Master of the Cauldron loti-6

by David Drake

  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'renot 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 therewas 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 lethis 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 theskritch 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 considerabletime 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.

  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 theirjob, 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 ste
ps 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 wasplaying?" 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.

  Garric held the bow cord to his right ear. He no longer heard the shouts and screams filling the square. He was in a world of his own, his eyes focused on his arrowhead, silhouetted against the scarlet blur of Lord Tawnser's tunic. He threw his weight onto his left arm, bending the bowstaff instead of drawing the cord as easterners were taught to do; he loosed as part of the same smooth motion.

  The stiff cord snapped painfully against Garric's left wrist-he wasn't wearing a bracer. He reached to his belt to draw out the next arrow, then remembered that he wasn't shooting at a predator back in the borough; that that wasn't his bow and that he wasn't a shepherd any more.

  Tawnser had almost reached the roof; men were leaning over the coping to pull him the last of the way to safety. He flung his hands in the air and dropped backward into the square.

  Garric threw down the bow; he swayed for a moment. He'd acted by instinct, and only now was he able to understand exactly what he'd done.

  "You got him, your highness!" Attaper shouted beside him. "Good shot, your highness, a shot worth everything else that's happened today!"

  A man who was alive is now dead, thought Garric, suddenly sick. A man whom I killed.

  "We've got to get to him before the body's stripped!" Liane cried from Garric's other side. "He may have important documents!"

  The three of them ran together toward where the rebel leader had fallen. The rioters who could move under their own power were out of the square by now. Sections of Blood Eagles who'd chased them a little way down the connecting streets were now returning. T
heir officers weren't going to let them disperse in a city which, if not wholly hostile, certainly wasn't friendly to them.

  Lord Tawnser lay on his back with a surprised expression. The arrowpoint glittered a hand's-breadth out of his breastbone. There wasn't much blood, but the arrow had broken his spine when it struck.

  "That was too quick for a man like him!" Attaper said as Liane undid the clasp of Tawnser's purse.

  Garric looked down. "Milord," he said, "for the sake of the kingdom I'm glad he's dead. But I'm sorry I killed him or ever killed a human being; and the kingdom isn't served by even bad man dying slowly."

  "Here, Garric!" Liane said, holding up a slip of parchment. "It's as we thought!"

  Garric forced his mind from the memory of a dead man falling down the side of a building. The note read, Garric who calls himself your prince will be at the Temple of the Shielding Shepherd tomorrow morning with a few soldiers. If you're a man and a patriot, serve him as he deserves. There was no signature, but the broken wax closure had been sealed with a stamped design.

  "That's two intertwined serpents," Liane explained. "It's Dipsas' seal."

  "Lord Attaper," Garric said, steadying his voice as he spoke. "We'll return to the palace with all deliberate speed. And then we'll discuss what happened here with a wizard named Dipsas."

  He couldn't keep another wave of bloodlust from trembling across the surface of his mind as he thought about the woman responsible for this.

  ***

  Cashel opened his eyes. He'd gotten barely a glimpse of the cave as he fell into it backwards, but he knew he couldn't be there now.

  He was in a hall whose sharply peaked ceiling was higher than any place he'd been in. A line of stone-framed windows just below the roof trusses flooded light onto the tapestries along the walls. The hangings on the west were brilliant, and even those in morning shadow gleamed with threads of gold and silver shot through the silk. Ilna wouldlove to see those.

  "Come join us," said the eldest of the six men on the other side of a table long enough to seat many, many more than those present. It ran down the center of the hall beneath the ridgepole, nearly end to end of the big room. The men sat mid-way along the table's length. The speaker gestured toward the short bench across from him.