But Gruesome, looking out over the field from several more feet of height, rumbled, "Old ones come."
"Old ones?" I frowned; it didn't make sense.
Then I began to hear the wailing that overrode the cries of disgust, a wailing that came closer and closer as the wall above turned into a trickle of sand—closer and closer, until I could make out words.
"The Witch Doctor! Where is the Witch Doctor? Bring us to the Witch Doctor!"
"Witch doctor?" I turned to Frisson, staring.
The poet shook his head. "I know naught, Master Saul. I have never heard of such a thing."
"Well, I've heard of it," I allowed. "A witch doctor is a pejorative term for an African shaman, a sort of combination priest and physician..."
My peasant army parted with cries of fear, pressing back against the dragoons and their horses, who were chopping gleefully at an enemy who was shrinking away. A channel opened through my plowboys, and down that corridor stumbled a pack of people horribly disfigured by disease, some doubled over with pain, some limping on crutches, but led by a dozen or more people with missing fingers, missing hands, missing forearms, hobbling because of missing toes or feet.
"Lepers!" Gilbert gasped.
And they cried, "Bring us to the Witch Doctor! We repent, we abjure our witchcraft! We will no longer serve Satan! But bring us to the priest who will shrive us, and the Witch Doctor who will heal us!"
"We don't have a witch doctor!" I bleated. "No Africans at all! Maybe there's one in the city—I wouldn't know."
"But the priest, we have." Friar Ignatius stepped forward, and his monks came up behind him with very purposeful strides.
"Friar!" I yelped. "We're in the middle of a battle!"
"Then we shall help you win it!" a tall, decaying man cried. "We have magical powers no longer, but only shrive us, and we shall throw our bodies against their swords!"
"I don't think they'll let you get close enough to stab." I eyed them askance, then turned to Friar Ignatius. "But they might die laughing. Brother, can you spare some time? Some way to keep it down to a minute or two?"
"Certes." Friar Ignatius stepped in front of me, calling out, "Kneel, those of you who can!"
Gruesome pointed over the ex-witches' heads, rumbling, "Sojers come!"
"Of course! The contagious cases opened a clear path for them!" I groaned. "The wicked warriors are filling it in!"
"Do you all repent your evil works?" Friar Ignatius cried.
The answer rolled forth from a hundred throats: "Aye!"
"Not queen's sojers," Gruesome insisted. "Them fight queen's sojers."
"Huh?" I looked up, thunderstruck. "Reinforcements for our side? But how..."
"Never ask." Frisson's fingers bit into my arm. "The Spider King said he would summon aid."
"Ego te absolvo!" Friar Ignatius cried. "I absolve you of your sins!"
The ex-witches cheered with joy...
...and with a roar, the gates collapsed.
Gruesome loosed one last blast and charged into the city, with Gilbert hard on his claws.
"After him!" I cried. "Nobody will want to get close to you! If you really want to help, here's your chance!"
The ex-witches cheered again and charged through the gates. It wasn't a very fast charge, but it was good enough. I wiped a sodden brow and breathed thanks that I'd managed to shake them.
My peasants shouted triumph and boiled through after the witches, sweeping Frisson and me along in their wake.
The citizens got out of the way fast, and our bloodthirsty boys were too bent on revenge to think about looting yet. They ran through the streets bellowing, Gilbert leading them on toward the huge turrets that rose ahead. Soldiers appeared in the streets, but they couldn't muster more than a few dozen, and our plowboys just rolled over them. I was in the middle of the mob, so I saw the results as I strode on by—dead peasants, and dead soldiers, some of them trampled. I ignored them and put them out of my mind. Time enough for remorse later. There was no way to win a battle without killing men.
But did the battle have to be won?
I remembered how Suettay had tortured Angelique; I remembered the squad of bullyboys that had tried to beat me up. I remembered the peasants ground down by the vindictive warlock-bailiff, and I knew, Yes. Suettay had to go.
Which meant this battle had to be fought.
And I could see, from the hard faces all around me, that all my peasant men had just such memories to spur them on—many, I suspected, worse than mine.
Then, suddenly, the walls of the castle were before us, and the drawbridge was rising. The walls above bristled with the home guard's pikes, and I knew crossbows were being leveled at us. Worse, I knew that the army we'd broken through was on its way to take us in the rear. We had to get into that castle, and get in fast. I had to kill Suettay before her army caught us.
"Gremlin!" I shouted.
He was there suddenly, obscene and chuckling. "Fear not, Master Saul. I have rusted the locks of the crossbows; I have blunted the heads of the arrows. The mortar that holds that wall together is parched and crumbling, and the great windlass that hauls the drawbridge chain is crumbling, even as we speak, of dry rot."
Then he was gone, and my peasants started recovering their nerve. I locked my knees to keep them from collapsing and reflected that, occasionally, it's nice to have the Spirit of Snafu around—if he's on your side.
I heard a distant crack. The drawbridge halted its upward rise, poised, then came thundering back down.
My army cheered and charged into the gatehouse tunnel. The first dozen rammed scythe blades into the arrow slits. Screams echoed in the tunnel behind, and we streamed through into the courtyard with only a few arrows striking my men.
There, we met Suettay's army, drawn up and waiting.
My men bellowed with joy—at last, a chance to strike out at their oppressors. They plowed into the army, and in seconds it had turned into a melee of individual combat. Military discipline didn't amount to much in that churning mob, and the plowboys turned out to be just as expert with their scythes as any soldier with a halberd.
Frisson's hand bit into my shoulder. "We dare not tarry, Master Saul! Valiant though they are, these peasants will be torn to bits—especially when the outer army finds them!"
"Right! We've got to hit their central power source!"
Frisson frowned. "You speak of Suettay?"
"Yeah! She's in there somewhere! But how do we get to her?"
Air shimmered, and the Rat Raiser appeared before us. He became solid and stumbled, reaching out to catch my arm, steadied himself, and looked up, a bit wild-eyed. "The king has sent me to take you to the witch!"
"Good idea!" I turned back to Frisson. "Change us all to rats!"
"But... but how are we to—"
"Never mind; let me try!
"Wee, sleekit, slinking, skulking beasties
We shall become, long-tailed and feisty!
Large rats, who scurry off so hasty,
In hurrying hassle!
To run and chase through byways nasty,
Within this castle!"
Sudden pains wracked me—Burns' revenge, no doubt. My vision blurred, and I had a dim sight of things growing larger and larger about me. Then, suddenly, the world stabilized, and there were huge feet thundering toward me. I shouted with alarm, and raced for the wall... only it came out as a squeak, and I was running on all fours. Running pretty well, too—but I wasn't thinking very clearly. I was only aware of my frantic fear.
Then I was up against the wall, and I turned at bay, terror churning into savagery—but none of the huge feet were anywhere near. Instead, I saw a bunch of giants duking it out, cutting each other up with huge knives. It didn't make much sense to me, so I put it out of my mind; all that mattered was getting to the evil queen, who had sicced all those cats on us.
Cats?
I looked around, fear of felines stabbing through my entrails. I relaxed with relief—there were n
o cats in sight, nor even their terrible reek.
Reek?
Now that I had a few seconds respite, I realized that I was wrapped in a world of aromas. For a minute, I was rapt indeed, spellbound at the richness and variety of the environment: horse's sweat, men's sweat, fear scent and battle scent—and under them all, the huge catalog of ordinary, everyday aromas: this morning's breakfast, porridge and sausage and river fish; last night's dinner, roast mutton and black bread; dung and lilacs and birds and more, more and more. I was dazzled, frozen, entranced...
...until I recognized the scent of dogs.
Dogs! Dogs chased rats! I was tense with fright in an instant. I looked around me frantically—but I didn't see any dogs, and I realized the smell was coming from far away, so I started to relax.
Until I noticed the two huge rats a few feet away.
I whipped about, turning to run—and saw something long and hairless. I froze, realizing that it was part of me. I had a tail!
Then I remembered: I was a rat. Why, I wasn't sure, but that made it okay to be with other rats. I turned back, and saw one of the other rats just doing the same thing, only he was quivering. His coat was dark brown, and he was smaller than the other one, who was huge, as rats go—I guess. He was also mangy and moth-eaten and scarred, with patches of fur missing. He was looking at the two of us with definite contempt.
Suddenly, there was a huge din at the gate. I whirled, heart beating a mile a minute—and there, high as a mountain, came riding a knight in black armor, and beside him, a knight who had a sword in one hand and a stick in the other, mounted on a dragon, an authentic, actual, fire-breathing dragon! I squealed in terror and huddled back against the wall.
Then, behind the two knights, came a knight with long golden hair and a golden circlet around her helmet. Behind her, soldiers and knights boiled through the gate.
The dragon roared, bellowing a thirty-foot tongue of flame. Enemy soldiers howled with pain and turned to run. The knights rode after them, chopping wherever a soldier or enemy knight turned to fight, and the footmen pounded after them, spreading out and rolling up Suettay's soldiers.
None of it made sense to me, though. I just cowered, looking frantically for a hole to hide in. After all, I had no more brain than a rat.
A stinging blow jolted me out of it, and I turned, instantly angry—to see the big, mangy rat slapping the smaller brown rat. Then he whirled back to me, baring his teeth. I hesitated and, when the big rat saw he had our attention, he squeaked, "Follow!" and turned to scamper away down the nearest drain.
I followed, numb with the realization that I had understood his word; he was still speaking human language—and I could still comprehend it.
The drain led into a sewer. We scampered through increasing darkness, lit occasionally by another drain. Then it grew almost pitch-black, but I was surprised to see that I could dimly make out the form in front of me. I remembered there was supposed to be another one, and glanced back. Sure enough, the brown rat was still following.
Then the tunnel opened out, and we were in a sort of round chamber with other tunnels opening off it. The big rat in front of me was squeaking up a storm. I edged to the side, so I could see around him, and realized that he was facing three other rats, almost as mangy and unkempt as he was—and smelling to high heaven! They regarded us with eyes that were definitely unfriendly, but that turned almost worshipful as they turned back to the big rat in front of us. They squeaked something that must have been assent, because they took off and led the way into one of the tunnels, single file, and the large rat followed them.
We followed him. After all, there wasn't much choice.
I found out later that, while we were creeping through the sewers, the good guys were conquering the capital. Behind them, the citizenry broke loose in celebration—turns out there weren't very many of them who'd been happy with the sorceress' rule. In fact, most of them had lived in fear and trembling, and there were very few who hadn't suffered from her depredations in one way or another.
The good guys charged into the keep, their resident wizard fending off Suettay's spells with his own.
Of course, Suettay wasn't really concentrating—by that time, she had other worries: me, and Frisson.
It took us a while to qualify as major headaches, though. First we had to get done playing catch-the-tail with our leader, that being the only way we could keep track of him in the total dark, as we ran along through drainpipe, crack, and cranny. It was tough going, but our rat bodies seemed built for it.
Finally, we came out into dim light. Looking up, I saw rough rocks projecting above us in a sort of ladder. I realized later that it was a tunnel made by a series of cracks inside those walls, and the "rungs" were the back ends of the stone blocks that made up those walls. At the moment, I didn't have enough brain power for that, of course—I just accepted it.
Our guides started hopping nimbly from one projection to another, just as if they made up a rat's staircase.
My ratty heart quailed, but the big rat got behind me and snarled and gnashed his teeth, and I jumped.
Up we went, rock after rock, as my heart beat faster and faster and my breath came harder and harder. Finally, our guides crawled out onto a sort of shelf and went scurrying away into some more darkness. Trembling with exhaustion, I followed.
Thick black closed around us again. I followed the scrabbling of claws ahead. Then, suddenly, a reek hit me, one that went right through my head. I recoiled, but the big rat behind me snarled, and I forced myself to go forward again, trembling from sheer fear this time, not exhaustion. What kind of unearthly smells were these? It wasn't like the warm, homey effluvium of the sewers, or the musky, delicious garbage-reek of the other rats, but a nose-searing, brain-tearing mixture of smells that cut like saws and stabbed like needles.
It got to our guide rats, too. They cowered away, quivering—but between them, I saw the hole between two stones, with ruddy orange light glowing on the other side.
I cowered away, too—that's where the horrible smells were coming from.
The big rat behind me squeaked with angry menace. No go; I cowered harder.
Then a searing pain shot through my behind, just above the tail, and I shot forward with a squeak of agony. The bastard had nipped me! I recovered, scrabbling on all claws just short of the hole—but something soft and massive struck me, and I jammed into the hole with an outraged squeal.
And I do mean into—it was as tight as a bottleneck around a cork! How the heck did the real rats expect me to get through this? But I stretched, and found that my body suddenly became amazingly slimmer; my ribs seemed to compress, and it was hard to breathe for a moment, but with all four sets of claws pushing and pulling, I oozed through that hole as though I'd been greased.
Out! At last! I leapt aside, to let the next one come out...
A tearing yowl filled the world, and something huge and reeking plummeted down at me.
I may not have known that smell, but my body sure did.
Cat!
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I squealed in terror and ran.
The cat yowled with delight and leapt after me. I tried a quick U-turn around a table leg, doubling back; the cat's claws scrabbled on the stone, and I dashed for the next table leg and went up it like a monkey up a tree. The cat spat in fury and leapt up after me, knocking an alembic to the floor; it shattered, but I was already running for the other end of the table, squealing in terror. The cat gave a meow of delight and plunged after me. Beakers and thuribles tipped and smashed; foul-smelling powders went flying. That slowed the cat down a little; he sneezed several times, pausing for each. By the time he got his nose clear, I was back on the floor, dashing for the protection of a huge caldron. I shot between it and the wall, and realized that it was hot—there was a fire under it! But the cat was too angry to care; it shot through right behind me, and yowled in pain and anger as its tail hit a burning ember.
Any distraction helped! I made a
nother U-turn around the caldron, hoping the cat would be a little more circumspect about the circumference. It wasn't; it charged even faster for being all the hotter.
Broom! And a shelf above it! I dashed up the broomstick. The cat barreled into it with a snarl, but I leapt a split second before the broomstick went flying. Up I soared, up and up, front claws stretching for the shelf, it coming closer and closer...
...then receding farther and farther. I fell. Panic surged through me; I writhed in midair, saw the floor coming up at me, struggled frantically to reach a chair five feet over—
And hit. Hard. On stone.
I blacked out for a second; my ears rang, then filled with a yowling that seemed to echo through all the world as the cat pounced. My vision cleared just in time to see sharp teeth closing on me. Pain stabbed through the back of my neck; the monster jerked me off the floor, claws coming up to rip out my belly...
The cat screamed, and I shot down to the floor again. I was no fool; I landed running, glancing back...
...to see the cat streaking after two other rats, with a spot of blood on his tail.
I felt insanely grateful. I hadn't known a rat could.
These weren't your average rats, of course—they were very, very smart. Just before they got to the stone wall, they split apart, dashing for opposite corners. The cat slammed on the brakes, scrabbling to a halt, then paused a second, trying to decide which rat to chase. She opted for the smaller one.
Definitely, those rats were as smart as humans.
Wait a minute—they were humans! And so was I! My minuscule rat brain had lost track of that fact while I was being chased! Suddenly, I remembered that I'd understood the big rat, that it had spoken human words. If it could, I could, too. There wasn't much room for memory in that little brain, but it did serve up the couplet I'd prepared for just this occasion:
"See as thou wast wont to see,
Be as thou wast wont to be!"
I couldn't remember the rest, but it didn't seem to matter—two human beings suddenly shot up from the rubble in the corners, where the two rats had hidden. The cat tried to pause in mid-pounce, yowling frantically, heading right toward Frisson's navel. He caught it, grinning, then murmured, "Poor tabby!" and stroked its head.
The Witch Doctor Page 44