they can lie flat behind the posts until they trigger them. After that, I really don't think, if they hurry back to the second line and trigger those, that anyone will be paying attention to them."
"How well do these work?"
"So far, every time." Nylan gave a sardonic smile. "That means something will go wrong when it counts. Even if one or two don't work, it's going to slow them down a lot and allow you to pump a lot more shafts into them."
Fierral nodded. "I can see that. I hope that we can get maximum impact from everything."
"When will they get here?" asked Saryn.
"Sometime in the next three to five days, I'd guess," answered Ryba. "Unlike the bandits, or Gerlich, this won't be a sneak attack. They'll attempt to move in mass and not get picked off piece by piece."
"Why?" questioned Saryn.
"Because they don't have high-tech communications. Everything's line of sight or sound."
"What are we going to do?" asked Nylan.
"That's simple," snapped Fierral. "Shoot a lot of arrows from cover as they advance. That's so they stay bunched up and use those little shields. Then we'll form up out of their bow range and try to delay them so the entire attacking force is concentrated on the tower side of the ridge. After that, we hope you and the laser, and anything else you can come up with, can incinerate most of them. Otherwise, we're dead, and so is Westwind."
"I think Fierral has stated our basic strategy clearly," said Ryba. "Is there anything else?"
After a long silence, she stood.
Ayrlyn looked at Nylan, giving him the faintest of headshakes. He offered a small nod in return.
As the silence continued, punctuated by the crickets, the others rose, Nylan the last of all as he eased off the bench slowly, trying not to wake Dyliess.
Nylan and Ryba walked up to the top level of the tower without speaking. Ryba closed the door, and Nylan eased Dyliess out of the carrypack and into the cradle.
Later, in the darkness, as he rocked the cradle gently, Nylan asked, "Even if we win-"
"We will win," Ryba snapped, "if we just do what we can."
"Fine. Then what? The laser's gone. Probably half the guards or more will be gone. What happens with the next attack?"
"There won't be one."
"Why do you say that? We've been attacked for almost two solid years. What would change that?" He tried to keep the cradle rocking evenly. "You're the one who tells me that force wins, and that people keep trying."
Ryba shrugged. "After the destruction of the combined army of three local nations, who could afford to even suggest another attack immediately? And if he did, how could he be sure that his enemies wouldn't find his undefended lands easier pickings?"
"Sooner or later, someone will try."
"Three years from now, Westwind will have a considerable army of its own, with alliances and a treasury."
Nylan shook his head, glad Ryba did not have his night vision.
"Don't doubt me on this, Nylan. I'm not saying it won't be costly, or that it will be easy. I am saying that we can win. And that it will be worth it, because no one in our lifetime will try again-if we do it right."
Dyliess snuffled, then settled into a deeper sleep, and Nylan slowly eased the cradle to a stop. Before long, it seemed, she'd be too big for the cradle. He wondered if he'd see that day. Ryba had said Westwind would prevail. That didn't mean he would, and he wasn't about to ask-not now. He wondered if he really wanted to know-or feared the answer.
He eased into his separate couch, looking past Ryba's open eyes to the cold stars above the western peaks.
CXXIII
NYLAN RAISED THE hammer and let it fall, cutting yet another arrowhead, knowing that it might not matter, but not knowing what else he could do while they waited for the ponderous advance of the Lornian forces. Not that one more arrowhead probably ever made a difference in a big battle, except to the man it killed.
He lifted the hammer, and let it fall, lifted, and let fall, and as he did, from the smithy, he could see the constant flow of messengers and scouts, tracking the oncoming force and reporting to Ryba and Fierral or Saryn.
As he set the iron into the forge to reheat, the triangle rang, twice, then twice again.
"That's it, ser," announced Huldran. "Time to make ready."
"Ready for what?" Nylan hadn't paid that much attention to the signal codes. Two and two, he thought, meant the arrival of Sillek's force in the general area.
"The scouts and the pick-off efforts." Huldran set down the hammer and the hot set she had been working with and racked both. Nylan followed her example with his tools. It wouldn't hurt to check on his pike arrays and make sure all the laser components were ready to set up.
After banking the fire, as he left the smithy, he glanced at the afternoon sky, with the scattered thunderclouds of late summer rising over the peaks. Surely, the Lornians wouldn't attack late in the afternoon?
He headed down to the tower. When he started across the causeway, he looked up to see Ayrlyn waiting by the door.
"The end of the golden age," she said ironically.
"What?" Her words halted him in his steps. "What do you mean by that?"
Her brown eyes seemed to flash that dark blue shade, and then her lips quirked. "If the angels win, then women will throw off their shackles, and men will see the past as the golden age. If we lose, why then, we will have been that bright shining age forever aborted by the cruelty and stupidity of men." Her tone turned from faintly ironic to bitterly sardonic. "I think that's the party line."
Nylan thought for a moment. "I suppose that is the official line. The problem is that it's got a lot of truth within it, especially on this planet."
Ayrlyn gestured to the causeway wall. "Why don't you sit down? They really don't have any use for a healer who loses her guts when they kill someone, or for an engineer who'd rather build than kill. Not today. Tomorrow they'll need us both."
Nylan hoisted himself up on the low wall. "I haven't seen you this bitter, I don't think ever."
"I haven't been." She paused while she climbed onto the wall. "I'm tired, Nylan. I'm tired of having to heal people because no one can ever solve anything except with force. I'm tired of being thought of as some sort of weakling because killing men upsets me. Frig it! Killing anything upsets me. It's just that a lot more men have been killed around here lately."
"That's true."
"I'm tired of traveling and trading, and seeing women with terror in their eyes, seeing women barely more than girls pregnant and not much more than brood mares. Ryba may be right, that force applied in large enough quantities is the only solution, but I'm tired of it."
"So am I," Nylan said, almost without thinking. "And I'm tired because nothing is enough. More arrowheads, more blades, more violence. And what happens? We've got one of the biggest armies in this culture's history marching after us. And if we do manage to destroy it? What then?"
"Why . . . everything will be roses and good crops and strong healthy baby girls, won't it?" Ayrlyn sighed. "And warm fires, and good meals, and smithies and sawmills and .. . and . . . and .. ."
"Of course. Isn't that the way the story's supposed to end?"
Ayrlyn laughed, harshly. "Frig . . . frig, frig ... the story never ends. People fight, and fight, and fight. If you win, you have to keep fighting so others won't take it away. If you lose and survive, you have to fight to live and to regain what you lost. Why?"
"Because nothing is ever enough," Nylan said harshly. "We talked about this before."
"And nothing ever changes?"
"Not yet. Not that I've been able to figure out."
"Nylan . . . ?"
"Yes."
"If we get through this, can we try to change things . . . so it's not just fight, fight, fight?"
He nodded.
"You promise?"
"Promise."
For a time, they sat there silently, hands clasped, watching the departures and the hurrying guards, until Kadran came out and rang the triangle to announce supper for those few left in Tower Black.