Uprooted(107)

“No,” the old general said, wiping a tired hand across his forehead. “They didn’t fortify the crossings: they laid an ambush on the Long Bridge instead.”

“Stupid of them,” Marek said, intently. “Without fortifications, they can’t possibly hold the crossings for more than a couple of days. Another two thousand levies came in overnight, if I ride out with them at once—”

“We overran them at dawn,” Savienha said. “They are all dead: six thousand.”

Marek paused, evidently taken aback: he hadn’t expected that. He exchanged a look with Solya, scowling a little, as though he didn’t like hearing it. “How many did you lose?” he demanded.

“Four thousand, too many horses. We overran them,” Savienha repeated, his voice breaking, sagging where he sat. Not all the tracks on his face were sweat. “Marek, forgive me. Marek—your brother is dead. They killed him in the first ambush, when he went to survey the river.”

I backed away from the table as if I could escape from the words. The little boy upstairs holding out his sword, I won’t be any trouble, his round face upturned. The memory jabbed me, knife-sharp.

Marek had gone silent. His face was bewildered more than anything. Solya went on speaking with the general a little longer. I could scarcely bear to hear them go on talking. Finally Solya reached up and drew a heavy cloth down over the mirror. He turned to look at Marek.

The bewilderment was fading. “By God,” Marek said after a moment, “I would rather not have it, than have it so.” Solya only inclined his head, watching him with a gleam in his eye. “But that’s not the choice, after all.”

“No,” Solya agreed softly. “It’s just as well the Magnati are on their way: we’ll hold the confirmation vote at once.”

There was salt in my mouth: I’d been crying without knowing it. I backed up farther. The doorknob came into my hand, the hollows and bumps of its carved hawk’s head pressing into my palm. I turned it and slipped out the door and shut it behind me quietly. I stood trembling in the hallway. Alosha had been right. One trap after another, long-buried under a carpet of thick leaves, finally springing shut. Tiny seedlings pushing grasping branches out of the dirt.

One trap after another.

All at once, I was running. I ran, my boots slapping on stone, past startled servants and the morning sun bright in all the windows. I was panting by the time I rounded the corner to the quarters of the crown prince. The door was shut, but unguarded. A thin grey haze trickled from underneath it into the hallway. The knob was hot under my hand as I threw the door open.

The bedhangings were aflame, and the carpet scorched; the guards were dead huddled heaps on the floor. There were ten men in a silent knot around Alosha. She was burned horribly: half her armor melted onto her skin, and somehow still fighting. Behind her, the princess lay dead, barring the door to the wardrobe with her own body; Kasia was next to her corpse, her own clothes sliced in a dozen places but her skin unmarked. She was holding a chipped sword and swinging it fiercely at two men trying to get past her.

Alosha was holding off the rest with two long knives that sang wildly in the air and left crackles of fire behind them. She’d cut them all to ribbons, blood slick on the floor, but they weren’t falling down. The men wore Rosyan uniforms, but their eyes were green and lost. The room smelled like a fresh birch-tree branch broken open down the middle.

I wanted to scream, to weep. I wanted to drag my hand across the world and wipe it all away. “Hulvad,” I said, my hands pushing, pushing magic out with it. “Hulvad,” remembering how Alosha had pulled that thin cloud of corruption out of Ballo’s apprentice. And wisps of black smoke came streaming out of the men, out of every slash and knife-wound. The smoke blew away through the open window into the sunlight; and then they were only men again, hurt too much to live; they fell to the ground, one after another.

With her attackers gone, Alosha turned and threw her knives at the men trying to kill Kasia. The knives sank deep into their backs, and more of that evil smoke billowed out from around the blades. They fell, one and two.

The room was strangely quiet when they were all dead. The hinges on the wardrobe door squeaked; I jumped at the noise. The door pushed open a crack and Kasia whirled towards it: Stashek was inside trying to look out, his face scared, his small sword gripped in his hand. “Don’t look,” she said. She pulled a cloak out of the wardrobe, long rich red velvet. She covered the children’s heads with it and gathered them into her arms. “Don’t look,” she said, and held them huddled close against her.

“Mama,” the little girl said.

“Be quiet,” the boy told her, his voice trembling. I covered my mouth with both my hands and crammed in a sob.

Alosha was dragging in heavy, labored breaths; blood bubbled on her lips. She sagged against the bed. I stumbled forward and reached for her, but she waved me back. She made a hooking gesture with a hand and said, “Hatol,” and drew the killing sword out of the air. She held the hilt out to me. “Whatever’s in the Wood,” she said, hoarse and whispering, her voice eaten by the fire. “Find it and kill it. Before it’s too late.”

I took it and held it awkwardly. Alosha was sliding to the floor even as she let it go into my hands. I knelt down beside her. “We have to get the Willow,” I said.

She shook her head, a tiny movement. “Go. Get the children out of here,” she said. “The castle’s not safe. Go.” She let her head sink back against the bed, her eyes closing. Her chest rose and fell only in shallow breaths.