Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 42

Nicci had seen the morazeth in action, knew the steel of their bodies, the anger that pulsed through their veins, but when a battered Lila came to her the morning after the sortie, Nicci saw something she had never expected. Lila looked defeated.

“I failed him,” she said. “I let Bannon down. He is dead because of me.”

The hazy sunshine of midday warmed the top of the plateau. Nicci stood outside the ruling tower with the shadow of the high structure stretching away from the river and the sheer bluffs. Drained from the battle the night before, Nicci had not allowed herself to consider all the emotional consequences yet. She intentionally blocked those feelings and tried to remain analytical. Her heart was hard, cold … black ice, and she clung to that.

“Hundreds of people died last night, not just Bannon,” Nicci said. The more she tried not to think of the young man’s face, his eager smile, his good nature, the more clearly she saw him in her mind.

Lila remained unconvinced. “True, many died, but I didn’t fail the rest of them. I did fail Bannon. His training must have been inadequate, and my protection faltered. I lost track of him when I fought beside my morazeth sisters, and the enemy soldiers swept in, cutting me off. I didn’t even see him go down, so I don’t know what happened to him.”

Nicci had not seen it either. During the frenzied battle, the arena fighters, city guards, volunteers, and duma members had been on their own. “Bannon was a good fighter,” Nicci said, and then her voice dropped and the words came out before she could even think about it. “He was my friend.” Nicci found it strange to admit the fact, but there was no other word. Bannon Farmer had become more than just a temporary companion on their journey. “If you failed him, then so did I. There is nothing we can do to help him now.”

The dead were still being counted. Oron had lost his son Brock during the battle, and Lady Olgya reported with more anger than grief that her boy Jed hadn’t returned either. Nicci could not fully comprehend what a parent felt over the loss of a child, even worthless and disappointing sons such as Jed and Brock, but then she thought of the girl Thistle, and the heavy ache made her understand.

“Unless Bannon’s not dead,” Lila said, startling Nicci. “I will not give up hope until I know for certain.”

Nicci hardened her heart, not wanting to waste time on unrealistic imaginings. “There is very little chance. You know that.”

Lila crossed her arms over the black leather wrap. “Unless you want to surrender right now, we must cling to hope wherever we find it. All of Ildakar has very little chance, but we won’t give up.”

Nicci realized the young morazeth was right, and she knew that Richard Rahl would never simply give up, otherwise he would have surrendered to the Imperial Order before the first battles. “Hope may be our greatest weapon. Don’t forget your hope.” She looked into Lila’s determined eyes. “Thank you for reminding me.”

As the morazeth sprinted away, Nicci didn’t ask what the young woman intended to do. Instead, she had her own decisions to make. General Utros and his army would be in turmoil after the attack, but Ildakar itself also rang with speculation, questions, and uncertainties. The defenders had struck a powerful blow, and the duma would revel in what they had accomplished, for a few hours at least. Neither side would be in any shape for a major operation, but only a fool would assume the siege would be over soon.

Thora was confined again, but in a different dungeon cell. She seemed changed now, as if something fundamental had broken inside her. Nicci still didn’t trust her.

The duma members had gone back to their homes to recuperate before they met to discuss what to do next. When Nicci entered the quiet ruling tower, she found the main chamber silent, the thrones vacant and the stone benches unoccupied. The chamber echoed with her footsteps.

“Ah, I thought I might find you here, Sorceress,” Nathan said, startling her.

She turned to see the wizard in his scuffed robes, his white hair tangled. She was surprised he hadn’t cleaned himself and changed his garments since the night before. Nathan had always been vain about his appearance and his comforts, but the previous night’s battle had shaken him.

“I wanted a place where I could contemplate,” she explained.

Nathan came closer, his expression drawn. “I know. I grieve for the dear boy, too. It’s a terrible loss.”

Nicci didn’t want to admit her own feelings. “There is no time for grieving or foolish hope. We need to consider our next actions while we have a brief respite. It might last only a few days.” She glanced at the stairs behind the throne dais. “Come with me to the top of the tower, where we can get a broader perspective.”

They ascended the spiraling stone steps and emerged onto the open rooftop, where the sunshine was bright and carefree larks flitted about. Even from up here, she could feel and hear the monotonous pounding against the walls.

Nicci lowered her voice, though there was no one but Nathan to hear. “It wasn’t enough, and Bannon died to defend a city that wasn’t even his own, on a foolish and arrogant strike that served little purpose. How long can Ildakar withstand this siege?”

Nathan raked his fingers through his long hair in a gesture that reminded her of Richard. “For as long as we must. I don’t believe any army is invincible. Emperor Jagang and the Imperial Order fell. Sulachan and his undead army were defeated. General Utros will fall, too.”

Nicci listened to the drumbeat of coordinated blows outside the wall. “A drip of water will eventually carve a bowl in solid rock. I don’t think we have that much time, and Ildakar is only one target for General Utros.” Together, they looked across the great valley. The rolling hills on the northern boundary were a blackened scar from the grass fires, and a low pall of smoke hung in the air, but even after the losses they had suffered, the enemy seemed infinite. “His army could threaten the whole world.”

Nathan stretched out his hands, sketched a rectangle in the air, and pulled the air taut to create a new magnifying window. Many of the general’s soldiers were working hard to rebuild the camp, but they also saw columns of soldiers, thousands at a time, splitting off in different directions, marching away from the valley like separate invasion forces, any one of which could conquer a whole city.

Nicci felt cold inside. Looming grief over Bannon wrapped her like a blanket that could not warm the black ice of her heart, but Utros posed a far greater threat. “If those expeditionary forces are meant to conquer more territory, then that ancient general can take over the land that Richard told us to save.” She looked at him. “The danger goes well beyond Ildakar. Utros could conquer the entire Old World. And from there, what is to stop him from surging upward into D’Hara, just like Jagang and the Imperial Order? We have to stop him here.”

Nathan stroked his chin where pale stubble had sprouted after the long night. She had never seen him so disheveled. “Now that we’ve shown him our fighting spirit, should we demand to speak with him again? Suggest that it is in his best interest not to pursue this war further?”

Nicci shook her head. “How could we convince him of that? He has already sent out many armies.”

Through Nathan’s magnifying window, they watched a group of the general’s engineers working with tall trees, cutting the wooden trunks into components that included a long throwing arm. Working like bees, they assembled a single catapult, which they wheeled close to the towering gates.

“Even if they hurl boulders, the reinforcement spells will protect our walls and gates,” Nathan said. “What is he up to?”

The sentries on the outer walls sounded an alarm, and the guards braced themselves as the catapult moved into position. Nicci narrowed her blue eyes. “I think he has something else in mind.”

The two watched uneasily as the ancient soldiers cranked their ropes and ratcheted back the throwing arm. The catapult hurtled forward until it smacked the halting block and flung the cargo from its basket. A dozen corpses sailed through the air over the high wall and pelted the streets of Ildakar, landing on tiled rooftops and falling into water cisterns. The Ildakaran soldiers who had died during the nighttime raid. All of the heads had been chopped off, the bodies mutilated.

Even as the first rain of corpses fell across the lower levels of the city, the ancient warriors wound back the catapult again. Carts came forward, loaded with even more bodies.

Nicci set her jaw. “General Utros is not in a mood to negotiate.”

She felt the coldness in her heart, the tingle of both Additive and Subtractive Magic. This fight was about more than just Ildakar. She knew what she had to do. “All of the Old World and the entire D’Haran Empire must know about this threat. I will make my preparations.” The breezes on top of the tower fluttered her close-cropped blond hair. “Tomorrow, I intend to use the sliph.”

That night, trying to rest before she departed on her swift journey, Nicci again traveled with Mrra on the outside of the giant camp. The darkness looked different through the eyes of the sand panther, but she could see the devastation, smell the acrid char of the burned hills as well as blood from the great battle. Mrra had emerged from hiding among the trees in a distant hollow, but now she approached the army of General Utros. The big cat knew the ancient soldiers had weak night vision, even worse than most humans’, and now she ventured even closer to the camp.

Nicci’s thoughts guided the panther as she herself lay restless and half asleep in the grand villa. She was still disturbed by so many losses from the night before.

As they recovered throughout the day, the people of Ildakar tried to assess how much damage their attack had really inflicted on the enemy, but the mutilated bodies hurled by the catapults had caused great shock and dismay. The people struggled to find a sense of victory, but they couldn’t help but count their own fallen, even though they couldn’t identify the mangled corpses. Nicci didn’t even know if Bannon’s body was among them.

Through the sand panther, though, Nicci could now see the true damage General Utros had suffered. Many of the blazing fires were not bright campfires, as the Ildakarans assumed. Mrra smelled burning flesh, saw the piles of bodies, the charred skin and blackened bones falling into greasy embers. These were funeral pyres. Though the ancient warriors were hardened from the remnants of the stone spell, they still bled and they still died. Now the corpses burned, although it took a great deal of firewood.

In her partial dream state, Nicci guessed that the number of enemy dead was at least three to five times as many as Ildakar had lost, but even so it was not a cause for celebration.

Mrra moved like a shadow in the faint moonlight, circling the troops and funeral pyres, seeing the blasted trenches and the damage done. As she crept close to the general’s headquarters, Nicci felt her senses heightened, all sounds and smells intensified tenfold. Mrra sniffed and discovered several large barrels that reeked of blood. Nicci didn’t know why General Utros would store casks of blood, and Mrra didn’t care. Blood did not frighten her.

Nicci memorized all the details as Mrra continued to move around the camp, observing even though the big cat didn’t comprehend human warfare. But she had gleaned enough understanding through her association with her sister panther that she noticed something odd, familiar smells that didn’t belong among the ancient army.

Though unable to approach closer due to the movement of ancient soldiers, Mrra spotted one wooden shack with no windows and a barred door. She heard stirring, low voices, smelled a different scent. Other humans were inside, not these dusty-smelling ones, but warm-blooded men. Captives, perhaps? Hostages that Utros would use as bargaining chips?

There was certainly no way to rescue them in the midst of the gigantic enemy camp.

Before she departed through the sliph the next morning, Nicci would report the news to the duma. Thanks to her feline spy, she had a great deal of new information to share.