EXILED Defenders of Ar

by Jack Lovejoy

  Farwakh was in fact busy mounting an enemy general he had just finished stuffing, with the help of his two brawny sons, into a martial pose, as Maglakh entered the shop. The general had had no great renown, but his fur was a peculiar colorpoint blue, and Khal was exacting about the color scheme of his growing collection. His favorite pastime nowadays was to stroll by the holding cells, while discussing the artistic possibilities of his varihued captives with his taxidermist. He was increasingly frustrated that he had as yet no captive of a flawless cream white.

  Opening the sealed tablets and reading them, Farwakh looked the waiting Maglakh speculatively up and down. “Here’s the one I told you about, lads,” he addressed his sons. “We’ll need reinforcing rods; perhaps a cantilever brace. Hold your hands out, please, palms up, fingers splayed. No, more bend in the elbow. That’s right....”

  Maglakh had obeyed dumbly, but as he listened to the taxidermist explain for his two brawny sons the principles of cantilever bracing, a thought too horrible to contemplate forced itself upon his conscious mind. His pose was like that when he held the hats of visitors in the vestibule upstairs, and he recalled Khal’s sardonic remark that he would be holding them there for a long time to come. As he glanced in panic around the cluttered shop, he found himself staring into rows of glass eyes, which stared mockingly back at him. Then he heard someone screaming, pleading, crying out in terror, and at last realized that it was himself. Powerful hands seized him.

  “Easy lads,” cautioned the taxidermist. “Be careful of scuff marks.

  It was not many days later that Maglakh was back at his old post, in the vestibule of the grand chamber, holding the hats of visitors. This was one job given him by Khal at which he would not fail.

  The City of the Thieves

  IT WAS now more by habit than expectation that Sruss stood each evening upon the ramparts of Ar, watching the refugees straggle across the stone bridge below into the city. She smiled to herself as she recalled Srana’s cleverness. They now communicated regularly, defying entrapment by the Evil One, though Srana was in continual danger of being waylaid by the traps and ambushes of his servitors; bands of thugs and marauders, withdrawn in increasing numbers from the invasion force, concentrated upon her recapture. Their captains knew well the wages of failure, and yet were unsuccessful.

  So successful, on the other hand, was the guerrilla army led by Severakh that the entire invasion had bogged down, the timetable for besieging Ar set back several precious days. Harrying supply trains, cutting off stragglers and reinforcements, raiding camps and depots where least expected, then vanishing again as if by conjury—the effect on enemy morale was more damaging than the actual harassment. The ease with which the guerrillas evaded traps and ambushes, almost as if they were forewarned of danger, caused consternation and mutual suspicions among the captains detailed to the pursuit. There were rumors of torture, even executions, as they sought vainly to discover the traitors.

  The guerrillas were in fact forewarned of every trap and ambush, but not by traitors. Without Srana’s danger sense, they would long since have perished. As it was, they had become the salvation of Ar, granting the city time to consummate its defenses.

  Stones, engines, catapults, moveable ramps, furnaces for melting lead, cauldrons for boiling oil: never had the great walls of Ar seemed more formidable. Well could Sruss look upon them with pride, for she had seen them rise course by course throughout the glorious reign of her son Talwyn, and they had been well maintained until Rhenowla began diverting state revenues to her own use. Few of the resources, concentrated in haste from all lands still unconquered, were thus wasted on repairs.

  The kings of the new League of Ar were sanguine; the morale of the regular troops, the armed retainers of refugee nobles, and the motley of irregular militia was also high. What it would be like when hordes of bandits, desert marauders, renegade highlanders, and cohorts of the Eastern Lords swarmed the plains below could not be known.

  No one did more to bolster this morale, to encourage and unite the efforts of all the people toward the common welfare, than Sruss herself. She even heartened The Three, who now met daily and without interference from the palace, to believe in their ultimate victory—though every discussion seemed to lead inevitably back to the Third Eye. Their magic would be desperately needed once the siege began, but if its total force was neutralized by the Evil One—what then?

  Fortune was a goddess; her priests thrived these days. Her temple in the river quarter of the Old City was cleaner and better attended than Sruss could remember it ever having been before. Two events happened that very night which made her wonder if this primordial goddess had not heard the prayers and supplications of her worshippers after all.

  The first began with what she thought initially to be mere impudence—common enough among the promiscuous mobs of refugees she encountered daily in the streets. She noticed a mrem waving his hat to her from the drawbridge below, some drunken old rascal or vagabond, by the looks of him. But this was no time to accept appearances, and she looked closer. At last she smiled. It was none other than Mithmid. Years had passed since she last saw him; generations since they shared in the old dynastic upheavals of the city.

  He watched her descend the masonry steps like a young she-mrem. All the young mrem of his generation had been hopelessly in love with her, and seeing her again evoked pangs of longing and remembrance. But time was short; at stake was the very survival of their people. He was among the last stragglers to reach Ar, barely a day’s march ahead of the enemy vanguard. Tomorrow the great city would be besieged in earnest.

  “Scouts have been coming in since early this morning.”

  Sruss sensed his urgency, and came straight to the point. They were old friends, old allies in other wars; there was no need for the blandishments of the court, or even formal courtesies. “You’re fortunate to have arrived here today, dear Mithmid.”

  He was indeed fortunate to be still alive; only because the land had been scorched before the advancing hordes, forcing them to depend on vulnerable supply lines, had he reached Ar safely at all. Even so it had been a harrowing journey. Others lacked his powers of concealment, and the atrocities he had witnessed were a grim presage of the fate of Ar, should its great walls be breached by the advancing hordes.

  “Fortunate indeed, my lady,” he said. The twilight streets were thronged and chaotic; thousands had no other home, and yet they parted deferentially before Sruss. He was gratified to be seen walking arm in arm with her, although the curiosity of many, at seeing her in company with so shabby an old vagabond, also annoyed him. His first purchase in Ar would be a new suit of clothes. “Is the city prepared?”

  She explained the formation of the League of Ar, and described what had been done to resist assault. “The Three are also united, and now meet openly each day,” she added.

  “Your arrival will hearten them.”

  They exchanged a meaningful look. There was no need to explain why the great order of wizards should need to be heartened at this hour. But Mithmid had pondered much during his flight across country, and had reasons for both greater optimism and more disheartening despair.

  As he started to explain these, Sruss tactfully interrupted and returned to the preparations for the coming siege. He understood at once. Even during his long quest for the Third Eye he had heard about the Silent Ones. One or more of them were probably within earshot at this very moment.

  Everything changed as they entered her gardens. He remembered well the old palace, and was amazed at the changes wrought in what had once been no more than its servants’ wing. There were no Silent Ones here; all the other Dancers were soon lodged elsewhere for the night, the immediate neighborhood cleared of spies, and discreet messengers dispersed throughout the city. Rhenowla would of course learn about tonight’s gathering of all the wizards of Ar, but the first sight tomorrow of enemy towers advancing upon the city walls like aven
ging giants would temper her thoughts of reprisal. When the battle started, she might even be glad The Three had united.

  The last to arrive was blunt old Dollavier; only a single wizard of the original Seven was still missing, and Dollavier bluntly accounted for him.

  “Khal has him by now,” he said. “Whether dead or alive, I don’t know. For his sake, better the former than the latter.”

  “Then Khal also has at least two fragments of the Khavala, in addition to the Third Eye,” said Mithmid, and there were groans among the scores of wizards assembled, in the pavilion.

  “Only one,” Dollavier contradicted him, and held out a second ruby fragment for all to see, along with his own. “Old Holclyn knew there was no escape for him, but managed to send this on to me before he was captured. A pair of bargemrem, father and son, delivered it to me within the hour. I had to pay them a stiff premium, but it was worth any price.”

  This was the second fortunate event today, and Sruss saw that the wizards were again encouraged. Whatever caused Mithmid to remain doubtful, he said nothing to dampen their spirits, at this time at least.

  “Their plan is obviously to storm the walls,” he said. “I’ve seen their towers. They’ll mount catapults, and try to sweep the walls of defenders, while they barge their assault teams across the river. They may also launch grappling lines from the towers themselves, and pull themselves across hand over hand, covered by archers and slingers. You know how agile these desert marauders are.”

  “Costly tactics,” said Dollavier, and there were nods throughout the pavilion. “Although the Eastern Lords won’t consider mere loss of lives an obstacle.”

  “I doubt if they now consider Ar itself an obstacle,” said Mithmid. “The campaign seems planned to overthrow an unprepared, demoralized city. That will be their first surprise, thanks to the League of Ar.” All eyes turned gratefully toward Sruss. “They might still succeed,” he continued, “if they are able to concentrate enough towers on anyone section of the wall. An intensive missile barrage would make that section untenable. So it’s there that we ourselves must be ready to concentrate all our own force.”

  Acclamation rang through the pavilion like a battle cry.

  They were not the legendary wizards who had first created the myth of The Three, generations ago; but they were many, a host, a veritable army of magicians recruited from all over the land. United, their individual powers focused by a single will upon a common objective, they might be truly formidable. Despite some peevish grumbling from Dollavier, a second acclamation nominated Mithmid their ringleader.

  Every fragment of the Khavala in their possession, including the pair held by Dollavier, was at once forged into a bracelet. The Seven, scattered across the land in a futile search, were no more. It was now the One; capable of focusing through Mithmid, a wizard of wizards, all their united powers. He clasped the bracelet around his wrist in silent determination, and stood before them, a true leader. No harangue about the dangers they faced was needed, for these had been anticipated a full generation and more. Neither did he mention yet his apprehensions of dangers beyond those they had anticipated. For nothing mattered now but the concentration of all their powers on a single objective. Nothing would matter again—for himself, for the kingdom of Ar, perhaps for the very mrem—if the first furious assault upon the walls succeeded.

  Without another word he retired to the apartment Sruss had allocated to him, while The Three filed silently out into the night. Through his strange rambling dreams he sensed an evil intelligence probing his mind, but he was too strong to be overcome. His bouts of sleeplessness were caused more by fears about whether the walls of Ar were equally too strong to be overcome. Once breached, nothing would stem the raging flood of marauders, not all the concentrated powers of The Three.

  The dreams Sruss had that night were also disturbed by wild fears and premonitions. What had become of Srana? With their new means of communication they could evade the vigilance of the Evil One for minutes at a time. But this was the fourth consecutive night Srana had failed to contact her, and she worried that her very anxiety somehow hampered telepathy between them.

  •

  Severakh could not blame anxiety for the plight of his guerrillas, only the unavoidable attrition of this kind of warfare. Any soldier killed in action meant a permanent loss of mrempower. Relentlessly harassed and ambushed by bandit gangs, they had been driven farther and farther from sources of recruitment, into the remotest marchlands of any known kingdom. He now counted fewer than a hundred in his band, and many of these were crippled with wounds.

  It was no longer an effective fighting force. His task was to harry the invaders, threaten their supply lines, cut off stragglers and foragers, and force them to divert as much of their resources as possible from the march upon Ar, to delay it by any means, and thus buy time for the defenders. It was galling that he could no longer do anything but just try to survive.

  That was no excuse for slackness, however. There was continual grumbling over his drills and inspections—though not when he was believed to be within earshot—but that he considered a good sign. A bitching soldier is a happy soldier, the principle was universal. It was when troops were too silent, or too idle, that a commander had to worry. The martial dances of his own mrem might still have won prizes at any festival in Kazerclawm.

  “No, no, lad,” he groused. “A feint is always used to set up a thrust. Try it again. Now once more. You’ll never be a true warrior until you master technique. And that means drill, drill, drill. Until every move is instinctive, until action precedes thought. Try it once more.”

  In fact he had never had so spirited a recruit as young Branwe. His youth and agility made him conspicuously the best martial dancer in the troop; his swordsmremship, despite flaws in his technique, was inspired, so inspired at times that the crusty old soldier could not help resenting it, in spite of himself. Not out of professional jealousy, but only at seeing such gifts born into a common potboy at an inn, the lowliest of the low.

  Severakh’s camp was as always well ordered; scouts were posted, and every entrance into the secluded mountain dell picketed with alert troops. They had been harried so far south that the snowy peak of the Kazerclawm was now barely visible above the horizon. Gray-bottomed clouds drifted across the afternoon sky. The five recruits taking part in the drill, including Branwe, lunged like specter swordsmrem in and out of the fleeting shadows.

  Severakh sat on a lumpish boulder, grimly correcting every flaw he noticed—and he missed nothing. He had long recognized it as a flaw in his own composition that the danger sense of a mrem in his profession should be so dull. But he now sensed that something was wrong, and turned around.

  “Cajhet!” he barked. “Come here this instant! Where have you been this last week? I thought we had lost you in the ambush down at Rushwater Cave.”

  “No, sir,” said Cajhet, beginning to tremble. He had been tiptoeing around his commander’s back, the only way he could reach the mess wagon unseen. He had in fact been unusually successful the last several days in skulking out of sight. “I was, uh, just on my way ... that is ...” He broke down and stared innocently off into space.

  Severakh shook his head in disgust. “No loss if you hadn’t come back from Rushwater.” He started to turn around, then hesitated. “Say, aren’t you on scout duty this week?”

  “Yes, sir. That is, in a manner of speaking.” “Are you, or aren’t you?”

  “I am, sir. But I exchanged duty with a mrem in Blue Company, two watches for one.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, sir, it’s like this. I thought it would be more convenient all around, seeing that we’ve been on the run so long—“You’ve certainly been on the run.” Severakh eyed him sternly. “It hasn’t anything to do with liskash, has it?”

  “Well, sir, in a manner of speaking, you might say it has.” “I thought so. We’re in wild country
now, so there are naturally more liskash, and they’re naturally bolder. But their magic is defensive. It’s for keeping you from hurting them, not the other way around. How many times have I told you that?”

  “Well, sir, I believe fairly often.”

  Severakh rose to give him a thorough dressing-down, but again something behind his back made him uncomfortable. The graceful figure hurrying toward him had the keenest danger sense he had ever known; they would have been trapped fifty times over, had Srana not alerted them betimes. She pointed anxiously toward something behind her.

  “A dragon,” she cried. “I felt something was wrong, and went to investigate. It caught your scout with some kind of teleport maneuver, disappearing and reappearing from the opposite direction. It’s still coming this way.”

  The scout was the very one Cajhet had exchanged duty with, and he was nodding smugly to himself, when he caught a fierce glare from Severakh, and immediately looked dutiful and concerned.

  “Strange behavior,” muttered the old warrior. “Dragons have been known to kill, but they always devour their prey on the spot. And you say it’s still coming?”

  “I climbed a tree for a better angle,” said Srana, dressed like a common soldier, which only made her charming figure more enticing. “It was less than a mile away, and moving as if it knows we’re here.”

  Severakh exchanged a meaningful look with her. Not just bandits, but every evil creature in the world had lately been converging on them, or so it seemed. The most dangerous were the wild liskash; semi-intelligent bipedal reptiles, they ranged in size from the squat carrion-eaters—the “kashies,” as the troops called them—to the big, mean carnivores, half against the height of a mrem. The deadliest of these were the cave reptiles, and after the near disaster at Rushwater, he had avoided cave country. He was certain that at least some of the scouts reported missing had not just lost their way.