by Don McQuinn
Chapter 21
Three riders materialized from the dim wall of forest at the farthest extremity of Ola’s cleared fields. They advanced through a pale, rain-spattered dawn at a confident trot that soon brought them close enough for identification. Windband’s drums stopped.
The man ahead of Moonpriest and Fox carried a large white flag, raised in both hands. Standing on the wall under his own pennant, Gan chuckled, drawing quizzical looks from Tate and Nalatan. Gan explained, “Someone has to carry the white signal. It’s beneath Moonpriest’s dignity. Fox won’t touch it.” He added, “You were right about Fox’s injuries, Nalatan. I’m not sure I’d have recognized him. Even from here, I’d say it’s a wonder he’s alive.”
Tate said, “Hate can do wonders for your will to live. Can you really tell how badly he’s injured? How’d you know they’d be coming?”
Gan ignored the comment on his vision. “I’ve listened to all of you about Moonpriest. I already know Fox and his Mountain People. I expect Moonpriest to come with some trickery to make surrender look preferable to battle. Fox will come to gloat.” He waved the tall pole holding his braced pennant aloft, assuring the advancing men saw it.
Wolves and civilians alike flocked to the wall to witness this moment. Wolf leaders assured distance between the gathering crowd and the three leaders.
Tate turned her attention to the battlefield, where burgeoning light revealed a deceptively pastoral landscape. Immediately, however, she grabbed Nalatan’s arm. “‘Tan. Look. The wallkiller. They moved it last night.”
“Into the ground.” He frowned, puzzled.
“Dug in like that, they can load and fire, and I can’t hit them.”
Overhearing, Gan noted the problem. He looked grim. “At least it can’t reach the castle or the healing house from there. The buildings of the city are at risk.”
Tate said, “It’ll take out the walls, Gan. We’ve got a problem.”
“If he breaks a hole, he has to come through it. Also, he doesn’t know his Skan allies aren’t coming. With our rear secure we can spare a larger counter attack force.”
Moonpriest was close enough to talk. He waved, quite jaunty. “Good morning, young Murdat. And to you, Donnacee. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Tate leaned through a crenel, shouting down at him. “I know you. You sent that murderous piece of rotten meat to kill me and Conway.”
Fox stood in his stirrups. “Have you told your husband what pleasures we shared, black witch? Does he know everything that happened?”
A collective intake of breath from the crowd was a breeze of shock. Strangling with rage, Tate raised her wipe. Nalatan encircled her in his arms. He lifted her, turned her around. Ignoring Fox’s laughter, as well as the gaze of the crowd, he spoke low, earnestly. “They stand with the white signal. Calm. Please.”
Slowly, her head drooped. She closed her eyes tight; tears sparkled at the corners. “He hurt me, really bad, ‘Tan. I thought I was dying. But he never… never…”
He raised a hand, touched a finger to her lips. When she relaxed, he loosened his grip. She said, “I’m all right.” Her look said far more. She resumed her place at the wall, Nalatan beside her.
Moonpriest was saying “…no need for loss of life. We can arrange terms.” He broke off at the sight of Tate, smiled broadly. “Ah, you’re back. Forgive my friend. Negotiation isn’t one of Fox’s major strengths. As you know. I was explaining to your friend that I’m a religious, a man of peace. I’m allied with his own Church to bring the people of the Three Territories back into the fold.”
Tate refused to answer, looking to Gan, who said, “Leave the Three Territories while you can.”
Moonpriest’s lackadaisical wave presaged trouble. The trio on the wall tensed. The man with the white cloth waved it. Another rider exited the forest at a trot. A green riding cloak covered the rider, fanning out to drape across the saddle front and back as well as below knee-length. Designed to husband warmth of both horse and rider against the lingering winterlike chill of early mornings, it was equally effective, with its hood, as disguise. Nevertheless, Gan and Nalatan exchanged thin smiles. Tate demanded to know what was going on. Gan’s answer was oblique. “I thought that’s where that one disappeared to.”
The unknown rider was with the others by then. With a quick flip of the hand, the Violet Abbess threw back the hood. An interior facing band of green and blue flashed brightly. Nalatan grunted as if struck in the stomach. “They actually made her Harvester. That lying old woman and the Gleaner are second only to Sister Mother.”
Keeping well clear of Fox, the new Harvester waited for Moonpriest’s nod to address the trio on the wall. Her voice cracked on the first word, but the knifing enmity was undiminished, “Sister Mother authorizes me to grant amnesty to all who repent of following the known witch and blasphemer, former Rose Priestess Sylah. All who defend this place are cast out. Your bodies will be unburned, left for wild things to devour. You will suffer the eternal torments of the Land Under.”
Without warning, her horse reared, pawing the air, eyes rolling. It whinnied, almost a scream. It took both Fox and the white signal bearer to calm it. On the wall, everyone strained to see the cause of the reaction. Then, below them, the brass-fronted Sunrise Gate doors swung open. A massive swell of surprise rose from the crowd at this indication of treachery.
Sylah and Neela galloped out, skidding to a stop a few paces from Moonpriest’s group. The excited horses quickstepped, tossing their heads. Pointing, accusing, Sylah raised her voice to its fullest. “You shame Church. You shame yourself. Church is forgiveness. Solace and healing. Church is more; Church is learning.”
This last was almost too much for the listeners. Many on the wall mumbled uncertainly. The Harvester made a grandiose three-sign, histrionically turned her face as if struck.
Neela forced her mount ahead a pace. “And well you should flinch. Traitor. Oppressor. Many in Church have worked with men like Moonpriest and Altanar for generations to assure women’s subservience. Sometimes Church has been the fingers of the iron fist, sometimes willingly, sometimes under protest, but never bold enough to make us free. We are free here, free to learn, so we may be freer and stronger yet. Church has made it so. Murdat has made it so. The people—men as well as women—all the people of the Three Territories have made it so. We will be free!”
On the wall, a lone woman’s voice rose in a high, ululating cheer. It rang defiance, pride, determination. Another took up the sound. It exploded from hundreds of throats, from every woman the length of the wall. A Wolf of the Jalail pack scrambled atop the wall, straddling one of the crenels. He thrust high the red-and-yellow pennant of his pack and raised a howl.
What had been declaration by the women alone became unity.
Moonpriest yanked his horse around, nearly bowling over the Harvester. He galloped back toward his own positions. The Harvester and signal bearer followed in a panicky flurry. Fox shook his fist at the crowd, the last to go. Whatever words he mouthed were lost in the uproar.
A great silence fell. The calls of crows and a gull’s descending scream were shockingly loud. A calf bawled, and hundreds of pairs of eyes blinked, sought the disturbance. The few defenders who spoke did so in subdued tones.
Then the wolf calls floated across the quiet. Distant, wisping threads of sound, the song reached inside the defenders, spoke to each one of the freedom of the singers. For several long breaths, the world seemed to hold in place, caught up in that wild, spine-jangling sound.
That sound collapsed under the renewed thunder of Blizzard drums.
From out of the forest, horses drew odd wagons, long and slim, with high wheels. The tall front and sides of the wagon box sloped inward. Out of catapult range, the wagons halted. Horses were unhitched. Previously hidden men leaped to the ground from the rear of the wagons. They pushed them ahead, stopping in a neat line. The men leaped back into the wagons.
Gan’s catapults opened fire. Few bolts str
uck true on a wagon front surface. When one did, sparks fountained. The wagon jerked; the bolts shattered. Conway, who’d come to the wall with the sniper rifle immediately after the wolf chorus, said, “Iron armor. I’ll bet Moonpriest’s catapults are inside.” As if responding, the wagons all dropped their front wall. Men adjusted the aim of suddenly revealed horizontal bows. Within two heartbeats, a sheaf of arm-long bolts were coming at the defenders. They carried flaming oil-soaked rags. Leclerc’s pumps were quickly in action. Nevertheless, fires started.
The wallkiller lofted a missile.
By that time, only Wolves assigned to defend the walls manned the battlewalk. They watched the spherical object come. As it closed, many remarked on its odd projections, on the combination of whistle and roar. The object seemed almost to float along, then suddenly its progress was shrieking rush. Men yelled, ducked. It hurtled over them, crashed in a street in myriad shards.
People looked, fearful. One, braver, edged forward, kicked some pieces. “It’s a pot,” he said, full of wonder. “A great damned pot. And empty.” A nervous titter broke out of a woman, not far away. When he turned, she blushed, but her laughter continued. He joined her. Soon many others joined them, examining the pieces, making jokes.
A man on the wall shouted warning. The crowd disappeared into doorways.
The second missile struck a burning building. Mixed with the sound of breaking pottery was a dull, heavy thud. The fire billowed wildly, raged outward. It seemed to double its ferocity.
Gan looked to Tate and Conway, dismayed. “You know this weapon. How does it feed fire?”
“A gas. Hydrogen.” Conway made a face at Gan’s incomprehension, then continued. “The jars can start fires, but only where there’s already a flame. It’s like oil.”
Dark anger suffused Gan’s features. “More of your people’s learning? I think it may cut in too many directions, Matt Conway.”
There was no answer to that. Conway hurried to the battlewalk, hammered the catapult wagons with the sniper rifle. Even that heavy slug failed to penetrate the metal shielding. He waited for the front wall to drop before firing. Two catapults went down before the crews learned to only partially lower the door, fire immediately, and raise it again. Meanwhile, Conway became a prime target.
The wallkiller flung jars filled with a mix of pitch, oil, and wax. Where they smashed, a huge smear of inflammables spread in all directions, ran into cracks, seams. The catapults ignited it with flame arrows.
The city erupted in flame. Leclerc’s pumps were overwhelmed. Stone-and-brick buildings, filled with wood and fiber products, turned into furnaces. More hydrogen spheres exploded, knocked down walls, accelerated fires.
Moonpriest launched a mass attack on Sunrise Gate. Windband poured from the forest in a yelling, shouting wave. Gan called to Conway, “Take the south side. They mean to hold us there with few men and the wallkiller. You and the lightning weapon can replace many, and that lets me reinforce here.” To Tate and Nalatan, he said, “Stay with me, you two. The main thrust is here.”
Moments later, Neela rushed up. She went directly to the wall near Gan with her double curved bow. Fastidiously—ludicrously—she brushed dust from the flat surface of her chosen crenel. Only when she saw Gan’s incredulity did she realize where her preoccupation had taken her. She shrugged, sheepish, then drew an arrow from the quiver at her back and looked to the advancing nomads.
Gan was laughing hugely when he turned to direct his battle.
Archers like Neela turned the clear ground in front of the city walls into a shambles. Windband nomads carrying ladders and line with grappling hooks screamed battle cries, sang of the glory of life eternal. They died in heaps.
Their own archers and catapult gunners drew blood in plenty. Young Wolves spun from the crenels, dropped to the battlewalk and were still. More staggered back, clawing at wounds.
In a culture that knew few mechanical objects, Tate was a machine, sighting, firing, killing. With the boop, she blasted holes in grouped nomads. The wipe smashed them to the ground as individuals. When a number bunched at the base of the wall, she dropped a grenade among them. Nalatan, beside her, worked his bow with deadly precision. When he looked at his wife, he saw past the unknowable person sowing destruction, sensed the complex of hurts at fueled her.
The attack shattered on the missiles. It failed to place a single ladder against the wall. While the survivors broke and retreated, the Wolves facing east howled victory.
They nearly drowned out alarm rising from the southern wall. Men streamed off the battlewalk. Catapults stood abandoned. Some defenders dropped to their knees, clawing at their throats, their eyes. Many more were seized by violent coughing.
Gan looked to see a top section of the wall, twice as long as a man, collapse inward. The weight of it tore out an equally long section of wooden battlewalk. The mass dropped on a wooden shelter below, one that held horses. The screams of the broken animals mingled with those of broken men.
Another wallkiller stone enlarged the damaged area.
Gan realized he’d fallen for a devastating ruse. Moonpriest sacrificed the nomads littering the killing ground fronting the eastern wall to make the defense believe it was the major thrust. Now, however, with his reduced defenders broken by this inexplicable affliction, mounted Windband warriors broke out of the forest to the south. Worse, the covering forest was closer there, meaning the enemy would reach the wall quickly.
Stomach closed in a hard knot of anxiety, he leaped down the stairs, calling Shara and Cho to him. He raced to rebuild the defense at this new threat.
Adding to Gan’s consternation, Conway staggered away from the damaged wall on a dangerously teetering section of battlewalk. Gan roared for Leclerc’s teams, called for the counterattack force to man the wall.
Men continued to act in the same puzzling manner as Conway. Some were terrifying to see, agonized. Their cries were horrible. Death came to few. It came very hard.
Sylah reached Conway first. She guided him to a wall, sat him against it. He fought for words, asked for water. When Tate arrived, he struggled harder, clamped down on her painfully. “Chlorine.” The word was so raw it sounded bloody. “Gas. Jars. Chlorine.” She stared, uncomprehending, and he practically screamed, “Salt water.”
Leclerc, rushing up, overheard. He paled, struck his forehead. “Imbecile. How could I be so stupid? The triple towers, by the sea. Electrolytic breakdown of water, yes, but seawater. Not only hydrogen and oxygen, but hydrogen and chlorine. Moonpriest. That filth. He’s using poison gas.”
Chapter 22
The defense was wounded. The rupture was small. So, thought Gan, was the head of an arrow; it killed, nevertheless.
Traces of a bitter, burning stink lingered. Beside him, his dogs pawed at their noses, sneezing, miserable. Hot wind from the fires brought different fumes. Ordinarily, they would have been distasteful. They dispersed the other smell, however, and were welcome.
Conway, coughing furiously, struggled to rise.
The sounds of Windband’s assault pulled at Gan’s attention. Instinct told him the contemptuous fury disfiguring Leclerc was more important for the moment. Gan said, “This stink that makes my eyes burn and hurts my dogs—is that what hurts Conway and the others?”
“Yes. It’s poison. It gets in your lungs, makes hydrochloric acid. It’s like…”
“The air? Poison?”
Leclerc looked up from Conway’s struggles. He felt he was seeing Gan, truly seeing him, for the first time. How old was he? Leclerc asked himself. Barely launched on manhood. Victimized by technology he had no prayer of understanding. The notion made him very sorry for both of them. “Yes, Gan. I’m afraid that’s it. Some of the jars poison the air.”
For the briefest moment, Leclerc thought he saw the gloss of panic tighten on Gan’s features. Then the man was Murdat. “Moonpriest can’t poison air where his own men breathe. We stay away from the wallkiller jars, stay close to Windband warriors.” He spun wit
hout hesitation, racing with his dogs to spread that word. It was just in time. Wolves were backing away from the afflicted area. Some dragged wounded or gassed comrades. Fear sat on them all. As Leclerc watched, one threw down his sword and fled.
Sylah’s distress drew Leclerc’s attention back to her and Conway. The latter was on his feet, bent over in pain. He warded off Sylah’s ministrations. “No time. Got to go roof. Blizzardmen. Know their tactics, signals.” He lurched to a door, shouldered inside. Leclerc and Sylah watched him literally crawl upstairs.
She turned away, helpless, angry. “I can’t help him if he’s going to be like that. At least they—” Their irritability was blown away by the crash of yet another boulder. Built to withstand arrows, sling-stones, and destruction by fire, the wall was proving no match for Moonpriest’s wallkiller. Three Wolves, huddled immediately opposite the impact, were ripped by shards spalling off the inside surface. Ragged, spinning like leaves, they shot off the battlewalk like bloody dolls. That section of the wall’s top collapsed, taking out battlewalk.
On the roof of his building, Conway looked across the intervening clear area at the deep crescent knocked out of the stonework. Through it, he saw Blizzard attacking in their standard three columns. The outer two kept a steady rain of arrows falling on the wall’s defenders. The center one, on reaching the breach, dismounted to attack it. Already, ladders were in the notch; Conway was certain they were going up beside it, as well. In the far distance, he saw previously hidden catapults churning out of the forest. Their bolts interdicted Gan’s reinforcements rushing to plug the gap.
The wallkiller lobbed gas jars as well as solid missiles beyond the fighting. Fire was general. Roiling plumes of flame and smoke climbed into a dull, drizzling sky. Off to the east, a house wall collapsed on top of one of Leclerc’s generator wagons as it rushed to the point of greatest danger. Conway noticed others, and the pumps, as well, bouncing headlong over debris on their way to the breach.