A Dirge for Sabis
Page 44
Well, he could respond with something similar. Folweel signalled again to Patrobe, who likewise signalled to his division of under-priests, who lit and threw more jugs.
Again, the fire jugs failed to reach their mark. Again, Vari smothered fires, Sulun found another intact jug, lit it, and threw it. This one, unfortunately, landed outside Yotha's circle. It broke and burned there, making no difference and no distraction.
More sulfur? Sulun considered. No, save them. Wait, see what they do.
Oralro, sweating and panting, came up from meditative level far enough to reach out and tug Folweel's sleeve. "Their shields too strong," he whispered. "Can't get through. Join me and help!"
Folweel thought for a moment, making sure there was no pressure whatever of ill-wishing on his shields, and acquiesced. Nine hells, let Yotha protect his own and keep the Deese wizards from attacking, just a few minutes more. He tapped his entranced under-priests on the wrists and hissed to them, "Join the ill--wishing!" Then he dropped back to deeper meditative level, rejoined and refocused their mingled fields. Last, he carefully joined his power net to Oralro's field, felt them interlock, expand, engage the front of the Deese wizards' shield.
Oralro smiled for the first time, feeling that enemy shield give way. He focused tighter, took the power of the net, and pushed it hard, hard as he could. Degree by slow degree, the Deese field weakened.
Whatever Eloti and the others felt, they gave no sign. Sulun and Vari felt the change like a sudden change of wind, an almost audible snap of power in the air. They looked at each other, guessing what had happened.
As if in confirmation, the unlatched gates of Deese House swung open—and this time one of the hinges creaked.
The house has no defense! Sulun realized. He thought of what harm those Yotha priests could do to the building, its contents, his tools, if they chose—and a roused fury burned him like a hot coal.
He ran to the waiting bellows and fairly jumped on its upper handle.
The inky water shot out in a tight, hard stream, arching high into the air before turning downward. The top of the arch was well beyond the middle of the ground between the circles. The black rain fell in a good wide circle inside Yotha's boundary ring.
Some of it fell on the leading edge of the diminishing blue fire, and put it out. The rest drew a fat black arrow-head shape on the ground, pointing straight into the knot of hard-worked wizards. A little of it caught the priests themselves: Folweel across the chest and Oralro smack in the face.
Startled out of concentration, they yelped in dismay and brushed frantically at the murky stuff. They had no idea what it was, what it would do, and they couldn't get it off them. The force of their ill-wishing attack wavered and shrank.
Everyone in Eloti's circle felt the pressure slack away. It was temptation to shift to attack themselves, but Eloti said "No," aloud and signalled to Sulun and Vari.
"Fire tubes!" Sulun shouted, running to the nearest with a taper.
They lit and fired three in quick succession before Sulun thought to conserve what was left. Three booming, whistling packets of burning sulfur sailed through the air to land neatly inside Yotha's circle, bombarding the wizards with pepper grains of fire, smoke, and choking stink.
The crowd danced up and down, roaring with delight.
Only Wotheng, watching the combat through slitted eyes, showed no great joy. "Not enough," he muttered to himself, barely catching even Gynallea's quick ear. "Hit harder. More."
Within Yotha's circle, Folweel and Oralro fought yattering chaos. They yelled for Jimantam to bring water, beat flames out of their robes, coughed and choked in the reeking smoke and tried to rally their under-priests to concentration again. Jimantam's troop of servitors ran among them with water, sloshing it wildly at anyone who seemed to need it, which added further distraction.
Only Patrobe and two of his crew, to one side of the circle, missed the onslaught of water and sulfur. Snarling a curse and an order, he ran to the nearest basket of fire fluid jugs and began lighting and throwing as fast as he could. Many of the jugs flew wild, wasting themselves on neutral ground; many others landed within the circle and went out, but enough landed and burned to keep Sulun and Vari busy.
Up on the wall Ziya watched, teeth bared and breath hissing through them. Fire wakened old memories, hurtful and dark: fire thrown at her house, her friends, her family. . . . Fire, from the bad people. Wicked people. The enemy. She clenched her hands on the bombard's carriage, furiously wishing that Sulun would send her the signal, let her strike at the enemy.
And not just beside them.
A coal of fury lit an idea.
He hadn't told her to leave the bombard aimed where it was. He hadn't told her not to change the setting.
Well-learned details of angle, trajectory, direction played through her head as she tugged the bombard sideways, just a trifle, just enough.
Folweel stripped off his sodden outer robe, grateful that the fire chemical hadn't burned through to the skin, and frantically dropped back to meditative level as fast as he could. There: yes, thank whatever gods, Oralro was doing the same. So were the obedient under-priests. If they could raise their defensive shields again, push back the Deese wizards' attack before it got any worse . . .
But he couldn't feel any attack.
It's all on the physical plane! he realized, with a sudden jab of hope. The Deese wizards were concentrating all their mage power on defense, come what might. That was their strategy: save magic for defense only, attack with physical means only.
They didn't have enough trained wizards for both attack and defense at once.
Folweel grabbed Oralro's sleeve. "Attack!" he hissed. "Beat down their shield and attack! Put everything into that!"
Oralro nodded, snapped out the orders to the reassembled net of under-priests, and concentrated. Folweel dropped into concentration with him. They joined and tightened focus, probed—found that suspected second shield.
Folweel almost laughed as he realized what the Deese priests were doing. They'd started with a preset, passive area defense. Under that, within their drawn circle, they now held a standing, active shield. Punch through that, and they'd have nothing. He signalled to Patrobe to keep on with the distractions, and pushed harder behind Oralro's attack.
Patrobe obligingly threw more fire jugs, and his under-priests did likewise.
Under that steady barrage, Sulun and Vari were kept -hopping. Enough fires sprang up to need constant attention with the diminishing water, enough to keep them too busy to use the remaining fire tubes. The best they could do was seize unbroken jugs in passing, light them, and throw them back. Hardly any landed within Yotha's circle.
"We're running out of water!" Vari gasped, smothering one fire with her empty bucket. "How much of that stuff do they have?"
"Don't know," Sulun panted, using the last of his bucket on another. Too much, he guessed. That, he realized was the flaw in his strategy; Yotha's priests simply had more of everything: long-range weapons, supplies, wizards, everything. Given time, they'd wear Eloti and the others down.
Gods, there: one of the jugs broke nearby, splashing the hem of Arizun's robe. Blue flames crawled up the cloth, perilously close to his leg.
Arizun didn't move, didn't notice. His concentration was total, far from immediate physical concerns.
None of the others in the mage circle noticed the fire, either.
Vari ran up to Arizun and beat out the flames with her bare hands.
Gods, we have to break their concentration! Sulun knew it was time to bring out the last reserve, the grand distraction. Once the Yotha wizards' attack was broken, and hopefully their defenses down, he could rain them with the last of the sulfur—win time to reload the tubes and rain them further, until they gave up and ran from the targeted circle. It had to be done now.
He waved up toward the walls and shouted the code phrase to Ziya, praying the child would hear it, not freeze, do as she'd vigorously sworn she would.
Ziya heard. She smiled tightly, peered once more down the bombard's realigned barrel, and touched her lighted taper to the end of the fuse.
The fuse burned, sizzling, up toward the hole and the firepowder and torn metal waiting beyond it.
On the field below, Folweel felt the first flinching, the first ever-so-slight give in the Deese wizards' shield. They're tiring! he thought jubilantly, feeling Oralro's answering joy as he noted the change too. Just another few minutes of this and they'd have that last defense broken, no shield left between their furiously tight-focused ill-wishing and the target. It would probably strike that witch first. With this much power behind it, the attack might be enough to stop her heart right there. And yes, yes, their shield was definitely weakening.
Then something roared like thunder in the sky.
Folweel looked up just in time to see a cloud of smoke and sparks blossom high on the wall of Deese House, and realized it had come from the storm tube.
The watching crowd screamed together, seeing the earth shoot up like a monstrous fountain, stones and bodies and unidentifiable rags and pieces flying like leaves on the wind. Again voices wailed, seeing those unbelievable fragments fall back to earth amid a haze of smoke and dust. Then came a long, quavering, multiple groan as the smoke cleared, revealing the full sight of the damage in the unflinching sunlight.
In the center of Yotha's circle, where the knot of Yotha's priests had recently stood, lay a wide, shallow hole. Around it were scattered rags of stained cloth, bits of glass and stone, small clods of torn earth, unsightly pieces of flesh and bone, puddles and streaks of fire, fluid and blood. Further out lay torn and tumbled bodies, still bleeding but too obviously dead. A lone under-priest near the far edge of the circle staggered, blood-splashed and dazed, a few steps forward. He stumbled on a tattered body, stared at it, looked wildly around him, at the earth and bodies torn to rags and ruin by the flying stones—then he fled shrieking out of the charred circle and away. They could hear him howling all the way down the road.
Sulun rubbed his stunned ears until he could hear again and stared at the field before him in unthinking shock. Hole . . . his mind feebly registered. Bombard. On them, not beside them . . . Oh gods, so that's what it can do!
Vari sat down right where she was and covered her eyes; Sulun could hear her quietly cursing, and dimly marveled that she even knew such words. Omis took a half-step forward and stared stupidly at the fresh crater as if wondering how it had gotten there. Yanados swayed, grabbed at Doshi for support, and they both collapsed together. Arizun simply and quietly fainted. Eloti, eyes wide, spread her hands and staggered like a blind man. "Gone," she whispered. "What . . . ? How?"
Zeren took her by the shoulders and pulled her close. "Will of the gods," he growled, "and will of Wotheng." He turned to face the Ashkell lord's wagon and raised his sword hand in ironic salute.
Wotheng stood up in his cart and solemnly returned the gesture. Then he lifted and rang his bell. "The combat is ended," he announced, harsh-voiced. "The priests of Deese are found innocent of all charges."
"Yes," Zeren muttered, lowering his arm. "And I hope you're satisfied."
Gynallea, white to the lips, clutched her husbands arm. "Is this it?" she hissed at him. "Is this what you wanted?"
"Aye," Wotheng growled, looking abruptly older than his years. "I knew from first report what a weapon that could make; fierce enough to defend the Vale, scare off greedy neighbor lords, keep us and our descendants safe. I had to make Sulun use it, would he or no: show everyone what it could do, spread the word all over the northlands. Now, by the gods, we're safe."
"Safe! Safe? With that?"
"I confess . . ." Wotheng briefly chewed his lip. "I didn't know it would . . . do quite that."
The crowd, still moaning quietly in horror, melted back from the sight of the field. The motion grew into a current, slipped off the hills, out of the valley, off down the eastward road, safely away from Deese House and its hideous new landmark and its vast and terrible power. Slowly the crowd moved, cautiously, politely—but away.
Sulun looked about him, cold with stark comprehension. Yes, he'd won, and Yotha House was no more, and Deese House was safe. But Wotheng had used him, and now the vale folk feared him, and the souls of his family were forever stained with a darkness. He wondered what would become of Eloti's school now, of his hopes for spreading knowledge and enlightenment, of forming the core of a new civilization in Ashkell Vale. The family of Deese had won their survival, certainly, but at what cost?
And how did it happen?
He looked up at the wall, at the bombard. No, the muzzle was not pointed where he'd seen it last; now it was aimed straight at that damning hole in the field.
Beside it, straight and tall and smiling coldly in unshamed -triumph, stood Ziya. She caught Sulun's eye, waved a merry salute to him, then turned and—before all the gods—began reloading the bombard.
Gods, what has she become? Sulun wondered, shivering.
Ziya finished her task, lifted her lighted taper and waved again to Sulun.
"This is not the beginning I wanted," he said, to himself as much as her. Guessing she couldn't hear him, he shook his head. "Child, can't you understand? this was a bad beginning!"
If Ziya heard, she gave no sign. She cocked her head to one side and called down from the walls, as if asking for further orders.
"Fire ready," she said.