Master of the Cauldron

by David Drake

  He paused. Attaper turned to Garric with his mouth open, but before he could speak Muns added, "Sir? I think I saw that one-eyed scut as made the trouble at the coronation. I think he's leading them."

  "I should've put my sword through Tawnser when he first turned his one bloody eye on me!" Attaper snarled. He looked at the three librarians, then pointed to the woman.

  "You!" he said. She drew herself up sharply, as anyone would at Attaper's tone; Garric felt his own back straighten instinctively. "We came in by the front entrance but there's a back way, isn't there? Come on, where's the back way?"

  The librarian blinked. "Yes, of course," she said, "you entered from Factors' Square, but there's the door onto Lantern Street. I'll take you."

  "Right," Attaper said. "Muns, tell Under-Captain Fiers to hold the front as long as he can with his section, but to send the rest of the regiment to me at the Lantern Street entrance. Go!"

  He scowled and muttered to Garric, "I figure we'll need everybody we've got available, and we'll be bloody lucky if we don't need more. A mile to go through somebody else's city!"

  They followed the librarian at a quick trot. The parties of Blood Eagles guarding corridor intersections fell in behind at Attaper's barked commands. They'd already snatched off the gilt balls that blunted their spearpoints.

  If the mob was gathering on side-streets until it was fully prepared to attack, it wasn't really a mob. And if Lord Tawnser had arranged things so neatly at the front of the temple, Garric doubted that he'd have neglected the back entrance too. But it was the best choice available.

  "There!" the librarian cried, pointing down a short hall to a door lighted by a transom glazed with bulls-eye glass. An attendant was dozing in the corner. He jumped up with a shout of terror when Garric and the leading Blood Eagles crashed along the corridor at him. The soldier's hobnails sparked on the stone floor.

  "The Cattle Market's on this side!" said Liane from Garric's heel. "It's near Erdin's north gate!"

  "Keep behind me!" Garric snapped as Attaper lifted the cross-bar from its staples. Garric pushed the door open with his left hand; his sword was bare in his right. He and Attaper stepped through the doorway together.

  Lantern Street was a narrow alley facing the twenty-foot high stone terrace that supported the Cattle Market, a plaza surrounded by stalls for beasts who'd been separated after sale. The street was empty but the terrace was full of people, most of them men and all armed.

  The mob gave a shout of bloody triumph. Garric and Attaper threw themselves backward, shoving against the troops who'd started to follow them. A shower of stones and rooftiles arched downward. Garric slammed the door just as the missiles thundered into it. A javelin hit the panel hard enough to thrust its quivering tip a hand's-breadth into the temple.

  Attaper touched the steel with a fingertip to damp it for examination. "From the Earl's arsenal or I miss my bet," he said.

  "Some of the people in Erdin who don't like us are bound to be soldiers," Garric said with a lopsided grin. It seemed odd to be coolly rational at a time like this, but there was no time they'd need cool reason more. "It doesn't mean that Wildulf himself is a traitor."

  Though his wife Balila—that was another matter.

  "Leave a squad here," Garric went on, taking charge now because in a fight he trusted his judgment and his ancestor's instincts farther than he did those of anyone else present. "The rest of us will take our stand at the front where we're above anybody who comes at us. Trying to get out that gauntlet would be suicide."

  As Attaper turned the troops around with a great deal of shouting and clanging in the strait surroundings, Liane leaned close to Garric's ear and said, "Perhaps we can signal Lord Rosen from the roof."

  "We'll hope so," Garric said grimly. "Because if there's as many people in front as there were waiting for us in the market, we're not getting out of here on our own."

  CHAPTER 14

  "Here," said Liane. She handed Garric a white priestly robe which she'd snatched from the flat of cleaned clothing two servants were carrying toward the suites on the second floor.

  A passing soldier swiped at them with his javelin. The servants yelped protest and scrambled up the stairs. It wasn't a serious blow, but it'd reminded the civilians that the priorities had just changed.

  "I can't sneak out wearing this!" Garric said in amazement. "I can't! I won't!"

  They'd reached the front of the wing they'd been in—to the right of the temple and set forward of it. Most of the volumes were held in the wing which balanced this one across the open plaza with the altar. Under-Captain Fiers had drawn up his thirty men across the front of the plaza, looking down the broad steps to Factors Square.

  "She's right," said Attaper unexpectedly. "If they see Prince Garric, they'll attack. If they're afraid you're sneaking out some other way, it'll keep them off-balance."

  In a snarl he added, "And I bloody wish there was some other way out!"

  "Right," Garric muttered, sheathing his sword to throw the robe around him. It was cut to lace up the front—which he didn't bother with—instead of pulling on overhead, so it wouldn't be hard to shrug off when he needed his arms free. He'd let personal pride get in the way of assessing the situation. He didn't need the image of Carus in his mind, nodding ruefully, to know how dangerous that could be.

  Fortunately, he had Liane and Attaper to advise him—two people who didn't let his personal pride affect them in the least. Garric grinned as he hoisted himself on top of the altar. Waist high, it gave him a view over the heads of the Blood Eagles trotting onto the plaza to form with the section already there.

  Five streets fed into Factors' Square. Each was filled with people holding weapons and missiles. The front ranks were burly men wrapped in cloaks, which in this warm weather were almost certainly meant to conceal body armor. As the Blood Eagles fell into ranks, a concealed gong sent a piercing, plangent note through the whole district. The crowd shouted and surged forward into the square.

  Attaper called an order. The Blood Eagles lifted their rectangular shields so that the upper edge was just beneath each man's chin-strap. They were in close order, which meant only two ranks; the men in the second rank cocked their javelins to throw, while those in front held theirs underhand so that the mob faced a hedge of points.

  "Don't loose!" Garric shouted. "Don't throw your javelins!"

  He had fewer than a hundred and fifty Blood Eagles. The mob—which certainly included soldiers—was thousands strong. The troops might be able to hold the temple or at least one wing of it for some while, but Garric could already see torches made from pine knots and oil-soaked rags flaring in the midst of the crowd.

  Liane saw and understood the torches also. "Garric, they're ready to burn down the finest collection of Old Kingdom texts west of Valles just to kill us!" she said. Then, in a tone as hard as the skritch of a knife on a whetstone, she added, "If Tawnser's captured alive, he mustn't be pardoned. Garric, a barbarian like that isn't fit to live!'

  Despite the situation, Garric smiled at her vehemence. Of course there were probably better reasons to hang Tawnser than his willingness to burn books, but none of them touched Liane's soul as deeply as that one—or Garric's either.

  Tawnser stood on an overturned wagon at the back of the square, shouting orders through a bronze speaking horn. He'd obviously planned the attack carefully—and he'd had considerable time to plan it, which was the most puzzling part of the business. Garric and Liane hadn't decided to visit the temple until this morning, but Tawnser's preparations must've taken days.

  "He's a wizard who can predict the future," Liane said, addressing the same problem. "Or he's being aided by one."

  "And I'd venture a guess about who the wizard is," Garric agreed grimly. "Well, there'll be time enough for Dipsas later."

  The mob surged to the bottom of the temple steps, but as Garric expected they didn't charge home against the shield wall. Instead they halted, shouting threats and curses.

&nbs
p; The men in the front rank carried swords, but from the mass of civilians behind them came a shower of tiles and paving stones. For the most part the Blood Eagles' shields shrugged the missiles off, but a man in the second rank sprawled backwards with a crash of equipment. His dented helmet rolled away from him.

  Garric sized up the situation, saw that it wouldn't change for the better, and made his decision. He shouted. "Attaper, we—"

  Realizing he couldn't convey his intentions by bellowing from where he was, Garric jumped off the altar and stepped to his commander's side. His timing was good: an arrow snapped through the air close to where he'd been. There was an archer in the crowd. That posed problems much more serious than hand-flung stones.

  "Attaper, we're going to have to cut our way through them now!" Garric said s calmly as he could over the mob's shouting. "Withdraw the squad you left at the back door and then we'll—"

  "They'll stay, your highness," Attaper said. "It's the only way we can keep from being surrounded before we're clear of the square."

  "I won't leave them to die!" Garric said.

  "It's their job, your highness, and they'll do it!" Attaper said. Then with a look of anguish he added, "My son Attarus commands them. They'll stand till they die, as their duty requires!"

  Garric stood for a heartbeat frozen in horror. Then he said, parroting the words of the warrior ghost in his mind, "Yes. All javelins together, then wade into them with swords. Echelon back from the regimental standard—"

  The center of the front rank.

  "—by squads. We'll head down Carriage Street. I know it's the way we came but it's wider than the others by a half and we need the width. On your command, milord!"

  Many of those in the mob had come with baskets of stones, but even so the volleys of missiles had by now slackened. Attaper opened his mouth to shout his orders.

  The bright sky dimmed with the suddenness of a door closing.

  Garric and everyone else in the square looked up. A cloud as opaque as chimney soot was swelling across the sun.

  "Abracadabra!" Liane shouted as the crowd sucked in its breath. Garric looked over his shoulder. She was standing on the altar now, both arms stretched toward the sky.

  An arrow arched toward Liane, but it wobbled and went wide. The archer must've been drawing his bow when the apparition appeared above him. He'd simply let go of the cord instead of loosing his shot properly.

  "Demon, I command thee, strike my enemies!" Liane cried. "Hic haec hoc!"

  The mob gave a collective scream. At the rear Lord Tawnser was trying to keep control, but not even the speaking tube could give his voice authority.

  "All ranks!" Lord Attaper bawled. " Throw on command, throw!"

  Garric doubted that the Blood Eagles could really hear their commander's words over the tumult, but they were so well trained that a hint was enough. The javelins went up over the right shoulders of every man still standing, then snapped forward with the authority of strong arms and long practice. The front of the mob—the soldiers, the cut-throats, the thugs who'd break heads for fun if no one was willing to pay them for the work—went down like wheat in a reaper's cradle.

  "At 'em, boys!" Garric shouted, ripping off his priestly robe to draw his sword again. Through his willing lips, King Carus added, "Haft and the Isles!"

  The ghostly cloud had smothered the rioters' courage, and the javelins smashed them like thistledown in a sleet storm. Only the mob's own numbers and the narrow streets leading out of the square kept it from dispersing instantly. The troops surged down the temple steps in perfect unison, moving like a hammer dressed in black armor.

  For a moment the urge to slaughter threw a red mist over Garric's mind. He was Carus the Warrior King about to stride through the streets of a rebel city, the tip of his long sword slinging blood at every stroke.

  But he wasn't Carus—

  Erdin wasn't a rebel city unless he made it one by a massacre here—

  And Garric had seen enough dead men to want to avoid seeing more of them when he could avoid it.

  "Use the flat of your swords!" Garric shouted as he followed the Blood Eagles down the steps. "Don't kill anybody who isn't trying to fight! Knock 'em down and let 'em tell their stories when they wake up!"

  It wasn't exactly being soft-hearted, but—there were men and there were monsters. The only way the kingdom would survive—and Mankind itself would survive—was if all men stayed together.

  Though Garric had to agree with Liane: there were a few men like Lord Tawnser whose actions had made them monsters.

  Tawnser was still trying to rally the mob, but nobody was paying attention to him now. The wagon he'd overturned to serve as his command post rocked like a ship in the storm as desperate rioters forced their way by it. When it gave a particularly violent lurch, Tawnser flung away the speaking horn and jumped off the other side of the wagon, out of sight.

  Garric hadn't been sure the Blood Eagles would obey his order, but all the strokes he saw as he stood on the bottom step to check the advancing lines were with the flats, not the edges, of the blades. The troops didn't even push as hard as Garric knew they could. They were aware that panicked congestion at the mouth of the streets leaving the square could be as lethal as swords.

  Being knocked down by a steel club or a shield boss was a hard lesson, but it was a survivable one. Some of the Blood Eagles had even retrieved javelins from the heavies who'd fallen in the front row of the mob. They were using the shafts as batons against the scalps and shoulders of those fleeing.

  "Not every regiment would take that order," said the image of Carus, watching with a mixture of pride and a frustrated urge to kill. "And not every king would've been smart enough to give it in the first place."

  Carus laughed and threw his hands behind him. That was a gesture he must've used in life when circumstances prevented him from following his violent instincts.

  Garric hadn't worried about the apparition in the sky while he had pressing business with the mob, but that seemed to be under control. He glanced up at a cloud whose writhing, smoky tentacles mimicked a giant ammonite. They, the Great Ones of the Deep, had a close link with black wizardry. The apparition was so savagely evil that Garric raised his sword, a pointless but instinctive response.

  Breathing through his open mouth, Garric looked down to the square. He knew the cloud was probably harmless, but it horrified him to look at. Better a shambles of moaning, bleeding human beings....

  Lord Tawnser was escaping. A confederate had lowered a rope to him from the roof of a three-story building. Tawnser'd lost the black cape he'd worn as a backdrop, but his scarlet tunic and breeches showed vividly as he climbed the wall of weathered brick.

  Garric was sure he'd capture Tawnser eventually. But as long as the mad nobleman was alive, his venomous hatred would poison Sandrakkan's relationship with the kingdom. This riot wouldn't be the last trouble he'd rouse.

  Lord Attaper had been with his men. Now he came back to join Garric on the step from which he could judge the Blood Eagles' progress. Attaper's boots were blood-splashed, and from the smear on his blade he'd used it to thrust, not club.

  "There were Sandrakkan soldiers in the mob," Carus explained hard-faced. "Which makes them mutineers by my lights, since Wildulf's accepted you as king. I think Attaper sees that the same way as I do."

  Garric grimaced, but what's done is done—and he was pretty sure that none of his advisors, Liane included, would've agreed with him about sparing traitorous soldiers. A battle wasn't the same as an execution, at least so far as the public had to know.

  "I didn't know your...," Attaper said. He glanced sidelong at Liane, still on the altar with her arms raised. "I didn't realize that Lady Liane was a wizard, your highness."

  "She's not," said Garric.

  "But I saw—" Attaper said. "Your highness, there she is!"

  "There she is, shouting gibberish and play-acting," Garric said. "Knowing that that lot—"

  He nodded to remnants of
the mob, climbing over the bodies of those crushed trying to leave the square.

  "—would panic if they thought she controlled the vision, which she can't any better than you could."

  Blinking away emotion Garric added, "There's not a smarter person in all the Isles, Attaper. And maybe not a braver one either, to dare to look at that thing in the sky!"

  In the wrack of injured civilians behind the double line of troops was the archer, a sturdy-looking countryman. He must've slipped and been trampled in the mob's sudden rush to escape, because he was well back of where the volley of javelins had landed. The bow lay several feet away, but the quiver hanging from his belt was certain identification.

  "She was playing?" Lord Attaper said in amazement that seemed tinged with anger. The apparition had frightened him as surely as it did Garric, and the notion that a well-born girl had the wit and courage to toy with that fear was at best embarrassing.

  Garric didn't answer. He sprinted across the plaza, sheathing his sword as he ran. He had to dodge fallen bodies. Once he jumped over a women in tawdry clothing who screamed curses as she clutched her wrenched knee. Garric had learned about armies and swordsmanship from his ancestor Carus, but as a shepherd boy on Haft he'd had plenty of opportunity to become a skilled archer.

  He picked up the bow. It was a simple weapon, a staff of seasoned yew without the layers of horn and sinew that would've made it more powerful but also more delicate. A compound bow might not have survived being trampled, but this self bow and its horsehair cord were none the worse for the experience.

  It was a hunter's weapon. The staff was only four feet from tip to tip so that the man using it could slip through dense brush, but it was thick and a powerful weapon in the hands of an archer strong enough to use it.

  Garric nocked an arrow from the fallen man's quiver. It had a head like a knitting needle instead of the flaring barbs of a hunting arrow: the archer had thought he might have to shoot through a breastplate, so he'd come with bodkin points instead of broadheads.