Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [166]
“Come, come, Jokonan, would you trouble me to spit upon you?” asked Arhys.
“Pray save your spit, Lord Arhys. I hear such liquids will be hard to come by in there soon.”
Lord Illvin had climbed up behind the parapet in time to hear this exchange, and smiled sourly. He cast a quick look out over Ista’s head, taking in the enemy’s arrangements in a sweeping pass. Arhys glanced down at him; Illvin leaned his shoulders against the wall below his brother’s feet and gazed back out over the forecourt. In a voice pitched not to carry to the Jokonans, he reported, “They got both cisterns. Leaking like sieves. I have men bailing with every intact vessel they can find, and trying to line the tanks with canvas to slow the outflow. But it’s not good.”
“Right,” Arhys murmured back. He raised his voice again to the parley officer. “We refuse, of course.”
The parley officer looked up with grim satisfaction at what was obviously the expected answer. “Prince Sordso and Dowager Princess Joen are merciful beyond your deserving. They will give you one day to reconsider your stance. I will come again tomorrow to hear your new answer. Unless you send to us first—of course.” With a bow, he began to back away, inadequately covered by his two guardsmen. He retreated quite a distance before he dared to turn his back.
Not just the expected answer: the desired outcome, apparently.
“What happens next?” asked dy Cabon in worry. “An assault? Will they really wait a day?”
“I wouldn’t trust them to,” said Arhys, jumping down onto the walk again.
“An assault, yes,” said Ista. “But not, I think, by their troops. I would wager anything you please that Joen wishes to play with her new toys. Porifors is her very first chance to test her array of sorcerers in open war. If the results satisfy her . . .” A purple line, though only one this time, flashed across Ista’s inner vision.
Most of the stretched bowstrings along the sentry walk snapped at once, twanging. A couple of men yelped from the sting of the recoiling cords. An exception was a cocked crossbow that let loose. Its quarrel shot into the thigh of the man standing next to its bearer; the man screamed and fell backward off the walk to smack onto the stones of the court and lie still. His horrified comrade gaped at his bow, flung it from himself as though it burned his hand, and hurried after his fallen mate.
Another, darker flash crackled past.
“Now what?” muttered Foix uneasily, staring up and down the line of appalled archers. Some, already fishing in their belts for replacement strings, found them shredding in their hands.
A few moments later, across the rooftops of the castle’s inner courts, a plume of smoke billowed into the air.
“Fire in the stable,” said Illvin, his laconic voice at odds with his sudden lunge forward. “Foix, I want you, please.” He sped away down the stairs, long legs taking them three at a time.
Now it begins in earnest, thought Ista, her stomach clenching.
Liss’s eyes were huge. “Royina, may I go with them?” she gasped.
“Yes, go,” Ista released her. She bolted away. Every competent hand would be needed . . . And then there is me. She took herself down off the wall, at least.
Arhys, running past her, called, “Lady, will you look to Cattilara?”
“Of course.” A task of sorts. Or maybe Arhys, a prudent commander, merely wanted to get all the useless deadwood stored in one safe place.
Ista found Cattilara’s ladies in hysterics; when she had finished with them, their noise was at least muted to well-suppressed hysterics. Cattilara lay unchanged, except for an already visible shrinking of the soft flesh of her face, tightening across her bones. The demon light was knotted tensely within her, making no attempt—yet—to fight for ascendance. Ista blew out her breath in unease, but made sure that the soul-fire continued to pour out