Is anyone happy? Of course not. All the holders are ready to throw me out unless I march an army to the Roof of the World and destroy a tower and twoscore women, and, yes, one black mage, whose crime seems to be that he builds good towers, and forges excellent weapons of self-defense. Actually, they wouldn't throw me out. They'd execute me for treason. And you and Nesslek as well, at least Nesslek. Why? Because they're afraid that they'll have to treat women more like people.

"If it weren't for their demon-damned pigheadedness, we'd be doing well. We've gotten back the grasslands. Your father is getting Rulyarth organized, and trade duties are beginning to flow in, and soon your brother can take over there." Sillek takes a deep pull of wine from the goblet.

"Why would you have Fornal there?" asks Zeldyan.

"Your father has asked that he not be my permanent representative there. I could use his counsel closer, and both Fornal and I could benefit from Fornal's service in Rulyarth. So, I imagine, could your father," adds Sillek dryly.

"Yes, Fornal does chafe at Father's counsel." Zeldyan smiles. "But you really think you must attack the Roof of the World?"

"No more than fish must swim, birds fly, and men die, and they will. Between Karthanos, Ildyrom, and my own beloved holders, I'm going to have to attack the Roof of the World. Karthanos got rid of any choice I might have had, without saying a word."

"How?" asks Zeldyan. Her voice conveys that she knows the answer, but she wants Sillek to speak.

"He sent me a thousand golds and offered score forty armsmen, as well as an experienced commander. What does that tell you about his resources?"

"Are you suggesting that the most honorable Karthanos has intimated that, unless you remove the women from the Roof of the World, he will indeed remove you as Lord of Lornth?"

"Unless I overlooked something, I think that was the message." Sillek downs the rest of the wine in a single gulp.

"Perhaps you should talk to your mother," suggests Zeldyan. "She has much experience in such intricacies."

"She'll only suggest that I take all the coins and all the armsmen and reclaim my patrimony. She's played that tune from the beginning-with all her little talks with 'old' friends and her letters-all the signs she thinks I'm too stupid to see. And I can do nothing because all those old friends would agree with her, and I'd have even more trouble. After all, I only told her not to talk to me of honor." He toys with the goblet, then sets it down hard. "Besides, even I can see I have no choices."

"Then let her convince you," suggests Zeldyan. "It will make her happy."

"No, only justified, but it's a good idea. I don't know how I managed without you, dear one." Sillek laughs, rises, steps around the table, and lifts her into his arms. "It's later, now."

"You are impossible." But she lifts her lips to his.

CXVIII.

DRY DUST SWIRLED Into the smithy, both from the road and from fields that had not seen rain in more than an eight-day.

Clung! Clung!

Nylan struggled with the metal on the anvil, a chunk of iron that neither looked circular nor like a gear. Even the hole in the center was lopsided. Finally, he took the tongs and set the misshapen mass on the forge bricks, then wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm.

"Does the whole thing have to be of metal, ser?" asked Huldran from behind the older, makeshift anvil, where she continued to hammer out the arrowheads that ought to have been cast.

"It would be stronger."

"Couldn't the wood people make something like a wheel, with holes in it where you put through sort of square metal pegs? You could put flanges on the bottom so they wouldn't slip out, and a smaller wheel inside the other."

Nylan squinted, trying to visualize what the blond guard had suggested. Then he shook his head and laughed. "It would probably work better than what I've been trying to do. In making wooden wheels you can wet-bend the wood. Yes, it would work."

"You think so?"

Nylan pointed to the misshappen metal. "Look at that. That's workable?"

A thin woman, painfully thin, wearing leathers from the plunder piles, with dark smears that had been blood, stepped into the smithy. "Ser?"

Nylan turned. "Yes."

"I was bid ... If you please, ser ... the marshal. . . she ... ser-"

"I take it that the marshal requests my presence?" Nylan asked to cut off the painfully slow speech for the new guard.

"Yes, ser."

"Fine." He set aside the hammer. "I assume I'll be back before too long, Huldran. Use the good anvil." Nylan looked back at the messenger. "I don't know everyone anymore. Who are you?"

"Meyin, ser."

"Where are you from?" The smith stepped from behind the anvil.

"Dinoz, ser."

Nylan had never heard of Dinoz, but he'd never heard of most of the small towns from which the new guards had fled. "East or west of the mountains?"

"It's in Gallos, ser."

"Let's go."

Nylan followed Meyin down the road toward the tower. Nearly a dozen new guard recruits were practicing on the sparring ground. On the stretch of meadow between the road and the fields another handful ran through exercises with wands on horseback.

"Looks more like a boot camp . . ." Nylan muttered to himself. "Then it is." How long could Ryba build her forces before someone else decided to take a crack at Westwind? An eight-day? A year? Who knew?

Ryba sat behind a small flat table in the corner of the top level of Tower Black, military and cool-looking in the gray leathers. She nodded, pushing aside the quill pen and the scroll. Nylan stepped into the room, and Meyin slipped down the steps, closing the door behind her.

As he eased onto the stool, Nylan's eyes flicked to the empty cradle.

"She's down in the nursery area with Niera and Antyl."

The smith-engineer looked blankly at the marshal.

"Antyl's the one who's so pregnant that I couldn't figure out how she got here."

"Oh, the one with the burns?"

Ryba nodded. "What were you working on?"

"Gears for the sawmill. I managed to get the collar for the mill wheel done, but I was having trouble. Huldran came up with a better idea." Nylan shrugged. "I should have thought of it-or asked-sooner."

"The sawmill will have to wait-maybe until next year."

"Trouble?"

"We've had trouble from the day the landers planetfell." Ryba glanced to the window, her eyes traveling to the ice needle that was Freyja and then to the western peaks. "It's beautiful here. If they'd just leave us alone-but they won't.

We're going to have to win a big battle. Soon."

"How big? How soon?"

"Before mid-fall, perhaps sooner. I can't tell yet, but some of the latest recruits have been bringing tales of armsmen gathering in Lornth, and of lots of mercenaries being hired. I sent Ayrlyn out to get more supplies, and more information."

"Maybe Lornth expects trouble elsewhere." Nylan worried about another scouting run for Ayrlyn, but forced his concerns to the back of his mind.

"No."

"Visions? Images?"

"Those and all the scattered reports."

"So we need a superweapon? A magic sword that slices armsmen in quarters without anyone holding it? Or perhaps a magic bow?"

"Nylan." Ryba's voice was as cold as the ice on Freyja.

"I'm sorry. What am I supposed to do? Make more blades? Even with better blades, we still lost a lot of good guards." He cleared his throat, his eyes flicking to the window and Freyja, the ice-needle that sometimes seemed warmer and more approachable than Ryba.

"We can't afford those kinds of losses again," Ryba said. "Even with all the new recruits ... we can't train them well that fast, and half are scared to death of men with weapons. It takes time to overcome that."

Nylan rubbed his forehead. At times, especially when he thought of weapons, his head still ached. "Huldran is working on arrowheads. She can't give them that final ordering, but she makes good arrowheads. I can make more, too. I don't like it, but I can. Or blades. What do you want?"

"The weapons laser. I told you we'd need it for the big battle. How usable is it?"

"We've got one bank of firm cells left. They're at about eighty percent and deteriorating-probably won't be much good past the coming winter. The generator's gone; so we're stuck with what we have in the cells." He looked at the marshal. "How big a battle?"

"I don't know the exact numbers, but they'll have enough troops to cover the ridge fields. They'll have some siege engines for the tower. That's why I told you to save the laser for the battle with this Lord Sillek. He's supposedly using all his loot from taking over that seaport for just two things. Fortifying his hold on the conquered city . . . and building up and buying armsmen."

"The laser won't be enough, then." Nylan massaged his forehead again. "We need some defensive emplacements. I have an idea-if I can have some guards."

"How many? I don't have that many of the original marines left."

"New ones will be fine, with maybe one experienced one."

"Can you tell me what you have in mind?"

"It's an idea. Call it a booby trap. One way or another, it will work." He sighed.

"It will work. Everything I build works."

"All right, but stop feeling sorry for yourself about it. It takes strength to survive here, and there's nothing either one of us can do about that." The marshal paused, her eyes straying to the window again, before she continued. "There's another thing. From what Relyn learned from the two survivors, before we sent them off, Gerlich was stupid, and this Lord Sillek isn't."

"Stupid in what way?" asked Nylan.

"Gerlich got caught up in the fighting and forgot his original plan. The wizard was supposed to throw firebolts at the guards and incinerate them one by one.

Instead, Gerlich charged, and when everyone got mixed together, the wizard couldn't."

"That was probably because you parried that wizard's fire," Nylan said.

"Parried? I didn't do that."

"I saw it. You threw up the blade, and the firebolt turned."

"It must be your blades, then," Ryba laughed. "The great smith Nylan whose blades turned back the wizards' fire."

Nylan not only doubted her analysis, but failed to see the humor. "That's probably why Gerlich ordered the charge. He thought the wizard's fire wouldn't work, and that the guards would pick off his men one by one."

"Our arrows can't pick off a thousand invaders."

"That many?"

"That few, if we're lucky."

Nylan stood. "I think I'd better figure out more than a few tricks."

"Nylan ... we still need arrows and the laser."

"I know-and magic blades, and a complete set of armaments from the Winterlance." He tempered his words with a forced grin. "And a lot of luck."

"We can't count on luck."

"Of course not. We're angels." He inclined his head. "Maybe Relyn can pray to his new religion."

For the first time in seasons, Ryba looked surprised. "His what?"

"Once we destroy Lornth, he's going out to preach the faith of the angels, the way of black order-something like that. He's convinced you and I and Ayrlyn will change the world."

"I can't say I like that. Not at all." Ryba's fingers seemed to inch toward the blade at her hip.

"Let him go," Nylan said wearily. "If we win, we can use all the propaganda we can get, and religion's good propaganda. If not... it doesn't matter."

"It won't be the same. It won't be Westwind-what we believe. The last thing this forsaken planet needs is a new messianic religion."

"No, Ryba, he won't follow your vision. You're the only one with your vision, but I'd trust his version more than any alternatives that might crop up." He took a deep breath. "Let's worry about this later."

Ryba shook her head.

"Relyn's one man. We have to fight a frigging army first. A lot of your guards respect Relyn. It wouldn't exactly help morale ..."

"All right... but after this is over ... we'll have to settle that."

Nylan nodded and rose. "I'll see you later." He knew how she would settle the issue, and that bothered him, too. Would she always be like that?

"Nylan . . . just do what you can. You work hard, and it will be enough. Trust me."

"I have, and I am." As he stepped back, before turning toward the door and the steps, he gave another not quite false smile, thinking, And look where it s gotten me!