Arms-Commander

XV

Right after morning muster on the causeway outside Tower Black, Saryn hurried up the stone road to the smithy. While the starflowers at the edge of the fields were almost in full bloom, before long they would be lost in the grasses, leaving only the tall and individual stalks of the bloodflowers in easy sight. Behind Saryn, the junior guards moved to the lower exercise field and took their positions for the morning arms drills. Even the handful of older women who would never be guards took part in the basic drills, both for reasons of fitness and in case of undetected marauders, or the white demons forbid, an attack on Westwind itself.

Saryn pushed aside that thought as she reached the smithy.

The forges were hot enough already that the building was more than comfortably warm when Saryn stepped under the stone lintel of the entry door. Huldran had just set down her hammer as Ydrall returned something to the forge to reheat.

“How is the bow project coming?” asked Saryn.

“We’ve tested the new bow against the composite ones,” offered Huldran.

“And?”

“Why don’t you go see? Falynna just left with the second one to try it out at the range.”

Saryn could sense a certain satisfaction from the smith. Was the horn bow just somewhat better than the short yew bows, or was it equal to the composite bows Nylan had forged? Or equal to a long yew bow? Or somewhere in between? “You’re pleased.”

“I’m hopeful,” replied Huldran. “It was more work than we thought, but Falynna figured it out.”

Saryn managed not to frown. They didn’t need weapons that took forever to forge or fabricate. “That sounds like a lot of effort for just one bow.”

Huldran shook her head. “If it works, it won’t be that hard to produce a goodly number of bows each year. Figuring out how to do it was the problem.”

“Let’s hope it works out.” Saryn turned, walking swiftly out of the smithy and continuing up the road. A narrow gully was forming on the left side of the road, caused by snowmelt runoff. The junior guards would have to build up the outside edge of the runoff channel. Some hundred yards uphill from the smithy, Saryn followed the narrow stone path westward until she reached the archery range. A sandy-haired guard stood at the edge of the range.

“I thought you were following me,” said Falynna, a stocky and muscular guard whose head barely reached to Saryn’s shoulder. “So I waited.”

“That’s the bow?” Saryn studied the double-curved weapon.

“That it is, Commander. And a sweet weapon she is, almost as good as the mage-made weapons, and better for us, I think, because we can make more like her.”

“How quickly?”

“That’s the one problem. This one took over a year. We can get enough horn and sinew for fifty to a hundred every year, but the setting time should be almost a year.”

Saryn winced. More bows next year wouldn’t help deal with Arthanos now. Still…a number of good bows would make a big difference over time. “So we could equip all the guards in the next four or five years.”

“I would think so.” Falynna extended the already-strung bow. “Would you like to try?”

“No, thank you. You’re far better with the bow.”

“Then we’ll see.” Falynna gestured uphill toward the figure made of twisted branches in the form of a mounted armsman. The upper part was securely fitted with mail breastplate and helmet. She lifted the bow, nocked the shaft, drew, and fired in a single smooth motion.

Saryn saw and sensed the shaft slam through the middle of the breastplate.

Falynna half turned. “Through the plate at a hundred yards. Now, we’ll see about two hundred.” The archer walked westward, down the slight slope.

Saryn walked with her. At a marker post, Falynna stopped and turned.

Saryn looked back up the long grassy slope. The target figure seemed so small, yet Falynna thought she could not only hit the target, but possibly penetrate the iron breastplate.

The archer loosed another shaft that arced uphill, then slashed downward with enough force that the entire target shivered as the arrowhead cut through the iron of the breastplate.

“That’ll do.” Falynna’s words were matter-of-fact.

“We won’t be in many places where we’ll have a clear line of fire for more than that.”

“That’s true. It’s not like the grasslands,” observed Falynna. “We will need arrows with longer shafts with these bows. I couldn’t use a full draw because the shaft wasn’t long enough.”

Strike harder than penetrating plate at two hundred yards? “How far?”

“Farther than I can aim accurately. Close to four hundred yards.”

“You’ve done a great job,” Saryn said. “You and Huldran. Mostly you, I believe.”

“Huldran did help, with the core,” replied Falynna, “and with the glue. We can’t get enough fish for fish glue. Huldran found a way to combine rabbit skin, hide, and resin from the dwarf blue pines into something that doesn’t dissolve in water once it sets.”

“We’ll need as many as you two can make,” said Saryn.

“I figured as much, ser.”

“Thank you.” The arms-commander turned from Falynna and began to walk back up the slope. In time, the bows would make a huge difference, but would they have that time?

After leaving the archery range, Saryn took the path farther uphill to the quarries beyond the stables-a squarish area cut from hard reddish rock. The red stone was not quite so hard as the black granite from which Nylan had carved out the building stones for Tower Black, carefully enough that the pillared spaces he had left still served as Westwind’s stables.

As Saryn neared the quarry, the sound of hammers, those of guards working down in the quarry and the measured blows of a stonecutter nearer to Saryn, grew louder. At the northeast edge of the quarry, Saryn stood in the shadows of the cliff, watching Siret as the healer, who was also a stonecutter, worked. The blackness that had surrounded Nylan when he had worked either stone or iron gathered around Siret as well, if not quite so intensely as it had around the engineer. On the other hand, Saryn had the feeling that Siret’s techniques with the hammer and chisels were more deft. But then, she’d had more time to practice than Nylan had when Saryn had last observed the engineer years ago.

Abruptly, Siret set down the hammer and looked toward the shadows.

Saryn stepped forward across the cut-stone lip of the quarry to where Saryn stood.

“Do you need something, ser?” asked Siret.

“I was just observing,” said Saryn. “You’re working the stone the way the engineer did, maybe even better.”

“I don’t think so, ser,” replied Siret, not looking directly at the commander, but not actually looking away, either.

“I do. I’ve seen you both.” Saryn let the silence hang between them for a moment. “You’ve never said anything about it.”

“What is there to say?” Siret lifted the hammer, struck the chisel, and an improbably long wedge of stone split away from the block. She turned the stone on the flat ledge she was using as a work surface, then struck again. In what seemed moments, a dressed stone rested there.

Two guards immediately hurried over from where they were stacking rough blocks and carried the dressed stone to the wagon that waited at the end of the road up from the stables.

“Just as Nylan built Tower Black,” Saryn said, “you’ll build the rest of Westwind.”

“I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for a safe future for Kyalynn. That means a bigger stronghold. That takes stones and healthy women.” Siret waited as the two guards returned and lugged a rough oblong of stone up and set it on the ledge.

After the guards had walked down into the quarry to fetch more rough blocks, Saryn asked, “What do you think about Dealdron?”

“His leg is healing. Your guards did a good job of splinting it.”

“That wasn’t what I meant. You’re one of the few who can sense…you know what I mean. Will he fit into Ryba’s plans, do you think?”

“You can tell if people tell the truth, Commander.”

“Feelings are harder for me.”

Siret looked at the woman who had been a UFA command pilot. “Weren’t they always, ser?”

“You’re suggesting something.” Saryn offered a grin.

“To heal or work metal or stone…you have to feel. If you let yourself feel too much, you lose your effectiveness as a commander and a warrior, like the engineer did.”

Saryn hadn’t seen that Nylan had lost much effectiveness, not until after he’d destroyed thousands, then conveniently collapsed. “That may be, but what about Dealdron?”

“He’ll work out fine if you don’t ignore him.” Siret emphasized the “you” just slightly.

“Why me?”

“He believes in earned loyalty. You’ve earned it. So far, no one else has.”

Saryn didn’t care for the implications of Siret’s words, but she had to accept what the healer sensed and knew. “Have you talked to him about building techniques?”

“He knows some things we don’t. He’s also afraid that he wasn’t that good a plasterer and that we’ll find that out.”

“Since we don’t know anything about it, that might be difficult.” Saryn’s words were dry. “But don’t mention that to him.”

“I didn’t, but he knows enough that he’ll find out.”

“That can’t be helped, can it?” Saryn laughed. “He’ll figure it out anyway if he hasn’t already. There’s not any plasterwork anywhere in Westwind. He’ll see that, sooner or later.”

Siret replied with a half smile.

“Can you teach anyone else to cut stones the way you do?”

“None of the locals…Oh, they can handle the hammer and chisel, but they don’t sense where to strike and at the right angles. Daerona is a decent mason and a stone setter.” Siret paused. “The one who’s likely to be the best is Aemra. She likes it, and she comes up here and helps me in the afternoons.”

“She’s barely ten.”

“She’s better at it than anyone else.”

“Does Ryba know?”

“She may, but I haven’t told her. Neither has Istril. Istril’d be just as happy to have her daughter as a stonecutter. Aemra’s also artistic.” Siret walked to the end of the rock shelf, where she bent down and lifted an oblong of stone.

Saryn swallowed. The front side bore a sculpted face-that of Istril, although the hair was barely roughed in place, as was the neck. Even so, Istril’s grace-and something else, perhaps a trace of the pain that seemed to go with healing-was embodied in the stone.

“Aemra did that?”

“No one else. It’s to be a present. Istril hasn’t seen it.”

“You might have her work on a bust of Ryba as well.”

“She wants to finish this one first before she does. She is only ten, Saryn.”

The arms-commander nodded. Why was it that everything connected with the engineer created complications, even a daughter he’d never seen?