by David Drake
"May the Lady bless you, sir!" the woman gasped. Her flesh felt as warm as if she'd just come from a heated room instead of running across tundra. She was remarkably supple, and she didn't seem as heavy as Garric had guessed.
The Blood Eagles strode forward, their studded aprons jingling and their hobnails sparking on stones. The front rank held its shields high so that each man peered around the right edge of the round of laminated wood. Their spears were in an underhand grip so that they could thrust upward or brace the butts on the ground behind them. The rear rank--and more soldiers were spilling forward through the portal--had its spears cocked back to throw on command.
Garric skidded around the advancing Blood Eagles. He caught himself on his left hand. The woman over his other arm got her feet down; Liane embraced her, keeping her from falling.
"Loose!" Attaper said. His voice was as loud and harsh as a bronze trumpet.
"Garric!" bellowed the rank of soldiers behind him. Their arms lashed forward, sending their heavy javelins at the pair of oncoming monsters.
There'd been no time to plan, so six men cast their spears at the creature on the left and only four at the other. Every missile struck its target, though one glanced away after cracking a belly plate.
The monster on the right fell sideways. Three of its legs thrashed; the three on the other side froze in the position they'd held when the javelin punched through a compound eye.
The remaining monster continued with a clicking, multi-jointed gait. Ichor dripped down the shafts of the five spears projecting from its thorax and abdomen. The front rank of Blood Eagles strode into the wounded monster like a hammer coming down. Spears thrust; veterans shouted with murderous rage.
A shield split into layers and splinters; the strong glue between laminations held, but the birch itself sheared from the force of the monster's blow. The creature flung two men aside with simultaneous twitches of its forelegs. It continued on.
The second rank met the monster with swords while their fellows--those still able to move--prodded at the flanks of the armored body. Two more spears dangled from the creature, and there were many more gashes and dents in the chitin. Its right middle leg dangled from where the joint was torn, but as the creature advanced it used the limb as a flail, crushing the hip of another soldier.
Garric drew his sword.
"... Necromancers captured me," the woman he'd saved was saying, her voice dancing through a gap in the clash of battle. She might have information, but that wasn't important now.
Nothing was going to be important unless Garric survived the next few moments.
The monster continued to advance, leaving a wrack of bodies in its wake. The Blood Eagles were as brave and skilled as any warriors in the Isles, but they were trained to fight men--and there were too many of them to handle this as the hand-to-hand combat it'd become.
"Lord Attaper!" Carus called in Garric's voice. "Call your men back. I've done this before!"
And so they had, Carus and Garric both: fought monsters, using skill and quickness where strength was insufficient and armor a burden rather than a benefit.
"Call them back, or on my honor you'll all be emptying cess pits!"
All the survivors, anyway, which wouldn't be many of them.
Attaper had lost his helmet and sword; a gouge across the front of his cuirass trailed curls of bright bronze. He'd been crawling toward the body of one of his men whose sword was still in its sheath.
The Blood Eagles' commander looked at Garric--looked at his prince. He shouted, "Section, withdraw!"
Garric stepped forward, laughing with a surge of emotions he couldn't have imagined a few months before when he was a peasant. Fighting this creature alone wasn't braggadocio: the Blood Eagles' flailing swords and javelins would be a greater risk to him than they were to the monster.
Nor was it braggadocio for Garric to fight when he could have scampered back through the portal, leaving the struggle to the soldiers. It was their job, sure; but it was as surely the job of Prince Garric to lead them. At least part of the time, leadership has to come from the front.
Maybe a little of it's braggadocio.
Laughing at a joke only warriors or madmen would understand, Garric stepped into the monster with his blade singing in a flat arc. The swordtip sheared through a joint of the forelimb reaching for him. The pincers spun away, clacking open and shut in the cold air.
Garric jumped back.
The creature rose on its hind legs and screamed, towering over Garric. A slash had destroyed one of its eyes. The yellow ichor that filled the creature's veins painted the underside of its abdomen and much of its smooth carapace as well.
Garric lunged, thrusting through the monster's back-folding knee. The remaining front pincer scissored shut close enough to snip a lock of Garric's hair. He rolled free, ignoring the stones and frozen ground. He'd bruise, sure, but that would be tomorrow....
The monster screamed again and fell sideways like a tree toppling. It hit as hard as a great oak, jolting stones in the air; Garric heard a crunch that could only be the creature's own legs flattening under the impact of the massive body.
The jaws opened and clashed shut; the creature was trying to skid itself forward with the strength of its remaining limbs. Garric stood, trembling and exhausted.
"Your majesty?" Attaper said. He held a sword again. From this side Garric could see the commander had a scalp wound as well as the tear in his breastplate. "Shall we finish him?"
Garric looked at the horizon. Six more of the great creatures had left their caves in the ice and were coming toward the humans.
"No," he said as he backed away, "we'll leave that to its friends. We'll go back, but we'll take our dead with us."
"Always, your majesty!" Attaper said, shocked at what he took as a slight on the Blood Eagles' honor. He glanced toward the oncoming monsters and added in a milder tone, "But yes, especially here."
The last of the detachment stood on the tundra, waiting for orders. The portal behind them wavered, shrinking and swelling like a flag in the wind.
"Sir?" an officer said, looking at Attaper but shouting to be heard by Garric as well. "The stables aren't going to last much longer, the way the ground's shaking."
Attaper glanced at Garric, caught his nod, and shouted, "Right! Move it! Squads from the front first, carrying the dead and wounded!"
Liane embraced Garric. He hugged her awkwardly with his left hand; ichor gummed the blade of his sword, so he hadn't been able to sheathe it. Until this moment, he hadn't remembered he should sheathe it.
"Your majesty," said Attaper. His face was hard as the distant icewall.
"Right, I've been fool enough today," Garric said. Holding Liane, he walked clumsily toward the portal.
The woman he'd saved stood nearby with Liane's lace wrapper over her shoulders. The garment did nothing either to conceal her body or to block the cutting wind, but it at least provided a sop to her dignity. When she saw Garric coming toward her, her face brightened in a smile.
Pairs of Blood Eagles, each carrying a third man--and sometimes the bearers themselves used spears as crutches--were lurching through the portal. The soldiers' set faces showed how much they hated and feared wizardry, but they'd followed Garric because their oath demanded it.
"Good men," whispered Carus. "Whatever they may be in their personal lives, good men to serve a king."
And may the Shepherd make me a good king for them to serve, Garric thought.
Two Blood Eagles carrying a decapitated fellow stopped when they saw Garric approach. One of them even managed to bow, despite the fact that he limped and his face looked gray.
Rather than argue with the men, Garric said, "Come!" to the women in an unintentionally harsh voice. He plunged through the square of light. On the other side, the basement was pitching like a ship. The air was warm but full of dust shaken from the walls and floor.
"Into the street!" he shouted. "Before it all comes down!"
When Katchin placed the
carving in the wall niche, tremors had shaken it out. Garric had wedged the piece tightly between the blocks of ancient stone. It would stay till the violence of the forces it unlocked brought down the wall with it.
Garric bent to grab the corpse of one of Tenoctris' guards. He was still holding his sword.
"I'll take it!" said a female voice close to his ear. Delicate hands closed over Garric's . He let go of the weapon and waddled to the stairs carrying all that was left of a man who'd been faithful unto death.
Garric came up from the vibrating dust-cloud into a street full of soldiers. Waldron was there with at least a battalion of the Royal Army.
"Your majesty?" the old noble said in disbelief. He snapped an order to a pair of common soldiers; they took the corpse from their prince's arms.
"We couldn't get her," Garric said, suddenly aware of failure. "We're going to have to go another way. Is the army ready for action?"
"Yes," said Waldron with a haughty assurance that disdained to boast.
"Then they're going to have it, as soon as night falls and we can cross the bridge to Klestis," Garric said, articulating the plan he'd made as he stepped into daylight. There wasn't time to dither, just act. He couldn't follow the wizards had taken Tenoctris, but he could go to where he'd seen them headed.
And with the help of Duzi and whatever God instilled discipline, perhaps the army would follow him. Though he'd go alone if he had to.
Lord Waldron nodded and gave orders to the aides waiting at his back. Blood Eagles were pouring into the street, coming up the stairs faster now because all the wounded men were out. The building shook even more violently. Thank Duzi, its roof like many of those on the outskirts of Valles was thatch rather than tile.
Attaper burst into the street, covered with grit and wobbling with the pain of his injuries. "I'm the last," he muttered; and in Garric's mind, King Carus nodded grimly and echoed, "Of course."
"Clear the street!" Garric said. Even as he spoke, the lengthy roar of the stables falling in on itself drowned his words.
He held Liane and stumbled forward as best he could with his eyes shut. The trumpeter at Waldron's side was blowing retreat, though how he could fill his lungs in the dust mushrooming from the wreckage was more than Garric could imagine.
The tremors had ceased at the beginning of the collapse. The carving had finally been flung from its niche or more likely had been crushed to powder when the blocks shifted. It didn't matter: the plain to which it was the key wasn't a place that Garric wanted ever to see again.
Half a block from the ruin, clear at last of the spreading dust-cloud, Garric stepped with Liane into the entrance of a mews to take stock. Civilians living in the apartments around the courtyard who'd come out to see what all the commotion was about. Blood Eagles entered with Garric and pushed them back.
Liane was with him. So was the woman he'd rescued, now wearing a military cape that fell to mid-thigh on her short frame. She reached forward, holding Garric's sword to him hilt-first; the cape gapped open.
"Here, Lord Garric," she said in a voice like honey flowing. With her other hand she dropped Liane's gauzy wrapper, now wadded and stained with fluids from the monster's body. "I've wiped the steel for you."
Garric took the sword. He put his left arm around Liane possessively.
The stranger smiled and added, "My name is Colva."
The trumpet calls awakened Cashel before dawn. For a moment he couldn't remember where he was. He'd been dreaming that he slept on a vine-covered hill beneath a sky of rock. With him was spiky little man who had a tongue on him worse than Ilna's....
Cashel got up from the low couch. He was wearing some kind of loose silk garment that covered him neck to ankles. His tunics and boots hung on a rack by the wall. They'd been cleaned, which they'd probably needed; the sturdy wool was still slightly damp. He ought to be grateful, but the kindness reminded him of how helpless he must have been.
Cashel wriggled out of the night dress and flung it toward the couch. It made him feel like he'd walked into a huge cobweb at night in the forest.
There was a bowl and a ewer of water on the night stand. Cashel drank deeply, straight from the ewer, before it occurred to him that he'd probably been meant to wash with it instead. His hands and face didn't need to water near as bad as his dry throat did. He remembered drinking the local wine, but he wasn't sure just how much he'd drunk. More than was good for him this morning, that he was sure of.
Trumpets continued to skirl and tremble in the morning air. The eastern sky out the window was already too bright to show stars; there were no clouds to color the sunrise.
The quarterstaff leaned discretely against the clothes rack. Cashel took it and ran his fingers over the smooth hickory, thinking it'd dispel the formless disquiet that had settled over him as soon as he awakened. The familiar touch didn't help. That disturbed Cashel worse than the original feeling had.
He rattled aside the door-curtain of jasper, quartz and carnelian beads and strode into the hallway. It was empty but he heard voices coming from the right so he turned that way. As soon as he met somebody, he was going to ask them how he could get out of Tian. Getting out was the thing Cashel most wanted to do right now.
The end of the corridor kinked to the right and joined the hall where Cashel had come into the palace the evening before. Servants crowded it, chattering among themselves. They fell silent when they saw Cashel.
"Excuse me," he said, but the crowd parted ahead of him as soon as he appeared. "I'm just looking for the way down."
Cashel spoke for politeness' sake, because now he knew where he was and was already striding toward the gateway at the opposite end of the avenue. Servants lowered their eyes or looked away, pretending not to be aware of him. There was nothing hostile in their behavior. They were just silently rejecting what was alien.
Cashel didn't resent the way they acted, but it made him even more uncomfortable than he already was. Well, he'd wanted to get away from Tian, so he couldn't blame the city's residents for wanting to be shut of him as well.
He walked along the empty avenue, flanked by the whispers of servants gathering in every doorway that he passed. Cashel didn't see any of Tian's silk-clad nobles until a swirl of bright motion made him look up. The great folk packed the battlements, talking in lilting voices as they watched the eastern horizon from coigns of vantage.
Cashel walked to the open gates. A group of nobles clustered around the great windlass that worked them through gears made of the same shimmering metal as supported all Tian. One man even touched a capstan bar like he was thinking of turning it.
"Well, I think somebody should summon them!" a corpulent fellow with flaring white moustaches said. "What kind of servants are they if they don't serve?"
"I'm sure the king will take care of it when he's...," another man said, looking out the gate in puzzled concern. "After he's come back, you know."
Cashel strode past, his staff slanted across his chest, feeling the nobles' eyes on him. He tried to look relaxed, but he felt like a child in a roomful of frightened adults.
He stepped through the gateway and out of Tian. As he passed beneath the stone arches, he looked up at the faces craning over the battlements. He couldn't tell their features apart in this pre-dawn dimness, but he thought one of the pale ovals was that of Lia.
King Tiew and his knights stood at the bottom of the sweeping ramp, their weapons in their hands as they faced sunrise. Cashel, letting the slope lengthen his strides, followed the curves down to them.
A few knights looked back. None spoke, and their eyes glanced away from Cashel's big figure like sunlight splashing from a crystal.
Cashel turned his head once more. Sunlight reddened the upper towers of Tian, though the ground beneath was still in shadow.
"King Tiew!" Cashel said. "If there's an enemy coming, I'll stand with you to meet him."
He spoke more loudly than he'd have chosen to. The king and his knights were ignoring him, and to get t
heir attention Cashel had either to force his way past or shout. As edgy as he felt, a part of him would just as soon have pushed... but he couldn't blame the knights for being, well, nervous too.
Mah turned, his broad-bladed glaive trembling in his angry grip. "Get out of here!" he snarled. "You've had your guest rights--now go back where you belong!"
Sia also turned. His expression was shuttered; hostile not only toward Cashel but to all the world outside himself. His lips drew back in a grimace more threatening than Mah's open anger.
"We are gentlemen of Tian!" said King Tiew sharply to his knights. "A gentleman should always behave as if the next moment might be his last. That's especially true this morning."
Sia muttered a curse and looked away. Mah continued to stare at Cashel, looking ever so much like a terrier desperate to attack a bear.
"But as for you, Master Cashel," the king resumed, "you have no place here today. This is the duty and the honor of the knights of Tian. Either go your way or rejoin the others in the city to await our return."
Tiew looked at the sky; a bright arc was creeping over the distant hills. "It shouldn't be long, now," he said, but his tone suggested he was speaking mostly to himself.
"Thanks for the meal and bed," Cashel said curtly. "I'll be going now."
The knights made no more reaction than so many trees lining the path. As Cashel passed through them he heard a knight exclaim, "What's that? What's happening in the city, your majesty?"
Cashel looked over his shoulder. Through the gates came people crowding together like a flock being driven through narrow city streets. Early dawn lighted their bundles and drab clothing.
Nobles called in anger and amazement from the battlements. The servants of Tian were leaving. From their numbers, filling the ramp in a brown-gray-dun mass, all the servants were leaving.
"They can't do that!" Sia shouted. "We can't let them do that! They're running away!"
"There's smoke from the high tower," Mah said wonderingly. "Shan is lighting the beacon of sacrifice. He's never done that except on the winter solstice."
King Tiew looked at the city and the servants' silent approach, then turned again to face the dawn. "Let them go," he said in the shrill, fearless tones of a hawk hovering in the morning sky. "It's beneath our honor as knights to concern ourselves with such things!"