Spellsinger 02 - The Hour of the Gate

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  that some of them temporarily forgot their own defensive

  tasks and thus were wounded or killed.

  The inhabitants of the hematite were better equipped for

  night fighting than any of the warmlanders save the few bats.

  The previously unrelenting aerial assault of the Plated Folk

  was shattered. Fragmented insect bodies began to fall from

  the sky. The only reaction this grisly rain produced among the

  warmlanders beneath it was morbid laughter.

  By morning the destruction was nearly complete. What

  remained of the Plated Folk aerial strength had retreated far

  up the Pass.

  A general council was held atop the wall. For the first time

  in days the warmlanders were filled with optimism. Even the

  suspicious Clothahump was forced to admit that the tide of

  battle seemed to have turned.

  "Could we not use these newfound friends as did the

  Plated Folk?" one of the officers suggested. "Could we not

  employ them to drop our own troops to the rear of the enemy

  forces?"

  "Why stop there?" wondered one of the exhilarated bird

  officers, a much-decorated hawk in light armor and violet and

  red kilt. "Why not drop them in Cugluch itself? That would

  panic them!"

  "No," said Aveticus carefully. "Our people are not pre-

  pared for such an adventure, and despite their size I do not

  think our owlish allies have the ability to carry more than a

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  single rider, even assuming they would consent to such a

  proposition, which I do not think they would.

  "But I do not think they would object to duplicating the

  actions of the Plated Folk fliers in assailing opposing ground

  forces. As our own can now do."

  So the orders went out from the staff to their own fliers and

  thence to those from Ironcloud. It was agreed. Wearing dark

  goggles to shield their sensitive eyes from the sun, the owls

  and lemurs led the rejuvenated warmlander arboreals in dive

  after dive upon the massed, confused ranks of the Plated Folk

  army. The result was utter disorientation among the insect

  soldiers. But they still refused to collapse, though the losses

  they suffered were beginning to affect even so immense an

  army.

  And when victory seemed all but won it was lost in a

  single heartrending and completely unexpected noise. A sound

  shocking and new to the warmlanders, who had never heard

  anything quite like it before. It was equally shocking but not

  new to Flor and Jon-Tom. Though not personally exposed to

  it, they recognized quickly enough the devastating thunder of

  dynamite.

  As the dust began to settle among cries of pain and fear,

  there came a second, deeper, more ominous rumble as the

  entire left side of the Jo-Troom wall collapsed in a heap of

  shattered masonry and stone. It brought the great wooden

  gates down with it, supporting timbers splintering like fire-

  crackers as they crashed to the ground.

  "Diversion," muttered Flor. "The aerial attack, the para-

  chutists, the beetles... all a diversion. Bastardos; I should

  have remembered my military history classes."

  Jon-Tom moved shakily to the edge of the wall. If they'd

  been on the other side of the Gate they'd all be dead or

  maimed now.

  Small white shapes were beginning to emerge from the

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  ground in front of the ruined wall. Waving picks and short

  swords they cut at the legs of startled warmlander soldiers.

  Like the inhabitants of Ironcloud they too wore dark goggles

  to protect them from the sunlight.

  "Termites," Jon-Tom murmured aloud, "and other insect

  burrowers. But where did they get the explosives?"

  "Little need to think on that, boy," Clothahump said sadly.

  "More of Eejakrat's work. What did you call the packaged

  thunder?"

  "Explosives. Probably dynamite."

  "Or even gelignite," added Flor with suppressed anger.

  "That was an intense explosion."

  Sensing victory, the Plated Folk ignored the depradations of

  the swooping arboreals overhead and swarmed forward. Nor

  could the hectic casting of spears and nets by the Weavers

  hold them back. Not with the wall, the fabled ancient bottle-

  neck, tumbled to the earth like so many child's blocks.

  It must have taken an immense quantity of explosives to

  undermine that massive wall. It was possible, Jon-Tom mused,

  that the Plated burrowers had begun excavating their tunnel

  weeks before the battle began.

  Without the wall to hinder them they charged onward. By

  sheer force of numbers they pushed back those who had

  desperately rushed to defend the ruined barrier. Then they

  were across, fighting on the other side of the Jo-Troom Gate

  for the first time in recorded memory. Warmlander blood

  stained its own land.

  Jon-Tom turned helplessly to Clothahump. The Plated Folk

  soldiers were ignoring the remaining section of wall and the

  few arrows and spears that fell from its crest. The wizard

  stood quietly, his gaze focused on the far end of the Pass and

  not on the catastrophe below.

  "Can't you do something," Jon-Tom pleaded with him.

  "Bring fire and destruction down on them! Bring..."

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  Clothahump did not seem to be listening. He was looking

  without eyes. "I almost have it," he whispered to no one in

  particular. "Almost can..." He broke off, turned to stare at

  Ion-Tom.

  "Do you think conjuring up lightning and floods and fire is

  merely a matter of snapping one's fingers, boy? Haven't you

  learned anything about magic since you've been here?" He

  turned his attention away again.

  "Can almost... yes," he said excitedly, "I can. I believe I

  can see it now!" The enthusiasm faded. "No, I was wrong.

  Too well screened by distortion spells. Eejakrat leaves noth-

  ing to chance. Nothing."

  Jon-Tom turned away from the entranced wizard, swung

  his duar around in front of him. His fingers played furiously

  on the strings. But he could not think of a single appropriate

  song to sing. His favorites were songs of love, of creativity

  and relationships. He knew a few marches, and though he

  sang with ample fervor nothing materialized to slow the

  Plated Folk advance.

  Then Mudge, sweaty and his fur streaked with dried blood,

  was shaking him and pointing westward. "Wot the bloody

  'ell is that?" The otter was staring across the widening field

  of battle.

  "It sounds like..." said Caz confusedly. "I don't know. A

  rusty door hinge, perhaps. Or high voices. Many high voices."

  Then they could make out the source of the peculiar noise.

  It was singing. Undisciplined, but strong, and it rose from a

  motley horde of marchers nearing the foothills. They were

  armed with pitchforks and makeshift spears, with scythes and

  knives tied to broom handles, with woodcutters' tools and

/>   sharpened iron posts.

  They flowed like a brown-gray wave over the milling

  combatants, and wherever their numbers appeared the Plated

  Folk were overwhelmed.

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  "Mice!" said Mudge, aghast. "Rats an' shrews in there,

  too. I don't believe it. They're not fighters. Wot be they doin'

  'ere?"

  "Fighting," said Jon-Tom with satisfaction, "and damn

  well, too, from the look of it."

  The rodent mob attacked with a ferocity that more than

  compensated for their lack of training. The flow of clicking,

  gleaming death from the Pass was blunted, then stopped. The

  rodents fought with astonishing bravery, throwing themselves

  onto larger opponents while others cut at warriors' knees and

  ankles.

  Sometimes three and four of the small wamilanders would

  bring down a powerful insect by weight alone. Their make-

  shift weapons broke and snapped. They resorted to rocks and

  bare paws, whatever they could scavenge that would kill.

  For a few moments the remnants of the warmlander forces

  were as stunned by the unexpected assault as the Plated Polk.

  They stared dumbfounded as the much maligned, oft-abused

  rodents threw themselves into the fray. Then they resumed

  fighting themselves, alongside heroic allies once held in

  servitude and contempt.

  Now if the wamilanders prevailed there would be perma-

  nent changes in the social structure of Polastrindu and other

  communities, Jon-Tom knew. At least one good thing would

  come of this war.

  He thought they were finished with surprises. But while he

  selected targets below for the spears he was handed, yet

  another one appeared.

  In the midst of the battle a gout of flame brightened the

  winter morning. There was another. It was almost asif... yes!

  A familiar iridescent bulk loomed large above the combat-

  ants, incinerating Plated Folk by the squadron.

  "I'll be damned!" he muttered. "It's Falameezar!"

  "But I thought he was through with us," said Caz,

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  "You know this dragon?" Bribbens tended to a wounded

  leg and eyed the distant fight with amazement. It was the first

  time Jon-Tom had seen the frog's demeanor change.

  "We sure as hell do!" Jon-Tom told him joyfully. "Don't

  you see, Caz, it all adds up."

  "Pardon my ignorance, friend Jon-Tom, but the only

  mathematics I've mastered involves dice and cards."

  "This army of the downtrodden, of the lowest mass of

  workers. Who do you think organized them, persuaded them

  to fight? Someone had to raise a cry among them, someone

  had to convince them to fight for their rights as well as for

  their land. And who would be more willing to do so, to

  assume the mantle of leadership, than our innocent Marxist

  Falameezar!"

  "This is absurd." Bribbens could still not quite believe it.

  "Dragons do not fight with people. They are solitary, antiso-

  cial creatures who..."

  "Not this one," Jon-Tom informed him assuredly. "If

  anything, he's too social. But I'm not going to argue his

  philosophies now."

  Indeed, as the gleaming black and purple shape trudged

  nearer they could hear the great dragon voice bellowing

  encouragingly above the noise of battle.

  "Onward downtrodden masses! Workers arise! Down with

  the invading imperialist warmongers!"

  Yes, that was Falameezar and none other. The dragon was

  in his sociological element. In between thundering favorite

  Marxist homilies he would incinerate a dozen terrified insect

  warriors or squash a couple beneath massive clawed feet.

  Around him swirled a bedraggled mob of tiny furry support-

  ers like an armada of fighter craft protecting a dreadnought.

  The legions of Plated Folk seemed endless. But now that

  the surprise engendered by the destruction of the wall had

  passed, their offensive began to falter. The arrival of what

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  amounted to a second warmlander army, as ferocious if not as

  well trained as the original, started to turn the tide.

  Meanwhile the Weavers and fliers from h-oncloud contin-

  ued to cause havoc among the packed ranks of warriors trying

  to squeeze through the section of ruined wall to reach the

  open plain where their numbers could be a factor. The

  diminutive lemur bowmen fired and fired until their drawstring

  fingers were bloody.

  When the fall came it was not in a great surge of panic. A

  steady withering of purpose and determination ate through

  the ranks of the Plated Folk. In clusters, and individually, they

  lost their will to fight on. A vast sigh of discouragement

  rippled through the whole exhausted army.

  Sensing it, the warmlanders redoubled then- efforts. Still

  fighting, but with intensity seeping away from them, the

  Plated Folk were gradually pressed back. The plain was

  cleared, and then the destroyed section of wall. The battle

  moved once again back into the confines of the Pass. Insect

  officers raged and threatened, but they could do nothing to

  stop the steady slow leak of desire that bled their soldiers'

  will to fight.

  Jon-Tom had stopped throwing spears. His arm throbbed

  with the efforts of the past several days. The conflict had

  retreated steadily up the Pass, and the Plated combatants were

  out of range now. He was cheering tiredly when a han6

  clamped on his arm so forcefully that he winced. He lookeo

  around. It was Clothahump. The wizard's grip was anything

  but that of an oldster.

  "By the periodic table, I can see it now!"

  "See what?"

  "The deadmind." Clothahump's tone held a peculiar mix-

  ture of confusion and excitement. "The deadmind. It is not in

  a body."

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  "You mean the brain itself s been extracted?" The image

  was gruesome.

  "No. It is scattered about, in several containers of differing

  shape."

  Jon-Tom's mind shunted aside the instinctive vision and

  produced only a blank from the wizard's description. Flor

  listened intently.

  "It talks to Eejakrat," Clothahump continued, "his voice far

  away, distant, "in words I can't understand."

  "Several containers.. .the mind is several minds?" Jon-

  Tom struggled to make sense of a seeming impossibility.

  "No, no. It is one mind that has been split into many

  parts."

  "What does it look like? You said containers. Can you be

  more specific?" Flor asked him.

  "Not really. The containers are mostly rectangular, but not

  all. One inscribes words on a scroll, symbols and magic

  terms I do not recognize." He winced with the strain of

  focusing senses his companions did not possess.

  "There are symbols over all the containers as well, though

  they mostly differ from those appearing on the scroll. The

  mind also makes a strange no
ise, like talking that is not. I can

  read some of the symbols... it is strangely inscribed. It

  changes as I look at it." He stopped.

  Jon-Tom urged him on. "What is it? What's happening?"

  Clothahump's face was filled with pain. Sweat poured

  down his face into his shell. Jon-Tom didn't know that a turtle

  could sweat. Everything indicated that the wizard was expending

  a massive effort not only to continue to see but to understand.

  "Eejakrat... Eejakrat sees the failure of the attack." He

  swayed, and Jon-Tom and Flor had to support him or he

  would have fallen. "He works a last magic, a final conjura-

  tion. He has... has delved deep within the deadmind for its

  most powerful manifestation. It has given him the formula he

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  ds. Now he is giving orders to his assistants. They are

  ringing materials from the store of sorceral supplies. Skrritch

  watches, she will kill him if he fails. Eejakrat promises her

  the battle will be won. The materials... I recognize some.

  No, many. But I do not understand the formula given, the

  purpose. The purpose is to... to..." He turned a frightened

  face upward. Jon-Tom shivered. He'd never before seen the

  wizard frightened. Not when confronted by the Massawrafh,

  not when crossing Helldrink.

  But he was more than frightened now. He was terrified.

  "Must stop it!" he mumbled. "Got to stop him from

  completing the formula. Even Eejakrat does not understand

  what he does. But he... I see it clearly... he is desperate.

  He will try anything. I do not think... do not think he can

  control..."

  "What's the formula?" Flor pressed him.

  "Complex ... can't understand..."

  "Well then, the symbols you read on the deadmind

  I containers."

  "Can read them now, yes... but can't understand..."

  "Try. Repeat them, anyway."

  Clothahump went silent, and for a moment the two humans

  I were afraid he wouldn't speak again. But Jon-Tom finally

  managed to shake him into coherence.

  "Symbols... symbols say, 'Property.' "

  "That's all?" Flor said puzzledly. "Just 'property'?"

  "No... there is more. Property... property restricted ac-

  cess. U.S. Army Intelligence."

  Flor looked over at Jon-Tom. "That explains everything;

  the parachutes, the tactics, the formula for the explosives to

  undermine the wall, maybe the technique for doing it as well.

  Los insectos have gotten hold of a military computer."