by Victor Milán
Not that trouble was likely. That very morning Zaranda and her tiny band had watched the heavy wooden gates swing open and half Baron Lutwill’s complement of soldiers march forth to begin collecting the increased taxes the posted parchments had announced. With forces much reduced the soi-disant baron had also perforce decreased his patrols, which were in any event predictable, throughout the countryside. And the people of Masamont tended to keep behind heavily barred doors by night, for fear of chance meetings with the baron’s men, which seldom went to the towsfolks’ advantage.
Still, there remained the small and gnawing chance that they had been seen and betrayed, or espied by magic, or that a tax-collecting band, returning for some reason unforeseen, might stumble across their covert. Just such random events had altered the outcome of half a hundred conflicts, from duels to the meeting of great armies. That was why Zaranda put so little faith in plans drawn elaborately up before the fact.
She sighed and sat down. Chen looked up at her and smiled, her pale, freckled face seeming lightly self-luminous in the last lingering light of day.
“Will you let me go with you?” the girl asked.
“No. We’ve talked this out before. You’ve not yet learned enough.” Though the girl had been trying, painfully hard. It was as irksome to her quicksilver nature to toil laboriously to learn as it was natural for Shield. Yet she had done so with no less dedication than the orog.
“But how will I ever become a mage if I never put what I know into practice?” Chen wailed.
“That’s a fair question. You cannot. And still—the time isn’t now.”
Chen expelled a huffing breath and turned away. Zaranda laid a hand upon her shoulder. “Now, come. Let’s review what you’ve learned of the incantation that sends your foes to sleep. It’s not infallible, and won’t work at all against foes who are very powerful or mighty in magic. Yet, day in and out, it’s one of the likeliest to save your life.…”
Half an hour after midnight—by which time Zaranda’s nerves were drawn as taut as fiddle strings and scraped as by a bow, for fear the signal would arrive before her forces—the horses in the wood lot raised their heads and pricked their ears. They uttered no giveaway whinnies of greeting; their muzzles were wrapped in soft cloth, another trick Zaranda had learned from the Tuigan horse-barbarians.
Shield said nothing, but stood up with scimitars star-gleaming suddenly in his hands. Zaranda lifted up Crackletongue in its scabbard, which she had unbelted, and stood up more slowly.
The assault group picked its way carefully if not noiselessly through the brush. They were Protective Company volunteers and Balmeric’s mercenaries, numbering fifty in all—half Zaranda’s cadre-in-training among them. All had volunteered, but she didn’t want to risk losing many of her best pupils; even victory could cost dearly. They had drawn lots for the honor of accompanying her.
It nearly broke her heart. They had no idea what they were getting into, not down in their guts where it counted. Many of them had by now seen combat with marauding bands, been wounded, seen comrades die. But battle against trained soldiers, even barracks sweepings such as would accept service with the likes of Baron Lutwill … she hoped the survivors did not look back in bitterness on their eager naïveté.
The company dismounted and muzzled and hobbled the horses. Zaranda had as yet no true cavalry beyond herself. But after facing the horse-borne Tuigans, she mounted her own troops for mobility’s sake, though they fought afoot.
Stillhawk was somewhere out in the night, prowling round the castle walls, alert for unforeseen events. He was nearly as unseeable, wrapped in his elven cloak and mastery of stealth, as if he’d had a spell of invisibility cast upon him. With nothing more to do, Zaranda wrapped her own cloak about her and settled in to sleep.
The air was cool and heavily still. The only sounds, besides the muted drumming of hooves, were the trill of field crickets and the distant spectral voicings of an owl. The moon had set before midnight—fortuitous that Lutwill had picked yesterday for sending forth his tax collectors.
Since her troops could not rival Stillhawk in stealth, Zaranda had decided on a rapid approach, rather than trying to creep across six hundred yards of open ground. Her riders had muffled their mounts’ hooves, but there was a limit to how quietly fifty horses could trot.
As they neared the walls, Zaranda’s skin felt as if it were bunching at the nape of her neck in expectation of a sudden shout of discovery, or perhaps the deadly compound hiss of a volley of crossbow quarrels. But they reached the gate without incident. As she dismounted and crossed the wooden bridge on foot, a knotted rope slithered down the wall’s stone face. She climbed quickly up.
Farlorn reached a hand to help her over the top. “Forgive the lateness of the hour, milady,” he said, swaying slightly. He was still got up in wig, hat, false mustachios, and ludicrous coat. “Mine host is a true hero where reveling is concerned.”
With soft thumps, rag-wrapped ladders were laid against the walls. The assault group began to clamber up. The seldom-oiled gate hinges were too loud to risk opening until after the alarm was raised.
“You’re drunk!” Zaranda said in a startled whisper.
“The good baron took it in mind to put to the test certain tales concerning the capacity of bards for—excuse me—drink. I could hardly disappoint the man, now, could I?”
He leaned so far back he threatened to topple into the courtyard. Zaranda grabbed his sleeve. “Are you in any condition to fight?” she asked.
He nodded down the catwalk. A figure lay sprawled amidst a dark patch spreading on stone. “I’m fit enough to murder,” he said. “Two, in fact: all the sentries our arrogant Baron Loot-well thought needful to guard his walls by night. And drunk or sober, few men can match steel with Farlorn Half-Elven.”
The raiders were beginning to filter into the yard down stone stairways. Just let me get a few more of my people inside, Zaranda prayed to unspecified gods, and it won’t matter that they lack experience or even preponderance of numbers—
And perhaps Armenides of Zazesspur was right and Ao had taken up an active interest in the world. As if in instant negation of her prayers, there rang a shout of, “Ho! Intruders!”
The thrum-thump of a releasing crossbow sounded, followed by a stomach-clutching thunk. And a youthful volunteer pitched screaming from the top of the wall.
Across the courtyard, a single man stood in the opened door of a long, low stone building, evidently a barracks. No lights shone from within, but startled cries emerged as men struggled out of sleep to grope for weapons.
Zaranda’s lips moved, near-noiselessly. As the man bent down to try to recock his bow by hand, she flicked a tiny pellet from her fingertips. It sped over his back with unnatural accuracy and exploded into the red hell-glare of a fireball spell.
The blast hurled him into the middle of the courtyard. Behind him, screams.
A giant shadow loomed beside her: Shield, scimitars in hand. “Take a detachment and try to block the barracks exits,” she told him. Though a fireball spell did its deadliest work confined by walls, she dared not hope to have killed or incapacitated everyone inside.
For two heartbeats his eyes held hers, aglow with the fires flickering inside the barracks. He hated to leave her side in the heart of battle, but he had pledged his troth to her. He turned and barked out the names of squad leaders as he hurried down the steps.
With a squeal of tormented metal, the gates began to open beneath Zaranda’s feet. Surprise gone, the remaining raiders had to get inside as quickly as possible. Some still clambered up the ladder. Zaranda leaned down to help Fiora over the top.
She heard a deep hum and the plangent clatter of a steel-tipped quarrel striking rock. Even as the metal rang, a longbow uttered a deep-voiced twang of response and a scream spurted from the tower. A cross-bowman had tried to mark her down from the safety of an arrow loop.
Stillhawk stood behind her, bow still upheld. He nodded acknowledgment to her grin o
f thanks. At this range, the narrow shooting loops gave only an illusion of cover where the woodsman was concerned; if you could see to shoot through it, he could put an arrow in your eye.
Unfortunately, with the exception of Farlorn sober, the ranger was the only marksman among them with nearly the skill for that feat. A few crossbowmen in the keep could massacre her youthful volunteers in the open courtyard. She dashed downstairs and toward the keep, Crackletongue in hand.
The door at the tower’s base was iron-bound oak, and likely a hand or more in thickness. The hinges were on the inside—which meant the door opened inward, a weakness, but likewise prevented an attacker from forcing it open with two quick strokes of a sledgehammer to burst the hinges. Doubtless a massive beam set in brackets barred it within It would take long minutes for the strongest man to batter through it with an axe.
Zaranda was prepared for this one. She flung forth her left hand, spoke words of command. She felt the heavy beam, bound it to her will, willed it to rise, heard the startled outcries from within.
She felt the bar come free, let it drop outside the brackets, powerless to do more. She raised a foot and gave the door a furious kick.
Her door-opening spell had dumbfounded the defenders; none thought to hurl his weight against the door. It swung ponderously open. Zaranda charged inside.
A pale blur in candlelit gloom, a face startled beneath a steel cap and within a mail fringe. Zaranda slashed it across. Its owner staggered back, howling. Zaranda caught him by the hauberk and shoved him against mates trying to close from her left, while Crackletongue, alive with blue-white fire, did deadly work to her right.
A clang, a clash, a bellowing cry, and she was through to the steps that wound upward. She lunged up three, turned back to parry a spear thrust with her blade, grabbed the ashen haft, and slew the wielder with a forehand stroke. Reversing her grip on the spear, she threw it.
It was a clumsy cast, left-handed, and did no one harm. It wasn’t intended to. It did make the clot of guards jump back, which was her intent. Before they could recover, she reached in her pouch and flung a fistful of skunk-cabbage leaves in their faces, uttering an incantation. Thick green smoke swirled up from the leaves, surrounding the guardsmen, who began to cough, retch, and weep uncontrollably. Her own eyes streaming from the fringe effects, Zaranda bolted up the stairs.
A story up, she came upon a guard swinging a cocked crossbow away from a firing loop to aim at her. She hurled herself at his legs and tackled him. They lay on the floor writhing. The man was shorter than she but had strength on her, and kept stupidly trying to force his weapon to bear on her instead of beating her over the head with it. His breath and body stank in her nostrils, and his garb was greasy to her touch.
She succeeded in rolling atop him. At once she saw a second soldier standing in the middle of the round chamber, pointing a crossbow at her by the light of a single reed torch. Frantically she threw herself to the right, dragging her opponent’s body over hers by sheer force of will. The crossbow thumped. The man Zaranda was wrestling with yelled in anguish as the bolt pierced his back and pinned him to the wood-plank floor.
Fortunately it missed Zaranda. She eeled out from under him and lunged for the other. This one had wit to drop his now-useless weapon and grab for his dirk. Crackletongue’s point took him in the throat before he could draw.
There were straw-stuffed pallets strewn about the floor, as well as empty wine bottles and discarded crusts of bread and cheese. Breathing through her mouth, Zaranda grabbed up one of the pallets. Hoping few vermin were migrating into her hair and clothing, she continued up the stairs that wound around the inner side of the keep wall, holding the pallet before her.
As she came to the next level, she cast it up and into the chamber. Crossbows twanged. Zaranda popped up, flung a pinch of fine sand from the river bottom, shouted words. Three guards collapsed into slumber.
Rubber-legged more from magic-making than exertion, Zaranda caught up the pallet again. A blue flash split the night outside, the glare through the arrow loop turning the chamber momentarily day-bright. Thunder cracked like the world breaking open.
Through ringing in her ears, Zaranda heard screams from outside. Someone was loosing potent magic against her people. As she paused, the lightning lashed out again.
Frantic, she dashed upstairs. A guard waited at the next floor. She threw the pallet over his head and put her shoulder into him, thrusting him back against the wall. His helmeted head struck stone with a clang.
Ten feet away, another soldier had just finished hooking the thick string of a crossbow into the claw that held it cocked. He had not had time to drop in a bolt. As Zaranda rushed him he threw the weapon down and snatched up a spear.
He thrust at her. She put her weight back, skidded, stopped. He jabbed at her again. She parried. Behind her, she heard the first soldier cursing and floundering. Apparently he was coming out second-best in his contest with the pallet.
Zaranda threw a looping wild cut at the man’s eyes. He ducked his head back out of harm’s way and, whooping with triumph, drove his point for her unprotected body. Crackletongue whirled around and slashed his leading arm. He howled, and lost his grip with that hand. She cut him down before he could shift grip for a one-handed stab.
The other guard finally escaped the pallet. Zaranda knelt, caught up the fallen crossbow, plucked a quarrel from a wall-mounted rack, and slotted it home. As the guard charged, she shot him through the body. He cried out and fell backward down the stairs.
Blue lightnings stabbed and crashed outside. Some sort of potent magic artifact was clearly in play here. No one’s mind could hold so many spells of such cogency. At least, no one who’d be keeping the company of a hedge-robber like Lutwill.
Her urgent mission had abruptly changed from an effort to safeguard her youthful warriors from crossbowmen to stopping whatever magic was being unleashed against them. For the first time, she wished she’d actually brought helpers with her into the tower, rather than charging in alone—and sealing the entrance behind her with a persistent stinking cloud spell.
More cautiously, she advanced up the final set of stairs, sword in hand. Blue flames danced along both edges of Crackletongue’s blade. There was evil afoot here.
What she most feared was to find another stout door sealed against her; she had used up her magic for that. But the heavy trapdoor that might seal off the penthouse from the rest of the keep was thrown open, inviting.
Too inviting; she wasn’t that ingenuous. She gathered herself, pantherish on strong haunches, then launched herself upward in a mighty leap. It carried her up through the entry hole and beyond. She tucked a shoulder and rolled as a blade clashed on the floor behind her.
She fetched up against the wall amid a pile of furs that smelled worse than they had when attached to their original owners. Clearly hygiene was not a matter much on Baron Lutwill’s mind. A young woman cowered nearby, naked but for a bearskin clutched against her, straw-colored hair hanging limp in a scared, blank face.
“Keep out of the way,” Zaranda told her. “We’ll get you free of this.”
The penthouse was a larger version of the filthy barracks on the second floor, though more sumptuously furnished. Instead of straw pallets, furs and stained silk cushions lay scattered across the floor. On the walls hung once-fine tapestries that, it appeared, had seen much use for the wiping of greasy fingers. The discarded wine bottles were of a better vintage than the ones on the lower floor, but the crusts and mold-green cheese rinds and gnawed joints were much the same.
The windows were much larger than the arrow loops below, glazed with heavy age-wavy panes set in lead. These were apparently stout; an arrow crashed against the pane and made a mere bird-beak clack before it fell harmlessly away.
A slight man in a black robe stood by the window. He was a mage, to judge by the large sphere he held up to the window. Its surface was alive with opalescent fire, but the light that cast fiendish highlights over his be
arded face was blue—the same blue as the lightning-bolt that stabbed down outside as Zaranda watched.
Somehow the black-robed man was controlling the lightning with his sphere. Zaranda summoned the last bit of magic she had in her, preparing to send him a magic missile where it would do the most good.
A huge shadow loomed up before her, blocking her aim. “Die, interloper!” it roared, and hacked downward savagely with a great double-bitted battle-axe.
She rolled aside. The blade crashed down, cleaving valuable if dirty pelts. She came to the balls of her feet, crouching, Crackletongue held before her. The axeman turned to confront her.
He was tall, taller even than Shield. He had a mashed-in nose and dark eyes almost hidden beneath bushy brows. Black mustaches swept ferociously back across his cheeks to join with his sideburns, leaving his chin bare. He wore a steel cap, a mail hauberk like his men’s, buckskin trews, and boots of some stout, scaled hide, possibly dragonet. His paunch was majestic. The heft of chest and upper shoulders was hard to judge, since he wore a black bearskin vest. Judging from the size of his bare arms, he was doubtless sturdy enough.
“You must be the one who calls herself Countess Morninggold,” he said, swishing the axe in the air one-handed before him—seemingly careless, inviting attack. “Zazesspur will reward me mightily when I send them your head preserved in vinegar.”
“Cheapskate,” Zaranda said, trying to crane past him to get a clear shot at his wizard. Reading her intent, he kept shifting side to side with an agility that belied his bulk. “Brandy works much better.”
“I doubt you’re worth the cost, frankly,” he said in his oddly pleasant baritone voice. “But you might provide some diversion if I don’t kill you at once.”
Suddenly he held the axe’s yard-long helve in both hands and was whipping the head toward her face with the sheer awesome strength of his wrists alone. The blow would have cloven her to the breastbone had it landed. Expecting such, she had read the signs in his body motions and threw up Crackletongue with her left hand bracing the back of the blade. Impact drove her to her knees.