Havoc's Daughters

Chapter 1 - Diannah on Day 1: part I - Beginning of the End

A shout shattered the peace of dawn, and the first stone from the Cumberans’ newly repaired trebuchet arched over the wall of besieged Rose Hill town.

“Mist!” cursed Diannah, Duchess Setigera, watching from the second floor of the chandlery. “That is not the omen I’m looking for.” 

The trebuchet must have been a signal. A rising tidal roar, peppered with screams, gave evidence that the first assault of the day was getting underway. 

Overlapping slate tiles of neighboring rooftops blocked the view, but shouts, followed by the crash of crushed wood and shattered stone, told of the stone’s landing. Diannah knew well which sector the Cumberan war machines were most able to reach from across the river. Most of the east quarter, overlooking the market plaza by the river, was a charred ruin. 

But the gates still hold. 

Quick now. Find a good omen. Hold it in your mind. Think positive thoughts and good things will happen. 

She forced thoughts of war to the side; forced her breaths to calm.

The mountains to the east and south were gilt-edged with light, but the valley yet lay in shadow. Diannah could make out nearby rooflines, like jumbled blocks at a quarry, but the narrow alleys and courtyards were pits of darkness. Above her head, sparrow hatchlings squabbled in nests under the eaves of the house. Below, wooden wheels rumbled on cobbles as a handcart delivered eggs and goat milk to a communal kitchen. 

In a word, it was morning. 

But everything peaceful in the town was too common to serve as a mystic focus for her morning ritual, and the signs of battle…no. 

Diannah lifted her eyes to the far side of the river as a chill breeze, hinting at the approach of harvest, wafted a coil of copper hair across her vision.

Against the silver light of earliest dawn, the shadowed bulk of the Cumberan Mountains glowered down at her, looming dark as the threat of the army that claimed them home. Diannah glowered back. No mist rose from their flanks across the valley, though, seeking to overcome Dawn, goddess of hope. The summer drought might be thanked for that much. Mist was a symbol for death and disaster.

Hope triumphs over death, she nodded. That will do. 

She closed the shutters and barred them. With J’Lian away, and now the chandler too, she would not have her foster sister’s inheritance left to the mercy of the elements in the absence of either owner or tenant. 

The walls could fail at any time, and her efforts would be moot. She’d heard enough tales of the capture of distant Mydicea, at the fall of the Adamantine Empire, to make her sick – and the populace of that city had celebrated the fall of its rulers.

Hope triumphs over death, she reminded herself, shoving her fears down deep. Obsessing, she knew, would cause those fears to manifest. She had meetings to attend, supplies to organize, and above all a need to appear confident.

She crossed to the bed, ducking the bunches of dried herbs hanging from exposed rafters. Shelves on every wall were taken up with pots, bottles of essential oils, pigments, even a stack of playing decks. Crates and baskets of supplies filled the corners. 

At the bedside table, Diannah gave a quick pass of a damp cloth over her face, rubbing her eyes carefully. She had slept but a watch, again, and the ache of exhaustion dragged at her bones. Of no use in warfare, she’d been keeping supplies moving to where they were needed, and organizing communal meals. Able-bodied men were on the walls while older children ran messages and took the fighters water and supplies. Women and youths retrieved and tended the wounded, or prepared meals. Oldsters spent their days forming and fletching arrows while children dug up cobbles for the men to cast from the walls onto enemy troops. Everyone contributed as they could.