Banewreaker(73)

"Retreat?" Lilias raised her brows.

"Aye." Her Ward Commander nodded his grizzled head. "Once the wall is surmounted, my lady, we've nothing to fall back upon but Beshtanag itself."

"They will come, Gergon." Lilias held his gaze. "It won't come to it."

"As you say, my lady." He glanced at the Soumanië on her brow, and some of the tension left his stocky frame. He nodded again, smiling. "As you say! I'll have the lads in the quarry work overtime. You'll have as much stone as you need, and more."

"I will hold the wall, Gergon."

"You will." He nodded at her brow, smiled. "Yes, you will, my lady."

Lilias sighed as he left on his errand, her skin itching beneath her clothes in the heat. Where was Pietre with the cool sponge to soothe her temples? He should have been here by now. There he was, hurrying down the pathway from the fortress and lugging a bucket of well-water, Sarika behind him struggling with a half-opened parasol. The collars of their servitude glinted in the Beshtanagi sunlight, evoking an echoing throb from the Soumanië. Her mouth curved in a tender smile. So sweet, her pretty ones!

She wondered if they understood what was at stake.

She wondered if she did.

Calandor?

Yes, Lilias?

Satoris will keep his word, won't he?

There was a silence, then, a longer pause than she cared to endure.

Yes, Lilias, the dragon said, and there was sorrow in it. He will.

Why sorrow? She did not know, and her blood ran cold at it. Teams of grunting men moved boulders into place. Granite, the grey granite of Beshtanag, mica-flecked and solid. The raw bones of the mountain; her home for so many long years, the bulwark that sheltered her people. Now that events had been set irrevocably in motion, the thought of risking Beshtanag made her want to weep for the folly of it.

Beshtanag was her haven, and she was responsible for preserving it, and for the safety of her people. All she could do was pledge everything to its defense. Lilias closed her eyes, entered the raw stone and Shaped it, feeling granite flow like water. Upward, upward it flowed, melding with its kinstone. A handspan of wall—two handspans, five—rose another foot, settled into smoothness.

Doubling over, Lilias panted. Despite the patting sponge, the Soumanië was like a boulder on her brow, and there was so much, so much to be done!

And where were Lord Satoris' messengers?



THE TRACKER WAS RIGHT, TURIN discovered when he relented. The mud did help. It itched as it dried, though, forming a crackling veneer on his face and arms. Best to keep it wet, easily enough done as they slogged through water ankle-deep at the best of times, and waist-deep more often than not. Easiest to strip to the skin to do it, and more comfortable in the Delta's heat. Turin kept his short-breeches for modesty's sake. Little else, save the pack on his back and his waterlogged boots. At night, whether they perched in mangrove branches or found a dry hummock of land, he had to peel the soft, slick leather from his calves and feet, fearful of what rot festered inside.

It stank, of mud and sweat and rotting vegetation.

And the worst of it… the worst of it was the desire.

It made no sense, no sense at all. Why here, amid the muck and squalor? And yet, there it was. Desire, fecund and insistent. It beat in his pulse like a drum, it swelled and hardened his flesh, it made the hair at the back of his neck tingle.

"This is his birthing-place." Hunric turned back to him and grinned, his teeth very white in the mud-smeared mask of his face. He spread his arms wide. "Do you feel it, Turin? His Gift lingers, here!"

"You've swamp-fever, man." Turin shoved his hair back from his brow, streaking it with muck. "Lord Satoris' Gift was lost when Oronin Last-Born plunged Godslayer into his thigh."

"Was it?" The tracker turned slowly, arms outspread. "This was the place, Turin. It all began here! Look." His voice dropped to a whisper and he reached for his crude spear with the tip hardened by fire. "A slow-lizard."

Turin watched, fighting despair and desire as Hunric the tracker stalked and killed one of the meaty, slow-moving denizens of the Delta. They were good eating, the slow-lizards. Mantuas, whooping and shouting in the chase, had been the first to suggest it, roasting the white meat over a fire that had taken ages to kindle. It was all different, now.

"What?" Hunric, gnawing at his prey, stared at him.

"Beshtanag," Turin whispered. "Hunric, we have to get to Beshtanag!"

"Do we?" For a moment, the tracker looked confused. "Oh, right!" The febrile light in his eyes cleared and he lowered the slow-lizard's carcass, blinking. "Beshtanag. It lies east, northward and east. We're on the route, Turin."