by Tad Williams
Saqri's troops had managed to break through the first wall of Naked infantry-spearmen with shields, their sheer numbers and weight meant to force the Qar backward-and had also managed to destroy two of the autarch's war-fire wagons before they could be used against them: even now the wreckage burned so hot that no one could come within a dozen yards.
A pitched battle up the slope had followed, which finally gave the Trickster archers a chance to work, and Xixian bodies were soon tumbling from the heights. When the Qar reached the top of the passage at last they slowly fought their way up the ramps that spiraled around the high-ceilinged rock chamber, then up onto the rocky beach. A cannonball exploded near them and killed three of the Ettins and a score of smaller Qar. The autarch's men had not been as stupid as Barrick had first thought. Instead of assuming they would hold the smaller Qar force in the tunnels, the Xixians had brought up reinforcements… and more: they had killed several of their own horses in the hurry, but had succeeded in turning around one of their own half-cannons. The first cannonball had missed the fairies but had dug a huge hole into the hillside; they were loading now to fire again.
A squadron of Xixian archers hurried down the beach to help defend the camp, still buckling on their gear and stopping to pull strings onto their bows: others were firing arrows of their own even as they ran toward the massive cannon, clearly intent on setting up a new main line of defense. The Tricksters clambered up into the rocks beside the cave mouth, trying to reach a vantage point where they did not have to shoot past their own allies.
Barrick, for the moment in the relative safety of Hammerfoot's massive shadow, could only stare helplessly out at this scene of madness. We will be trapped here in the caves, he thought. Then, if the autarch sends troops back out of the tunnels, we will be caught and broken like a walnut in a blacksmith's tongs.
Another thunderous blast and a cannonball struck beside the mouth of the cavern, sending large stones bouncing away in all directions. As the echoes died away, Saqri inclined her head and a squadron of Changing tribe warriors rushed out of the cave mouth, shrilling a war cry, their bodies dropping to all fours and blurring into metamorphosis even as they raced across the uneven, rocky hillside down toward the cannoneers. Some of the Xixian archers simply turned and fled from this horrifying sight, but the swiftest of the Changing tribe veered aside from the main emplacement and quickly caught up to them, singing as they shed mortal blood again.
Xixian arrows flew toward them from all directions. Three of the Changing tribe fell like dropped grain sacks, and another beast-man arched his back and stumbled with a shriek of agony-a cry like something wild having its heart ripped out that made Barrick flinch badly, though he was nowhere close.
Suddenly the world broke apart around him, or seemed to, as if it had been smashed like a plate thrown against the hearth. Barrick's ears seemed to have been pierced by white-hot needles; when he could think again he could hear nothing but a high-pitched hum and the faint murmur of Hammerfoot. The giant crouched only a short distance away, but to Barrick's ears the creature's powerful voice seemed as small as a mouse's, scarcely to be heard above the thumping of the cannons.
Hammerfoot brushed dirt and chips of stone from his skin. "Earth's blood-the Xixy-men are bringing up two more of their cursed guns." The Deep Ettin seemed more annoyed by this than fearful. "They will just keep setting sparks to them until they smash us into powder…"
Another huge thump of sound and the cavern shook again, hard. Debris rained down from the ceiling, and rocks rattled harshly on Barrick's helmet as though a bullying hand smacked him over and over. Dizzy, spitting blood and wet dust, he shoved himself back against the cavern wall and watched the last stones patter down onto the ground in front of him. He was frightened but not much surprised by this world of ringing silence. Every song the People sang was about defeat and honorable death; now they had earned what they sought, what they believed in. And whether he was one of them or not, he seemed to have earned the same thing.
The world convulsed again. This time, darkness followed.
In all the years that her father and Shaso had talked about it, in all the courtly tales she had read about of bravery and daring, nothing had prepared Briony Eddon for the truth of war. All was chaos-shouting, flying arrows, blood splashing like water-and if both armies had been human, there would have been no way to pick out friend from foe. As it was, even before she struck a blow, Briony was already struggling to remember that the creatures who appeared to be the stuff of nightmares were her allies, or at least were fighting against the same enemy, the warriors of Xis. Things that crouched and snarled like apes or bears but wore armor, others that leaped like insects, crossing a dozen yards in a single bound to strike with slender, needle-sharp spears, some creatures wrapped so thoroughly in flapping, dark cloth that she could see nothing of them but a glint like fire where their faces should be-it was as though the painted margins of Father Timoid's ancient prayer books had come to life, spilling demons and monstrosities out into the air of the world.
The Temple Dogs' initial charge had cut deep into the Xixians as they rushed to keep the rest of the invading Qar trapped in the cave just south of the camp. Shortly, though, their resistance had stiffened and now Briony could see that Eneas' troops would have to fight their way back out of a crowd of southerners, who surrounded them almost completely. More Xixians were on their way as well, fumbling themselves into their battle gear as they hurried to the fight. Three of the Xixian cannons had now been turned away from the walls of Southmarch and trained instead on the cavern entrance where the Qar had emerged. The big guns boomed and spat fire, each shot smashing more of the base of the hill around that cavern entrance into rubble and smoke and dust.
At the moment, Briony was in comparatively less danger, as long as she kept her head down-in the center of Eneas' men, surrounded on all sides by able riders who had fallen back into close formation and with their spears and shields were contesting the Xixians, who were mostly on foot. Only Eneas and a few others at the outer edge of the fighting had discarded spears in favor of their swords or axes. Briony watched Eneas defeat two foot soldiers in a matter of moments, using his shield to deflect the spear thrust of one before staving in the man's helmet with a sword blow, then stabbing the second in his gorge. As the man fell, blood already sheeting onto his chest, Briony had to look away-not because of the Xixian, but because watching Eneas risking his life was almost as painful as finding her father and being helpless to free him.
One of the Temple Dogs near her was in trouble. His foot had slipped from the stirrup; as he struggled to stay in the saddle, a pair of Xixians were trying to pull him down. Briony spurred forward. Growing up, she had tilted more than a few times at the quintain-it was one of the first times her father took her side in a dispute with Shaso over what she should be allowed to do-but the short spear that the Syannese armorer had given her was nothing like a tilting-lance. It was so light that she almost felt she should swing it like one of the bulrush swords of her childhood duels with Barrick; as she reached the struggle, she jabbed it hard at the nearest man and caught him just at the juncture of his armpit and chest. It sank in several inches, mostly because of the power of her horse, and the screaming man spun away from her Syannese ally. An instant later, the horse of another mounted Temple Dog trampled the wounded Xixian into silence.
The second southerner had been distracted by the screamer's fate; when Briony reined her horse up and then spurred back toward him, his eyes widened. He let go of the Syannese knight's arm and mail shirt, flung up his shield to take Briony's spear, and narrowly missed stabbing her in turn as she went past him. The knight she had come to help found his stirrup and, once righted, was soon belaboring the man with heavy sword blows. Another Temple Dog rode up and hacked at the base of the Xixian's neck before he even saw the new threat. The man fell heavily to the ground in a pool of blood and mud, his head only partially attached to his body.
It was fighting. Real fighti
ng, bloody, dreadful fighting, the kind that Shaso had taught her about but she had never actually known. It was terrifying. It was astounding, too, but mostly it was terrifying. She had been a fool to join in, and now she could not escape it. This was not a song, not a poem; it was blood and shit and shrieking men and screaming horses.
Heart hammering, wild as a rabbit in a trap, Briony Eddon concentrated every bit of her thought and skill on staying alive.
A man was on top of her, his knee pressing her sword back toward her chest. She didn't quite remember how it had happened-something striking her from behind, a stumble, a slip, then this fellow out of nowhere-but it didn't matter: in another few moments he was going to get his dagger out of his belt and he was going to kill her, and she wasn't strong enough to stop him. Nothing in her life so far-not her family, not her royal blood or her princely protector, not even the demigoddess-could save her. Briony struggled to push back on the sword, to keep the man's hands busy, although it felt like her arms were breaking. The Xixian hung over her in bizarre intimacy, mumbling words she could not understand, sweat dripping from his face onto hers. His gritted teeth, the mustaches like two horsetails, the huge whites of his bulging eyes, made his face a Zosimia demon-mask.
Something swooped past her head, a flicker of shadow as though someone had waved a hand in front of the sun. The pressure on her chest suddenly changed as the man rocked back, clapping his hand to his face. A moment later, he let out a strange grunt and slid limply off her.
Briony rolled over, gasping as she fought to get her breath back, then remembered her vulnerability, unhorsed in the middle of a battle. As she struggled onto her hands and knees, she caught sight of the body of the Xixian who had been trying to kill her, his tongue half out of his mouth and already swollen. An entire garden of slender needles protruded from his eyes. Needles with feathers on them.
Not needles, she realized in astonishment-arrows. Very small arrows.
People were screaming on all sides now, many of them in terror. Another shadow flickered over, then another. Briony looked up into the deepening twilight, squinting at the small shapes that swept past. Birds. Hundreds of birds were flitting through the knots of fighting men, and every time one of the birds dived and pulled up, a Xixian fell back holding his face or throat. Many of the southerners were running away without concern for direction, hands over their heads as if angry bees were attacking them.
The little man's folk, she thought as she watched the madness. Beetlewhattsit. He said they rode birds.
Many of the Xixians were already racing madly back toward the shelter of the camp. Those remaining on the beach were rapidly finding themselves outnumbered. For the first time, Briony felt she might live to see the sun rise the next day.
Another bird snapped by, brushing her face with its wing, so close that she heard the shrill battle cry of its rider: "For the queens! For the queens!" And still more followed that one, a storm of wings dropping down in dark clouds, gliding in and out among the desperately fleeing Xixians, making them stumble and fall.
Zoria's mercy! Briony climbed to her feet. If I live through this, I'll remember this moment all my life…
24
Disobedient Soldiers "In another dream, Adis climbed the oak tree high into the sky. As he reached the upper branches, he found he could touch the stars themselves, which sang to him, begging him to bring back their father…"
-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"
A COUPLE OF DOZEN REFUGEES from the outer keep were living in the middle of the stairwell that led to the Anglin Parlor, its walls painted in frescoes of the Connordic Mountains and scenes of the first king's life. The folk crowding the stair were just as uninterested in the pictures on the walls as they were in making room for Matt Tinwright to get past.
He was angry to have to step over people, but he kept his feelings hidden. Some of the men were looking at his fine clothes with interest, doubtless wondering what they might fetch at one of the impromptu markets held on the green in front of the royal residence. It was shocking, of course, to be weighed for robbery by squatters right inside the king's house, but these were not ordinary times.
One of the women reached up as he tried to get past her and ran her fingers over his sleeve. "Ooh, a pretty one in pretty clothes, aren't you?" Tinwright pulled his arm back quickly.
One of the men took notice of his worried haste. "Hoy, are you bothering my woman?" The man started to rise. Another squatter moved a little farther into Tinwright's path on the steps above him. "Did you hear? I asked you…"
He made his voice as hard as he could. "If you touch me, you will weep for it. I am on Hendon Tolly's business. Do you mean to trifle with the lord protector's servant?"
The man on the step above him exchanged a look with the other man, then sidled back a step toward the wall.
"Even his lordship can't have it his own way forever," said the first man, but he too was already in retreat. Tinwright recognized the tone of the squatters' murmuring. They were still afraid of Tolly, but his hold on them was slipping. Half the outer keep had been leveled by the autarch's cannons, and the lord protector had shown little interest in fighting back.
Tinwright made his way up the stairs as quickly as he dared, going just slowly enough to show that he thought himself safe. In an hour like the one that had fallen on Southmarch, he reflected, people slowly began to change into something else-something simpler, something frightened and angry enough to kill.
Hendon Tolly was standing at the narrow windows of the chamber looking down on the small, unhappy city covering the spot that had once been the royal green and all the space inside the walls of the keep to the base of Wolfstooth Spire, and if the base of the great tower had not been full of armed soldiers, Tinwright felt certain they would be squatting there as well.
"Ah, here is my pet poet," Tolly said without looking away from the window, as though he could see what was behind him as well as before. "It has been a dreary afternoon. The day after tomorrow is Midsummer, you know. Speak some poetry for me."
"What… what do you mean, Lord?" Tinwright swatted away a fly. The room seemed to be unusually full of them, even for summer.
"By the bleeding, vengeful gods, fool, you are the rhymer, not me. If you don't know what poetry is, then I fear for the art."
"But I bring news, my lord…"
Tolly finally turned. He was pale as a drowned earthworm, eyes deep sunken and shadowed with blue, his fine, high brow covered with sweat. His clothes and hair were in such disarray that Tinwright could half believe the dandyish Tolly had just fought his way through the same crowd that had accosted him on the stairs. But it was Hendon Tolly's eyes that were most disturbing. Something bright and shiny but unknowable burned there-a monstrous secret, perhaps, or a vast, subtle joke that Tolly alone of all living creatures could understand.
The lord protector bent a little, as if he was bowing. His sword was in his hand so quickly Tinwright did not see the movement until the point was quivering a handsbreadth from his chest. "I do not want news… yet," Tolly said carefully. "I want verse. So speak, poet, or I will hand you your heart." "… For if your ear Shall once a heavenly music hear,"
Tinwright recited, nearing the end of one of Hewney's bits of doggerel, "Such as neither gods nor men But from that voice shall hear again, That, that is she, oh, Heaven's grace, 'Tis she steals sweet Siveda's place…"
"Enough." Tolly made a quick gesture like a man shaking warmth back into cold fingers; when he had finished, his sword was in its scabbard again. "Now pour me a cup of wine-you may have one yourself if you feel a need. There is a middling Perikal on the table. You will know it because it is the only jug still upright. Then you may give me your report on the Godstone."
Tinwright picked the wine out from among the empty casualties that littered the table. As he did so, he noticed for the first time an odd bundle of clothes in the corner of the room, a bundle from which a single bare man'
s foot protruded. Tinwright felt his stomach rise into his throat, choked it down, then leaned on the table for a moment with eyes closed, regaining control.
"What's taking you so long?" Tolly turned. "Ah, him. Yes, that pig of a butler will never again tell me that we have no red wine." He laughed suddenly. "As the blood was running out of him onto the floor, I said, 'What do you think? Does it need to air a bit?' He didn't laugh."
Trying his hardest not to look at the silent thing in the corner, Tinwright delivered the wine and quickly downed his own.
Tolly took a long, savoring sip. "Now, speak."
Matt Tinwright did his best to make his days and nights of reading into something easily understood, but it was not an easy chore. He explained to Tolly, who did not appear to be listening very closely, how the Hypnologos sect had believed that the gods were not awake, but only touched humans in dreams, and that the scene of the gods' downfall had played out right here, in Southmarch Castle-or at least somewhere nearby.
"The stone was here. It was in the Erivor Chapel and had been made into a statue of Kernios."
"That old cuckold," said Tolly with an angry laugh. "You see, even here old Kernios tries to keep her prisoner. But he cannot. No, I don't care for any magical stone. If the autarch can open the gate to the land of the gods without it, so can I! We have proved you can speak the words to open the mirror just as well as Okros! Better, in fact, since you still have your life and both arms!"