The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [198]
Shiorra nods slowly. “Are you sure?”
“Not completely. But they always try to get someone else to do the fighting.”
“. . . men . . .”
Creslin and Hyel ignore Shierra’s low-voiced comment, while Klerris looks blandly at the map.
Creslin gestures toward the map again. “Here’s about where the northernmost ships will land. I think you ought to put all your forces here, except for the reserves that are necessary here at the keep. The others can’t march that fast over the sand anyway.”
“More here, I think,” Shierra says, stepping to the map. “Hyel will handle the reserves here, in case the White fleet changes its mind.”
Hyel’s mouth opens, then closes.
“Is there anything else you need to know?” Creslin asks.
“Don’t be too charitable toward those soldiers.” Shierra’s voice is flat. “I don’t care if they all drown.”
Lydya raises her eyebrows as the former Westwind senior guard walks toward the doorway. Hyel shrugs and follows her.
“When do we start?” asks Megaera.
“Now,” suggests Creslin. “We can bring the winds along gradually.”
“Ahem . . .”
They look toward Klerris.
“Perhaps the porch at the cot . . .”
Megaera grins for an instant, and Creslin nods. Klerris is offering what protection he can against chaos.
“We’d better hurry.”
Megaera nods.
Lydya has already left for the cot. The three hasten from the keep and through the sun-strewn morning. Creslin casts his thoughts toward the west and the high winds, trying to start the process while he walks.
Two wooden armchairs, with cushions, have been set out on the porch. On the table between the two is a clay pitcher of redberry and a plate on which hard biscuits, cheese, and sliced pearapples rest.
“You’d better eat something,” suggests Lydya.
“Do we have time?”
“A little,” affirms Klerris.
Creslin finishes two biscuits and a pearapple, washing them down with a tumbler of redberry. Megaera has but a biscuit and half a tumbler of the juice.
Lydya’s eyes narrow fractionally as she looks at Megaera, who returns the look with a head shake.
. . . no . . .
“What?” Creslin asks, catching the redhead’s eye.
“Later. It’s not urgent. The ships are.” She shifts her weight on the cushion. “You work on the ones farthest to the south.”
Creslin nods, settling into the chair and sending his thoughts southward, tugging at the swirling forces that are the high winds. Then he swallows and reaches toward the farthest of the hidden fleets, seven narrow-beamed war schooners bearing the blue tower of the Bristan ensign.
His thoughts slip inside the shield raised by the White Wizard to guard against mere vision. As they do, the wavering barrier disappears and a white fog washes over the ships, leaving his mind blind to anything except the burning whiteness.
With a grim smile, he touches the winds, whipping them toward the half dozen or so vessels. To force the ships onto the eastern beaches, he does not need to see them. Beside him, he can feel Megaera’s more gentle touch tapping his winds as she brings her forces against another shielded group.
Creslin tugs at the great winds, those on which he has not called since the destruction of the Hamorian fleet. Again they strike back, but this time, seated, he waits for the reaction to subside.
The too-familiar gray haze creeps across the late-morning sun, and twin towers of darkness loom in the skies, one somehow squatter than the other, and more elemental.
Creslin keeps his awareness well outside the white haze against which he flings the wind and sea that sweep the schooners inexorably shoreward, toward beaches suddenly surf-pounded, toward sands now as damp and hard as stone. By the time he withdraws, the shredded white haze is melting under the rain and only a handful of antlike figures struggle from the battered timbers and foaming waters.
Lydya presses