CHAPTER 25

As she marched down the side of a wide thoroughfare leading a small knot of men, Nicci thought that in a way it seemed like the sun had gone out since Richard had left. She missed just being able to look into his eyes, at the spark of life in them. For two days she had tirelessly gone about the urgent preparations for the imminent attack, but, without Richard around, life seemed empty, less bright, less — less of everything.

At the same time, when he had been around, his single-minded determination to find his imagined love had been draining. In fact, she had sometimes wanted to strangle him. She had tried everything from patience to anger in an attempt to get him to come around to seeing the truth, but it had been like trying to push against a mountain. In the end, nothing she'd done or said had made any difference.

For his own sake she earnestly wanted to help him to come to grips with reality. To do so she had to challenge him in an effort to try to get him to come to his senses before something terrible happened, but at the same time trying to make him see the truth somehow always seemed to cast her as a villain working against him. She hated being in that position.

Nicci hoped that by the time she finished helping to rid Altur'Rang of the threat of the approaching Imperial Order troops and their wizard, Kronos, she could quickly catch up with Richard and Cara. With spare horses and as fast as she knew he would ride, Nicci realized that she would not be able to catch up with him until after he reached the witch woman. If he even made it that far. If Shota didn't kill him once he did.

From what Nicci knew of witches, Richard's chances of coming out of her lair alive were pretty slim. He would have to face the witch woman without Nicci's help and protection. Still, he knew the woman, and she was a woman in every sense, from what Nicci had heard of her, so maybe Richard would at least be civil. It was not at all wise to be impolite to witches.

But even surviving an encounter with a witch woman he would still be devastated if she didn't help him and Nicci knew she couldn't because there was no missing woman for Richard to find. At times it infuriated her that he was so obstinate about something so obviously nothing more than an illusion. At other times she worried that he really was losing his mind. That was too chilling a thought to contemplate.

Nicci paused at the side of the road with a sudden, terrible realization.

The men following her lurched to a halt when she did, bringing her out of her thoughts. They were all with her either to see to her instructions in regard to some of the defenses of the city or else to carry messages as needed. Now they stood silent and uneasy, not knowing why she had stopped.

«Up there,» she said to the men, pointing at a three story brick building on the corner across the street. «Make sure that we can use that place to good advantage and put at least a couple dozen archers in the windows. See that they have a large supply of arrows.»

«I will go take a look,» one of the men said before running off across the road, dodging wagons, horses, and hand-drawn carts.

People rushed along the side of the street passing around Nicci and the men with her as if they were a rock in a swiftly moving river. Passersby spoke in hushed tones among themselves as they coursed between clusters of hawkers calling out trying to sell their goods, or people gathered to urgently discuss the impending battle for the city and what they would do to protect themselves. Wagons of every sort, from big freight wagons pulled by teams of six horses to small wagons pulled by a single horse, sped past in a hurry to complete the stockpiling of provisions or other necessary work while they still could.

Despite the din of horses, wagons, and people, Nicci didn't really hear any of it; she was thinking about the witch woman.

Nicci had suddenly realized that Shota might not simply be unwilling to help Richard, but she might not tell him so. Witch women had their own way of doing things, and their own ends.

If this woman thought Richard was being too insistent or assertive, she very well might decide to get rid of him by sending him on a useless quest to the ends of the world. She very well might do such a thing simply to amuse herself, or to doom him to die a slow death on an endless march across some distant desert. A witch woman might do such a thing just because she could. Richard, in his urgency to find his fantasy woman, wouldn't consider those possibilities. He would promptly head off to where she pointed.

Nicci was furious with herself for letting him leave to go to such a dangerous woman. But what could she do? She couldn't very well forbid him from going.

Her only chance was to get rid of Brother Kronos and his troops as swiftly as possible and then go after Richard and do what she could to protect him.

She spotted the man she had sent to check the brick building sidestepping his way between the wagons and horses as he ran back across the road. Nicci noticed that even with all the people out traveling the roads of the city, it was still much less busy than an ordinary day. People everywhere were making preparations; some had already holed up in places where they thought they might be safe. Nicci had been with the Order when they swept into a city; there was no safe place.

The man dodged his way around an empty wagon bouncing past and at last reached Nicci's side. He stood silently waiting. He was afraid to speak until she requested his report. He was afraid of her. Everyone was afraid of her. She wasn't just a sorceress; she was a sorceress in a bad mood and they all knew it.

No one understood why she seemed so ill-tempered, but for two days everyone had walked on egg shells when they were around her. It had nothing to do with them, and not even anything to do with Richard racing off on his mad search for a woman who didn't exist, but none of them knew that. Nicci was mentally immersed in preparing herself for the ferocity of the violence to come, rehearsing in her mind the various things she might need to do, and hardening herself to it all.

When on the brink of unleashing almost inconceivable savagery, one did not hum a merry tune and remark on the lovely day. One nursed dark thoughts.

Nicci never bothered to try to explain her mood; going through the effort of doing so would drain some of her store of energy. Preparing in her mind to gather every bit of skill, knowledge, wisdom, and power she had at her disposal required a certain kind of withdrawal. There were violent and deadly forces these people could never begin to comprehend that she had to be ready to unleash in an instant. She couldn't explain all of that to everyone. They would just have to deal with it.

«Well?» she calmly asked the man as he stood silently catching his breath.

«It will work,» he said. «They do knitting and make cloth there. All three floors are pretty open so archers will be able to quickly and easily move from window to window to get the best shot.»

Nicci nodded. She put a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the low sun as she looked back to the west along the wide boulevard. She studied the layout of the roads and the angles at which they crossed. She finally decided that the crossroads where they stood, with the brick building across the way, was the best spot. With as wide as both thoroughfares were, these roads would likely be the choice of enemy cavalry in the eastern part of the city. She knew the way the Order ran their attacks. They liked width so as to present the strongest front, the most powerful blow in order to break the enemy apart. She was pretty sure that they would send cavalry in this way if they came in from the east, as she expected.

«Good,» she told the man. «See to getting archers here along with a heavy supply of arrows. Be quick about it-I don't think we have much time.»

As he ran to see to it, Nicci spotted Ishaq in the distance racing up the road in a wagon pulled by two of his big draft horses. He looked to be in a hurry. She had a good idea why he was coming for her, but she tried not to think about it. She turned to another of the men with her.

«Back there, just after the brick building where we will station the archers, I want spikes placed. The span of the road is hemmed in by buildings on both sides.» She gestured to the road that crossed the main thoroughfare before the brick building. «Down the street to each side as well, so that if the remaining men charging in try to take either route to escape they will get the same.»

Once the enemy charged up the main route into Altur'Rang, they would abruptly pull up the spikes to impale them. The archers would then pick off all the those caught in the bottleneck between the spikes and the men still rushing up from the rear.

The man nodded and ran off to see to her orders. She had already instructed everyone on the spikes. Victor had his blacksmith shop and a number of others working feverishly to manufacture the simple but deadly traps. They were little more than sharpened iron bar stock that was all connected together, almost like a picket fence, but with different length chain between the top crossbar and the upper portion of the spikes.

Sections of these linked spikes were laid in the roads all over the city. Lying down flat they didn't prevent travel on the road, but when cavalry charged in the pointed ends of the entire section were lifted and an iron brace was jammed in place. The different length of chains attaching the spikes to the crossbar allowed the deadly spikes to hang at varying distances from the crossbar, thus making them stick up at different angles. Making them stick up at uneven angles allowed them to be far more treacherous than a simple straight line of spikes. If it was done properly, the enemy cavalry would unexpectedly run their horses right onto the sharp iron tips. Even if they tried to jump them the horses would more likely than not be ripped open. It was simple but highly effective.

There were traps made of the iron sections all over the city, usually at intersections. Once the sections were lifted they couldn't easily be lowered. The panicked horses would be gored on the spikes or at the least wouldn't be able to escape the confinement created by the obstacle. As the cavalry charged up onto the spikes, the soldiers would either be thrown off their horses and likely injured or killed, or they would have to dismount in order to try to deal with the obstruction. Either way, the archers would then have a much better chance of picking them off than if they were just charging past.

The men manning the sections of spikes were instructed to judge the situation and not to necessarily pull the spikes up just as the cavalry ran up to them. In some cases it would be better to wait until some of the men had already charged past. If there was a large number of cavalry this would allow the defenders to split the enemy force, not only spreading confusion among the attack, but breaking it apart, severing the lines of command, making it lose its advantage of unity, and making it easier to deal with the fragmented force. Decisively eliminating the cavalry was essential to stopping the invasion.

Nicci knew, though, that in the panic of facing a frightening wall of charging enemy soldiers screaming for blood, such careful plans tended to be forgotten. She knew that at the sight of such fearsome soldiers with weapons raised, some of the men would flee, failing to raise the spikes before they did. Nicci had seen such terror before. That was why she had placed redundant sections of spikes.

Nearly everyone in the city was committed to its defense. Some would be more effective than others. Even women at home with children had supplies of things, from rocks to boiling oil, that they intended to throw down on any invading soldiers. There had not been a lot of time to make extravagant weapons, but there were men everywhere with stacks of spears. A sharpened pole wasn't fancy, but if it took down a cavalry horse or impaled a man, it was fancy enough. It didn't matter if it was cavalry or foot soldiers, they all had to be defeated, so there were men of the city by the thousands with bows. With a bow, even an old man could kill a vigorous, muscular, hulking young soldier.

An arrow could even take down a wizard.

It would be futile to have the men of the city trying to fight experienced soldiers in a traditional battle. They had to deny the Order's soldiers everything they were used to using.

Nicci's object had been to make the city one big trap. Now, she had to draw the Order into that trap.

To that end, she saw Ishaq's wagon rumbling toward her. People scattered out of the way. Ishaq pulled back on the reins and drew the big horses to a halt. A cloud of dust boiled up.

He set the brake and leaped down off the wagon, something she wouldn't have expected he could do with such agility. He held his hat on with one hand as he ran. He was holding something else up in his other hand.

«Nicci! Nicci!»

She turned to the men with her. «You'd all best see to the things we've discussed. I don't think we have more than a few hours.»

The men looked surprised and alarmed.

«You don't think they will wait until morning?» one asked.

«No. I believe they will attack this evening.» She didn't tell them why she thought so.

The men nodded and rushed off to their assignments.

Ishaq came to a panting halt. His face was nearly as red as his hat.

«Nicci, a message.» He waved the paper before her. «A message for the mayor.»

Nicci's insides tightened.

«A group of men rode in,» he said. «They were carrying a white flag, just as you said they would. They brought a message for 'the mayor.' How did you know?»

She ignored the question. «Have you read it, yet?»

His face went red. «Yes. So did Victor. He is very angry. It is not a good thing to make the blacksmith angry.»

«Do you have a horse, as I requested?»

«Yes, yes, I have a horse.» He handed her the paper. «But I think that you had better read this.»

Nicci unfolded the paper and read it silently to herself.

Citizen mayor,

I received word that the people of Altur'Rang, under your direction, wish to renounce their sinful ways and bow again to the wise, merciful, and sovereign authority of the Imperial Order.

If it is true that you wish to spare the people of Altur'Rang the total destruction we reserve for insurrectionists and heathens, then as a token of your good intent and willing submission to the jurisdiction of the Imperial Order, you will bind your lovely and loyal wife's hands and send her to me as your humble gift. Fail to turn over your wife as instructed and everyone in Altur'Rang will die.

In the service of the merciful Creator, Brother Kronos, Commander of His Excellency's reunification force.

Nicci crushed the message in her fist. «Let's go.»

Ishaq replaced his hat and scrambled to catch up with her as she marched toward the wagon. «You don't seriously intend to do as this brute demands, do you?»

Nicci put a foot on the iron step and climbed up onto the wagon's wooden seat. «Let's go, Ishaq.»

He muttered to himself as he climbed into the wagon beside her. He threw off the brake and flicked the reins, yelling for people to get out of the way as he swung the wagon around. Dirt and dust spiraled up off the wheels as he turned the wagon around in the road. He cracked his whip above the horses' flanks, crying out to urge them away. The wagon slid around and finally straightened as the horses threw their weight against the hames.

Nicci held on to the side rail with one hand as the wagon lurched ahead, letting her other hand, with the message crumpled in her fist, rest in the lap of her red dress. She watched without seeing as they raced through the streets of Altur'Rang, past buildings and storefronts, other wagons, horses, and people on foot. Low sunlight flickered through rows of trees to the left as they raced north along the wide boulevard. At vegetable, cheese, bread, and butcher stands under awnings, some drab and some striped, a press of people were buying up all the food they could before the impending storm.

The road narrowed as it passed into ancient sections of the city, becoming clogged with wagons, horses, and people. Without slowing much at all, Ishaq swung his two big draft horses off the main road and took shortcuts through alleyways behind tightly packed rows of buildings where entire families lived in a single room. Laundry stretched on lines that crisscrossed small yards and in a number of places, strung between opposing second-story apartments, stretched across the alleyway over their heads. Nearly each tiny plot in the back of the crowded buildings was used for growing food or keeping chickens. Wings flapped and feathers flew as the birds panicked at the sight of the wagon thundering past their yard.

Ishaq deftly handled the team as it raced at a frightening speed, guiding them around obstacles of shacks, fences, walls, and random trees. He called out warnings as he charged across busy roads. Startled people drew back, letting him pass.

The wagon turned up a street Nicci remembered all too well, following beside a short wall that eventually curved it along the entrance road to the warehouse doors of Ishaq's transport company. The wagon bounced into the rutted yard outside the building and came to a crooked halt in the shade of huge oaks rising above the wall.

Nicci climbed down as she saw one of the double doors opening. Apparently having heard the noise Victor emerged from the building, glowering like he intended to murder the next person he could get his hands on.

«Have you seen the message?» He demanded.

«Yes, I have. Where's the horse I asked for?»

He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder toward the open door. «Well, what are we going to do now? The attack will probably come at dawn. We can't allow those soldiers to take you back with them to the army. We can't let them leave and report that we won't do as Kronos demands. What are we going to tell them?»

Nicci tilted her head toward the building. «Ishaq, would you go get the horse, please?»

He made a sour face. «You ought to marry Richard. You make a good pair. You are both crazy.»

Startled, Nicci could only stare at the man.

She finally found her voice. «Ishaq, please, we don't have a lot of time. We don't want those fellows to go back empty-handed.»

«Yes, Your Highness,» he mocked, «allow me to get your royal mount for you.»

«I've never seen Ishaq act like that,» she said to Victor as she watched the man stalking toward the door, muttering curses under his breath.

«He thinks you're crazy. So do I.» Victor planted his fists on his hips. «Has that ruse back at the stables with the spy gone bad? Or is this what you planned all along?»

In no mood to discuss it with the man, Nicci returned the glare in kind. «My plan,» she said through gritted teeth, «is to get this over with as soon as possible and to keep the people of Altur'Rang from being slaughtered.»

«What's that got to do with turning you over to Brother Kronos as a gift?»

«If we allow them to attack at dawn, they will have the advantage. We need them to attack today.»

«Today!» Victor glanced west, toward the low sun. «But it will be dark soon.»

«Exactly,» she said as she leaned in the back of the wagon and retrieved a length of rope.

Victor stared off at the heart of the city as he thought about it. «Well, all things considered, I guess it would be better not to face them in the day, on their terms. If we could somehow get them to attack today, they would soon run out of daylight. That would work to our advantage.»

«I will bring them to you,» she said. «You just be ready.»

The creases across Victor's forehead deepened. «I don't know how you're going to get them to attack today, but we'll be ready if they do.»

Ishaq came out of the warehouse leading a white stallion covered with mottled black spots. The mane, tail, and legs below the hocks were black. The horse looked not only elegant, but had a tough demeanor about him, as if it would have boundless endurance. Still, it wasn't what she had been expecting.

«He doesn't look all that big,» she said to Ishaq.

Ishaq gave the horse an affectionate rub on its white face. «You did not say big, you said that you wanted a steady horse that would not spook easily, one that had a fearless spirit.»

Nicci took another look at the horse. «I just assumed that such a horse would be big.»

«She's a crazy woman,» Ishaq muttered to Victor.

«She's going to be a dead crazy woman,» Victor said.

Nicci handed Victor the rope. «This will be easier if you stand on the wall, after I'm mounted.»

She stroked the horse under his jaw and then his silky ears. The animal nickered his appreciation and nudged his head against her. Nicci held his head and trickled a thin thread of her Han into the creature, giving him a bit of calming introduction. She ran a hand over his shoulder and then along the side of his belly as she inspected him.

Without comment, Victor climbed up the wall and waited until she boosted herself up and was seated in the saddle. Nicci arranged the skirts of her red dress and then unbuttoned it to the waist. She pulled her arms out of the sleeves one at a time, holding the front of the dress against her chest and then holding it up with her elbows as she lifted her hands toward Victor, her wrists pressed together.

Victor's face went as red as her dress. «Now what are you doing?»

«These men are experienced Imperial Order troops. Some will be officers. I spent a lot of time in the Order's camp. I was widely known-to some as the Slave Queen, and to others as Death's Mistress. It's possible that certain of these men may have served in Jagang's army during that time and so they very well may recognize me, especially if I were to wear a black dress. Just in case, I'm wearing a red dress.

«I also need to give these men something to stare at to keep them off guard and hopefully from recognizing me. It will disrupt the usual calculating judgment of soldiers such as these. It will also get Kronos's attention and make him think that the 'mayor' is desperate to appease him. Nothing rouses the blood lust in these kind of men more than weakness.»

«It's going to get you in trouble before you even get to Kronos.»

«I'm a sorceress. I can take care of myself.»

«Seems to me that Richard is a wizard and carries a sword charged with ancient magic and even he got into trouble when he was greatly outnumbered. He was overpowered and nearly killed.»

Nicci again lifted her hands out toward Victor, wrists together.

«Tie them.»

Victor glared at her a moment before finally giving in. With a growl he set about binding her wrists. Ishaq held the reins just under the horse's bit as he waited.

«Is this horse fast?» she asked as she watched Victor wrapping rope around her wrists.

«Sa'din is fast,» Ishaq told her.

«Sa'din? Doesn't that mean 'the wind' in the old tongue?»

Ishaq nodded. «You know the old tongue?»

«A little,» she said. «Today, Sa'din will need to be as swift as the wind. Now listen to me, both of you. I don't intend on getting myself killed.»

«Few people do,» Victor griped.

«You don't understand; this will be my best chance to get near Kronos. Once the attack begins it would be difficult not only to find him, but, even if we did know where he was, it would be next to impossible to get close to him. He would be dealing death against the innocent in ways you cannot even imagine, spreading fear, panic, and death. That makes him valuable to them. In battle their soldiers will be looking for anyone trying to take out their wizard. I have to do it now. I intend to end it tonight.»

Victor and Ishaq shared a look.

«I want everyone to be ready,» she said. «When I come back I expect there will be some very angry people behind me.»

Victor looked up after yanking the knot tight. «How many angry people?»

«I intend to have their entire force right on my heels.»

Ishaq gently rubbed Sa'din's face. «What are they going to be angry about? If I may ask.»

«Besides trying to take out their wizard, I intend to give the hornets' nest a good stiff whack.»

Victor sighed irritably. «We'll be ready for them when they attack, but once you go in there I'm not so sure you will be able to get away.»