by Roland Green
"Riders on the yellow trail," the kender said. "That's from the yellow clay. Really, the fallen needles hide the yellow most of the time, but the name hasn't changed since my great-grandfather's time."
"Where is it?" Bertsa Wylum asked. Gerik was about to warn her not to be so impatient with a kender in a mood to chatter, when the kender knelt and began to draw a map in the dust.
Gerik and Wylum together were able to make sense of the map, and that sense was bad news. Some of the sell-swords might have deserted House Dirivan's service. Some might have died or stopped to loot and burn. But some eighty-odd were coming on swiftly, clearly trying to find a place where they could strike across every path that those retreating from Tirabot might take.
Bad news, but not the worst. The enemy was starting in the south, so that Gerik's armed band was between them and most of the refugees. The southernmost ones had departed the earliest, were the farthest along, and had the best chance of hiding in the forests even without the help of the kender.
Also, a small band with good archers had several natural ambush sites against a larger force coming up from the south. To Gerik, the best seemed where the trail came up from Forge Vale, said to have once been home to a dwarven band working bog iron.
"Of course, that must have been in the time of Vinas Solamnus," Gerik added. "But then, the tales run that most of this land was bog then, so perhaps there's truth in it."
More important was there being truth in the kender's tale. Gerik would be risking not only his life and that of nearly thirty of his best fighters, but the last sure shield for Tirabot's people. Hiding in the forest was more likely to mean starvation than safety, and even kender might betray hiding places or cease to give help if enough of their homes were burned and enough of their kin slaughtered.
House Dirivan had gone too far to draw back, so the only target Gerik had now was the fighting spirit of their men. Kill enough of those, and the spirit might break, ending the pursuit.
He had begun with law and hoped to stay with it. Now it would end with killing. He said as much to Bertsa Wylum.
"I've never yet seen a sheet of parchment that could turn a sword cut," she said. Then she slapped his armored shoulder. "But I've never yet seen anyone get through a sword blade to tear the scroll of laws behind it, either."
Chapter 21
The gods (at least those named by men as True Gods) contemplated the battle unfolding on Suivinari Island.
Having held the balance, they had done all that was permitted them. Victory or defeat, life or death, now lay in the hands of those on the island.
Wilthur the Brown was far too busy to contemplate anything. Having gathered in vitality from so many of the dead, he could now choose whether to send it to his Creation, his defenses, or himself.
Taking it into himself would aid only his flight, and he sensed that his flight beyond the island would not be unopposed.
He had no further communication with the Creation. A pity it was so self-willed, but to live in the sea he had deemed that degree of intelligence necessary. Now, however, it was shutting him out, from pride at fighting its own battle against a foe ready to hand.
He trusted it would succeed. Strengthened as he could have made it, its victory would be certain. Now, the only certainty was delaying his enemies, perhaps at a great price. Of course, if the Creation gained victory by its own strength, it might be a menace to him until he brought it under control, or the gods dealt with it for their own purposes and in their own good time. Perhaps delay was enough.
Certainly it had its uses. Given time, he could pour the vitality into the other defenses. He had too few for comfort, but they should not be too few to halt his enemies.
Messages poured over Pirvan like a tropical downpour.
Tarothin was dead. This was no surprise. Grief, yes, but not a surprise.
The last of the birds were gone. So were the last of the snakes.
All minotaurs and humans who had intended to land had either landed or died trying.
The Smoker was emitting steam from both old and new vents.
The mouth of the cave where Darin's party had entered the Smoker had collapsed. Pirvan could barely keep a sober countenance at this. He swore the messenger to silence.
The minotaurs had found a cave in the flank of the Smoker, perhaps the opening to an underground passage into the bowels of the mountains. They were continuing their advance on the surface, but Zeskuk and Lujimar had led a strong party of warriors underground.
A minotaur brought this last message, going first to Fulvura. She ordered him to Pirvan, with a peremptory gesture that was nearly a blow. The messenger bridled; all six of Fulvura's companions glared at him; the messenger obeyed. No need to fear anything from Fulvura, Pirvan decided. But what were Zeskuk and Lujimar doing, plunging down into darkness that might already have swallowed up Darin, Torvik, and their company?
"If we follow them, at least we'll all be buried in the same grave," he muttered.
An eloquent look from Haimya told him that he had spoken nearly loud enough to be heard by others besides herself. Pirvan shook his head, which did not help. He drank from his water bottle, which was empty when he put it down, but that did help. With his head clearing and his throat capable of speech, he called to all within hearing.
"The minotaurs say they have a way into the mountain. Let us be quick to join them."
"Not so quick that we fall over from the heat," someone shouted.
"Quick enough that we can help them if they need it," shouted another with a Karthayan accent.
Pirvan and Haimya exchanged glances. Both seemed to wonder alike: would helping the minotaurs honor or shame them?
It hardly mattered. It would be madness to turn back from victory now. Also, minotaurs were always proud, much less often foolish.
Pirvan pushed his way through the crowd, toward Fulvura, to ask her counsel. It seemed as if the ground had sprouted messengers, so many that if all had been armed they could have fought for a none-too-small barony. Or, under his son's banner, driven House Dirivan back to the stews from which it should never have been allowed to rise. Gerik's last letter had not inspired confidence in Pirvan.
Pirvan never caught up with Fulvura. She bellowed a war cry, her standard-bearer strode to the front of the minotaur wedge, and the seven were off. The human advance was, briefly, a scramble to keep up with Zeskuk's sister and her warriors.
Sir Darin heaved at a rock that not even he could hope to move alone. Sweat streamed off him, and rough stone scraped his hands raw until others came to help him. Even then, they were all panting as if they'd run a race for life, before the stone moved. They were making a new passage. They would make it, however the battle above ended. But they might not make the new passage in time to do more than avenge their comrades.
Darin realized that they should have held back a few of the smaller fighters to act as messengers. He turned to Rynthala and said, "Find the smallest of those we have left. Tell them to crawl into the upper passage as far as they can. We need to relay messages, to and fro."
Rynthala nodded and strode off. From above a chorus of shouts warred with a heavy splashing. The Creation seemed to have no voice, but Darin could feel the shaking of the rock as it flung itself against the shore of the lake, seeking prey.
A rumble from above turned into a shriek of rock against rock. Then came a shriek of human agony. A man-sized boulder bounced down the barrier, clattering and crashing, trailing dust and rock chips. Behind it rolled a Karthayan fighter, his face a mask of dust and blood and one leg a crushed horror.
The man landed almost at Darin's feet, in a small puddle of water. Darin had not noticed the puddle before, nor the trickle from the rocks that fed it. He wished the lake wouldn't waste its time trickling through the lower passage. If it could just wash out the upper one—
But no. That passage was solid rock. If muscle or water or both together could do anything in time, it would be down here.
"He
alers!" Darin shouted. The cave gave back echoes, twice-and thrice-distorted.
Then someone screamed from above. The Creation had found a victim. Darin scrambled back onto the rocks of the barrier. They moved under his weight, as they had not before. He rejoiced, even though they might tumble away under him, and send him to the fate of the fallen man.
Then the rocks moved again, and this time he knew it was the ground moving under them, not his weight atop them. He leaped back onto solid ground, as another scream tore from the throat of someone dying under the Creation's claws and tentacles.
On the back of his neck, Darin felt a brief puff of hot air.
The Creation had taken three fighters from Torvik's band in its first rush. The rest had given ground, and by Habbakuk's favor there was ground to give. The beach of sand, gravel, and boulders at the end of the lake was wide enough that those to the rear were out of the Creation's reach.
It could not crawl onto the land, either. It weighed as much as a whale, and its lobsterlike legs had not grown in proportion to the rest of it. But it had a whale's shrewdness, too—or perhaps more, the wits of an ape or a water naga.
It swam back and forth along the beach, as far to either side and as close inshore as the depth of the water would allow. There were places where deep water lay close by, and those places the fighters quickly learned to avoid. Twice a tentacle uncoiled from the water, snatched a fighter off his feet, and pulled him screaming down to the waiting claws.
Other times, bold fighters drew close to the water, trying to plant spears or arrows into vital spots. If the Creation had any. Even if it did, the odds against striking one were heavy, as long as it faced its foes.
Torvik saw feather-fringed breathing holes and a softer underbelly to either flank. But those flanks were seldom exposed, and then only to desperate fighters who either shot or threw at random and missed, or waited for an aimed shot and too often died screaming. Sometimes the Creation did not even bother to use its claws, but crushed its victims in pulp with the sheer strength of its tentacles, or flayed them alive with the hooks that sprouted around the suckers on some of its arms.
"Did Wilthur use only lesser krakens and lobsters to make this, or more?" Chuina asked. She had closed with the Creation three times, to shoot two arrows each time. She was still alive, but the Creation was likewise unhurt.
"There is all of nature and none of it in that monster," Torvik said. "But it is flesh and blood, however much Wilthur shaped them with magic. Flesh and blood can die."
Chuina did not say that many men and women might die first. Instead, she ran in for her fourth try at the Creation, going so far that spray rose around her bare feet as she reached the water before shooting.
She struck one of the breathing holes fair and hard, and the Creation shuddered. But she did not slow it, and a lashing tentacle knocked her down. Another wound around her ankle, while one claw reached out—
Torvik ran in, so blind to everything but saving Chuina that he hardly noticed the dozen fighters running with him. He ran far enough into the water to hack at the tentacle holding Chuina's leg and laid open blackish gray flesh.
The Creation shuddered. It still did not find a voice, but Chuina screamed for all, as half a dozen pairs of strong arms snatched her from the loosening grip of the tentacle. She struggled free as her rescuers reached the shore, to stand with one leg of her pants ripped free and ugly, free-bleeding cuts on both her legs and the top of her foot.
"A good thing there are no sharks in the lake," she said, as Torvik stormed out of the water to see how she was.
"No, this madman's Creation is fierce enough by nature, without any scent of blood," Kuyomolan snapped. "We must turn it, so we can take it in the flank."
"It will not turn to take someone from the land," Chuina said. "At least not enough."
"Then perhaps it will turn to follow someone in the water," the Dimernesti said, more quietly than Torvik had ever heard him speak. "I did not come this far to return knowing that the journey was in vain, and that I left companions whom I might have helped."
Kuyomolan ran down the beach, to a point above one of the deep holes. He soared like a bird as he dived, but made less noise than a diving kingfisher as he broke the surface.
"Quickly!" Chuina shouted. "Archers, spearmen! Make ready! He's going to try to turn the beast and give us a flank shot! Hurry!"
Everyone who still had spears or arrows rushed for the beach, briefly careless of the tentacles and claws. Even Chuina took a few halting steps, before the pain in her blood-slimed leg halted her.
Torvik knelt beside her, tearing off his shirt and ripping it into bandages. "Now be easy, until the bleeding stops!" he said, as he wound the bandages around Chuina's leg. "You may dance again, but not if you try to fight again today."
"Oh, and what will you do if I do not obey?" Chuina said. She was doing her best imitation of a silly schoolgirl.
"I shall tell Mother," Torvik replied, doing his best imitation of the schoolgirl's pompous older brother.
It was only when they had finished laughing that they realized that both Kuyomolan and the Creation had vanished. Ripples and eddies told of something large moving below the surface, but where and in what direction, no one could tell.
The archers and spearmen, ready to strike, looked something between angry and bemused. Some of them cast dubious looks at the dark water, knowing too well how suddenly it might erupt in deadly tentacles.
Then the water roiled, foamed, and erupted. A wave as high as a man's waist rolled up onto the beach. A dozen fighters went down, some of them to be swept into the water by the backwash. They thrashed frantically, forgetting weapons, as did those who rushed to help them.
Then everyone leaped or struggled backward, as the Creation rose from the water. In one tentacle it held Kuyomolan, but not fatally tight. He had his spear in both hands, and was jabbing at the convoluted segments of the carapace covering the head, and the fringe of waving antennae all around it.
The tentacle tightened its grip. Torvik saw blood start from the Dimernesti's leg. He also saw Kuyomolan draw back both arms and fling the spear down into the Creation's head with all his remaining strength.
Tentacles lashed in frenzy. Two more wrapped themselves around Kuyomolan, and the cave echoed to his last scream as he was torn literally limb from limb.
But something oozed from the Creation's skull, and its movements seemed less certain. Kuyomolan had hurt it. The archers could hurt it more.
Chuina limped toward the water, unslinging her bow as she ran. Only her brother recognized how much pain she was keeping from showing in her face, as she shouted, "We have it! Finish it now! Shoot, shoot, shoot!"
Then earth and water seemed to speak for the Creation, as rock crumbled, sand and gravel flew, and the waters of the lake tore downward through the blocked passage.
Darin saw workers crushed by rocks, swept away by the rushing water, or dashed to bloody pieces in falls. He saw boulders and rushing water vanish behind a cloud of spray and dust, and waited for something to swallow him or crush him as well.
The gods worked here. Mere flesh-and-blood strength could not serve.
Still, he snatched at limbs when they flailed past, and heaved rocks aside or off the fallen, even if the fallen would never rise again. He stood waist-deep in the torrent like a rock himself, with desperate swimmers clutching at his clothes, and altogether behaved as if he could single-handedly turn aside disaster.
Darin had his reward, when the spray and dust subsided. The lake was draining through a passage in which lower and upper no longer had meaning. A small ship with its mast stepped might have sailed through the gap, although it would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
Of the fighters at his back when the lake declared war, Darin counted all but twenty or so still on their feet. And to either side of the torrent was a broad stretch of tumbled rock, slick and dark with spray, probably none too secure as footing, but with room for the whole ban
d to climb up and join the fight.
Darin was the first to move, but Rynthala was not far behind. The rest of the band chased their leaders all the way up the rockfall, at a pace that brought more than a few of them down with sprained or broken limbs. But they were not far behind their chiefs in scrambling up onto what was left of the beach, and seeing what had become of the Creation.
It lay with its left side toward the beach, its legs thrashing the water into still more foam. Its claws clacked and rattled aimlessly, but the tentacles still lashed out menacingly. Archers shot steadily into the breathing holes and at the skull, but the monstrous vitally diminished only slowly.
Rynthala had climbed with her bow slung, but had it ready with an arrow nocked when she struck the beach. Running along the hard-packed sand to just beyond reach of the tentacles, she crouched as the last few arrows from Chuina's archers flew overhead.
Then she rose and began shooting with the deadly precision of a blacksmith hammering a pattern into the blade of a sword. Five times her arrows vanished into the breathing holes. Each time the lashing of tentacles grew perceptibly less frenzied.
Darin realized that archery could kill slowly, but that they needed a swifter kill, or the Creation might yet take more victims. He would have given much for a minotaur battle-axe, but before him stood a man who'd climbed up still holding the pry bar he'd used on the rocks.
"Excuse me," Darin said, reaching. With the bar in both hands, he ran into the water, testing the bar's balance as he went. It was clumsy but it had weight and a sharp end, much more important now.
Even Darin was not so foolhardy as to climb on the carapace, to fall off where tentacles, legs, or claws could still do fatal damage. He waded out until any man much shorter than he would have been swimming, then dived.