As the torchbearer cleared the far edge of the portcullis, the light fell on a steep, narrow flight of stairs, thick with dust. DeCade grinned down at Dirk. "Only a long climb now, friend Dulain, and we will have come to the place we seek." Then he frowned, his head snapped up, as though he had heard something.
Dirk had felt it, too-that sudden inner certainty that now was the time.
"We are laggard," DeCade said grimly. "They are storming the walls. Come."
He turned and strode away up the stairs.
The young Lord on sentry duty at the northeast point of the wall leaned on the battlement, staring down at the wide talus slope below him, newly sprinkled with lime, white even in the starlight. He smiled at the sight, nodding with satisfaction; not a single churl could creep across that expanse of whiteness without being as clear as a hot woman's hunger. The rabble had pushed their rightful lords back into Albemarle, but now the pushing was done; the Lords were here in the King's castle, and here they would stay while Core and the King summoned an army from across the galaxy-there were always mercenaries for hire, and any aristocracy was a good credit risk. A fleet of ships would be on its way before morning; and the Lords could stay, safe and snug, in this castle, until the great ships came thundering down. There was plenty of food, and Albemarle had never been taken.
The young Lord failed to remember that Albemarle had never been attacked.
Below him, in the fringe of forest across the white talus slope, churls cherished new laser pistols given to them by sky-men. Directly below the young Lord, a sky-man lay prone, cradling a sniper's laser rifle to his shoulder, centering infrared scope sights on the sentry. Next to him knelt an outlaw, his hand on the sky-man's shoulder, waiting.
On the wall above, eight sentries watched, hawk-eyed and nervous, alert for the slightest sign of attack, wishing their watches were over.
Below each of them lay a sky-man with a rifle, and a churl with his hand on the sky-man's shoulder-almost immobile, scarcely breathingwaiting.
Then somehow, each churl felt it within himnow was the time.
Eight hands tightened on shoulders.
Eight beams of ruby light lanced out at the same moment; eight sentries fell, with holes burned in their chests. One screamed and another managed a rattling bark; then all was still. Each lordling lay next to the huge laser cannon that had been his charge.
On the white talus slope, eight groups of outlaws appeared, running toward the wall with long ladders, grappling hooks, and cables. The butts of the ladders grounded just outside the moat; their tops swung up, over, and thudded home high on the castle walls. Outlaws scrambled up the ladders. They stopped at the topmost rungs, slipped the grappling hooks from their shoulders, swung them seven times about their heads, and let fly. Eight irons arced up through the night, over the wall and down, to clatter on stone. Below, on the ground, other churls caught the trailing ropes and pulled. The grappling irons clattered along the stone and caught in crevices. More churls threw their weight on the ropes, and steel points bit deep into stone.
Above on the ladder, the climbers caught the ropes again, pulled on them, rested their weight on them, then swung out, and set their feet against the walls, and started walking upward. A few minutes later, they hauled themselves over the top and onto the battlements. They pulled themselves to their feet, pulling out hammers and ringbolts, and turned to drive the ringbolts deep into the granite. Then they loosened the grappling irons and pulled up the ropes. At their ends came rope ladders. They made the ladders fast to the ringbolts, then leaned over the outer wall, waving down. A few minutes later, sky-men clambered up and over the walls, dropped to their knees next to the laser cannons, pulled out small tool kits, and got busy taking out a few vital parts. The climbers hadn't waited; they were already down in the courtyard, running, converging on the main gate. As they ran, they unlimbered truncheons and drew laser pistols.
The Lord of the Watch sat at a table with three other Lords, playing cards by the light of an oil lamp. Its light flickered on the great windlass that operated the drawbridge, but didn't quite penetrate to the door and corners. Three outlaws eased silently through the door.
One of the Lords threw down his cards in disgust and leaned back in his chair, looking up. His eyes widened and his mouth opened to shout.
The outlaws sprang, and five more leaped in behind them.
One Lord went down as a club caught him behind the ear. The other three stared, then leaped to their feet, shouting and yanking at their swords. One went down with a bad dent in his skull; a truncheon stabbed into another's solar plexus. The last screamed as a club broke his wrist; then another caught him at the base of the skull, and his scream cut off, his eyes rolling up as his knees collapsed and he folded to the floor.
The outlaws stood panting a moment, staring down at their erstwhile masters, not quite believing. Then four of them whipped ropes and gags from their belts and knelt to get busy wrapping the Lords for storage. The other four turned to the great windlass.
Outside, an army of churls streamed up across the white talus slope with Hugh at their head. The great drawbridge groaned, then swung slowly down with a rattling of chains. It thudded home on the bank, and the portcullis creaked up as a vanguard of a thousand churls came charging across the bridge, their eyes burning with silent triumph. They burst into the courtyard. Behind them, thousands more swelled up out of the woods in an orderly, quick-moving column.
The brazen bellow of a gong split the night, rolling out from the great central keep.
Hugh cursed under his breath; some lordling had looked out a window, and seen what was happening in the courtyard, and raised the alarm. It wouldn't be quite a clean sweep, after all.
But close enough ...
He charged the great door of the keep, leveling his laser to burn out the lock; but the door boomed open, and a double column of Lords charged out, formed into a skirmish line, and opened fire as other Lords came running out onto the battlements from upper doors. Hugh and his men threw themselves flat and dived for cover behind carts, water troughs, anything, as the sky-men on the battlements opened fire on the Lords up above, and a thousand churls came vaulting up stone steps to join them. Laser beams embroidered the night with bright geometric patterns. Churls and Lords screamed and died, but others leaped to fill their places. The churls pressed forward foot by foot; but a thousand Lords were now spread out by the base of the Keep, and half again that number warred on the battlements. More pressed behind them.
Then a score of churls together blasted ten Lords out of the line and charged up to three feet of them before other Lords could replace them. The replacements came out firing, but wildly; ten churls survived to burn into the center of the packed mass of Lords, and a hundred followed them. The Lords turned on the invaders, but realized that a laser was as apt to burn a fellow Lord as a churl. They threw their pistols down with curses and whipped out their swords.
The churls met them with long knives.
In a few minutes, a knot of chaos had formed in front of the keep door as Lords paired off with churls in hand-to-hand combat. Other Lords charged in to help their fellows, and hundreds of churls ducked laser fire to plunge in to have a personal chance at a Lord. The whole courtyard became one huge melee, Lords bellowing and howling as they fought silent, flint-eyed churls. And still the Lords poured out from the keep, and still more churls poured in through the gate.
CHAPTER 14
An outlaw threw his weight on a lever and, slowly, the oak door at the top of the stairs groaned open. DeCade leaped forward, ducking and whirling out into an opulent bedchamber, staff lashing out in case of ambush. But the chamber was empty. He straightened slowly, looking about him, too, curious to see how the top percent of the other half lived. The carpet on the floor felt like a lush lawn beneath his feet. The walls were hung with rich, brightly worked tapestries, and the chairs, dressers, and tables were beautifully carved of a dark, rich wood. A huge canopied bed stood in the center of
the room, hung with burgundy velvet curtains-drawn tightly, now.
DeCade stepped toward it, motioning them to follow. He eased up to the side of the bed, Dirk beside him. Half of the outlaws oozed over to the curtains on the far side.
DeCade reached out a huge hand and yanked the curtains open.
A fat, bearded young man started up out of a sound sleep, staring about him wildly. He took one look at DeCade, gave a shriek of terror, and burrowed back into the bedclothes, plastering himself against the headboard, trembling- and staring at them with wide, dull eyes. His nightshirt was silk, heavily embroidered-and stained with food. There was a golden coronet on his head.
DeCade's mouth drew up in contempt. "Is this a King?"
The hair was long, black, and straggling; the beard was sparse and scrubby. The creature pressed back against the headboard, mewling in terror, clawing at the bedclothes.
DeCade doffed his cap in sarcastic respect. "Well met, your Majesty ... Have you nothing to say?"
"You know he doesn't," Dirk said gently. "Look at his eyes."
The eyes were huge, wide, dull-and empty. Spittle glistened on the thick lips and dripped down into the beard.
DeCade nodded, with heavy irony. "Yes, I know. The churls are not alone in inbreeding." "He is always spoken of but never seen," Dirk said slowly.
"Small wonder. Would you display an idiot for your King?"
Dirk shook his head. "But who's been governing the kingdom?"
"I have."
Dirk whipped around, his laser drawn. DeCade turned more slowly, with a sardonic smile.
A tapestry swung aside, and Lord Core stepped out into the room, laser in his hand. He bowed his head in mock greeting, a vindictive smile on his lips. "Welcome, Lords of the Torn Smocks. It seems I have anticipated you."
DeCade seemed almost amused. "You have; but then, it took no great deal of thought to know we would seek the King first."
Core frowned, nettled. "Nor did it take any great thinking to realize who led these rebels. But if you were able to guess I would be here to meet you, you were quite foolish to walk into ,my arms."
"Indeed?" DeCade raised his eyebrows politely, glancing at the outlaws behind him. "May I inquire as to who has walked into whose trap?"
Core smiled and gestured. All around the room, tapestries parted, and fifty armed Lords stepped through, swords in one hand, pistols in the other.
"My trap, I think," Core murmured, with a gloating smile.
DeCade threw back his head, roaring laughterand his staff whipped up, lashing out at Core as he fell prone to the floor. Dirk fell with him, almost before he realized it, and fired his laser as he fell. A Lord screamed, and went down-and so did twenty others, as a ruby beam lanced upward from every fallen outlaw. The remaining Lords fired; but DeCade was on his feet again, and so were the outlaws. Two screamed and went down with burned feet; the others fired again, while the Lords were still burning the carpet-and screaming, as the outlaws' shots burned home.
Then Decade's staff sent Core's pistol spinning, but the Lord chopped left-handed with his sword. Decade parried with his staff and stepped in to close quarters, as the outlaws leaped in to grapple with the remaining Lords, man to man.
Dirk jabbed his man under the breastbone with his knife, yanked it out as the Lord fell with a shriek, and turned to cut his way through to DeCade's side. He had a certain respect for Core....
Decade chopped at the Lord's head with his staff; Core blocked the blow with his sword, and Decade whipped the butt of his staff toward Core's temple. The Lord ducked and swung his sword up in a vicious stab at Decade's belly. DeCade leaned to the side, and the tip of the sword flashed by to tangle in his cloak. The butt of the staff leaped forward at Core's head again. Again, Core ducked, but the staff dipped down with him and caught him under the chin. He slammed back against the wall, dazed. A huge hand caught him on the rebound, caught him by the throat, and squeezed. Core choked, his eyes cleared, and he whipped a dagger from a sheath at the small of his back, stabbed at Decade's side. Decade twisted, but the knife slashed his chest open. Snarling with pain, he caught the Lord's knife hand, twisting it sharply. Core screamed as bone cracked, and the knife clattered to the floor. Decade spat with contempt and flung Core into the four-poster bed. The idiot screamed and clawed at Core, trying to get away from him. Core slapped him across the mouth with a snarl; the King fell back, dazed, and Core rolled from the bed, a new laser appearing from his boot, centered on Decade.
The giant stepped back, alert and watchful. Core smiled, gloating, and stepped toward him.
Dirk's dagger drove into his side.
Core screamed and whirled about, his pistol spraying fire, but Dirk had dropped to one knee. He caught the Lord's wrist as it went by overhead, and twisted; the pistol dropped to the floor, and Core screamed again. Dirk yanked out the dagger as he leaped to his feet, stabbed home again, into Core's chest, then again as the Lord fell, and again, and again. "For my mother, who died from the lack of your medicine.... For my father, who died from your scourge.... For my sister, who fled from your lust.... For the year that I spent hiding from your hounds, hiding and starving.... For the-"
A hand caught his wrist on the upswing. Dirk whipped about, snarling ... and stared up into Decade's impassive face.
"You butcher dead meat," said the giant.
Dirk stared up at him,, reason slowly returning. He turned to look down at Core.
The Lord was a fountain of blood, a dozen red mouths pumping life from his chest. Dirk raised his eyes; Core's eyes were dull, glazed, his mouth twisted in a last agony of humiliation.
"He is dead," Dirk muttered, scarcely able to believe it.
Slowly he rose, eyes still on the corpse. "He's always been there, as long as I can remember-my nemesis, looming up, deadly, at the center of creation, his shadow darkening my world, preventing me from doing anything good......"
"So they all have been, to all of us," DeCade rumbled. "Believe it, Dulain, and know peace in the depths of your heart: he is dead."
And finally, Dirk began to believe it.
At last he raised his eyes, realizing that the chamber was quiet. The outlaws stood, silently watching him-ten of them. The other ten lay dead with the Lords, in the carpet of blood. Dirk looked at the living, at their set, brooding faces, and realized each man saw himself in Dirk, at that moment.
Tiny in the stillness, there was whimpering.
CHAPTER 15
Dirk turned slowly, frowning. The idiot King was huddled into a ball at the head of the bed, his beard filled with spittle, his lips flecked with foam. His eyes were blank with terror. Disgust welled up in Dirk-and the beginning of a vast guilt.
"There is no time for pity," DeCade rumbled. "They fight in the courtyard below. Quickly! Take this poor hunk of flesh; bind his arms and bring him with us."
The idiot huddled himself tighter against the headboard, hands in his mouth, mewling.
Dirk frowned. "Why? Can't we leave the poor thing alone?"
DeCade shook his head. "Idiot he may be, but he is nonetheless King. Do you not know what kings are, Outworlder? They are symbols, most powerful ones. Show a symbol in chains, and the men who fight for it fight as though they, too, were weighed down by chains."
Dirk closed his eyes, nodding, and three outlaws laid hands on their King, to bind his arms and pull him to his feet. They handled him as gently as they could, Dirk noticed; he wondered whether it was from the dimmed aura of royalty that still clung to him, or from sympathy.
Then they were rushing down the hallway to keep up with DeCade's long strides, half-carrying the poor idiot. As Dirk caught up with him, DeCade said over his shoulder, "Summon your ships. Tell them to land just outside the castle walls and fire a shot over the battlements."
Dirk stared up at him in surprise. Then he shrugged and took off his rope belt. "It's your party." He contacted the ship and relayed the message. All the Captain said was, "Copied, and in execution. End contact."
"I don't think they were planning on an inside job," Dirk said dourly. "You must admit that the party you ordered for the front yard doesn't exactly look like a diversion."
Then they burst out onto a balcony, and Dirk .stared down at the "party," appalled, as the roar of battle struck him. The courtyard was one huge, clamoring, churning mass. It was steel and wooden clubs-nothing more-for the churls were so thoroughly intermingled with Lords that no one dared fire a laser, for fear of hitting a friend. Steel rang and clattered below; steel hewed heads and drank blood. Steel would decide the night.
And the Lords had been trained to the sword from their cradles. The courtyard was clogged with dead bodies, among whom the Lords were not fairly represented.
But still the churls pressed in through the gate, every man eager for his chance at his persecutors. It was steel against masses of flesh, swords against numbers; and Dirk saw clearly that the numbers would weigh down the swords and grind them into the earth-but only at an unbelievable cost. The churls would win the land they tilled, but they would pay with seas of blood.
Beside him, DeCade called, "They must be silenced long enough to hear my voice. Where are your ships?"
Dirk searched the skies, craning his neck. Then he saw it-a star that moved. "There!" He grasped DeCade's head, to sight along his pointing arm. "One mass diversion coming up-or down, as the case may be."
The star separated into two; both grew, swelling into planets, then moons; and, faintly over the roar of battle, Dirk began to hear a mutter. It grew to a bellow as the two moons swelled up and stretched out into tall, pointed flareships, dropping down at them on cushions of flame. Thunder shook the whole castle as two huge, bright towers fell out of the sky, screaming and howling. Then at last, every man in the courtyard froze, staring up in terror at the huge fiery mouths that spewed down toward them. Dirk saw men cower, saw lips stretched wide in shrieks. But all he could hear was the thunder that filled the world.
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