EXILED Defenders of Ar

by Jack Lovejoy

  But it was evident by now that so long as the enemy could not position towers on the opposite bank to sweep the ramparts of defenders, skirmishers trying to surmount them from rafts and barges or hand over hand across grappling lines were just too few and too vulnerable to succeed.

  It was exactly one week later, while the populace joyously celebrated their deliverance, that a sentry reported that the Mraal was receding from its banks. The water level continued to drop slowly over the next several hours, then at an alarming rate. There were no more celebrations in Ar.

  “That’s more like it,” exclaimed Severakh. “I knew there had to be some reason for such natural ability. I’ve seen great soldiers rise from the commonest stations in life” —which was in fact exactly what he had done himself—“but you have to be born with such gifts. Not that your technique couldn’t stand improvement,” he added as a matter of principle. “Drill, drill, drill. It’s the only way you’ll ever become a great warrior, lad.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Branwe, still dazed by the revelations of the past hour.

  Could he really be the only living son of a noblemrem, though that noblemrem may have come to Ravarbal fleeing reprisals for some crime? He knew he had been abandoned at the Blue Dragon as a kit, and the Ravarbalians who now came from all over the city to inspect him, had without exception affirmed that he bore an uncanny resemblance, both in fur and feature, to a noblemrem known only as the Shadow Warrior. It was widely believed that he had been slain by some implacable enemy, along with his entire family, in revenge for some bygone transgression. Yet all knew the legend that the youngest son had escaped in the arms of a faithful nurse.

  Could it be true? He hoped so, and not for his own sake alone. Rough living seemed only to enhance Srana’s beauty. Some found her cold and aloof; but through their months together in camp and on the march, during skirmishes and flight, in all weathers, in hope and success and despair, he had come to appreciate as never before how warm and caring she really was. To have pressed his attentions on her at this time would have been unchivalrous, even contemptible. Enough to know that she was more open and trusting with him than with anybody else, and to seek in all things to be worthy of that trust. Besides, he was still awkward in her presence.

  She had listened to the revelations of his possible ancestry as though sincerely glad for his sake; but also as if she knew more about the mysterious Shadow Warrior than the Ravarbalians themselves. The look with which she now regarded him combined both speculation and concern for his safety.

  “Vengeance is Khal’s only god,” she said cryptically. “Nothing would, save you, nothing would save any of us, should he learn what we’ve learned here tonight. What became of Mamre? She’ll know the truth, if anyone does,”

  Branwe repeated everything she had told him about his infancy. That he had been abandoned by a nurse fleeing some kind of danger seemed to fit the legend of a surviving youngest kit of the Shadow Warrior. But what if there were things Mamre had not told him? And what indeed had become of the only mother he had ever known?

  They were gathered in the common room of an inn that reminded him of the Blue Dragon only by default: slatternly servants, a villainous clientele, and greasy, over spiced fare that needed drafts of the heavy mountain wine to wash it down. Mamre would have made short work of everything disagreeable here, including the innkeeper himself, a tufty, broken-toothed old scoundrel who never showed his claws, rumor said, because he had had them extracted by a public executioner before fleeing here to Ravarbal.

  “Mamre was preparing to flee to the citadel, the last time I saw her,” said Branwe. “If she made it there safely, then she was probably among the refugees who escaped Kazerclawm. What would become of her then, I don’t know.”

  “Headed straight for Ar,” cried Severakh, “and didn’t stop until she got there. At least, that’s what she’d do if she had any sense.”

  “She was a sensible mrem.” Srana looked more thoughtful than ever. “And a mrem of enterprise and courage.”

  Branwe nodded eagerly. “She must be alive. I’m sure of it.”

  Srana looked at him and smiled, pleased by this outburst of loyalty. But the issues here were too deep and uncertain for further comment, especially within earshot of so many uncertain mrem. Unconsciously she fingered the lavaliere around her neck. Using the code she had worked out for communicating with Sruss, through cryptic allusions to the secret lore of the White Dancers, was dangerous, though nothing was more dangerous now than inaction.

  Enemies outside the walls, and treachery within: It was only a matter of time until tonight’s revelations—whether true or not—reached the ears of the Evil One. If he had sent gangs of bandits, the very “dragons of the hills, in pursuit of those who had merely thwarted him in Kazerclawm, he might launch armies to avenge himself on a son of the Shadow Warrior.

  Her room was as noisome as the tavern below. By paying extra she had managed to get its wretched cot changed with fresh bedclothes, frayed, coarse, and grayish, but at least clean. A guard posted to sleep with his bedroll spread in front of her door out in the corridor insured her privacy. With her mind power remultiplied by the fragment of the Khavala, she needed only moments to put herself into a trance, to probe the dreams of a mind conditioned to withstand any probing but hers....

  Sruss found herself in a mountain pass. It was uncannily familiar, and at last she recalled crossing it one chilly winter morning with her beloved Talwe, when she was young. She felt young now; dreams sometimes bequeathed that magic upon the elderly, and she strolled buoyantly across the silvery landscape through the light of double moons. Then she recalled that this very pass led to Cragsclaw, and her danger sense caused her to hesitate.

  Black mountains loomed on either side of her; a raiding night-wind bit her cheek. As she turned to retrace her steps, she noticed a tent not far away; there was a light inside, and she cautiously approached. Who could possibly have spread his tent in this bleak mountain pass? She recalled hearing from refugees to Ar about the recent boldness of cave liskash.

  She hesitated again, but this time was not disturbed by any sense of danger.

  She drew back the flap, and peered inside. The figure standing in the shadows opposite her was indistinct, nebulous, like a vision not fully imagined. There were no candles, no lanterns, or campfire. She was unsure where the light came from as she slipped into the tent and dropped the flap behind her. The strange figure became even less distinct for a moment, hardly more vivid than the shadows it stood among, but then grew more and more lucid, more corporeal, and at last stepped radiantly forward into the light. It was Srana.

  “...‘Let out your breath before you bend your back,’ ...” she quoted from the lore of the White Dancers.

  “...‘The steps are never perfect, so you must adjust to the small mistakes’…”

  Only another White Dancer could have grasped the underlying significance of the recitation, but for once Sruss had difficulty constructing an intelligible picture from arcane hints and allusions, until at last she realized that the very shadows from which Srana had emerged also had meaning. That was the key which unlocked all the rest.

  The Shadow Warrior? The first great enemy of the Evil One? She grasped the essence of what Srana was telling her, though some references remained obscure. The Three could perhaps elucidate these for her later. This contact had already been dangerously prolonged. She would ask Mithmid, first thing tomorrow....

  But Srana read her thoughts, and instead directed her by allusion to someone named Mamre, who may have been among the first refugees to reach Ar. More and more apprehensive about leaving themselves vulnerable so long, Sruss was determined nonetheless that there be no mistakes in what she recognized as of vital importance. But the first cryptic allusions were hardly out of her mouth, when her danger sense fairly caused her fur to stand on end, and she found herself alone in the tent.

  She knew
that she was dreaming. Srana must have awakened herself from sleep, or whatever kind of trance state she had assumed in order to communicate, believing that she herself would at once do the same. But at first she could not. They had gone undetected as long as it was Srana alone who spoke, which pointed to some concealing force exerted by the Khavala fragment. Struggling and struggling, her own force was not enough to pull her upwards to the surface of consciousness. She could do nothing more than batten down the tent flap.

  The sounds rumbling through the darkness outside grew ever closer and more ominous. They were like the low guttural snarls of the liskash, but eerie and unreal.

  She was startled by the ripping of canvas, and whirled around. Reptilian claws were tearing an opening, and she saw a face so hideous with malice that it might have belonged to the Evil One himself. Then more claws began to rend the canvas on the other side of her, then still more. At last the tent flap itself was attacked.

  The situation was desperate, but she had known too many dangers in her long life to panic, too many adventures and tribulations, and concentrated all her will on awakening. The eerie liskash clawing at the tent seemed to sense her resistance, and their fury became that of demons. Reptile-demons. That was what they were. The Evil One must have succeeded at last in what The Three most feared of him.

  To fall into their evil claws was a fate so ghastly that Sruss fairly hurled her soul across the ether of unconsciousness, as reptilian claws were actually grabbing for her. She lay upon her bed, exhausted and panting for breath, still so disoriented that she needed several minutes to reassure herself that she was really safe in her own room.

  Most dreams are forgotten at the instant of awakening; this one must never be, and she concentrated with all the discipline of a White Dancer to reconstruct the message that had nearly cost her her soul.

  Yes, she would indeed search out someone called Mamre.

  It seemed that some lad the female had raised as a son was in mortal peril. This was another matter that needed elucidation by The Three. Ar itself was imperiled by more than just the hordes swarming the plains outside. She dared not sleep again, and lay rapt in thought for the remaining hours of the night, impatient for dawn.

  She dispatched a servant to Mithmid at first light, but he was already up and out. Then she sent for Dollavier, but he too was away from home. At last a messenger summoned her in turn. All the chief wizards of The Three, all the kings of the League of Ar, were again assembling on the ramparts. Another attack? Days had passed since the enemy hordes had withdrawn from the river bank, at first days of celebration, then days of increasing anxiety as the water level dropped. She dressed and hurried through the cold gray streets toward the Southland Gate.

  The assemblage on the parapet was grim and silent. No words were necessary. Mithmid led her to the brink, and they gazed together down at the river, already shrunk several feet below its normal level. The first gray light of morning was now coloring into a lurid purple-rose, and across the plain they again saw the great wooden towers of the enemy, higher and more numerous than before, arrayed against them. Soon they could be trundled up to the very walls of the city, with whatever other siege engines had been constructed while the people of Ar celebrated their illusive deliverance.

  “A dam?” she asked.

  “Across Dragonneck Gorge,” Mithmid replied. “Only one of our scouts has returned alive, but his report was conclusive, about both the barrage itself and the utter ruthlessness of the enemy. The way they defeated the rapids was with living chains across the river, and swimmers carrying great bundles of reeds. Hundreds were drowned, and their bodies just left to plug the dam that was thrown up, once the current was checked. The waters are backed up for miles, drowning Beacon Valley.” He understood the question in her eyes, and shook his head. “Too far away. Not all the telekinetic powers of The Three, remultiplied by all our fragments of the Khavala, would be effective at such a distance.”

  She gazed thoughtfully across the dawning plain, where the numberless hordes of marauders, harried into ranks by their battle priests, were even now forming to haul their siege machines, their great wooden towers, up to the very walls of the city. In a matter of hours the riverbed would hold mere puddles. The Three might inflict terrible losses, but only at a terrible cost to themselves. They would be exhausted long before the engines and bloodlust of the enemy.

  “We must summon the king,” she said at last. There were other things she urgently had to discuss with Mithmid and The Three, but no urgency was now more imperative than the survival of Ar. Only when the city was again safe could she dare return to the tribulations of her beloved Srana. She was ultimately to learn that these were as important as the great city itself. “Trethwen, Zeshmer.” She beckoned two of the most prominent kings of the League of Ar. “My lords, I ask that you summon his majesty here into our presence. Other messengers might be delayed, even turned away from the palace door—she did not have to say by whom—but not yourselves.”

  The two kings nodded shrewdly, and departed with their armed retainers. It would be a bold palace functionary who denied entrance to such mrem.

  “My Lord Ortakh.” She addressed another king of the League of Ar. “Could the enemy somehow be prevented from concentrating all his forces against a sally upstream?”

  “A diversion downstream might accomplish that, my lady.”

  He glanced from her to the decrepit wizards of The Three nearby, then back again. “If I guess its purpose aright, any such diversion would have to be well downstream. There is a boat-bridge some miles in that direction, built by the enemy to carry troops and supplies across the Mraal. The dropping water level renders it unnecessary, but it is nonetheless a plausible target. Scouts have reported an armory and supply depot there. Shall I prepare to march?”

  “Such decisions must be made by the king,” she said. “Just as His Majesty should lead the sally against the barrage.”

  Ortakh ruled a wild highland realm, and had fought in border wars for two generations. He knew that leadership and morale decide more battles than mere numbers. A demoralized king could lead them to nothing but disaster.

  “Just so, my lady.” He nodded, a shrewd look in his eye.

  “His Majesty should indeed take command.”

  What he himself took was a hint, and he at once began mobilizing—upon his own initiative—the kind of raiding party familiar to border wars. He would be ready to sally forth the moment the king gave his official command.

  The wizards of The Three were less ready to leave the great walls of Ar. Some were appalled, and a few of the more timid tried to slip away and hide, but they were spotted and dragged back in embarrassment, if not disgrace. The promise of riding in carts, requisitioned from city merchants, helped mollify them. At least none of them tried to slip away again, although that may have been because they were now more closely watched.

  Sruss herself issued no commands, nor did she try to usurp authority that was not hers by right. She only counseled, as she had counseled her husband and their son, while they presided over the aggrandizement of Ar into the great city of the mrem; but her counsel was far-seeing and wise, and those who heard it invariably acted upon it.

  The king himself, when he at last arrived upon the parapet—disheveled, blear-eyed from dissipation and lack of sleep, intimidated by so many grim-visaged warriors—accepted her counsel with relief, and was grateful for the tactful way she allowed him to issue all commands. His first reaction to leading the expedition against the Dragonneck barrage in person—outside the walls!—was like that of some of the wizards. But his grandmother so encouraged him that at last he buckled on a sword and unconsciously began to swagger.

  Thousands of mrem now lined the ramparts, sullen and apprehensive. The purple-rose of dawn brightened into clear daylight, and cloud shadows loped monstrously across the plains below, where the great towers had begun to advance, hauled forwar
d by straining teams of herd-beasts, to the crack of whips and savage curses, or swarms of barbarians, ravening for plunder. The marauding hordes seemed to reach the very horizon, while in patches the river barely reached a mrem’s ankles. All eyes now turned toward the king.

  For the first time in his young life he did not disappoint them. After a last conference with Sruss, he led the way down from the parapet, sword in hand. Trethwen and Zeshmer would lead the actual troops; Mithmid led the wizards of The Three, some of whom still looked tempted to slip away at the first opportunity. But the presence of the King of Ar did indeed revive morale—his own most of all.

  What revived the morale of those lining the ramparts above—it seemed that half the population was there, with more straggling up to join them every minute—was the sudden eruption of conflict miles downstream. The advancing hordes seemed aware of it at the same instant, and thousands of brigands and desert marauders, with two full cohorts of renegade highlanders, were diverted from the battle to check it.

  •

  There had been no means of judging from the report of a scout how resistant the barrage would be, or how much force might be needed to dislodge it, so Mithmid was chary of squandering the mind power of his wizards in skirmishes or concealment. The lumbering train of market carts was led by a wily old herd bull, who never had drawn a cart in his life, but whose nerve kept the draft animals from panicking in emergencies. A thousand fighting mrem guarded the train, which had left the city through the still unbesieged North Gate, but no breach of silence betrayed its presence. By detouring through a forest, the approach to Dragonneck barrage went undetected by a single enemy scout or sentry.

  These had been posted with the casualness of thieves, and the sentries were caught napping and were overpowered, Mithmid and Zeshmer crept forward and peeked warily over the brink. The grim spectacle below both appalled and encouraged them.