Free The Seven-Petaled Shield by Deborah J. Ross Page A

and then faced the physical strength of larger, grown men, seasoned Gelonian warriors. He managed to bringtogether a small group of Meklavarans and, spying Shorrenon in the fray, made his way to his brother. Together they forced their way through the lower city. Most of the remnants of Maharrad’s guard were killed either when he fell or in covering the retreat of the two princes.
    “And here we sit,” Shorrenon said after a painfully long silence, “waiting for their next move. Another demand for surrender, I would think, and under considerably worse terms than the first one.”
    “What will they do?” Ediva whimpered. “We have no choice now—do we?—but to accept their terms?”
    Shorrenon paused, and Tsorreh sensed his thought,
There is always a choice.
    “There will be time for negotiations and decisions later, my dear,” Shorrenon told his tearful, quivering wife, “once the fate of my father is known.”
    He turned to Tsorreh and took out the Isarran token from a fold in his belt. “I return this to you, stepmother. May its next bearer have greater success than I.”
    Tsorreh accepted the token. “You must rest and regain your strength. You are now our leader,
te-ravot
in deed if not in name. Your thoughts must be clear and your vision sure.”
    “For me, there can be no rest, not until—”
    He broke off at a frenzied tapping at the door. One of the surviving soldiers stood there. “The Gelon—they came under a cover of shields. We could not hold them off, not by pebbles or arrows. They splashed the wood with black oil, some hellish mixture of theirs, and now they’ve set it ablaze.
Ravot,
the gates are burning!”

Chapter Five
    C LOUDS of thick brown smoke billowed up from the gates. The ancient wood burned in a dozen different places. Some force, like an evil spell, fueled the blaze. A few of the city’s defenders rushed to the top of the walls with buckets of water, but the smoke held them off. They fell back, coughing and clutching their throats. One of the boys from Zevaron’s sling brigade toppled to the ground and lay there, unmoving.
    The roar of the fire rushed over Tsorreh. She reeled under the heat and stench, greasy smoke and something more, some taint she had no name for. The next moment, a group of Zevaron’s boys attempted once more to get close enough to throw water on the flames. Gelonian archers shot at any who showed themselves. One of the city men brought up his own bow and fired back at them. The next volley killed him, and Shorrenon commanded that no one else was to risk his life.
    “As for the gates,” he snapped, “let them burn.”
    The fire blazed through midday and into the afternoon, and still the Gelon did not move from their positions in the lower city. As the sun dipped toward the western peaks and the evening winds freshened, the air began to clear. The top and center of the gates were gone, but the sides continued to smolder.
    Watching from her balcony, Tsorreh thought how the glowing embers resembled the eyes of mysterious beasts. The dusk felt curiously still, the struggles of the day utterly spent.
    She sent a message to Shorrenon, asking for a private meeting. When he arrived a short time later, looking near the end of his strength, she insisted he sit down and eat a little from the plate of flatbread and dates Otenneh had left.
    “Before the upper city falls,” she said, “we must find a way of hiding Ediva and the children, a place the Gelon will not find them.”
    By his expression, he understood how difficult that would be. Even if he convinced Ediva, where would they go? Certainly nowhere in the palace or the citadel, and the temple would be thronged, all likely places for the Gelon to search. They could not reach the lower city and lose themselves in the poorer neighborhoods there.
    Tsorreh’s work in housing refugee families in the
meklat
had given her considerable knowledge of such households. She put forth her plan, which was for Ediva to