THREE DROPS OF BLOOD (26 page)

Less than an hour from the time the Warhawk's forces reached Tantagar, they held one
of the three parapets of the tower.

"How soon?" Markas asked, sitting down again, eyes wide with admiration for the speed
of the victory.

"Until what?" Meghianna asked.

"Until Mother is safe."

"This is just the first attack. We don't want to take the tower in a shower of blood,"
Mrillis said. "Now, we give Timark time to consider his options, and surrender."

"He won't. He never apologizes, even when everybody knows he was wrong," the boy
said, shaking his head, his mouth twisted with disgust.

Mrillis sighed, sure the boy was right, and they were due for a siege. Sometimes, he
mused, living by principles of honor and justice made action difficult.

Meghianna watched the siege of the tower through Megassa's eyes, and found it boring
and filthy, while her sister gloried in the paradox of intertwined tedium and tension. Five days
the Warhawk's army camped around the tower, while Meghianna and Mrillis took teams of
Valors out into the poisoned land, gathering up and purifying star-metal to widen the cleansed,
safe territory around the tower. They left only the largest deposits in place, the fence posts as she
and Mrillis both referred to them, to keep up the illusion that Timark's protective wall of power
was still in place.

They had no idea what sort of enchanters and failed Valors Timark had as supporters,
and didn't want to alert the enemy that their source of magic was about to be yanked out from
between their fingers. At the very last, in the decisive moment, they would pull it all away. The
tug-war, similar to what Mrillis and Ceera had participated in as children, would purify the
star-metal at the same time it hopefully scorched and destroyed the enemy's hold on the Threads.
Until that decisive moment came, they had to act quietly, discretely.

It bothered Meghianna more than she liked to admit, when every day's work yielded
enough star-metal fragments to form a purified ball the size of a horse's head. For the last ten
years, that was the total gleaning for a summer's worth of searching through Moerta. She and
Mrillis both agreed that chances were good someone before Timark had been gathering up
star-metal and hoarding it here in Tantagar. It explained why the harvests of star-metal over the years
had decreased.

Mrillis confessed to her that he had taken it as a good sign, that they approached the
cleansing of Moerta sooner than first anticipated. To know an enemy used their tactics against
them was disheartening, and frightening.

Meghianna noted that the theory also made him angry and thoughtful. No one would be
able to strike at them from that angle ever again. She was proud to be part of that bit of defensive
action on behalf of Lygroes.

While Mrillis and Meghianna were busy, Efrin and Megassa sent their soldiers on
overlapping sallies against the tower from all sides, bombarding the structure of the walls,
distracting Timark's soldiers to allow more teams of Valors to shoot arrows into the walls, with
more climbing ropes attached. Her sister explained that part of the victory was won in the
enemies' heads, driving them mad with impatience and fear, wondering when the next attack
would come.

The second parapet was taken on the third day. And the third parapet on the fourth day,
just before sunrise, with the battle illuminated by pale green magic light Mrillis and Meghianna
provided, which allowed only their soldiers to see clearly.

Timark's people held the narrow, winding staircases inside the walls leading up to the
parapets. They were effectively jammed into the rooms inside the walls, because the Warhawk's
forces could shoot down into the open courtyard in the center of the tower. On the first day of the
siege, they used flaming arrows to set the wooden shelters with thatched roofs on fire. Judging
by the smell of scorched grain and cloth and meat, those shelters held the tower's stores.

"Starvation is an effective weapon," Efrin told her, when Meghianna came to ask him
about the smells and what they meant to the progress of the siege. "I always prefer to use hunger,
rather than disease. It weakens them physically, but is easier to remedy as soon as they
surrender."

"If they don't go mad with desperation, first," Megassa added.

"Desperation? Enough to do what?" Meghianna asked, when she caught the warning
look that passed between her father and sister.

The three sat by themselves around a small fire in front of the tent Efrin and his
commanders shared. The sisters and Ynessa had been given the shelter of the spying ledge,
putting them far enough away from the camp to relieve Ynessa's sensibilities, frustrate
Meghianna's curiosity, and infuriate Megassa, who worried she would miss the best parts of the
siege--and wanted to spend as much time with her fellow Valors as possible. This time with their
father, in the quiet hours as night settled in, before they went to their lofty quarters, was the only
real rest the three enjoyed.

"To do what?" she pressed, when neither one answered. "I'll simply ask Lord Mrillis, if
you don't tell me."

"Don't get sick on me, Meggi," Megassa said with a sigh. "Sometimes, if the situation is
bad enough, people under siege eat each other."

For a heartbeat, Meghianna's stomach knotted and she felt her throat close up, as if she
would spew. Then she forced down the physical reaction with all the discipline she had learned
to control her magic.

"Well," she said, her thoughts racing to assess all the implications, "I know we don't
need to worry about Queen Glyssani becoming food." Her father's tiny jerk and the widening of
his eyes in shock settled the last of her roiling stomach with amusement. So, she hadn't imagined
the instant attraction Efrin had felt. "But what about any women and children, or the injured in
the tower?"

Since those numbers weren't known, her father and sister had no answers for her.
Meghianna was just as frustrated as Markas, when the boy couldn't give her any idea of the
people who normally occupied the tower, and what forces would have been called to Tantagar
when Timark made his move.

* * * *

On the sixth morning, Efrin sat before the campfire when Meghianna and Ynessa came
down from their safe perch to help with breakfast in the gray light before dawn. He gave his
daughter a brief smile, but all his attention focused on the black bulk of the tower, barely
outlined with the first grudging gray haze of day. Even the sunlight in this tainted portion of
Welcairn seemed poisoned and lifeless.

"I think we have done enough damage to their spirits, we need to attack their minds," he
mused, startling them both by breaking his silence after nearly twenty minutes.

"Papa?"

"You know how to create illusions, don't you? Can you wrap an illusion around me, so
they think Timark is standing out at the gates of the tower, and an imposter is inside with them,
leading them toward disaster and treachery?"

Ynessa laughed, and a moment later covered her hand when the Warhawk gave her a
sharp look, questions in his eyes.

"Forgive me, Majesty, but knowing Timark's most loyal followers, they expect treachery
and lies all around them. It would be no shock to them to learn their master is a lie, too. And after
all this time, all this damage your men have done... they would be very glad to throw the traitor
over the walls and open the gates to their true master."

"In more ways than one," Meghianna added.

"Well, my dear?" he said, nodding toward the tower.

"I think so." She thought of Mrillis' chiding just a few short days ago. "I know so," she
amended.

Blessed Estall, help me in this, so we can end this siege.
Meghianna had tried
not to think of all the cruelties Timark could have subjected Queen Glyssani to, in the time he
had held her prisoner. From all the stories Ynessa and Markas had told her of the regent of
Welcairn, he was the type of man who punished others for his failings and disappointments. No
matter how much he might want to claim Glyssani as his queen, and through her the throne of
Welcairn, his childish, self-righteous nature might break through. He might try to accomplish
through brutality and force what he had not been able to attain in twelve years of lies and flattery
and schemes.

For her illusion to work, she needed the help of both Ynessa and Markas. More
accurately, she needed to dip into their memories of Timark in all his moods, in different actions
and occasions. Her short audience with the regent had only shown her one face of the man,
standing still for the most part, disdain on his face. She needed his other expressions, other tones
of voice, to choose the right mannerisms and words to persuade Timark's followers that they had
the wrong man inside the tower with them.

The chore of sifting through their memories took her until nearly noon, and both her
sources of information were drained and ill. Markas grumbled, because he wanted to be on his
feet, ready to race into the tower when the doors opened, not asleep under the influence of a
healing potion.

"Why can't you just restore me like Lord Mrillis did with the soldiers on their forced
march?" the boy said, when his arguments got him nowhere.

"Because, my young king," Mrillis said with that calm, reasonable voice that had
sometimes frustrated Meghianna when she was far younger than Markas, "the penalty to you will
be that much more severe." He chuckled when the boy gave him a confused frown and shook his
head. And winced a moment later at the unwise movement.

"The energy to heal you has to come from somewhere. We cannot cheat the laws of
nature the Estall has given us," Meghianna explained. "True, we have increasing quantities of
tamed star-metal to draw on, but it is better for your healing if we use physical things, rather than
magic. It is more natural. The magic that will clear your head and strengthen you will end,
eventually, and your body will punish you and demand twice the penalty later. Most likely on the
ride home to Welcairn. Do you want to worry your mother, after all she has gone through, to
think that you harmed yourself to help rescue her?"

That was a low blow, she knew, but Glyssani's welfare was the master stroke in any
argument to persuade the boy. Markas scowled, showing he knew what she had done, but he
stopped arguing and submitted to the potions and enforced sleep.

"I will wake you when the doors open, so you can hurry to enter at the Warhawk's side,"
she promised the boy, when he had taken the first potion and lay down in the shelter of the tent
closest to the front of the siege company.

"She won't know he's the Warhawk, will he?" Markas' heavy, bloodshot eyes flickered
open and he tried to sit up. Meghianna pushed him back down on his pallet of blankets. "No, I
just thought of something. What if she thinks he really is Timark? She won't cooperate with him.
Not after everything he's done all these years. Even if he seems to rescue her."

"He will tell her that you're... oh, I see. Why would your mother believe you're siding
with Timark now, after all this time?" She nodded. "I will ask my father--"

"Give him this." Markas pulled a massive silver and onyx ring from his belt pouch. "It's
my father's signet. Timark kept taking it from Mother's jewelry casket, and she finally gave it to
me to make sure he didn't try to use it. He nearly tore the castle apart, looking for it," Markas
added with a chuckle that earned him another wince of pain. "But he couldn't admit that he had
been taking it without permission. If the Warhawk wears this, Mother will know he's on our side,
because I'd rather die than give it to the real Timark."

"Clever." She kissed his forehead and brushed hair out of his eyes--and muffled a
chuckle when her gesture raised a hot, dark red blush from hairline to collar. "Now, go to sleep.
Perhaps by morning, your mother will be free, and you might just be king of Welcairn."

"Too young," the boy muttered, his voice thick as the potion finally took over.

"My father says you have proven your wisdom and self-control, far beyond that of men
twice your age. He's quite impressed with you. If he says you are able to rule, with your mother's
guidance until your majority, of course, who will gainsay the Warhawk?"

"King Markas the second." He smiled, his eyes fluttering but unable to open
completely.

"Sleep well, Majesty." Meghianna waited until a touch of magic showed her the boy
truly slept. She enhanced his sleep with a layer of magic, enfolding him in three Threads to feed
healing, rejuvenating power to his body, taken from natural sources and not star-metal. The boy
had earned the right to charge at the front of the rescuers when they took the tower of
Tantagar.

Dusting off her skirts, she rose and strode across the camp to the tent where her father
waited for the cloak of illusion. Meghianna took a deep breath and braced herself for the task
ahead--and tried to think of the right way to persuade her father to indeed make sure the crown
ended up on Markas' head. True, Efrin had said the boy had shown himself mature and able to
rule now, but he hadn't
said
he would make the boy king immediately. On what
authority, she wondered, had she made that promise? As the Queen of Snows, or as the
Warhawk's eldest child? Or perhaps as the sister and supporter of the Warhawk's unborn--not
even conceived--heir?

You have created a web to tangle yourself, haven't you?
she scolded herself.
Being an adult and having authority wasn't quite as liberating as she had thought when she was
only half her age. Meghianna thought she had learned that lesson, but it seemed she had to
re-learn it, now, and most likely again in the future.

* * * *

"You blithering fools!" Efrin roared, his voice changed to Timark's higher-pitched,
blustering tones.

He spread his arms and stomped back and forth in the small margin of open land where
he was close enough for his features to be clear to those standing on the wall, but far enough
away that only expert marksmen could hope to hit him with an arrow. The view from the ledge
in the cliffs had assured the besiegers there were no catapults, and no room to maneuver one into
position to hit Efrin, even if there were.