summer-ending rain. This is the first time, the first time ever!”
The rain ran down her face, and dripped from the point of her chin. Her hair lay sleek to her head like the pelt of some sea-beast. Kallan spoke cautiously. “Where were you these last eight years, that you could not do as you pleased?”
She spoke quietly, precisely, a challenge and warning in her gray eyes. “Where I was, there were no summers and no winters, no rain nor any change of season.”
Kallan took a long breath. He tried to speak coldly, as though he were not amazed. “My lady, I have followed you, and you have seen what I am. If you have any will to trust me, now is the time to tell me of your plans.” He glanced at her. Her face was calm. For the moment, at least, she had not rejected him. “You spoke to Taules Reji of an army. Do you have one?”
“None but dreams and shadows,” she said, and there was mockery in her voice but no mistrust.
“Do you trust me with your plans?”
“Yes … but let us find some shelter from this rain!”
He followed her along the cliff, till they found a place where the overhanging rocks protected them. There she told him of all that she had planned. She may have been glad to boast.
Kallan listened as gravely as though the commander of a great army were outlining strategy—where to set one squad of archers, another of swordsmen, the old fighters here, the young ones in the middle where they cannot break and run.
As he listened, his excitement grew. Here was a plan, truly, to give a handful of fighters the power to rout the greatest army that any king could bring. But when she had finished, he shook his head.
“I know the plain south of the city, where you would meet the soldiers that he commands. You do not have enough to oppose them. I know, it will be terror that wins the day, not swords, but you need swords to make the terror. Shadows will not do it. You will be facing wise ones as well as fools; we must not give them time to think.”
“I had another plan, one where swords would not be needed,” she said, “but I do not have the strength alone.”
Kallan knew her meaning. “I tell you, Ilbran will not let you use his daughter. He fears for her, both mind and body.”
She seemed unconvinced, wearing a knowing and amused look on her face. It disturbed him. “Go back to your first plan,” he said. “I can return and gather men, a good two dozen warriors to follow you.”
She did not try to conceal her amazement. No greater joy than to explain to her. “I worked as much as any man could, in summer,” he said. “I told stories of glory and glamour, and I watched to see who was stirred by them.
“A few were sons of men I knew; some had traitor fathers and had lived their lives in mistrust. Some were like Syresh, with their heads full of noble notions. He is proud to be your liegeman.”
Andiene nodded and smiled. Kallan went on, speaking eagerly. “In a few days, I can gather a group around me that you can trust, and lead them north again to where you wait. My life, if any of them are traitorous.”
For all his confident words, he knew that his task would be more risky than he had made it seem. Before he departed the next morning, he drew sketches and battle plans for her, in case he did not return; he made drawings of the plains south of the city, the foreordained battlefield for an army marching from the south. “Wait for me a week, and then travel slowly,” he said.
It was strange to walk back through the dead land he had traveled so few days before. The greening had covered burnt land and dry land alike. The lanara groves were white with big-petaled barren flowers, and he passed groups of gatherers going out from the city to harvest them. The rain was warm and did not trouble him greatly, but in evening time, when he tried to light a fire, he longed for Andiene, who could call up flames without one word.
He passed through the gates of the city without challenge. The fear that Andiene had raised lay around him too. Still, he moved cautiously, and kept his back to the walls. He was alone