Casket of Souls

lying on a litter. He was a worn, haggard man, no more than thirty. His wounds were hidden under his red-and-silver robes of state. He wore no armor, but he clutched his crowned helm under his left arm. As Klia and her entourage entered his retinue went to one knee, but the Overlord remained where he was.
    The proceedings didn’t take long. A scribe drafted the terms of surrender under which Plenimar relinquished all claims to any lands outside their own borders, including the sacred isle of Kouros, which Plenimar had held for decades, and vowed to pay yearly tribute to Skala for one hundred years.
    Beka paid scant attention, worried sick over Nyal. It was nearly dark before she was released to search for her husband with the help of twenty of her riders. Working on foot, she tried to retrace her steps to the last place she’d seen him. In the ruddy light, it was a hellish sight. Camp followers moved among the heaving piles of bodies, stripping the enemy and killing those who still lived. Drysians and soldiers were already sorting the dead, helping the wounded, and speeding on those too badly hurt to survive.
    At last Beka heard a shout to her left and followed the familiar voice to where Sergeant Rylin and a rider named Soriwere kneeling on either side of a bloody body. Beka ran the last few stumbling steps and went to her knees beside Nyal. Someone had taken off his cuirass and mail and cut his left sleeve open. The upper bone was broken and protruding through the skin. His face and neck were covered in blood, and his right leg, but his eyes were open and he raised his right hand weakly. A jagged cut had laid his left cheek open to the bone. That at least accounted for some of the blood.
    She clasped his hand, fighting back tears. “How bad?”
    “The leg wound is deep,” Rylin told her, already wrapping strips of cloth cut from someone’s tabard around that wound. “But it’s his arm I’m worried about.”
    “Talía,” Nyal croaked. “Don’t cry, my talía. It’s not so bad.”
    “It doesn’t look good,” Beka said, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.
    “Cadeus and Samani are off looking for a healer. In the meantime, I can set that arm,” said Sori.
    Nyal squeezed her hand and she nodded.
    “Are you wounded, Beka?” Nyal asked as the others gathered rags and cut splints from a broken halberd.
    “Not a scratch,” Beka managed. “The queen is dead, Nyal.”
    His eyes widened “Then we’ve lost?”
    “No. Klia took up the sword and led us to victory.”
    The wound on his cheek gaped as he tried to smile. “Then we’ll go home at last!”
    The healer didn’t find them until dawn, and by then Nyal’s wounds had begun to fester, though they’d been washed with what water Beka and the others had left.
    The exhausted young drysian came to them with a servant hauling his cart of simples. He dressed Nyal’s wound and those of the other riders who had them, and gave them healing blessings. When he was done, Beka pulled him aside.
    “Thank you, Brother, for all you’ve done. Please, will my husband survive his wounds?”
    “The infection wasn’t too bad, but if that bone doesn’t mend well, he could lose the arm.”
    Beka nodded and turned back to the others. She’d love Nyal just as well with one arm as two, but what it would do to him, not to be able to hunt or draw a bow anymore, she couldn’t imagine.
    Phoria’s body had been rescued and lay in state in her pavilion under a black shroud. In front of it, the bodies of fallen officers were laid out on cloaks with their hands clasped on their breasts and their swords beside them. Danos was not among them, Klia noted. Either he’d taken Phoria’s words to heart, or been lucky.
    There was no time to mourn her fallen sister yet. She first sent word of the victory and the queen’s loss the fastest way she could, with a message sphere to Thero, asking that he bring word to Korathan. Then she spent a weary night conferring with General Moraus and her surviving officers, taking in the number of dead, and trying to reapportion commands. By right of birth, she was now Marshal of the Armies, assuming Phoria’s command until the new queen could do so.
    Just after dawn Beka Cavish returned with word of more casualties—Nyal was among them, badly wounded.
    Standing by the dying fire, Klia looked around at all her gathered officers. “Take heart. The war is over, and though our losses are grievous, the service we have done Skala will ensure the