The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham

Author:Daniel Abraham [Abraham, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316204033
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2014-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

Cithrin

The ships that remained of the Antean Navy came as Barriath and Marcus had warned that they might, great and small, their sails catching the wind and riding into toward the port, but not so near as to be endangered by the complexities of the harbor. The guide boats remained at the docks along with the trade ships and the captured roundships now under the command of Barriath Kalliam. Three times before, Cithrin had found herself in cities under threat of violence. In Vanai, she had escaped before the battle. In Camnipol, she had hidden until the fighting had passed. In Suddapal, she had put her tribute in the streets and prayed that the sacking army would take the wealth and spare the people.

It had never occurred to her to treat the battles as theater.

“More wine, Magistra Cithrin?”

“Thank you, Governor,” she said. “I think I will.”

The viewing platform had been erected by the seawall, letting them look down over the port itself and then out over the wide blue water to where the enemy waited. The sandbars and reefs stood as the first protection of the city, the ancient ballistas and greenwood catapults along the seawall were the second, and Barriath Kalliam was the third. Three circles of defense, and only one of attack.

But the one was devastating.

The first of the enemy roundships was already burning, a plume of smoke rising up from it, black and greasy. The heat from the flames lifted it higher and higher until it seemed more like a storm cloud than the ruin of any human thing. At its top, the smoke plume flattened and began to drift. The servant poured Cithrin a fresh cup of wine as Governor Siden stared through his spyglasses and chortled. He seemed to take great pleasure in watching the enemy soldiers burn or drown or both. Cithrin preferred to see the destruction at a distance. It let her celebrate the victory with fewer pangs of conscience.

Inys, flying low along the coast, angled out again. The tip of one wing dragged along the surface of the water, leaving a spreading line of white where he turned. His back was to the city and Cithrin when he loosed his fires again, and the flame was bright as a rising sun. When Inys pulled up, working his wide wings up into the sky, a second ship was afire. The governor clapped his hands. Cithrin drank her wine and made the smile that was expected of her. It might only have been that she’d had so much trouble sleeping of late, but the victory at sea didn’t fill her with joy. If anything, it seemed like a waste. All those lives. The labor that had gone to making the ships. And everything that they could have done, all of the work they might have accomplished, had they not instead been doing this.

To no one’s surprise, the remaining ships began to scatter, leaving the burning hulks of their comrades behind to char and sink. A second column of smoke began to rise alongside the first.

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