IN the end the Eika retreated, but by that time Steleshame lay in shambles, a quarter of the palisade wall burning or battered down, the longhouse in flames and the outbuildings in ruins. Only the newly built hall still stood, though it was scorched. Some of the roof tiles had fallen in where the smoke hole opened and both doors had been wrenched off their hinges.
It was a miracle anything at all had survived. Of the Dragons there remained no sign, but everyone agreed they, like the flying dragon, had arisen from the Eika enchanter’s magic, a false vision used to strike fear into their hearts and render them incapable of fighting.
It had not worked, not this time.
“That is the weakness of illusion,” Master Helvidius said when the people hiding in the stone keep ventured out to the horrible scene opening before them in the yard. “Once you know it is illusion, it is easier to combat.”
Anna held little Helen tightly on her hip as she picked her way through the rubble to the gate. She kept her eyes fixed on her feet, so she wouldn’t have to see the dead bodies. There were a lot of dead, human and Eika alike. If she didn’t look, then maybe it would be as if they weren’t there.
Soldiers staggered through the gates, leading wounded horses, carrying their dead or injured comrades. Some of their number wandered the killing field, sticking Eika through the throat to make sure they would not rise again. A sudden shout rose from their midst as a figure armed in mail, his tabard rent and bloody, shoved himself up from the ground where he had been pinned down by a dead Eika.
It was Lord Wichman himself, by a miracle unharmed except for the battering his mail and helmet had taken. But he had not gotten far before he dropped to his knees and wept over the body of his young cousin, Henry, who had fallen by the gates. Mistress Gisela appeared beside him. Roused by her appearance, the lord rose and began directing the soldiers as they methodically looted the Eika corpses of weapons, shields, and whatever fine mail armor the creatures wore round their hips, mostly silver and gold wrought into delicate patterns.
Anna spied a knife lying in a pool of muck and blood. She knelt quickly, grabbed it, and tucked it into her leggings. Its blade pinched her calf, but she went on.
Beyond, both smithy and tannery burned. A few men had begun to cast dirt onto the fires.
“Here, now, child,” said a soldier, coming up beside her. “Get back inside. You don’t know how far the Eika have run. They might come back any moment.”
“Were those truly Dragons? All dead and rotting?”
“Nay. They were Eika. They only looked like Dragons until they got close. Then we saw through the enchantment.”
“Did we win?”
He snorted, waving a hand to indicate the destruction. “If this can be called winning. Ai, Lord, I don’t know that we beat them. Rather, they got what they wanted and left.”
“But what did they want?” she demanded. “My brother—” She faltered when she saw the flames that raged round the row of small huts abutting the tannery fence. She began to snivel and Helen, catching her fear, started to cry.
“They drove off the livestock.” The soldier grimaced as he raised his left arm, and she saw a gash running up the boiled leather coat he wore, a slash running from waist to armpit. Underneath, a thin stream of blood seeped through his quilted shirt, but he seemed otherwise unharmed except for a cut on his lip and a purpling bruise along his jaw. “I saw them myself. I’d guess they were raiding for cattle and slaves more than to kill my good Lord Henry, namesake of the king, bless them both.” He drew the Circle of Unity at his breast and sighed deeply. “Come, child, go on in.”
“But my brother worked at the tannery—”
He clucked softly and shook his head, then surveyed the scene. The old camp looked as if it had been flattened by a whirlwind. A single chicken scratched diligently beside a hovel. Two dogs cowered under the shelter of a single straggly bush. “Thank God the refugees had already left. Come, then, we’ll go down and see, but mind you, child, you’ll go up again when I tell you.”
By the time they got down to the stream the tannery fire was under control, though still burning. She saw a body, charred and blackened, over by the puering pit, but it was too large to be Matthias. This body alone remained; of the other inhabitants of the tannery, none could be found.
“There’s nothing here, child,” said the soldier. “Go on back where it’s safe. I’ll ask about. You say his name is Matthias?”
She nodded, unable to speak. Helen sucked her thumb vigorously.
With this weight on her, the walk back up the rise to the wrecked palisade seemed forbidding and it exhausted her. Helvidius found her sobbing just inside the gate, and he took her into the hall just as a cold drizzle began to fall.
He brought her heavily watered cider and made her drink, then fussed over Helen, complaining all the while. “The livestock stolen! Food stores trampled or spoiled or burned! What will we do? How will we get through the winter without even enough shelter for those left? What will we do? Without fodder, the young lord will ride back to his home, and then who will protect us? We should have gone with the others.”
But by the hearth Mistress Gisela had called a council. A stout woman, she gripped an ax in one hand as if she had forgotten she held it. Blood stained her left shoulder, though it did not appear to be her own. Beyond, in the farthest corner of the hall, the pregnant woman who had been shooting from the keep leaned against the wall, panting, then got down on her hands and knees as several elderly women clustered around her. A boy carried in a pot of steaming water, and Gisela’s niece hurried forward with a length of miraculously clean cloth.
held little Helen tightly on her hip as she picked her way through the rubble to the gate. She kept her eyes fixed on her feet, so she wouldn’t have to see the dead bodies. There were a lot of dead, human and Eika alike. If she didn’t look, then maybe it would be as if they weren’t there.
Soldiers staggered through the gates, leading wounded horses, carrying their dead or injured comrades. Some of their number wandered the killing field, sticking Eika through the throat to make sure they would not rise again. A sudden shout rose from their midst as a figure armed in mail, his tabard rent and bloody, shoved himself up from the ground where he had been pinned down by a dead Eika.
It was Lord Wichman himself, by a miracle unharmed except for the battering his mail and helmet had taken. But he had not gotten far before he dropped to his knees and wept over the body of his young cousin, Henry, who had fallen by the gates. Mistress Gisela appeared beside him. Roused by her appearance, the lord rose and began directing the soldiers as they methodically looted the Eika corpses of weapons, shields, and whatever fine mail armor the creatures wore round their hips, mostly silver and gold wrought into delicate patterns.
Anna spied a knife lying in a pool of muck and blood. She knelt quickly, grabbed it, and tucked it into her leggings. Its blade pinched her calf, but she went on.
Beyond, both smithy and tannery burned. A few men had begun to cast dirt onto the fires.
“Here, now, child,” said a soldier, coming up beside her. “Get back inside. You don’t know how far the Eika have run. They might come back any moment.”