The Fortress of Glass coti-1

by David Drake

  Because he couldn't throw out his arms for balance as he instinctively tried to do, he stumbled frequently and occasionally fell. The Coerli didn't help him. Once when he was slow getting up-he'd braced his hands on a log which collapsed to mush, skidding him on his face again-one of the warriors kicked him with a clawed foot.

  Garric heard the captured women whimper occasionally, but they seemed to be having less trouble than he did even though they were tied together. They couldn't have night vision like the Coerli, but at least they were used to starless nights and constant overcast.

  "That makes these cat beasts easy meat in daylight, lad," Carus noted. His image had a quiet smile. "Even what passes for daylight in this bloody bog."

  Meat, perhaps, Garric amended, but he smiled too. Perhaps he and Carus were being wildly optimistic, but it was better than resigning himself to a gray future ending in butchery.

  A plangentKlok! Klok! rang across the marsh. Torag lifted his great maned head and roared a coughing reply.

  "Are we being attacked?" Garric asked Sirawhil sharply.

  Too sharply, apparently. A guard slapped him across the head with the butt of his spear and snarled, "Silence, beast!"

  It wasn't a serious blow-the spear shaft was no more than thumb-thick-but Garric's head still throbbed from the stroke that'd captured him. He staggered, dropping to one knee in a blur of white light; his skin burned. With an effort he lurched forward and managed to keep going so that the Corl didn't hit him again.

  In its own dry voice, the Bird said, "We're approaching Torag's keep. The warriors left as a garrison have given the alarm, and Torag has announced himself in reply."

  "The Coerli can see any way in this?" Garric said. He spoke aloud but without the harshness that'd gotten him swatted a moment earlier. He couldn't be sure of the distance, but the gong note was dulled by what seemed like several hundred yards of drizzle and darkness.

  "The distance is close to a quarter of one of your miles," the Bird said, answering both the question Garric had asked and the one he'd only thought. "While the tower guard might have seen movement, it's more likely that he heard the party returning. The Coerli have keen hearing, and you humans make a great deal of noise in the darkness."

  I can't argue with that, Garric thought. I wonder if I'll get to be at least as good as the Grass People are?

  "I hope we're not here long enough to learn, lad," said the ghost in his mind. Carus grinned, but there was more than humor in the expression.

  Garric heard a gate creak, followed by the scrape and slosh of people doing something in the bog. The ground here was wetter than most of what they'd marched through on the way from Wandalo's hamlet; the Coerli were sinking to their fetlocks because there were no firm patches to step on.

  Instead of a stockade, a high wicker fence loomed out of the night. A number of warriors were pushing what Garric first thought was a fascine, a roll of brushwood to fill a gully. In fact they were unrolling a coil of wicker matting to cover the ground up to the open gate. It served the same purpose as a drawbridge.

  "There's six of them," Carus noted, always professionally detached in assessing an enemy. "That's sixteen warriors we know about, plus Torag. And Sirawhil, I suppose, though I don't count her as much."

  "Torag left six warriors to guard the keep and control the existing slaves," the Bird said. "He has three sexually mature females in his harem as well, but female Coerli do not fight."

  Garric looked at the Bird. There was a great deal about the situation that he didn't know and which he suspected Torag hadn't even wondered about.

  "The Coerli are not a sophisticated species," the Bird said, repeating an early comment. It turned its sparkling eyes toward the compound without speaking further.

  Torag led the procession through the gate. Garric glanced at the wall as he entered, expecting to find it was double with the interior filled with rock. Well, filled with dirt: he'd seen no stone bigger than Marzan's topaz in this whole muddy world. In fact the wall was a single layer of heavy basketry, sufficient for a house but certainly not a military structure in human terms.

  "It's to keep animals out, I'd judge," said Carus. "Cat beasts like the ones that built it. They wouldn't know what a siege train was if it rose up and bit them on their furry asses. Which we may be able to arrange, lad."

  He chuckled and added, "In good time."

  Torag raised his muzzle into the air and sniffed. The interior of the compound was ripe with the sharp stench of carnivore wastes, but that was only to be expected.

  "Ido!" said Torag. "You've butchered an animal while I was gone!"

  Five of the six warriors who'd been left to guard the keep edged away from their chief. The remaining one, taller and visibly bulkier than the others, straightened. He held a spear, but he kept its bone point carefully toward the ground as he growled, "We were hungry, Torag. We didn't know when you were coming back."

  Torag snarled and leaped, swinging his club. Ido hesitated for a fraction of a second between thrusting and jumping away. The knot of hardwood crushed his skull, splashing blood and brains across the surviving members of the garrison. They scattered into the interior of the compound with shrill cries; some of them dropped their weapons as they fled.

  Torag roared, a hacking, saw-toothed challenge that echoed through the night. The Coerli warriors hunched, their long faces toward the ground. Sirawhil stood silent, and the captive women huddled together. Several were blubbering in despair.

  Garric got down on one knee, keeping his eyes on Torag's short, twitching tail. He hoped his posture looked submissive, but he'd chosen it to give him the best chance of grabbing Torag if the chieftain swung around in fury to strike again.

  Breathing in short, harsh snorts, Torag did turn, but he lowered his blood-smeared club. The fighting was over-to the extent there'd been a fight.

  "Sorman, Ido was your sibling," the chief growled. "Throw his carrion into a pond where the eels will eat it."

  A warrior, bending almost double, squirmed from the fringe of the gathering and gripped the corpse by the ankles. The victim had stiffened instantly when his brain was crushed; one arm stuck out at right angles. Sorman dragged the body through the gate and into the darkness. He didn't lift his gaze from the mud, at least until he was out of Torag's sight.

  Torag raised his head and roared, but this time he was just sealing the reality that everybody around him accepted. Garric half-expected him to urinate on the gatepost, but apparently the Coerli were a little less bestial than that.

  When Torag turned, he'd relaxed into his usual strutting self. Licking the head of his club absently, he said, "Get the fresh catch into the pens. And see to it that they're fed and watered. I don't want them dying on me after they cost me so much."

  "What about the big one?" Sirawhil asked as the escorting warriors used spear butts to prod the captives toward the back of the compound. "I'll need to examine him further. Though I wish you'd let me take him home to the Council."

  "Faugh, the Council," Torag said. "I don't care what happens at home any more. This is my world, Sirawhil. Put him in the same pen as the rest of them."

  He looked at Garric, the club rising slightly in his hand. Garric kept his eyes on the leather belts that crossed in the middle of the chief's chest; he didn't move.

  "If he breaks out," Torag said after obvious consideration. "he'll give us good sport. That's probably the best use for him anyway."

  "Torag, he's important," the wizard said, then cringed away before the chieftain even raised a hand to strike her. In a less forceful tone she went on, "He could be valuable. We need to know more about him before, before…"

  "As breeding stock, you mean?" Torag said. "Well, we'll see. Get him in the pen and we'll talk about it after I eat."

  Either Nerga or Eny-the pair was indistinguishable to Garric-raised his spear as a prod. Garric stepped forward quickly, joining the coffle of women being marched through the compound by their escorts.

  A thou
ght struck him. He turned and called, "Sirawhil? If you want me to settle in properly, you'd better come along with your Bird. I can't speak the language of the villagers here."

  By chance he was near Soma. She put her arm around him and called in a loud voice, "Garric is my man, you women! I will let you share him, butI am his first wife."

  Garric shook her arm away. "Soma," he said, speaking to be heard by the entire coffle. "I am not your man, and you will never be my woman. Your shamelessness disgusts me!"

  That was more or less true, but Garric had better reasons for speaking the words. He wanted allies for whatever plan he came up with, but Soma was the last person of those he'd met in this world whom he'd be willing to trust.

  Sirawhil joined them. She glanced over her shoulder to see that Torag was entering the longhouse and no longer looking at them, then whispered, "Garric, you must not run! Torag and his warriors will hunt you down easily. If you'll stay quiet and not anger the chief, I'm sure I can get you home with me soon. Whether or not he agrees! You can live your life in safety, then."

  "I don't want trouble," Garric said. That was a lie or the next thing to one. "If you'll help me, Sirawhil, I'll do what I can to help you too."

  And that was a flat lie. Garric didn't make the mistake of thinking the Corl wizard was his friend just because she wasn't as likely to kill and eat him as her chief was.

  The longhouse had a thatched roof. Its walls were wicker, waist high for two thirds of its length but solid at the back except for small windows covered with grills of some hard jointed grass like bamboo. Three Corl faces were crowded at the nearest window, watching Garric and the other prisoners file past. That must be Torag's harem.

  "Yes," said the Bird's silent voice. "If Torag allowed his warriors to eat fresh meat regularly, they'd become sexually mature and he'd have to fight every one of them. Just being close to females in estrus may bring males to maturity. That's what was happening with Ido and why he risked killing meat for himself."

  To either side of the longhouse were circular beehives big enough for two or three warriors apiece. Members of the raiding party split up among them, growling to one another and to members of the garrison who were coming out of hiding now that Torag's temper had cooled.

  A single Corl climbed a tower supported on three poles, disappearing into the thick darkness. Garric couldn't imagine how a watchtower was of any use in these conditions, but the fact the guard had called the alarm at Torag's approach proved otherwise.

  Behind the Coerli dwellings was another woven fence, this one only half the height of the fifteen foot wall surrounding the compound. The gate could be barred, but at present it stood open. A human male and female stood in the gateway watching the newcomers. Patterns of deeper darkness behind the fence suggested others were looking out through gaps in the wicker.

  The man in gate was squat and burly; his arms were exceptionally long for his modest height. "I am Crispus!" he shouted. "I am the slave of great Torag! All other Grass Beasts aremy slaves! Bow to me, all you who enter my domain!"

  The coffle of women stopped. Garric stepped forward. Sirawhil was speaking, but though the Bird translated the words in his mind, they were a meaningless blur.

  Garric had met his share of bullies at the borough's annual Sheep Fair: merchants' bodyguards, muleteers, and sometimes one of the badgers who'd drive off the sheep that a drover had purchased. He'd learned that you could deal with the bully immediately or you could wait, but waiting didn't ever make the situation better. Therefore "I'm Garric or-Reise," he said, his voice rising. "I don't need to be your master, but I'll never be your slave!"

  Crispus raised the hand he'd held concealed behind the gatepost; he held a cudgel the length of a man's forearm. Garric lunged forward and smashed the top of his head into Crispus' nose. Crispus bellowed and staggered backward. Garric drove at him again, catching Crispus with the point of his shoulder and crushing him against the gatepost. Garric felt the air blast out of Crispus' lungs, but he didn't hear ribs crack as he'd hoped he might.

  Crispus went down. Garric kicked him twice in the face with his heel. He'd been wearing boots or sandals since he became prince so his feet weren't as callused as they would've been when he still lived in Barca's Hamlet, but the blows would've broken bones in a less sturdy victim. As it was, Crispus' head lolled back and his body went limp.

  Garric was breathing hard. He hadn't had anything to eat since the evening before he was captured; that was part of the reason he was suddenly dizzy.

  He bent and picked up Crispus' cudgel. It wasn't much good to him with his wrists bound together and tied to his waist on a short lead, but he didn't see any point in leaving it for Crispus when he woke up.

  "Does anybody else think he'll make me his slave?" he shouted into the darkness beyond the gateway.

  The woman who'd been standing with Crispus stepped forward and touched the cords binding Garric's wrists. She held a hardwood dowel no thicker than a writing stylus. She thrust the point into the knots and worked them loose with startling ease.

  "I am Donria," she said. She was young and shapely. "Until now there were no men here except Crispus."

  She looked up at Garric and added, "Now that I've seen you, I don't think there were any men here at all-until now."

  ***

  Cashel figured the road to the charnel house wasn't any worse than the one that led west out of Barca's Hamlet, but nobody tried to take a carriage down that one. He, Chalcus, and Ilna had gotten out and were walking with the escorting soldiers, but Tenoctris stayed in the open vehicle of necessity.

  Cervoran stayed for reasons Cashel wasn't sure about. Maybe Cervoran didn't notice the bumping around.

  "Sister take this track!" said the Blood Eagle stumbling along beside Cashel. The guards had their equipment to carry besides watching out for enemies. "You can tell from the ruts how much traffic it gets. How come they don't grade it smooth, hey?"

  As soon as the party'd got into the valley north of Mona, the road'd become limestone-living rock, not crushed stone laid over mud. That sounded better than it was: some layers were harder than others, so the carriage's iron tires bounced and skidded from one swale to the next. It made a terrible racket and must've felt worse, though Tenoctris didn't let it show and Cervoran, well, he was Cervoran.

  "I don't guess it bothers most people who ride this way," Cashel said after thinking about it for a little while.

  They came around a corner. The valley floor widened here, not much but enough to turn a wagon if you swung the outside wheels up onto the slope. The entrance to the cave was a man's height up the east wall. A heavy wooden frame'd been built against the limestone to support a double-leaf gate.

  A slate-roofed hut stood above the cave mouth where the slope flattened into a ledge. An old man sat on the hut's porch, cutting an alder sapling into a chain of wooden links. He must've heard the carriage far back down the route, but it wasn't till he saw it was a carriage with the royal seal instead of a wagon carrying corpses that he jumped to his feet. He half-ran, half-scrambled down meet his visitors. He dropped the shoot he was whittling, but he was waving his short, sharp knife until one of the Blood Eagles stopped him and pried it out of his fingers.

  "May the Sister help me, dear sirs and ladies!" the fellow said. He spoke the name of the Sister, the Queen of the Underworld, as a real prayer rather than the curse it'd been in the mouth of the soldier a moment before. "Has something gone wrong? Was the delivery this morning not a pauper after all? Oh dear, oh dear!"

  "We're here for other reasons," Tenoctris said as Cashel helped her out of the carriage. "There has been a recent interment then?"

  "Why yes," the caretaker said, backing slightly. "A woman, it was. I didn't hear the cause of death. They found her dead in the night, was all I was told."

  Cashel handed Tenoctris off to one of the soldiers and stepped quickly around the back of the vehicle to get Cervoran. The Blood Eagles knew Tenoctris well enough that they treated her like
a friendly old woman instead of a wizard, but the recently dead man bothered them.

  Cashel didn't blame them for feeling that way, but Cervoran'd showed how useful he was when he made the sea burn. Cashel wouldn't say the fellow was necessary; nobody was so necessary that the world was going to stop without him. But Cervoran knew more about the present trouble and how to fix it than anybody else Cashel'd met, Tenoctris included by her own words.

  "I must have the body," Cervoran said, tramping toward the gate. The slope'd been cut and filled into a ramp instead of a flight of steps. That'd make it easier for fellows carrying a body. The weight wasn't much, not for two men, but you were likely to trip on steps for not seeing your feet.

  "Ah, may I ask why, sirs and ladies?" the attendant said. He stood stiffly, wringing his hands together. He wasn't as old as Cashel'd thought first off, maybe no more than thirty. It was hard to judge with bald folks.

  Cervoran ignored him, not that, "It is necessary," would've helped much if the fellow'd been what was for him talkative. Tenoctris followed on Ilna's arm, with Chalcus behind looking as tense and alert as an eagle.

  "There are dangers to the kingdom, sir," Tenoctris said. "Perhaps you heard about the fortress that rose from the sea? The body will help us, help my colleague that is, deal with the threat."

  Cervoran turned on the platform at the top of the ramp. "The Green Woman's creatures are landing even now," he said. "Human weapons may delay their advance, but I alone can defeat the Green Woman."

  He paused, then added at a pitch even higher than his usual squeak, "I am Cervoran!"

  The attendant looked at Tenoctris and blinked three times quickly, trying to get his mind around the thought. "KingCervoran?" he said in disbelief.

  "It seems so," said Tenoctris, not putting any opinion into her tone. Cashel grinned. He'd probably have said, "I guess so," and meant the same thing: that they weren't sure.

  Cervoran took hold of one of the doors' long vertical handles. The panel quivered when he tugged, but it didn't open. Something buzzed a loud, low note.