Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [167]
THROUGH THE ENDLESS AFTERNOON, ISTA MADE FREQUENT FORAYS from the marchess’s chambers to check the effect of the various ripples of sorcery light that scraped through her perceptions. Only that first great assault on the water supply seemed fully coordinated. After that the attack broke into a disorder mirrored by its effects. People fell and broke bones. The horses saved from the burning stable block, let loose in the star court, knocked down a gallery in their squealing and plunging. A wasp nest fell with it, and three men died screaming, choking, and convulsing from the stings; more men were knocked about and injured by the sting-maddened horses.
Other, smaller fires started in other courts. The little remaining water dwindled rapidly. Most of the stored meat, no matter how preserved, was found to be starting to rot and stink; bread and fruit grew green mold that seemed to spread even as one watched. Weevil larvae burgeoned in the flour supply. Leather straps and fiber ropes rotted and came apart in people’s hands. Pottery cracked. Boards broke. Mail and swords began to rust with the speed of a maiden’s blush.
Any men with histories of tertiary fever began violent relapses; Cattilara’s pleasant dining hall was soon filled with men on pallets, moaning, burning, shivering, and hallucinating. Dy Cabon was pressed into service to help tend the sick and, unbelievably soon, the dying. By evening, the faces of the soldiers and servants that Ista passed had gone beyond edgy and frightened to a pale, deadened, bewildered shock.
At sunset, Ista climbed the north tower, the highest, to take stock. Liss, stinking with smoke and limping from being stepped on by frantic hooves, mounted slowly after her. A man in a gray-and-gold tabard clumped up behind to drop an armload of stones onto a growing pile by the battlement, exchange uneasy grunts with two comrades whose unstrung warped bows were flung aside into a corner, then turn and clump back down the winding stairs.
In the level light of the westering sun, the unpeopled countryside appeared weirdly beautiful and serene. In the grove of walnut trees, the Jokonans’ well-ordered camp seemed to be enjoying a feast; the only smokes were thin aromatic trails rising from cooking fires. Little clusters of horsemen rode about, patrolling, delivering messages—out for an evening jaunt, for all Ista could tell. All abroad wore sea-green tabards.
The town, behind its walls in the valley, also sent up plumes of smoke, but ugly and black. With better access to water than the castle crowning the hill, the townsmen had kept most of their blazes from spreading out of control, so far. But the few tiny figures Ista could see moving fearfully through its streets and alleys were stiff with fatigue. The men behind its walls crouched, or sat barely moving, or lay as if in exhausted naps. Or dead.
Leaden bootsteps scuffed on the stone stairs, and Ista looked around to see Lord Illvin emerge onto the tower platform carrying a small, greasy cloth sack. Even the flushed light of sunset failed to make his face look anything but filthy and pale. Soot and sweat had melted together, to be rubbed in odd streaks by whatever swipe of his hand had dashed the grime from his eyes. He had abandoned chain mail and scorched tabard hours ago, and his plain linen shirt, dotted with small black spark holes, was half stuck to his torso.
“Ah,” he said in a voice that sounded as though it came from the bottom of a mine shaft. “There you are.”
She nodded greetings; he came to her shoulder, and together they stared down into the disaster of Porifors, behind its deceptively blank and solid outer walls.
The whole stable block was burned-out. Blackened timbers were strewn across it, and messes of broken roof tiles spilled over them like blood. Temporarily, no other smoke was rising, but one corner of the kitchen block was also blackened and fallen in. The star court was a mess—one gallery knocked down, the fountain empty and choked with filth. Horses were tethered along one side; their backs