The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [223]
“As you wish, Your Majesty, but don't blame me if your face hits the floor.”
“I'm the queen. I'll take responsibility for my face. Sam, where are Sir Durge and Commander Paladus?”
“Paladus is on the wall, keeping watch. The enemy is holding back for now. It looks as if they're fashioning some new weapon, and I doubt they'll attack again until it's ready.”
“A weapon? What is it?”
“We're not sure. They're too far away to make out what they're doing, though Aldeth is still at the secret door, trying to get a closer look.”
Grace nodded. “What about Durge?”
“I saw him a couple of hours ago,” Tarus said. “I gave him your orders to get some rest, and last I saw he was headed back to the barracks.”
Good. He was going to need his strength. They all were. “Send word to both Paladus and Durge,” she said to Samatha. “Tell them to meet me outside. I want them to be there when I greet Boreas. Once the king is here, they'll be following his orders, not mine.”
As the Spider left them, Tarus gave Grace a questioning look, but she raised a hand before he could protest. “King Boreas is the leader of the Warriors of Vathris, not me. I'm just the warm-up act. They've been waiting a thousand years for this day. This is their Final Battle. And yours, Sir Tarus.”
His grin was gone, replaced by a stricken look. “I follow you, Your Majesty.”
She touched his shoulder. “Vathris is your god, Sir Tarus. I'm just a woman.”
“No,” he said, his eyes serious. “You're not just a woman, Your Majesty.”
Grace was suddenly afraid what else he might say. She brushed past him, through the door. “Come on, Sir Tarus. Let's go meet our salvation.”
A bitter wind rushed up the valley, and Grace was forced to clutch her cloak around her as they hurried across the yard between the two wings of the barracks.
“I can't see them,” she said when they reached the gates of the keep. The gloom hung thick on the air.
“Perhaps the Spiders were mistaken,” Sir Vedarr said. The grizzled knight had been standing guard at the gate with several of the Embarrans. “Perhaps their eyes were tricked by some wizardry of the enemy.”
However, at that moment, another gust of wind raced up the defile, and suddenly—for the first time since the opening of the Rune Gate—a ragged-edged gap appeared in the clouds. Beyond the gap was a shard of blue sky, and a shaft of sunlight, heavy and gold, fell through.
So it was late afternoon out in the world; night had not yet fallen over the land. And perhaps it wouldn't after all, for just as Samatha had said, a host marched up the valley toward the keep. The sunlight glinted off breastplates and helms like five thousand sparks of fire.
Trumpets sounded, sending a thrill through Grace. Banners snapped in the wind, and the tallest of them were the two at the fore of the army. One showed a crimson bull against a white field, while the other bore a crown above a pair of crossed swords: the crest of Calavan. Only the crest was different than Grace remembered. The crown had seven points, not nine. Did the king intend never to rebuild the two towers that had fallen?
She could ask about it later. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to look upon King Boreas's fierce, familiar, handsome face. While it probably wasn't very queenly, Grace picked up the hem of her gown and rushed through the gate. Two others already stood on the rocky slope outside the keep—the witches Lursa and Senrael. Grace gave them a questioning look.
“We came out here to gather sintaren sap,” Lursa said. “It helps stop bleeding when applied to a bandage. Then I looked up, and I saw them coming. I thought surely it was another one of my visions.”
“No, deary, it's no vision,” Senrael said, wonder on her wrinkled face. “The Warriors have come, as foretold by the seers long ago.”
Grace faced into the wind, and her hair—so much longer than when she first came to Eldh—tangled back from her brow. Boreas had done it. Against all odds he had brought the Warriors to her. They could hold Gravenfist Keep for weeks now, perhaps months. And after