The Seven-Petaled Shield Read online

  A man in the striped head garb of a Sand Lands caravaneer was pleading with a guard. He slipped one hand into the folds of his belt and brought out something Tsorreh could not see. “A family treasure,” he said. “I would not part with it to any lesser man. It is one of the fabled alvara—the enchanted gems from Khored’s own Shield. Yes, yes, hidden away all these centuries. It holds the key to undreamed power. But what are riches compared to the love of one’s children? Seventeen little ones and their mothers! How will they survive without me? I must get to Gatacinne on the Isarran coast, and quickly!”

  One of Tsorreh’s maids exclaimed in dismay, quickly hushed by the other, “Is the situation so desperate? Must we all flee for our lives?”

  Tsorreh had not the heart to scold her. Perhaps she ought to release the girl from service, to find whatever fragile comfort might lie with her own family.

  As Tsorreh expected, the guard shook his head and gestured the trader back with the others. Every few years, some merchant claimed to have discovered one of the alvara, the magical petal-shaped gemstones of the Shield. Tsorreh was of the line of the great king himself, but had never heard of such an heirloom. The centuries had obscured the lineage of Khored’s brothers. The descendants of the original Benerod were long gone, and those of Eriseth had disappeared a generation ago. The fate of the Shield was so shrouded in mystery, some now claimed the alvara had never existed except as mystical symbols. If they were real, Tsorreh thought, they would certainly not be bargained away so casually at the hands of a Sand Lands trader. Those offered for sale were usually ordinary gems, topaz or quartz or poor-quality emerald.

  Tsorreh found Zevaron in the practice field outside the armory, surrounded by a group of children. Part of the area had been tented over for an infirmary. The soldiers there looked to be not so badly injured; a few of them were exercising.

  She paused a short distance away and noticed that Zevaron’s group included several girls. One was about her son’s age, silent and lanky, with tiny bones tied to her single thick braid. Some of the boys were as young as seven or eight, for the teenagers had already been conscripted for heavier tasks. Most wore the clothing and rough sandals of goat herders, but a few were clearly city children, although barefoot. She supposed that even a beggar child could kill a rat with a sling.

  Zevaron had not yet seen her. His expression was intent and animated as he spoke. Instead of armor, he wore a long fitted vest, belted at the waist over loose trousers and suede ankle boots. He raised his arms to gesture, his skin smooth and taut over muscles she had not noticed before. For a terrifying instant, Tsorreh saw that same golden skin slashed by Gelonian swords and washed in blood.

  Her heart ached. She pressed one hand over her breast, willing herself to silence. No hint of her own fear must show.

  Zevaron’s gaze met hers. An expression she could not read flickered over his features, solemn and distant. As she approached, he bowed formally to her, as an officer to his te-ravah. The herder children watched with open mouths.

  “You’ve done a fine job with them,” she said.

  “They need something they can do, not just wait helplessly while their fathers fight.”

  And die, he meant.

  “They will become a generation of heroes,” she said. “We must all turn ballad makers to sing their praises.”

  He smiled outright now, like sun breaking through clouds. In that moment, she realized why she had sought him out, how much she needed to imprint the sound of his voice and the light in his eyes upon her heart. Zevaron the babe and later the boy were already engraved there, as indelible as her own name. It was Zevaron the young man she needed to remember. In the hours and days to come, they might not meet. She might never see him again.

  The moment stretched on, overlong. Zevaron looked away. He was still at an age to shrink from emotional scenes. Tsorreh held out her hands and, with a little movement of resignation, he reached out his own. Instead of taking him into her arms, she clasped his forearms, holding him at a distance.

  Something in the physical contact shredded her detachment. Her eyes stung. There was so much she wanted to say: prayers, blessings, expressions of love and grief and a mother’s worry. With an effort, she held them all back.

  Zevaron nodded, looking even more a grown man than ever. To Tsorreh’s relief, he offered no empty assurances. In this, they understood one another.

  She drew herself up, releasing him. He bowed again to her, and at that moment, shouting came from the direction of the walls. The moment shattered. They were no longer mother and son, but a te-ravah with responsibilities of her own, and a ravot on the brink of battle.

  * * *

  That night and the next, after the Gelon had withdrawn to their earthworks, Maharrad, his general, and his senior captains walked the walls. Ignoring the scandalized whispers of the court ladies, Tsorreh went with them and without her whimpering, fearful attendants. Otenneh was the only one of her retinue with any fortitude, and she was too old to go climbing about the ramparts.

  The Gelonian earthworks crept closer every time Tsorreh looked out at them. It seemed impossible the city could hold out five days, or even three, but she kept her fears to herself. Each morning and evening, she visited the wounded and stood at her husband’s side as he addressed his fighting forces. Yet, as the hours stretched on, Meklavar held fast.

  Another day.

  Nightfall like the tolling of a knell.

  Two.

  Again, the slow creep of dusk.

  Three.

  A week.

  Each day became a dance of advance and retreat. Shortly after dawn, the Gelonian infantry advanced upon the walls, only to be thrown back under the hail of arrows and stones. The Meklavaran cavalry rode out to attack the mining pits. On the second week, they set fire to the supply of timber the Gelon had gathered to brace their underground shafts. There was celebration in the city that night, but the next day, the Gelon brought up more supplies and began again. With each foray, fewer Meklavaran defenders returned.

  Early in the third week, Tsorreh found Zevaron among the wounded. He lay on a pallet in the tented area of the lower city, among those not yet moved up to the meklat. In the uncertain torchlight, his face was dusky, streaked with something dark. Blood or smoke or mud, she could not tell. She threw herself to her knees and reached out to take him in her arms. Then she saw the rise of his chest. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Water!” she called to the nearest aide. “Bring me water!”

  The boy brought a bucket with a little scummy water at the bottom. Tsorreh dipped the hem of her tunic into it and wiped her son’s face. He murmured as she ran the cloth over his lips. The dark smears were not blood, at least not his own. He groaned. His eyelids fluttered open.

  Tsorreh sat back, trailing the wet, filthy edge of her tunic between her hands. Breath swept through her; she had not realized that she was holding it.

  “Of all the stupid—” His eyes widened when he saw her. He sat up.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No, just stunned.” Wincing, he got to his feet. “They singled me out because I was riding Shorrenon’s horse.”

  “You must rest,” she said, reaching out to restrain him.

  He placed his hands on hers, gently drawing them away. She sensed his resolve, his certainty that if he did not fight to his utmost now, there might never be another time for any of them. She had the same feeling herself. She could not spare herself merely because she was weary. She let him go.

  By the end of the third week, the Gelonian earthworks were even closer to the walls.

  Tsorreh went to confer with Councillor Anthelon, to finish assigning temporary quarters for the families from the lower city. Maharrad had given her the task of housing refugees as well as residents. She and Anthelon sat together at a little table in the corner of the council chamber. One of the maid-attendants sat nearby, sewing. Tsorreh frowned as she compared her map with a list of the possible buildings, includin
g the houses of the noble families, marking how many people she’d already assigned to each one.

  “Twenty more can go here and here,” she said, pointing to the map.

  “Cassarod will object,” Anthelon said. “They’ve already sheltered more than we originally asked. There aren’t enough beds, or even blankets, to go around. These people will be sleeping on the floor in the sculleries, hallways—”

  “Or the mountain tunnels, if need be!” Tsorreh snapped. Fatigue and anxiety had eroded her patience. “What else can we do? Leave them below?” That very morning, she’d overheard the officers talking about the treatment they might receive when the defenses failed. Even a disciplined army might go on a rampage once they’d overcome heated resistance.

  Tsorreh sighed. “Somehow we will find room for them.”

  Anthelon gathered up his papers and record books and departed. A few minutes later, the clamor of running footsteps and shouting brought Tsorreh up sharply. She went to the door and flung it open. The household guard jumped to attention. The noise grew louder, a roar like a storm ravening from the peaks, but it came from the direction of the lower city.

  Benerod, her husband’s young aide, came running from the direction of the front doors.

  “What is it?” she called to him. “What’s going on?”

  He slowed his steps, stammering in terror. “They’ve b-broken through! They’re c-coming!”

  The maid-attendant reeled in her chair. “Don’t you dare faint!” Tsorreh snapped.

  Tsorreh rushed to the balcony, where she could see a little of the lower city. Through the partly opened gates and spreading into the nearby streets, a mass of men churned up billows of dust. The bright midmorning sun shone on Gelonian spear points.

  Enemy soldiers poured into the lower city. Tsorreh spotted Maharrad on his white horse and Zevaron on Shorrenon’s gray, struggling to rally soldiers and townspeople.

  “Te-ravah?”

  Tsorreh turned around at the sound of the boy’s voice. He stood on the threshold of the open door, chest heaving, eyes wide. He looked very young.

  “Benerod, what happened? How did this come about?”

  “They—they—” He straightened his small slender shoulders. “Our men rode out as they have before, to attack the place where the Gelon were digging. Suddenly their spearmen jumped out from the ditches. They were waiting for us! They charged us! We rushed to meet them. Then their chariots came! The onagers breathed out fire like dragons, and a demon strode in the fore, scourging them with whips of lightning!”

  Fire-breathing onagers? Demonic chariot-drivers? The lad clearly had the makings of a storyteller, to have added such embellishments. Tsorreh had read of similar terrors in the holy texts. Had such creatures ever existed, beyond the imaginations of children and poets? Dragons and demons did not make war in the current age, certainly not in the service of the Gelon.

  Seeing her look of disbelief, the boy paused. “Their archers fired but fell short. Before our men could turn their horses around, they shot another volley. We tried to stop them, but they drove on, to the city gates…” His young voice broke.

  The maid-attendant had not fainted but was pale and visibly trembling. She gripped the sides of her chair, her needlework in a tumble at her feet. Tsorreh told Benerod to see the girl back to her chamber. She must remember to speak to Maharrad about the boy. If there was ever again a time to discuss the future of bright young aides. If there was time to talk at all.

  Tsorreh hurried through the palace to the front doors. One of the household guards, seeing her without attendants, followed her. Outside, a stream of refugees from the lower city milled about the courtyard with officials and meklat residents, palace servants and soldiers. It was so crowded, she could hardly move. The guard caught up with her and shouldered them aside, clearing a path. Tsorreh decided he was much more useful than a fainting, whimpering maid.

  Aided by the guard, Tsorreh climbed to the wall beside the arched gates. Zevaron’s sling-throwing youngsters had taken up their positions. White-faced, they readied their stones.

  Fires had broken out in the wooden structures below. People rushed up the stairs to the upper city. Tsorreh shouted for them to hurry, to keep moving. A young woman struggled on, supporting a white-bearded elder with one arm and holding a baby in the other. Two old women in widow’s robes clutched each other, weeping, as they climbed with painful slowness. A fat man with a crutch remained at the bottom of the stairs, urging the others on.

  Tsorreh searched through the confusion for Maharrad’s white horse. She spotted him at the center of a force opposing a mass of Gelonian spearmen. The closeness of the streets forced the Gelon to come at them a few at a time, but the Meklavaran horses had little room to maneuver.

  He cannot hold them, she thought.

  Moment by moment, the city’s defenders fell back. The Gelon spread out, taking the smaller streets and alleys. The morning sun glinted on the points of their spears and the rims of their shields. They kept close ranks, each man protecting the weaker side of his fellow. When they encountered a cluster of Meklavaran defenders, they tightened their ranks like a wall. They moved forward, sometimes halting behind raised shields but never drawing back.

  Ignorant as she was in the ways of battle, Tsorreh realized that Maharrad’s own success worked against him. While he held back the main body of the enemy, they were encircling him. Any moment now, they would cut off his line of retreat.

  There was nothing she could do to warn him, no way she could save those brave, desperate men: Meklavaran soldiers, few of them professional, and city folk—merchants, carpenters, smiths, herders. They had no hope against that shining wall of Gelonian shields.

  And Zevaron. She could not see the gray horse anywhere in the smoke and dust.

  A horn sounded. A Meklavaran horn? Yes. The pattern, the very timbre of the notes were etched into her memory. Retreat.

  Street by street, Maharrad and his company fought to give the people of the lower city precious extra moments to reach the stairs. With a roar, the Gelonian soldiers rushed forward.

  Through a rent in the smoke, Tsorreh glimpsed the gray horse, rearing, caught in perfect balance. She thought she saw a flash of brilliance reflected off a sword, but that might only have been the sudden blurring of her eyes.

  The horns sounded again. The riders wheeled and raced for the stairs. The horses surged upward, slipping and clattering over the stone steps. A moment later, they rushed through the gates. Maharrad raised his sword in salute as his horse galloped past.

  The last of the fighting men reached the meklat even as the Gelon set foot on the first stairs. The gates slammed shut.

  Tsorreh closed her eyes, momentarily overcome by the thought of the people trapped below.

  O Most Holy, be with them now!

  The Gelon kept on, rushing up the stairs. They no longer moved in formation, but individually. A few outstripped their comrades.

  Thwack! Thwack!

  Stones hurtled from the slings of Zevaron’s youngsters. The nearest Gelonian soldier fell backward, hands raised to his face. His body crashed into two soldiers on the step below him and all three went down, sliding and flailing. Before the Gelon could regroup, a volley of arrows and stones struck the foremost. They fell back in disarray.

  Horses, wounded men, and families from the lower city jammed the outer courtyard. The palace steward came forward and began directing the refugees to shelter. Residents of the meklat emerged from their homes, enfolding the people from the lower city. Tsorreh recognized some of them. The woman in the brocade head scarf, bending to pick up a howling toddler and speak encouragingly to the mother, was the wife of the treasury warden. Many who had reached the meklat earlier in the siege came forward to help.

  “Come this way.”

  “Quickly now! Make room for the others!”

  “Are you hurt? Who among you needs help?”

  Benerod darted up to Maharrad just as the King swayed in the saddle. For
a heart-stopping moment, Tsorreh feared her husband would fall. Was he hurt, unconscious? She turned to climb down from the wall, and when she glanced his way again, he was sitting upright, drinking from a silver cup.

  Tsorreh darted through an opening in the crowd and rushed to her husband’s side. Around her, people murmured, “It’s the te-ravah!” and let her pass. Maharrad saw her and smiled, but his face was drawn, his expression tightly set.

  “Are you wounded, my husband?” she began, and then saw the trickle of blood from beneath the leather armor covering his thigh.

  “Benerod!” she cried. “Get a physician, quickly!”

  “No!” Maharrad said. “There are many in greater need. The wound is not deep. Ten years ago, I would have gone running after the Gelon, sword in hand, after such a trifling cut.” He sighed, an old man’s sigh.

  Maharrad tilted in his saddle and this time, Tsorreh reached up to him. Too late, she realized that if he fell, she could not support his weight. The next instant, Zevaron was at her side, gently easing his father out of the saddle.

  “That’s a good lad,” Maharrad murmured. “Now, if you’ll just…” He slumped. Zevaron slipped his shoulder under Maharrad’s arm, and Tsorreh took his other elbow.

  “We must get him inside,” Tsorreh said in a low voice. “I will care for him myself.”

  Chapter Three

  TSORREH bathed and dressed Maharrad’s wound herself. She rinsed it with boiled tincture of feverbane, wrapped it in clean, finely woven cotton, and prayed it would not go bad. He had been right, it was neither deep nor dangerous in itself, but at his age, a festering infection would finish him quickly. Benerod watched her every move, chewing on his lower lip, until Maharrad sent the boy down to the walls with a message for the officers that he would join them shortly.

  As Maharrad struggled to his feet, Tsorreh confronted her husband. “Will you accomplish your own death, when the Gelon could not? Are you determined to finish what they began?”

  “My place is below, with my soldiers. The people, they must see me—see me lead.”