by Don McQuinn
Chapter 10
A wooden shutter closed the tall arrow port carved in the castle’s stone wall. Stirred by the wind, the brightly painted slab shook and grumbled to itself. Stylized wolves, done in the ancient forms of Ola, danced with movement. Under the impact of stronger gusts, the irritable muttering rose to angry complaint.
Halfway across the room, backed up to a fireplace, was a massive table fully two body-lengths long; the legs were leaping salmon, carved of wood, thicker than a man’s thigh. Gan slept facedown on its polished surface. A thick, white bandage rose from the back of his neck. Arms flung wide, his hands were tightly clenched. The left was red, swollen; the skin suggested something overripe. The buttoned cuff of a long-sleeved shirt failed to hide another bandage at the wrist.
Occasionally Gan flexed his fists. Every time that happened, the other figure in the room stirred. Even in the grim shadows of the stone castle, the woman’s long, blond hair glowed. Under that gold-bright crown, however, beautiful features were troubled. Gan tightened his hands. His body moved in sharp spasms. The woman’s own hand flew to her breast and an anguished murmur pressed past lips pursed in sympathetic pain.
That noise was enough. Gan stood as he woke, murdat simultaneously clearing its scabbard. Complete awareness was an instant behind. Embarrassment chased recognition across the sleep-muddled features.
“Neela.” He spoke the name as a croak.
Her laugh was light, albeit tinged with relief. “Who did you expect? I’d have wakened you to come to bed, but I knew it was useless.”
Gan’s rueful smile was lopsided. He put the sword on the table and came to her, taking her in his arms. “I’m sorry.” He lowered his head gingerly to bury his face in her hair. “I know you worry.”
“I wish I could help.”
“I do, too.” He stepped away abruptly. “No. That’s not true. I wouldn’t wish any part of this life on anyone. The Kwa are advancing again. The Skan ships are only days away.”
“You’ll defeat them.” Neela took his face in both her hands. Her eyes sought his with fierce intensity. “Men chosen by fate are required to accomplish, not to wonder why they are chosen. But I won’t have you a prisoner of your dead mother’s prophecy. If you are to bring glory to our people, do it as Gan, not her instrument.”
He stroked her hair, examining it as if it were some new marvel. “Emso’s got men spreading rumors among the Kwa, telling them our strength is even lower than it truly is, and that the Skan mean to cheat them out of their share of the spoils. If I can goad the Kwa into attacking without the Skan, we’ve got a chance. If not…” He turned away, fumbled with his murdat, returned it to the scabbard. “Even when the Kwa are beaten, I have to pursue. The Wolf packs are exhausted, but if we don’t drive the Kwa ahead of us, they’ll burn and destroy everything in their path. They’ll see that we starve this winter.”
Heavy pounding on the door interrupted. Gan called, “Come,” and the door swung open.
A grimy, red eyed warrior stood there. In leather armor, he carried a helmet under his arm. It was steel, with a carved wooden mask on its crown. Black and yellow, waxed to a high polish, the mask was a wasp’s head. Wire antennae swayed. Pieces of inlaid obsidian created compound eyes. “Our outposts are coming in, Murdat. Emso sent me to tell you; the Kwa drums are already talking.”
“You were on patrol tonight?”
“Three of us from the Fin pack. First patrol after nightfall. Two Kwa won’t bother us anymore.”
“You haven’t slept.”
“Some, Murdat. Ola has a lot of wall to watch. There’ll be plenty of sleeping after the fighting.”
Gan nodded. “Go tell Emso I’m on my way. Then sleep. I order it. I can’t have a man like you too weary to fight.”
Closing the door, the man left. Gan turned to Neela. “I won’t see you until this is over. Even if we lose the city walls and we have to come back to the castle for a final defense, I’ll be too busy.”
“I’ve made my own plans.” Gan’s eyes widened in surprise. Not only was it unlike Neela to take such a step without discussion, her tone was unique. The word final came to his mind. She went on. “Coldar will be in the abbey with Janet Carter, Susan Anspach, and the Chosens. I’m joining you on the walls.”
“Neela, be reasonable. The noise, the excitement… Coldar will need you. We agreed we’d never be captured, but nothing was said about you fighting.”
“I’m a Dog woman, not some castle-bred child-bearer. I can use a bow as well as most men. I fought Mountain warriors beside you when we fled our homeland. My child is here. My husband. You have no one here with more reason to fight. Or win.”
For several heartbeats, they held to each other in mutual silence. He kissed her on the lips, a gentle touch of love, a promise. “You’re right; we’ve stood together before. We’ll do it again. And win again.” He swung away from her. He didn’t look back.
Outside, Shara and Cho greeted him with delight. His wince as he wrested with them, the product of the wound to his ribs, belied his confident, carefree banter. Shara was no more recovered from his injuries than his master. Cho still limped on the injured leg that kept her out of the last battle with the Kwa. When he took their spiked war collars from the wall pegs, they whined and pranced eagerness. He had to scold to still them. When he rode for the eastern wall, Shara gamely strained to take the lead. Cho followed.
The streets of Ola were too crowded with refugees to allow a gallop. Rude shelters propped against walls pushed almost to the center of streets. Children cried in the darkness, and coughs rattled harshly in the narrow ways. The dim, passing faces turned up to Gan were heavy with the desperation of uprooted people. The awful stench of the overburdened sewer system fouled the night.
Worse than that was the indefinable smell of fear. The acrid precombat stink of men was a thing Gan knew well. This was different. The weight of death and enslavement pressed against these children, their mothers, the aged, wringing out an aura Gan had never experienced.
He was sweating when he reached the perimeter street paralleling the wall. Vaulting out of the saddle, he was instantly nauseated. He leaned heavily into the horse. If he fell, his men would see, take fear. He looped an arm through a stirrup.
The wall wavered. He closed his eyes. Looking again, he exclaimed aloud as the stones merged, melted. The faces of the cave nightmare were there, flowing as they had on the malevolent sea-mound. They cried to him for help.
“Come up, Gan. We’re here.” Emso. Gan drew air into burning, empty lungs. His strength stormed back. He ran up the stairs to the battlewalk. Shara and Cho bounded behind him. Warriors seeing the trio nudged each other. Backs straightened. Quivers were repositioned just so, swords loosened in scabbards.
To the east, faintly limned mountaintops carved the sky.
The Kwa forces were already in position. The haze of dying cookfires made them a ghostly mass. Emso, grizzled face drawn tight in a scowl, said, “As many as we killed last week, it looks like we hardly touched them.”
“Then we’ll touch them harder.”
“You sound angry, Murdat. It’s not like you.” Emso inspected Gan with unconcealed concern. And spoke with his usual candor. “We’ve got men in the healing house who look lots better than you. You fever. You’re pale.”
As if on cue, the Kwa war drums rattled. A Jalail pack man shouted scorn. Another howled. In a breath, all the packs were howling. Discordant, wild, the baying drowned out the enemy drums.
Emso waited for the din to quiet a bit. “That’s why we won’t fail. The packs know you’re under special protection, Murdat. We’d never have found you without your wolf-brothers stampeding those Kwa horses. By all rights, you should be dead inside that rock, you and Shara, here. If the dog hadn’t killed that Kwa priest they wouldn’t have stopped fighting for a funeral ceremony. We wouldn’t have had this time to regroup. Those are signs, Murdat; omens. The men know it. So should you. The most important thing we draw from you is fai
th.”
Gan’s mind seethed with images. The dream in the cave. The faces on the melting stone wall. That unbearable voice. He heard himself say, “There was a horse. Did you see it?”
“Horse? There were twenty or more. They scattered.”
“Did the wolves take any?”
“I told you before. You must have been sicker than I thought. We didn’t see any sign of the wolves attacking the horses. Just ran them off, left the Kwa to us.” He spat over the wall. “What difference does that make? You’re here. We’ve got a battle on our hands.”
“No difference. You’re right.” It pleased Gan inordinately to think of the tired, beaten little horse, free.
Gan collected his wits, strode along the battlewalk. He stopped beside a dark young warrior with the green and white of Eleven West painted on the back of his barmal torso armor. The youngster acknowledged Gan, then returned his attention to the Kwa.
Gan said, “Where’s Baron Eleven West?”
“Where the walls join. He says it’s a weak point. Where he should be.”
“You don’t agree?”
The man colored, kept his eyes carefully front. “I don’t know enough to disagree. But it’s where I should be. Where the heaviest fighting is.” With that, he faced Gan, belligerent.
“There’s enough danger for everyone. I hope yours doesn’t come from the Mountain People riding with the Kwa. They may be very distant cousins of yours, but they’re still blood. If they come at this wall, I’ll move Eleven West men, if I can.”
“Don’t do that.” It was a protest. The young warrior swept out an arm, indicating the wall south of him. “The Kwa and our ‘cousins’ came through the Eleven West barony. My mother is dead. My brother and sister are slaves. My last brother, a child, is here in Ola. We owe those ‘cousins.’”
Gan looked away, hand dropping to his sword hilt. “When this is over, we’ll arrange to exchange prisoners. I hope we’ll get your sister and brother back.”
“And my mother?” The man drew his sword. Hatred distorted his youth, made him old and ugly.
“Control, warrior; control. Your enemy’s as human as you. Don’t confuse the excitement of combat with simple killing. That’s a curse.”
Thoughtful, the younger man nodded slowly. Gan moved on. Kwa whistles shrilled, and Gan signaled for the Three Territories drums to challenge. The combined Wolf voices roared with them.
The Kwa forces moved to attack positions. As at the battle in the valley, a leader stepped forward, wearing the bull’s-horn helmet. He removed it, stripping off an outer cover, exposing highly polished brass, golden in the sun. The Wolves were ready this time, and their jeers and taunts rang against the Kwa’s ceremonial preparations.
When the ritual sacrifice was dragged forward, the Wolves’ scorn turned to helpless fury. The victim was a wounded Galmontis pack warrior still wearing his red armband. The prisoner hung raggedly on a wooden frame that extended his arms and braced his back.
A brown-robed priest slew him from behind with a beheading stroke.
Baron Eleven West was the first man to break the thick silence that cloaked the Wolf regiments. “To the death, Murdat. No Eleven West man will be taking prisoners this day. Nor live to be one.”
Gan gripped the Baron’s arm. “I’ll be at the north end of the wall, with Baron Galmontis. Use the drum and warhorns to signal; we may not be able to see flags.”
Eleven West saluted, then made a formal three-sign. “May the One in All be with us, Murdat.”
Gan and Emso took their positions as the first Kwa arrows curved up from the archers leading the massed troops. Selected Wolf archers returned a slow accurate fire.
Slingers moved into position beside the defending archers, laboring up the stairs with leather sacks full of fist-sized slingstones. Shortly afterward, the hum of arm-long leather slings and the wasplike buzz of the missiles joined the more musical twang of bowstrings and arrows. The sound of a slingstone impact was unmistakable. Nothing on the battlefield had the devastating crush of solid rock striking its target.
Leclerc and Bernhardt, each carrying two wipes, lumbered up the stairs to stand beside Gan and Emso. “Where do you want us?” Leclerc asked.
“Right here with me. You prepared the… what did you call them?”
“Grenades. They’re ready. It took all the black powder.” The last was apologetic.
“You’ve worked hard, my friend. When we’ve won, everyone’s going to sing about the battle-winning warrior who threw lightning with both hands.”
“They’ll sing that he did it for Murdat’s glory.” Bernhardt’s soft accusation came through clearly. An arrow sighed overhead, underscoring her words. She squinted in reaction, but refused to look away from Gan.
Just as softly, he answered, “We have our differences. I’m happy that you fight on my side. At least you consider me less evil than my enemies.”
Bernhardt shook her head. “The word that comes to my mind is ‘unfortunate.’ It’s not you I dislike, it’s what you must do.”
Gan felt his face warm. “I haven’t talked to you about your perceptions enough, Kate Bernhardt. That was an oversight. I’ll do something about it when this unpleasantness has passed.”
She smiled, a surprisingly bright, challenging grin. “I certainly hope so. For all the best reasons.”
Everyone laughed then. Bernhardt looked shyly pleased with herself. Still smiling, she turned and walked away to take a position. Once her gaze took in the restless mass of the Kwa and their allies, she paled.
Leclerc said, “She’ll be all right, Gan.”
“I know. Your women have some strange ways, though.”
A low rumble from the front drew them to the wall. Kwa archers were retreating, save for the ones forever stilled.
When the brass-helmeted leader lowered his sword to start the attack, the impact of the shout from his suddenly charging men sent a visible shudder through the Wolves.
Without waiting for instruction, Leclerc aimed and fired. Using the boop, he blasted holes in the first wave. The Kwa came on. Men staggered, fell, were pushed aside and trampled by those coming from the rear.
Drums blasted. Warhorns brayed. Shrill, nerve-searing whistles shrieked commands. Above all the cacophony supposed to impose order on chaos, there rose the agonized cries of the injured.
To Leclerc’s right, Bernhardt fired as she had in the previous battle, weeping freely. Leclerc was astounded to see Neela running up to the battlewalk, long hair flying, bow and arrow in hand. She disappeared among the men manning the wall.
Turning, looking beyond Bernhardt, he watched the green-and-white banner of Eleven West stream to the ground inside the wall. The dying bearer held the shaft until impact knocked it free. Leclerc leaned out, fired down that way, parallel to the wall. The boop round snapped off the legs of a ladder, bringing it down in a tangled mass of broken men and timbers.
Another ladder angled up at the same point, tottered for a moment. A Kwa warrior, literally frothing at the mouth, scrambled up the rungs, forcing it forward until it slammed in place against the wall. The last Leclerc saw of him, he vaulted onto the battlewalk.
Green and blue Olan colors lifted where the Eleven West banner had fallen. Looking to the left, Leclerc saw Kwa warriors forcing Galmontis pack defenders away from a widening foothold on the battlewalk. Ululating war cries spoke of men who scented victory. The Kwa reserves took up a chant.
An arrow plucked at Leclerc’s sleeve at the left bicep, broke into splinters against the wall. He thought the arrowhead glinted disappointment as it spiraled away to the ground.
He fired a few more rounds. His arm itched.
Unwilling to believe the evidence of his eyes, Leclerc reached to finger the slit material. He was fascinated by the neatness; no raveling threads or rough edges. Likewise, where the flesh was peeled back, he marveled at the startling whiteness of his own fat. Revealed muscle twitched while red flowed steadily, thickly, past the slack lower lip
of the injury. His sleeve dripped messily on the battlewalk.
Bernhardt cried out. He turned to see her slump. She touched a massive raw wound above her eye. Although it bled, there was no gash. A slingstone, then. Once again, his mind rejected the overall, the general, insisting on registering specific details. Her hand, so white, so delicate. Slim, graceful fingers in fluid curves. Suddenly they were shaking. Leclerc wanted to curse the erratic tremors distorting that beauty.
He forced himself to move. Leaden legs dragged, bent under his weight. Before he’d taken three steps, Gan had the wounded shoulder in a grip that made him gasp. He looked up into features warped into a caricature of the Gan he knew. Spattered with blood. Wide eyes a blaze with inhuman passion. Teeth bared in grimace. A butcher’s image, a thing given over to murder. The voice grated past blade-thin lips. “We’re being overrun. The grenades. Fight. It’s all you can do for her.”
Chapter 11
Huge firs bordered the narrow trail leading north to Ola. Fissured bark and dense needles absorbed light and sound, shrouding Sylah’s group in dim silence. The greatest hazard in such a locale was deceptive openness. Vision extended for surprisingly long distances. A first impression was of a park. In fact, however, the bulking trunks and shaded light were a treacherous combination. Everyone in Sylah’s group had seen an entire one-hundred-man Wolf pack trot off into a similar forest and rapidly melt out of sight.
Suddenly, ahead of Conway’s point position, Mikka popped out of the forest on to the horse-wide trail. She looked to Conway, then forward again, hackles raised. Conway signaled Tate and Nalatan to join him. The trio drifted off the trail. Sylah and Lanta also moved aside, but they allowed the armed riders to open distance between them.
Abreast of Mikka, Conway stopped to peer ahead. Whispering, Tate said, “I smell smoke.”