"What did they do?" Dirk groaned. "Let them sleep?"
"I suspect they had difficulty driving them back onto our trail, after their fright," Gar said, shoulders slumped with exhaustion.
In spite of his weariness, Dirk looked up at him sharply. "I'll just bet they did! Come on, Cort." The lieutenant felt as though each foot was made of lead, but forced himself onward sternly, not complaining. "Have we gone far enough along this dry streambed?"
"I'll take a peek and see," Dirk answered, then gritted his teeth and forced each foot up the slope. Cort took advantage of the opportunity to rest, but knew better than to sit or lie down; he simply leaned against the nearest boulder.
"They'll be on us soon," Gar told him. "If I go off away from you..."
"I'll be amazed if you can put one foot in front of the other, let alone outrun me," Cort said though his teeth.
"Is he volunteering for martyrdom again?" Dirk called down.
"I don't know what martyrdom is," Cort called back, "but I think he'd volunteer for anything right now."
"So would I, if it got me out of here." Dirk forced himself up the last foot and gave a cry of delight.
"Can you see it?" Cort stood bolt upright. "Quilichen's wall!" Dirk called back. "Just enough light to see it by!"
Hope pumped new energy through the other two; they plowed up the side of the slope. Sure enough, there stood the city, looming above the morning mist in the distance.
"Let's go!" Dirk scrambled out, visions of Magda dancing in his head.
Cort put out a hand to stop him, looking back at Gar. "Why are you so slow? We need speed!"
"We need to stop our hunters even more," Gar grunted as he rolled a small boulder into place. Cort's eyes widened. "No man can move a stone that heavy!"
"There's a trick to it," Gar wheezed. "There sure is," Dirk said darkly.
Gar grunted again as he pushed the stone over the edge. It rolled downhill faster and faster, landing with a dull thud.
"Rolled halfway up the other side and rolled down again," Gar panted with satisfaction as he came up to them. "It wiped out our tracks on the way down-and should cause them a little trouble getting past it."
"Yes, if no one there is smart enough to realize we pushed it!" Dirk snapped.
Cort nodded. "It will show them where we left the gully."
Gar looked surprised, then crestfallen.
"At least the hounds won't have a trail to follow," Dirk sighed. "Come on! If you can run, do. If you can't, jog!"
They set off toward the city while the sky reddened behind them. They were halfway there before the belling began.
"Boulder didn't fool 'em for long," Dirk grunted. "Run!"
The hounds grew louder, and hooves drummed, oddly muffled by the mist. The three fugitives stumbled wearily on, eyes fixed on the wall ahead, none able to spare breath to cheer the others on. The hoofbeats grew louder and louder. 'Glancing back, Cort saw riders coming out of the mist a hundred yards behind. "Run!" he shouted, and sprinted hard.
The hoofbeats came faster.
"Hello the wall!" Dirk cried. "Sanctuary! Help! Save us!"
"We were your guests!" Cort shouted.
"These riders are the men you banished!" Gar bellowed.
Figures appeared atop the wall, staring, then raising bows. One sprinted off along the battlements. The others weighed the sight, then pointed their arrows upward and loosed. Cort cried out in despair-but the arrows arced over their heads and down, thudding into the earth in a line between hunters and hunted.
"They recognized us!" Dirk cried in jubilation. The Hawks reined in, shouting in alarm. On the wail, a voice barked orders, and the gate swung open. The companions cried out in relief and thanks and forced themselves into one final, stumbling run. The Hawks shouted again, but in anger now, and spurred their horses.
Another line of arrows fell, these right beside them and in front of their mounts. Horses reared, shying from the swift points, and horsemen bellowed.
The companions pounded through the gate. A voice shouted atop the wall, and the great panels began to shut. The Hawks howled in rage and frustration and galloped toward the gate, their spears high.
Another volley of arrows stitched a line in front of them.
This time they took the warning; they,sheered off and rode away, turning back to shake their fists with angry shouts.
The gates shut with a boom, and the great bar dropped across them. The three companions fell to the ground and lay or knelt, heaving great gulps of air. The officer of the day came down from the wall and knelt by Gar. "They were waiting for you, hey?"
Gar could only wheeze and nod.
"What of the rest of your men?" the officer asked, his face somber.
"I sent them back by another route," Cort gasped.
The officer turned to him, surprised. "Won't they have been slain?"
"No," Gar panted, "because ... we found out ... they're only after me."
The officer stared at him in alarm, and Dirk didn't need to be a mind reader to see the unspoken exclamation: Throw him out! But he didn't say so, for which Dirk was unreasonably grateful.
Then his reason arrived with a flurry of hooves and a cry from the heart.
CHAPTER 18
Looking up, Dirk saw an escort of soldiers surrounding Magda, all reining in. She swung down from her horse and ran to him, ,hair disheveled, gown very obviously the first thing that came to hand. Dirk could only think, So this is what she looks like first thing in the morning, and found himself wishing he could be there to see the sight for years to come. He shoved himself to his feet, arms wide to catch her.
Magda threw herself into his arms and planted a long, delirious kiss on his lips. When she shoved herself away, she demanded, "Have they hurt you?"
"Nothing that won't heal in a few days." Dirk panted. After all, he hadn't caught his breath the first time.
"If they had slain you, I would have warred on the Hawk Company!" Magda told him, her voice hinting at massacres. "If they dare come against you again, I will slay them all, even if it means my death!"
"No!" Dirk pressed both her hands between his own. "I don't want your death, I want your life! With mine!"
She stared, suddenly trembling. "I don't think you meant that as it sounded, sir."
"I think I did," Dirk said slowly.
She swayed toward him, eyelids drooping, and their kiss was even longer. When it ended, Dirk held her at arm's length and said, very seriously, "No matter what happens, you have to live!"
"Then 1 must go."
Turning, they saw Gar looming over them like Fate, his face somber.
"Not a word of it!" Magda snapped. "The friend of my friend is mine, too! You shall stay, and we shall fight to the last for you!"
"I will not have the deaths of a whole city on my conscience," Gar told her, "nor of you and Dirk, when you might be beginning a whole life of joy. I'll only ask that you give me a horse, preferably your biggest."
Dirk turned to her, his heart wrenching. "Please understand. I have to go with him, no matter how much I want to stay with you. I can't let him face them alone."
"Nor can I," she said, chin firming with stubbornness. She turned back to Gar. "I will not risk this man for your noble wish of death! You must stay and live!"
"And how many of your people will die?" Gar demanded.
"Few or none!" Magda looked around at her officers and saw the same resolve on their faces. She turned back to Gar. "It's too late in any event. If we give you up now, the Hawk Company will think us weak, and ripe for the taking-and like as not, they'll league with several other mercenary companies. All their captains dream of becoming bosses in their own right, and will see Quilichen as their chance!"
"That's true," Cort said grimly. Breath caught, he came to his feet and confronted Gar. "If you wish to save them, my friend, you had better think up a way to give them a quick victory."
Four days later, a caravan appeared, heralded by the hoarse cries of
the drivers as they urged their exhausted donkeys to one last effort. Their leader rode ahead of them, waving to the guards and crying, "Sanctuary!"
Gar was taking his turn as officer of the watch at the time, and trying to ignore the resentment of some of the troopers-not that he could blame them for it. The merchant was a welcome diversion. He looked down from the wall, then stared. "Master Ralke?"
"Gar Pike!" The merchant stared back, completely amazed. "So this is why you didn't return to guard us again!"
"Let him in," Gar called to the gate guards. "I know him; he's an honest man."
Ralke rode in, dismounted, and hurried up to the wall as his caravan entered the city. Once inside, the donkeys slowed, stopped, and dug in their heels in sheer exhaustion. Ralke bustled up to Gar. "Beware, sergeant! There are two companies of mercenaries riding toward you, and a boss with all his bullies!"
"Two companies?" Gar stared. "The Hawks I know of-but who else?"
Ralke shook his head. "I saw them from the top of a ridge, and rode for the nearest town; I couldn't tell who they were."
"Serves me right for not listening," Gar muttered.
"I should be more suspicious." Then, to Ralke, "So the Hawks have managed an alliance." He made a mental note to investigate telepathicially when he could find a few minutes alone. "Thank you for the news, merchant. I believe the castellan will welcome you and your men, but you'll have to help in the defense."
"Our chances are far better inside this wall than outside it," Ralke said fervently.
"I will give you warning," Gar said slowly. "It's I the soldiers are chasing-or at least the Hawks are."
"The Hawks?" Ralke stared. "What did you do to offend them?"
"Caught Torgi out in his mistranslating scheme. He hired the Hawks to assassinate me."
Ralke grinned. "They haven't done very well, have they?" Then he realized the implications. "But if Torgi sent them after you, he'll probably send them after me, too!"
"You seem to have been wise in running for cover," Gar told him. Ralke frowned. "Where did a mere steward find money enough to hire a whole company?"
"Yes," Gar said. "That is an interesting question, isn't it?"
He reported the information to Magda at the end of his watch, and she received it with indifference. "If they're here for one of you, why not have them here for both?" But she was holding Dirk's hand, and the glow in her face might have had more to do with her indifference to threat than logic did. For Dirk's part, he could scarcely take his eyes off her, and Gar felt a stab of envy. "Where's Cort?"
"Haven't seen him much," Dirk answered. "Kind of strange, isn't it?"
"Absolutely," Gar told him, poker faced.
Dirk managed to tear his eyes away from Magda. "Any ideas on how to save us all yet?"
"Aside from the obvious," Gar said, pointing upward, "not much. A merchant just arrived tells me that two mercenary companies are marching toward us, as well as a boss with all his bullies." Magda finally looked up, dismayed. "Those are great odds indeed!"
"Can't you bring any other kind of force against them?" Dirk demanded.
Magda turned to frown at him. "How could he?" Gar sighed. "We've met a duke on our travels. He's going to dream about a wizard tonight."
"How will that help us?" Magda asked, then frowned. "There are no dukes in this land, only bosses." Again, the implications hit her, and she stared, then exclaimed, "And how would you know what he'll dream?"
The duke did dream. He usually slept without disturbance, but this night, he dreamed of a void, and a white spot appeared within it, a spot that grew and swelled, until he could see it was a face, a human face, with long, long white hair and a longer white beard that swirled about it. Closer it came and closer, until it stared him eye to eye and intoned, "Avaunt! Avoid the dark giant!"
"What giant?" the duke demanded in his dream. "Do you mean that loutish outlander who overtopped even the Fair Folk? If I never see him again, it will be too soon!"
"You lie," the wizard intoned. "You plan to track him as the quarry of the Wild Hunt at Midsummer! But that will be too late, for the armies gather to besiege Quilichen and seize the outlander! They will put him to the torture, they will tear his knowledge from him!"
"Then we must capture him at once, and not wait upon them!" the duke declared in his dream. "Harm him not!" the face commanded, its voice echoing all about the duke.
The duke quailed within, but hid it well-after all, he knew the trick of the reverberating voice, had used it often enough himself. "I might have let him be, but not after you have come cawing to disturb my slumber. Who are you, anyway?"
But the face was receding, shrinking, too fast to catch even if the duke had had hands in his dream. The mystic voice echoed again, "Harm him not!"
"I shall harm him so that he wishes he'd never been born!" the duke roared. "Tell me your name!"
But the hair and beard swirled up to hide the face, and the wizard shrank to a dot, a point, and disappeared, leaving behind it one last echo: Harm him not!
The duke awoke, trembling, but covering his fear with rage. "Not harm him? I shall harm him most shrewdly, once I catch him-if for no other reason than to make him tell me how he has put this dream into my mind!"
The people of the farms and villages streamed into Quilichen, driving their cattle with them and carting their household goods and food stocks. There was amazingly little confusion.
Dirk stared down from the castle wall at the farmers driving their cattle into hastily built pens in the park at the town's center. "And I thought you folk had just had the good sense to leave a large common for recreation!"
"We could not have justified so much space only for pleasure," Magda said with a smile, holding onto his arm.
"But they're all going right to the pens, then directly to a section of campground, without even asking!"
"They have done this before, haven't they?" Gar asked. "And frequently, too, to judge by the smoothness of it all."
Magda nodded. "At least once every three years, and sometimes more often than that."
Dirk shuddered.
By the end of the second day, the farmers were all inside, setting up housekeeping at their campsites as though they had lived there for years, and the town was rancid with the smell of livestock. The next morning, the besiegers began to appear. By the afternoon of the fourth day, they had surrounded the city in five separate camps, with space for a sixth.
"Three bosses?" Gar asked, looking out at the banners.
Magda nodded. "I see the insignia of the Boss of Loutre; him alone I did not expect. But the other two are my neighbors, the Boss of Knockenburg and the Boss of Scurrilein. I knew they would come to pick the carcass-and be sure none others took the land."
"Which means that if they defeat you, they'll fall to fighting over the spoils," Gar said grimly. "Even so," Magda said. "It will be shrewd fighting indeed, for each has hired,a mercenary company to protect his interests." She pointed. "Behold the banners of the Hawk and the Bear!" Her fingers dug into Dirk's arm. He winced and patted her hand.
"The Hawks were hired by the steward of the Boss of Loutre, and I've no doubt that boss is here on my account," Gar said darkly, "though I would love to know how his steward persuaded him to march against you."
That was code for Gar to be able to tell the results of his mind-spying publicly, and Dirk knew the response. "Make a guess."
"I would conjecture that he has told the boss that I cheated him, and that rather badly," Gar said, "perhaps even that I'm trying to persuade Quilichen to attack, and giving Lady Magda details of Loutre's defenses."
"Sounds probable," Dirk allowed, then stiffened, staring out over the fields. "Who's that coming?"
Drumbeats came faintly as a host of men came marching down the road toward the gap in the enemy lines.
"The missing ally," Gar said.
All four strained to make out the symbol on the company's banner that streamed over the heads of the marching men. Closer t
hey came, closer and closer ...
"The Blue Company!" Cort cried. "My own men to me!" He turned to Magda with a face twisted by anguish. "My lady, I can't fight against my own company!"
"That you cannot," she agreed, troubled. "Would they march on Quilichen if they knew one of their officers had been given sanctuary here?" Gar asked.
Cort stared at him, hope rising, then turned to gaze out at the approaching troops. "Most likely not! But how shall I tell Captain Devers?"
"Call for a parley," Dirk suggested," and let Cort carry the flag of truce."
So Cort rode out with a white flag and an honor guard of a dozen archers, their bows ostentatiously slung across their backs. They rode around the castle to the eastern quadrant where the Blue Company stood. Devers took one look at the blue livery under the pale banner and came riding.
"How did you come here, lieutenant?" he demanded.
Cort gave him the condensed version, and Devers's face swelled darker and darker as he heard how two strangers had fought beside his men, enlisted in the Blue Company, and been chased for days by the Hawks, then taken shelter in Quilichen.
"Sergeant Otto told me some of this when he met me on the road," he told Cort, "but I hadn't known you had taken sanctuary in Quilichen again. There can be no question of our fighting against your hosts. Come back to our camp now."
"By your leave, captain," Cort said, bracing himself, "I'm honorbound to help defend the city that has saved me."
"Of course you are, and so am I! The company shall march to resign the contract with the Boss of Knockenburg, and pay back the moneys he has advanced us-but bid your folk be ready to open their gates, for we may have to fight our way to you, and be in need of shelter quickly!"
"Captain, I thank you with all my heart," Cort said fervently.
Devers shrugged impatiently. "The soldier is loyal to the company, and the company is loyal to the soldier. No mercenary band can hold together otherwise. Go ask your hosts for hospitality for more guests."
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