She watered the horse at a nearby stream and then remounted for the final leg of her journey, arriving at the watch-tower as the sun sank toward evening wreathed in garish red-orange clouds. The tower, visible from a distance as it projected from its rocky promontory, was an easy landmark to locate and the road passed near it.
Charis arrived hungry and tired, but the exertion felt good to her as she bathed her muscles in the warm glow of fatigue. She felt only the slightest twinge from her wound as she slid from the saddle to stretch the tightness from her shoulders and thighs. She let the reins dangle so the horse could crop the grass that grew on the spongy turf of the promontory and began walking around the tower.
It was a rough stone square, rude and inelegant, broad at the base and tapering rapidly to its pinched-off top. The tower was a crude, cold thing erected by war’s expediency, and until seeing it up close Charis had not given a thought to the fact that she might have to spend the night alone there.
Neither had she given any thought to what she might eat. She had brought no provisions with her and had no way to make a fire. But the tower was strong, if gross, shelter and, she reflected, it would hardly hurt her to fast one night.
She stooped through the cramped archway and climbed the narrow, winding stone steps inside the tower to a bare wooden platform. She walked to the stone breastwork to view the wide mouth of the estuary and the sea beyond, now stained the color of weathered bronze. Deep green forest crowded the far shore opposite the tower, the tips of the trees holding the fading, orange-tinted light.
Although the air was still warm from the day, she felt cold in this place and wondered whether she would not be more comfortable elsewhere. She turned to inspect the platform. One portion was covered by a roof made of poles laid across the breastwork supporting a ragged thatch. Tucked away under this roof she found a blanket of sewn fleeces neatly rolled, and next to it a skin of water. There was a small brazier on a tripod with a crystal on a thong for starting a fire, but no fuel. Offered this scant accommodation, Charis decided to spend the night on the platform.
She descended once more and led the horse to a rivulet a little way down the hill and from the tower. When they had both drunk their fill, Charis led the animal back up the hill, unsaddled it, and brought it inside the hollow base of the tower where she hobbled it for the night. She climbed the stone steps once more and dragged out the fleece quilt, spreading it over the uncovered end of the platform. Then she lay down to watch a sunset sky alive with swifts, flitting and darting after invisible insects. But it was a dusk strangely quiet and Charis reflected that being so near the sea she should have heard the cries of seabirds.
She lay there until the stars came out and she fell asleep thinking about what she would tell Kian to convince him that the world was about to end.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Charis awakened before sunrise. the stars were faded lamps in the heavens and the eastern sky bore a blood-red streak that spread across the horizon like a wound. She could feel the heat of the day riding in on a southern breeze. It would be hot and the river valley humid. As she looked out across the estuary from the watchtower platform, she could see a blue haze hanging over the water and the forest-clad hills beyond. The air was rank with the fishy smell of the tidewash.
She decided to walk to the river and bathe before the heat made her sticky and irritable. She had Kian to deal with today and wanted to be composed for what might well turn into a confrontation. Leaving the tower, she gave her horse to graze on the dew-speckled grass and made her way down the brush-covered slope to one of the innumerable streams which fed into the river.
She had just pulled off her boots when she heard the rhythmic drumming of horses’ hooves. “Kian!” she thought, and jerking the boots back on, she clambered hurriedly back to the watchtower just in time to see four horsemen pounding up the hill to the tower, plumed helms and riding cloaks flying.
One of the horsemen turned in the saddle and saw her; he wheeled his horse toward her. In that same instant Charis knew he was an enemy.
The other three rode past the tower and down again to the shore. She turned and gazed toward the sea. A ship, dark of hull and sail, had entered the estuary on the incoming tide. It was still too iar away to see any details, but she guessed that the ship was full of Seitfewas’s men, come to lay an ambush for her brother.
There was no time to think wfast to do. The horseman was bearing down on her. She traned to meet him and saw that he had a sword in his hand. Site tacked away to give herself room. The rider saw the nswwnsefflt mid, thinking she would turn to flee, spurred the horse to trample her from behind.
But Charis did not flee. She let the horse gallop to within a few paces and then simply collapsed before it, rolling to the side as the hoofs thundered over her. By the time the rider turned the horse and trotted back to see his handiwork, Charis bad reached the tower. S amp;e dipped inside unseen with one thought in her mind: warn Kian. But how?
She gained the watchtower platform and ran to the breastwork. The ship had landed, a plank was down, and scores of men were streaming ashore to clamber up the steep, rock-bound bank. Whirling away from the breastwork Charis’ eyes fell on the brazier. She ran to it and grabbed up ‘the crystal, snapping the thong. The sun was gSewisg on the horizon, but the first rays had not cleared the rim of the earth. “Hurry!” she muttered under her breath and froze: Footsteps inside the tower.
The bare platform offered no place to bide, but on a sudden inspiration she turned and grabbed the fieece and leaped onto the thatch roof. She lay on the Bat roof and, turning the fleece over, spread it over her as the rider climbed onto the platform beneath her. Charis held her breath.
She heard him move to the iar side of the tower and peeped from under the fleece to see him, back turned toward her, gazing down at the ship and bis cramades Below. He called to them and waved and then turned to look inland. “He is not looking for me,” she realized. “He means to stay here. Of course, that was his intention all along; he is to watch for Kian and give the signal to the others. Well, I can help him there,” she thought gripping the crystal in her hand.
Moving with infinite care, she stretched her hand to the edge of the fleece, turning the crystal this way and that, but the sun was not yet high enough for the rays to catch. “Come on, come on!” She urged the dawn to greater speed. “Hurry!”
It was stifling beneath the fleece and Charis thought she would suffocate any moment. She pushed the fleece from her face and peered out. The enemy still stood half-turned away from her, looking over the landward hills. “Curse you, Bel! Hurry!”
She felt the crystal grow warm in her hand, looked, and saw the thing glowing with a rosy-gold light as the first feeble light of day struck its surface. The crystal gathered the sunlight and focused it to a burning ray. Holding it very steady, she willed the stone to ignite the roof beneath her.
A thin wisp of smoke rose like a thread from the coarse thatch and was joined by another and then another. The smoke threads mingled in the air and drifted toward the enemy rider. There was a flame now, a pale yellow fluttery thing, weak but growing.
Charis held the crystal steady, giving the fire every chance to build. “Go, go! Hurry!”
She heard a sniff and another. She glanced from beneath the fleece just as the enemy rider, smelling the smoke, turned toward her. She threw off the fleece and leaped right at him in the same fluid motion. With a loud yelp, the startled horseman fell backwards. Charis was on him in a heartbeat, tugging at the knife in his belt.