by David Drake
Ilna looked down at the answer her fingers had drawn in cords. The knotted pattern didn't tell her that something was wrong—she already knew this world was wrong—but it told her where.
Ilna rose with her usual sudden grace and started toward the other side of the Mound. From where she'd sat on the barren rock, she could see only the distant slopes of the valley which the basalt divided. Across the plug she'd be able to view the whole of it.
ILNA OS-KENSET! thundered the mental voice of her black-and-silver guide. DO NOT GO THAT WAY! IT WILL BE FATAL FOR YOU IF YOU LOOK INTO THAT VALLEY!
Ilna strode on, tight-faced. Her fingers were unpicking the knots that had led her to do this. She might—she would—need the cords for other purposes shortly.
SHE MUST NOT LOOK! sang the chorus of thousands. IF SHE LOOKS, WE MUST ACT!
Ilna reached the edge of the plug and looked over. The basalt formed an equally sheer wall on this side.
The floor of the valley below seethed with giant spiders. These had left their webs to crawl into a ring surrounding two sheep and an aged man holding a crooked staff. The sheep blatted and bucked, kicking their forehooves into the air. They turned and turned again, looking for a way out. There was no way out.
The man fell to his knees and prayed to the Shepherd; fragments of his words, shouted in a cracked voice, reached Ilna on the Mound above. There was no way out for him either.
SHE HAS SEEN! cried the chorus. WE MUST SLAY HER BEFORE SHE ESCAPES!
The spiders had a facility with patterns second only to the skills Ilna had learned in Hell. Even here at the point of weakness beneath the Mound they couldn't open the barrier some ancient wizard had set around them, but they could almost breach it. The combined strength of hundreds of spiders could loosen the mesh of wizardry enough that occasionally they could draw a victim into their world. Then—
The spiders rushed awkwardly forward. Their great legs weren't made for walking on the ground, so the creatures jerked and stumbled as they jostled one another. They were mad with the need for blood. The few victims cowering below weren't enough to slake the thirst of one of the giants, let alone all of them.
Ilna looked up at the barrier where the sky should be, then again into the valley. She couldn't see the sheep in the maelstrom of fat bodies and long, hairy legs, but two of the largest spiders had risen belly to belly onto their hind legs, struggling for the shepherd's corpse. The frail old body was already flaccid, but the spiders' mandibles chewed on what remained to crush out the last juices.
KILL HER! ordered the black-and-silver monster. SUCK HER BODY DRY!
Spiders who'd missed a share of the three victims below were already climbing the valley sides to reach Ilna on the rock above them. If she went back to where the guide had first displayed the weakness in the barrier, she would see a similar flood of living feculence crawling toward her: huge, colorful bellies dragging, legs like jointed trees feeling their way across the ground.
There was no escape in this world from the spiders' rending, dripping fangs. So—
Ilna seated herself and began to knot her pattern. It was complex, and she doubted whether she'd have time to complete it, but certainty on that point could wait on the event.
SUCK ILNA'S BODY DRY! shouted the chorus of minds maddened with bloodlust.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sharina was glad they were going to walk, not ride, to the parley with Count Lerdoc. Though... She smiled at herself. She wasn't a good rider, so the struggle to control her horse would've been something near and common to worry about instead of the formless fears now dancing about her like flies over a sheepfold.
“Your highness...” said Attaper. The commander of the Blood Eagles spoke facing Carus with his back to the Blaise army half a mile distant. “I won't let you do this! I must come with you—at least me if not the whole regiment.”
A moment before, Carus had joked with Sharina about whether the Pewle knife would pass unremarked if she wore it in place of one of the pins in her formal coiffeur. With a harshness that didn't seem to come from the same mouth, the king snarled, “Lord Attaper, you're a good man; but if you insist on risking the safety of the kingdom so everything fits your sense of propriety, I'll cut you down where you stand.”
“This isn't propriety!” Attaper said. “This is safety, pure and—”
“Milord, I warned—” shouted Carus as he reached for his sword hilt.
The blade came up a finger's breadth from the sheath before Sharina grabbed the king's wrist with both hands. She threw her full weight on Carus' sword arm as though she were working a stiff pump lever. The king's great strength still lifted the sword a hair farther before he relaxed and shot the blade home again.
Lord Lerdain stared as if they'd all gone mad. Sharina suppressed an urge to giggle hysterically. They probably were mad to attempt this plan, but what was that balanced against the only chance to save the Isles from chaos?
“Sorry,” Carus muttered. He grinned wryly. “I've been saying that a lot. Well, maybe if I'd said it more the first time around, we wouldn't all be where we are now.”
“Lord Attaper,” Sharina said, stepping back from the man in her brother's body. “Nobody doubts that you're willing to die for your king. Please don't insist on dying this way, though. Because you will, you know.”
Attaper swallowed hard. His left hand gripped his right with a fierceness that would've broken the bones of a lesser man. “Your highness,” he said in a husky whisper. “I was out of line. Forgive me. And may the Lady go with you to this parley, since I cannot.”
Carus stepped forward and embraced the chief of his bodyguard. “I'd be honored to have you close my side in any battle, Lord Attaper,” he said. “But today I'm making sure there won't be a battle.”
He looked at Sharina, then to Lord Lerdain. “Ready to meet your father, boy?” he said.
“Yes sir,” Lerdain said. His voice broke; he paused and cleared his throat.
Lerdain wore borrowed clothing, good-quality tunics and a short red cape of fine wool—the latter an officer's garment much fancier than what he'd had when they'd spirited him out of the Blaise camp. His calf-length boots were tooled leather, and the helmet Carus had fitted him with had wings and thunderbolts cast into the bronze. Only the lack of a sword belt distinguished the youth from any young officer in the royal army.
“Let's go, then,” the king said. He waved toward the Blaise lines, then stepped forward.
Both armies were drawn up in full array. The Blaise line was longer than that of the royal forces, but it looked like an armed mob compared to the saw-edged weight of the royal ranks.
A cornet blatted an order from the royal line. Sharina and the boy both looked over their shoulders. The phalanx was shifting, each rank advancing while the previous front line countermarched to the rear of the sixteen-command-deep mass. Their pikes waved overhead like a giant grain-field through which serpents slid.
“Just a demonstration,” Carus said quietly. “It doesn't mean anything—except it shows they can do it. Will your father understand what that means, boy?”
“Yes sir,” said Lerdain. “My father is a soldier, sir.”
They'd given Lerdain a tour of the royal army during the morning hours, while messengers rode back and forth between the camps to arrange the parley. The boy had been numb with confusion at first, but interest and a genuine aptitude soon brought him around.
“Aye, I'd heard that,” Carus said. His voice had a touch of a lilt again, a sign of excitement that made him seem cheerful. “Counted on that, counted on him knowing what a battle would mean... .”
He caressed his sword pommel in an eagerness that no one could mistake. Sharina touched her fingertips to the back of the king's hand. “Aye, girl,” he said. “I remember.”
The ability of the phalanx to march and countermarch in close order meant they had discipline beyond the conception of any troops in the Isles for the past thousand years. Discipline on the parade ground di
dn't win battles. Five thousand men with the discipline to advance behind eighteen-foot pikes; filling in the places of the men who died in the rank ahead, never slowing, never flinching—that won battles.
The only question was whether Lerdoc realized, as his son and Sharina did, that Carus hadn't created an army for the parade ground. If the count misjudged what he saw, he'd learn the truth at pike point; but the Isles wouldn't long survive him.
Two men had set out from the center of the Blaise line. The count, his armor gilded but still functional, was the older template of this boy. His belly sagged beneath his cuirass, and his face was already ruddy with the exercise of walking into the center of no-man's-land, but his left hand kept his scabbard from swinging with an experienced grip.
The man with him was a near giant—seven feet tall and solidly built. He carried a round, ironbound shield broad enough to protect two—as it was meant to do. Bare in his right fist was a sword with a long, hooked blade. The weapon was heavy enough that most men would have gripped it with both hands.
“Lady Sharina?” Lerdain said, leaning forward past Carus so he could meet her eyes. “Why are you coming with us? Instead of your brother's bodyguard, I mean?”
“He doesn't need a bodyguard, milord,” Sharina said.
Carus laughed cheerfully. “What I need, lad,” he said, "is somebody to jump on me when I start to act like a hotheaded fool. I trust Attaper to do many things for me; but not that one, not as quickly as the lady will.”
He laughed again. “I've only once been in a place my sword couldn't cut me out of,” he continued. “But a lot of those places, it was my sword that put me there to begin with.”
They were within easy shout of the count and his bodyguard. The guard stepped in front of Lerdoc and called, “You said bring one attendant, but you've brought two!”
He held his great shield out, sheltering the count and not-coincidentally preventing his advance. Lerdoc's guards aren't any happier about this than the Blood Eagles are, Sharina thought.
“Father!” Lerdain said.
With a snarl of anger, Count Lerdoc shoved the shield aside and stumped forward. He was alone for an instant before the guard got his balance and sprinted to catch up. The guard's face was twisted into a silent curse.
Carus, his right hand on the boy's shoulder and Sharina keeping pace to his left, met the count in the middle of the two armies. Carus gave Lerdain a pat, and said, “Go convince your father that you're all right.”
The count clasped arms with his son, then stepped aside and glared at Carus. “You don't have any cavalry,” he said. His voice was high-pitched with anger, almost like iron squealing. “What if I order my squadrons down on you?”
Carus shrugged. “I'm here to talk, not fight,” he said, "just as I told you when we arranged this. If I have to, I can take care of myself and my sister until the skirmishers get within javelin range of your horsemen. Though that won't matter to you, of course.”
Lerdoc snorted. “I gave my word,” he said, as though that were the last thing to be said on the subject; as perhaps it was. “All right, you want to talk: talk, then!”
Sharina smiled at the huge Blaise armsman who stood beside the count with a furious expression. She hoped both to calm him and to convince him that she was a harmless girl and, therefore, to be disregarded.
Sharina wore the sheathed Pewle knife in the middle of her back, concealed beneath her cloak. If the worst happened, though, she wouldn't draw it: she'd simply grab the guard's sword wrist and hold on like grim death for the instant before the king stabbed through his visor slot.
But nothing like that would happen... .
“While Valence my father lives—” Carus said.
“Father by adoption!” Lerdoc said. “You're nothing but a peasant from Haft!”
“While Valence lives...” the king continued pleasantly, “he's the King of the Isles. And when he dies, if the Lady has preserved me, I am King of the Isles. You needn't believe I trace my lineage from the rulers of the Old Kingdom, milord, though that's quite true. You must believe in my sword and the army I've forged to stretch my sword's reach.”
“My men are veterans,” Lerdoc snarled. “I'll crush you into the mud unless you surrender now. That's the only thing we have to discuss!”
Still quiet but now with an edge in his voice, Carus said, “There's no one who can overhear us, so let's drop the bluster. It wastes time, and we're short of that. Do you know the wizards who're using you for a pawn? Do you know what Moon Wisdom really is?”
Lerdoc looked uncomfortable. He turned his head to the side as if gazing out to sea, and said, “I'm allied to the Confederacy of the West. If some of my allies have wizards working for them, that's their business.”
“You're a pawn,” Carus said forcefully. “The worst thing that could happen to you is that you win the battle you came to fight, because then you'd be wearing the yoke of something that isn't human. But you needn't worry about that, because you know full well that my pikemen would carve the heart out of any line you formed against them... .”
The king threw his head back and laughed, startling Count Lerdoc and his guard. The boy watched with a look of puzzlement mixed with awe.
“Besides,” Carus went on cheerfully, “we're not going to fight, you and I.”
“What's your proposal, then,” the count said. “Because if you expect me to surrender—”
“Surrender what?” Carus said. “You're the Count of Blaise, my ally and a bulwark of the kingdom against these rebel wizards. We march on Donelle together and call the city to surrender. The mercenaries inside'll open the gates as soon as they hear there'll be amnesty for everybody but the ones who call themselves Children of the Mistress.”
His face was suddenly iron. He said, “Those will hang, every one of them.”
“What do I get out of this?” the count said. Lerdain's eyes flicked from his to Carus and back again, as though he were watching a game of handball.
“Your life, as a start,” the king said softly. “The only thing that has less chance of survival than your army if you face mine is your merchantmen if you try to flee by sea from my warships.”
He grinned. “And I'll give you another thing,” he said. “I'll make your son my aide.”
“What?” said Lerdoc, setting his hand to his sword. His bodyguard lifted his shield so that he could swing it in front of his employer at need. “Take my boy hostage, you mean?”
“Of course he'll be a hostage!” Carus snapped. “But he'll be at my side during every council and meeting of the army command. He'll have a real office, real honor, and if he's as sharp as I think he is, he'll learn real soldiering!”
“You're a boy yourself!” Lerdoc said. “What can you teach Lerdain that I haven't known for thirty years?”
For a moment Sharina thought she'd have to grab Carus again. She couldn't always predict what would ignite the king's volcanic temper, but she'd learned to read the taut-ness in the face muscles that momentarily preceded the sweep of hand to sword hilt.
Carus caught himself this time. He grinned and in a gentle, rasping voice said, “Let's say that I've been well advised, then, milord.”
“Father?” said Lerdain. “The phalanx is—”
“Shut up, boy!” his father said.
“Silence, boy!” Carus said in the same breath.
The two grim leaders faced one another without speaking for a moment. Neither had looked away from the other when they dealt with the interruption.
“Milord,” the king said quietly, “you don't need to tell me how dangerous a Blaise armsman is if he gets to close quarters. There's nobody I'd rather have at my back when I went over a city wall or fought through the streets beyond. But your troops won't get closer than pike length to the phalanx, and you know it.”
“Pikemen are clumsy,” Lerdoc said, but he was arguing for time while his mind weighed the options the king had offered. He looked over his shoulder, reassessing his own troops. “
Besides, they've got flanks.”
“Which my heavy infantry will hold against anything you throw against them,” Carus said, forcefully but not shouting, “for longer than it takes for the phalanx to gut your army and then roll up your line from the middle. And as for clumsy, take a good look at what they're doing now.”
“Milord,” Sharina said. She thought the two men might shout at her as they'd done the boy, but her they wouldn't silence. She was Princess Sharina of Haft, and she had a right to speak. “We came into your camp and brought out your son—”
She nodded to Lerdain, hugging himself with frustration and embarrassment. A girl waiting tables in a country inn gets used to being bellowed at; the son and heir to a powerful throne does not.
“—to talk peace with you. If we'd wanted simply to end your part in the war, we wouldn't have gone to the boy's tent.”
“It was the two of them, father!” Lerdain burst out. “The prince and princess themselves!”
“You did that?” Lerdoc said to Carus. “And you, girl?”
Sharina nodded. She and the king didn't speak.
“Maybe you've got something to teach me after all,” the count said. He sighed and seemed to deflate slightly, like a hog's bladder taken outside in winter. “May the Lady help me, I knew I shouldn't get mixed up with wizards.”
Carus clasped arms with the older man. “Let's go to Donelle and cure the mistake,” the king said. “And if they don't open the gates for us willingly, we'll see how well Blaise armsmen follow their king into the city the hard way, eh?”
“And follow your aide, your highness!” cried Lord Lerdain.
Both the count and his bodyguard gave the boy stricken looks. Carus merely said, “There'll be a time for that, lad. But not, I think, today.”
His lifted his face to the sky and boomed his mighty laughter as the armies looked on in wonder.
The sun glinted down into Cashel's eyes. He slitted them, but he didn't want to look away from Tilphosa and Metra even though he couldn't help matters while bound. He wriggled, wishing that he hadn't taken care that his knife fit tightly in its sheath. If he could shake the blade loose, then roll over to pick it up with the hands tied behind his back—