Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [172]
“With several freed demons flying in all directions, it would be more difficult, I should guess,” said Illvin.
Arhys leaned his elbow on the stone wall and eyed his brother. “You are thinking of a sortie. A sorcerer-hunt.”
“Aye.”
“It cannot be done. I am certain to take wounds—which Catti would be forced to bear.”
Illvin looked away. “I was thinking the royina could switch you back to me. For the occasion, as it were.”
Ista gasped protest. “Do you realize what that would mean? Arhys’s injuries would be yours.”
“Yes, well . . .” Illvin swallowed. “But then Arhys could go on for quite a bit more than his enemies would guess. Perhaps physicians or women could stay at my side, binding up the leaks as they spring. Buying extra minutes.”
Arhys frowned. “And then . . . what? At your last gasp, break the link? Return all my wounds to me at once?”
Ista tried not to let her voice emerge as a shriek. “Leaving you trapped in a hacked-apart body that can neither die nor heal?”
Arhys said vaguely, “I really don’t have all that much feeling in my body anymore. . . . Maybe I might not be trapped. Maybe”—his ravishing gray eyes rose to meet Ista’s, and the sudden light in them terrified her down to her bones—“I might be released.”
“To the death of nothingness? No!” said Ista.
“Indeed not!” said Illvin. “I mean the sortie to swing round and return to Porifors. The others would ride to guard you, and clear your way to the sorcerers. And make sure you got back.”
“Mm.” Arhys stared down into the dusk. “How many men do you think it would take?”
“A hundred would be best, but we do not have a hundred. Fifty might make it.”
“We do not have fifty, either. Illvin, we do not have twenty, not mounted.”
Illvin straightened up from the parapet. The excitement drained from his face. “Twenty is too few.”
“Too few to ride out? Or to ride back?”
“If too few to ride back, then too few to ride out. I could not ask it of any man if I were not riding myself, and I would perforce be detained in here.”
“Only in a sense,” said Arhys. He was looking increasingly, disturbingly, intent. “We are dying here by the hour. Worse—Lord dy Oby will ride apace to our relief. He was never laggard, but for the sake of his daughter he will brook no delay. Without warning of Joen’s demonic deceits, he will race his troops into this trap.”
“He cannot be here before day after tomorrow, at the soonest,” said Illvin.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. If today’s courier was taken by the Jokonan screen and failed to arrive at Oby, he’ll know at once, for I know the warnings about the ambush of Foix and the divine reached him. The fortress of Oby is already well aroused.” Arhys’s frown deepened. “Also, the longer we wait, the worse condition we will all be in.”
“That would certainly appear to be true,” Illvin conceded.
“And,” his voice lowered, “the worse condition I will be in. Our men are dying now without a blade being lifted or a quarrel being fired. By nightfall tomorrow, at this rate, Sordso’s forces will be able to walk unopposed into a castle manned only by corpses, unmoving save for one. And I will be left facing the same enemy—alone and unsupported.”
“Ah,” said Illvin, sounding shaken.
“Had you not thought it through? I’m surprised. Royina”—he turned to Ista—“I am sundered now. Freeing me from this body will not change that state. Let it be done while . . . while there is still some honor in it. Some use.”
“Arhys, you cannot ask this of me.”
“Yes. I can.” His voice fell further. “And you cannot refuse me.”
Ista was trembling, both at what he proposed and at what he envisioned. That solitary fate was, she had to admit, the logical progression of events.
“Arhys, no, this is too fey,” protested Illvin.
“Fey is a man who looks forward to death. I look back upon mine. I am beyond fey, I think. If this hazard is to be cast at all, it must be soon. In the dark before dawn.”
“This night?” said Illvin. Even he, who had advanced the plan, sounded