Second Guard (34 page)

Jessa clasped her hands behind her back and narrowed her eyes. “Centurio Abelino will address your first question in a moment. As for your second, I would suggest you not ask it again, nor
speak of it. Commander Telendor’s orders are not for any one of us to question. As such, I will not suffer any speculation regarding his decisions. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!” the room said in unison, though Jessa looked directly at Drayvon.

Tali raised her eyebrows at Chey and Zarif. Clearly, now was not the time to speak with Jessa about their suspicions. It won’t help anyway, Tali thought. Even if we know Jaden to be a
traitor, that still won’t keep the Andorians from our shores.

Centurio Abelino stepped up beside Jessa. “We received a message by rider that all the bluejackets of the realm are dead,” he said, his voice low and solemn. “Poisoned, we
believe, by our enemies.”

The crowd gasped. Though she had already learned of the bluejacket deaths through Xiomara, Tali felt the weight of the news afresh. Without the bluejackets, how would they warn the rest of the
realm about the Andorian threat?

“We have already sent riders to Jaden on the northern front and to the Queen and Telendor in Fugaza,” continued Abelino, answering her question. “I will soon take the fastest
horses and best riders to spread word of the attack throughout Tequende. All those who choose to ride will meet me at the stables once we are dismissed.” Abelino nodded once, then stepped
back on the dais. Tali saw several pledges exchanging glances. Those who rode with Abelino would be spared the battle.

Jessa put her hands on her slim hips and stepped forward again to address the crowd. “I will take command of the Alcazar’s defenses. I want the best archers and those trained in
catapults with me. I also call upon those of you unskilled in warfare until now,” she said, pausing to study the servants lined up against the walls. “I will need you to brace the
doors, stockpile arrows and stones, assist our warriors, and when the time comes, to help our wounded in a thousand ways, none of them small. May I count on you to follow my orders and serve your
realm?”

For a moment, the Great Hall was silent as the tombs of Elia. Then a young voice called out from the far wall. “With honor!”

Tali’s mouth dropped open. Dear Gods, what does Ory think he’s doing? But before she could worry more about the boy, the crowd took up his cry with vigor. “With honor!”
the servants yelled, stomping their feet and raising their hands to their hearts. Tali’s own heart swelled as the unified voices filled the room, and soon the pledges joined them as well.
“With honor!” Tali cheered with them.
Perhaps we can hold this fortress after all.

Saraky stepped up next to Jessa and waited for the noise to subside. Though the crowd now hummed, energized and emboldened by their joint purpose, Saraky’s grim face unnerved Tali. He held
up a hand and the crowd quieted. “I will take a group of warriors to the beach,” he said, in his clipped, reserved style. “There we will lie in wait to ambush the Andorian landing
parties. I require only the strongest, fastest, best fighters for this task.”

Tali let out a slow, deep breath as the crowd sobered once again. Those who volunteered for Saraky’s “task” would have no stone walls to protect them, only the weapons in their
hands. No doubt they would be the first Tequendians to fall.

Jessa took center stage again between Abelino and Saraky. “I know you will make me proud today,” she said, her eyes scanning the many hundred souls in front of her. “Trust your
training and yourself. The realm depends on it.”

The three centurios stepped off the dais, each going a separate direction. Most of the crowd, suddenly abuzz with talking and movement, followed Jessa out a side door to her training arena. A
smaller group accompanied Abelino to the stables.

Tali stood motionless, Zarif and Chey beside her. They knew without speaking what would be required of them. Brindl came toward them, out of breath from jostling her way through the crowd.

“Zarif, surely you will ride with Abelino,” she said, her face set sternly, though the wobble in her voice betrayed her fear. “The rest of us will go with Jessa.”

Tali and the boys dropped their heads. No one had the heart to respond. Brindl’s eyes went wide as their silence answered for them.

“No!” she cried, clutching Zarif’s sleeve. “Saraky’s task is a suicide mission! You
must not go
!”

“I’m sorry, Brindl,” Zarif said quietly. “We have no choice.”

“No choice, after how you were treated?” Brindl asked, her voice now bitter. She crossed her arms in front of her, defiant.

“It was not the realm that mistreated us,” Chey answered.

“You were betrayed!” Brindl said, grabbing Tali’s hands in appeal.

“But we cannot betray our oath,” Tali said, despite Brindl’s pleading gaze.

Brindl tugged her hands back and began to look around as if she’d lost something. “Where is Ory?” she asked angrily. “You may want to die, but he shall not!” Her
voice broke then and Tali knew the girl fought back tears.

Zarif grabbed Brindl’s elbow and pulled her into an embrace. The two held each other for a few seconds before Brindl withdrew from Zarif’s arms and held his face in her hands. Tali
and Chey exchanged a quick look of surprise, then turned away to give their friends a moment of privacy. Tali took the opportunity to scan the crowd for Ory.

“Perhaps he went back to the mines,” Chey said, though his voice sounded doubtful.

“More likely he joined the crowd with Jessa,” Brindl said from behind them, “but I will return that little imp to the mines if I have to drag him there.” Tali turned back
around to see Brindl trying to smile bravely. “And then I shall take my place on top of the wall and let my prayers fall upon your heads like a shield.”

Zarif forced a smile on his face in return. “May the Goddess watch over you,” he said softly.

“May the Mother keep you safe,” Brindl answered, then bowed her head and walked away.

Zarif hesitated for only a moment before facing his friends once again. “Together?” he asked.

Chey nodded. “Together.”

“Always,” said Tali.

W
e’ll use the boulder to anchor our hiding spot,” Tali said, pulling the brush into place beside it. They had met at that same boulder
nearly every morning for the past eight moons and more for their endurance training with Jaden. Tali could not even laugh at the irony; it was too painful. She remembered him standing there on her
first day, so commanding, so confident. She shook off the memory and fussed with the brush surrounding it.

“I’ll make a lean-to with these branches,” Chey answered, dropping the large bush he dragged behind him. Rona and Bernat, who had also been assigned to their team of ten,
sorted weapons into piles nearby. Zarif, whom Saraky had designated their team leader, had left them to their tasks while he went to confer with the other two leaders. Tali saw him returning along
the beach, where he stopped to survey the fighting grounds. Tali knew her friend needed time alone to think, but still she glanced up at him every now and then, impatient to hear the plans.

“We should hide the weapons in more than one location,” Chey said, placing a longsword in a pile with a few others. “When the fighting begins, we may be split up.”

Tali looked at the assortment of swords, axes, daggers, and hammers that Rona and Bernat had brought from the armory. They had chosen all the close combat weapons, for there would be no time for
bows and arrows at this range—and besides, they would need every last bow on top of the Alcazar walls. Tali again envied the pledges who would aim arrows and fire catapults from behind the
safety of the stone fortress.
Stop it, Tali,
she scolded herself. They should envy
you
, for you are among the best warriors here. You should be honored to fight on the beach.

“Take what you’d like to strap to your arms and legs,” Bernat said, pointing to a pile of smaller hand weapons. “Rona and I are going to fetch some of the tribella vines
that grow near the stable walls,” he said, motioning to the large Earth Guild girl, who had already started climbing the steep grade back to the Alcazar grounds. “We can use them to
weave these branches together.”

Tali nodded, watching the odd pair walk away. Despite the lumps Rona had given her early on in their training, Tali had grown fond of the quiet girl, and the Moon Guilder Bernat had always been
an amiable companion inside and out of the ring.

“Saraky chose our team well,” Chey said, coming alongside Tali.

“True,” Tali agreed. “I would not like to be on Drayvon’s team.”

“Saraky doesn’t miss much. I’m sure he knows that we will fight better alongside pledges we like and trust.”

Tali nodded. “Though I’m still surprised he only chose thirty of us to join him on the beach. He turned away twice that many volunteers.”

Chey shrugged. “Less on his conscience, maybe.”

With that grim remark, the two settled into their previous tasks, silently adding more scrub around the boulder and sorting weapons into piles. When Tali shuffled off a few minutes later to see
how their hiding place looked from the shore, she was pleased that it seemed convincing in the waning light of day. The Alcazar itself looked almost beautiful in the lavender light, and the pebbles
along the shoreline seemed washed in gold. Tali slipped off her boots and let the lake’s soft waves cool her feet.

Zarif wandered over to her, lines of worry etched across his brow. He suddenly looked much older than his sixteen years.

“How do the other two teams progress, my lord commander?” she asked, hoping to win a smile from him.

Zarif broke into a grin and he gave her a small shove. Then his face turned serious again. “Saraky’s team will take cover on the island’s southernmost tip, Drayvon’s team
to the west,” he said, pulling a spyglass from his belt and handing it to her. “The Andorian boats are just visible now. You can see they are brand new, as if recently built for this
purpose.”

Tali felt disoriented at first, unsure where to aim the glass. Lake Chibcha was vast, not unlike the great oceans, she’d been told, seemingly endless. While its eastern and western shores
rose into the Condor Mountain Range, its southern shore was too far off to see. Rather, it seemed as if the water went on forever. Only by maps did Tali know that the Condor Mountains encircled the
lake to the south, save for a narrow pass where the Magda River turned to white water, pushing its way through rock into the kingdom of Oest Andoria. It was a treacherous stretch of river;
unnavigable, most claimed, yet proof otherwise now traveled through the glass and into Tali’s wide eye. Dozens of Andorian longboats pushed their way through the water, headed straight for
the Alcazar.

Tali put the spyglass down and squinted across the lake, but all she saw was another beautiful evening, the sun beginning its descent back to Mother Earth. Three times she had to put the glass
to her eye to convince herself the longboats were real, their war flags flying.

The boats were slim but held two warriors on each oar, ten oars on each side. Forty warriors in each boat, Tali thought, and the boats keep coming. The Andorians rowed their boats in five
columns, and Tali counted ten boats per column. Fifty boats times forty is two thousand men, she calculated. Fighting men, against one thousand boys and girls, most of them untrained servants. She
shook her head at the pitiful odds.

“May I look?” a new voice said.

Tali looked up in surprise to see Drayvon at her side. She nodded and handed him the spyglass, then glanced at Zarif, who shrugged. Strange how a common enemy now made Drayvon her ally, her
compatriot, this day. And she couldn’t deny his bravery; he’d been the first to volunteer for Saraky’s mission. Maybe in the face of war, the brash Sun Guilder had realized that
guilds played no part on the battlefield.