Leda

Chapter Thirty-Four: Enemy at the Gates

They heard Castor's arrival long before they saw the first of his troops: an ominous beating of drums, and the shrill blast of trumpets. Men's voices and the whickering of horses supplied the harmony, the sound rising and growing in intensity as they mounted the bank. And then at last, gazing down through the forest, Arec spied banners sagging and swaying, rain laden and heavy; the flick of a horse's tail, the dull steel of a helmet.

Beside him on the southern tower, Luc leant on a merlon and scanned the forest. "There's a lot of them," he said at last.

"I can see that," Arec replied.

"This isn't a social call."

"I fear not."

The two men stood in silence, arms folded, as Castor's army flooded out of the trees lining the bank below.

"Spirits, Hal," Arec whispered at last. "What have you done?"

His mind drifted back twenty or more years. He saw not Castor's men but Nérac's; the Dal Reniac forces turning their trebuchets on the southern end of the fort, raining down fire arrows, cresting the walls with ropes and ladders. You could still see where they'd breached a hole: newer, lighter stone patched up the old. But that was all history ˗ Nérac's wanton sabotage. Diodiné himself had waded into the fight. Nérac had claimed it was all for Meracad, when in reality he wanted power ˗ to take the Nests for himself.

But this was different. This was the Emperor knocking at the gates. And from what Arec could make of the Colvé forces, the Hannac guards ˗ underfed and outnumbered ˗ would last no more than days in the face of such an assault.

"We have to let him in," Arec said at last, his heart plummeting like a stone.

"What?" Luc turned shocked eyes on his old friend. "They'll rip us to pieces."

"No..." Arec said carefully. "We don't know for a fact that it's a siege he's after. It might be a billet."

Luc snorted. "And where else would he be going with all those men?"

"Besides," Arec said, ignoring Luc, "there are the ancient laws to consider."

"What do you mean?"

"You know well what I mean, Luc. If we're Castor's host ˗ not his enemy ˗ then he comes in as our guest. It's a crime against the ancestors themselves to slay one who's offered you his hearth."

"I don't think such trifles concern our boy down there," Luc said through gritted teeth.

"He's the Emperor!"

"He'll kill us all, Arec. And if it's a choice between dying on the battlements or having my throat cut in my bed, I choose the first!"

"Maybe..." Arec's temper rose. "Maybe you and I see it that way. Maybe we have the luxury of seeing it that way. But what about Elis? What about the maids, the older tenants, the tenants' children, Luc?"

Luc shook his head.

"Listen!" Arec's voice had raised a notch. Some of the other guards stared. He drew Luc into a corner of the tower. "With my Mistress away, my duty is to defend Hannac, and Hannac is its people. All of them. Now we don't know what Castor wants ˗ what his business is with us. He may mean well ˗ I can't say. What I can say is that no one closes their doors against the Emperor. To do so is not just treachery, it's suicide. It's annihilation. If we fight, we will die ˗ all of us. It's certain. But if I let him in, at least we might give the little ones a chance. Can't you see that?"

Luc blanched, his lips tightening. "I see it," he said at last.

"So we're agreed?"

"No. But in Hal's absence, you're the Master."