by David Drake
Officers were bellowing the troops into order as they stepped onto the ice. Invariably the men's set expressions warmed into relief as they left the passage. These corridors weren't like home-Garric smiled with black humor; at least not home to anybody in the royal army-but ice was a natural thing compared to the glowing nothingness they'd crossed to get here.
Garric and the king in his mind both blinked in a surge of pride. In training and discipline, these were the best troops the Isles had seen in a thousand years; and in courage they were the equal of any men who'd ever lived!
Garric pushed his way toward the front of his force as it tramped up the corridor, filling the corridor as a piston does the cylinder of a pump. Men cursed when he bumped them, but they let him by when they realized who he was. Lord Mayne was in the front rank; Garric halted behind him, squeezing between two veterans-both of them noncoms from Mayne's regiment.
One man muttered, "You hadn't ought to be here, sir."
The other nodded but said, "Aye, though it's an honor to see your highness this way. Wait till I tell my grand-nephews that I stood beside Prince Garric hisself when we sent all them demons back to Hell!"
"They're a bit beforehand on that," said the image of Carus with a gust of laughter. "But a soldier who thinks that way's generally worth two of the other kind!"
"By your leave, your highness?" called Lord Mayne, cocking his head but keeping an eye on the squadrons of monsters ahead. "We'll shortly be in javelin range."
Mayne was a pudgy fellow, the younger son of a family of wealthy Valles merchants. He hadn't been raised to hunting and other rural sports like the nobles from Northern Ornifal who provided most of the officers in the royal army. Bringing his regiment double-time from the camp had winded him, whereas Lord Waldron-twice Mayne's age and more-had run back and forth between the palace and the Temple of the Shepherd without signs of effort.
But Mayne was in the front rank, thinking about the practical questions of war instead of his fears or hope of honor. He held his rank by Lord Tadai's recommendation; for which Tadai deserved the thanks of his prince and the kingdom.
The hostile army wasn't of demons, but it looked a formidable enough crew regardless. Garric wasn't sure any two of the enemy were the same, nor were any of them human. He saw something that looked like a stork, but it stood ten feet tall and had two heads with long bills. Beside it tramped a squat figure wearing half-armor and a closed helmet; it had four arms, each holding a double-bitted axe, and it walked on a pair of legs like a sow's. Beside that was a goat with the head of a great cat. Beside that-but it didn't matter: they'd all die, or Garric would die and the Isles with him.
"You may give the order, milord!" Garric said.
The leading ranks canted back the eight-foot spears in their right arms. Some of the soldiers were probably left handed. In this as in all other things, the needs of the army overrode personal preference: the shieldmust be on the left arm to keep an even front in closed ranks, so the spear and sword were always in the right.
"Leading ranks, ready spears!" Mayne said, his voice suddenly a cricket chirp. The troops had prepared when they heard Garric, but discipline required that their own officer give the command. "Loose!"
The army of monsters was a hundred and fifty feet away, much closer than usual for the volley of javelins that opened a battle. The corridor's ribbed ceiling-though high for a building-prevented the soldiers from arching their spears high for maximum range. Even so, the missiles crashed into the beasts and halfmen with devastating effect.
The goat-lion spun, biting and kicking in mad fury at the spear wobbling in its haunches. Other creatures fell under the beast's sudden onslaught or slashed in response when their instinctive rage overwhelmed the control of the wizard directing them.
While the troll in half-armor was in mid-stride, a spear clanged on his helmet. He toppled and the chaotic rush of his fellows swept over him. The troll's axes chopped mindlessly, lopping pieces off the creatures stumbling past him.
The legs of the two-headed stork kicked in the air, occasionally visible over the throng of its fellows. A spear had punched through the base of its double neck and thrown the creature over on its back.
The creatures that met the swordsmen of Garric's first line were already bleeding from wounds their fellows had inflicted. The Blood Eagle on the right edge of the line thundered, "Gut'em, boys!" an instant before contact.
"Haft and the Isles!" Garric cried. Everybody in the royal army was shouting, but the sum of their voices was a wordless snarl more terrible than the screams and whistling that came from the mob of monsters.
Claws tore at heavy shields, while short swords cut and thrust through flesh in a score of inhuman forms. A manlike figure with a two-handed sword and the head of a blue-feathered hawk shrieked as he went down under quick chops by a pair of soldiers; their hobnails trampled the body as they passed on. The creature's big sword had notched a shield but done no other damage.
Lord Mayne, who didn't have a shield, was battling what looked like a lizard on its hind legs wielding butcher knives in both hands. Mayne held the thing's right wrist in his free hand, but the other knife was blocking his sword and the long jaws were reaching for his throat. Garric judged his moment and thrust over Mayne's right shoulder, piercing the lizard's brain through an eye socket. His blade sparkled; the creature's scales were iron or something equally hard.
A scorpion the size of an ox scrabbled down the corridor. In place of eyes it had a curved crystalline bowl from which two wizened manlike figures peered. The beast's pink body was gashed and dripping ichor from the ruck of injured, maddened monsters it'd had to fight through to reach its intended enemy.
A pincer with jaws the length of a forearm reached for Garric over the wall of shields. He brought his long sword in an overhead arc, his left hand on the pommel to add strength to his right arm. His blade crunched through chitin, severing the pincer's hooked upper jaw. The muscle within was bright yellow.
The scorpion's weight hit the human line. Garric, off-balance from the sword stroke, lost his footing when the soldiers ahead staggered backward. He fell onto the ice, holding his dripping sword straight up. All he could see was bulging calf muscles and the metal-studded leather kilts of men slashing at a horrific enemy.
A spear flew overhead. Garric wasn't in a position-literally-to say it was a bad idea, though by the Shepherd! itseemed like a bad one.
The struggle with the scorpion ended. Garric regained his feet as fresh troops from the rear ranks pushed forward to take the place of the men who'd killed the creature. Swords had chopped off the scorpion's pincers and four pairs of legs, then repeatedly driven through the body's hard pink casing.
The crystal head was shattered. There was no sign of the two miniature figures Garric had glimpsed.
The mob of beasts had become a pile of corpses, more untidy even than the wrack of battle usually was. Blood and ichor of a score of shades stained both the twitching bodies and the equipment of the troops who'd cut them to bits.
There'd been human casualties too, some of them fatal even though the troops wore heavy armor. Lord Mayne was dead, his throat torn out by the barbels of a creature that looked like a catfish on six legs. A Blood Eagle captain had taken the legate's place, reforming the front ranks with men whose swords hadn't been dulled by battle.
"Here sir, we'll get you up there!" growled one of the noncoms who'd flanked Garric a moment before. He grabbed Garric firmly by the left biceps and pulled him forward.
"Make way for his highness, you bloody fools!" shouted his fellow, using his spear butt as a baton to separate the men in the rank ahead. The veterans had not only survived, they'd retrieved spears from the slaughtered monsters. The irons were straight though smeared with purple ichor. The two seemed to have adopted Garric
"Not the worst thing that could happen to a commander, lad," said Carus. Because the ghost lacked a physical presence he hadn't felt the dizzy wave of exhaustion that'd swept over
Garric, but a lifetime of remembered battles left his image as tense as Garric had ever seen him. "Nothing against your Blood Eagles, but soldiers who've gotten as old as those fellows have in the front ranks know something about more than being brave."
The royal army was advancing again; the corridor ahead was empty. Soldiers grunted as they speared monstrous bodies that already looked dead. These men were veterans, and they knew a quick thrust was the cheapest insurance there was.
Garric squirmed through the second rank. "Captain-" he said.
"Degtel," said Carus, filling in the name that Garric must've heard but hadn't remembered.
"-Degtel," Garric continued, as smoothly as if the name had been on the tip of his tongue. Carus chuckled in his mind. "We'll proceed, following the line of light. Keep the pace down to that of a route march as you've been doing. Hurrying's likely to get us somewhere we want to avoid."
They'd reached a rotunda from which seven corridors branched. The walls quivered: some with crimson light, others with azure. Tenoctris' gleaming guide bent to follow a red one. Garric knew he should be glad of any illumination, but his heart would've preferred blackness to this wizardlight.
"May I ask your highness where wedo want to go?" Degtel asked over his shoulder. He was a young man, quite handsome, and-judging by the quality of the gold inlays on his black armor-from a very wealthy family.
There were-there seemed to be-shapes frozen into the walls, and the floor was so clear that Garric could see things moving beneath the ice. Once the movement was accompanied by a flash of teeth, any of which was as long as a man.
"We're going to the place Lady Tenoctris' art tells us will bring an end to the business," Garric said. He grinned at a sort of humor he wouldn't've have known if he didn't share his mind with a warrior like Carus. "Or to Hell, of course, if we get there first."
Degtel, as surely a warrior as the ancient king, barked laughter.
"If it's Hell," said the veteran on Garric's right, "then we'll bring an escort with us like the Sister never saw before!"
"That'sthe bloody truth!" agreed his partner on the left.
Garric laughed with the others. There were no longer any questions or vexed decisions. The task was quite simple, and the only doubt was whether their swordarms were strong enough to accomplish it.
Something far down the corridor was coming toward them. Quite simple…
***
The direction ofdown changed more times than Cashel could count. Light flickered the way lightning stutters between cloud tops instead of crossing in a single bolt. Cashel didn't move, so he kept his balance when the shifting stopped.
The whirlpool of wizardlight vanished and with it the sensation of movement. Cashel's feet were planted on firm ground-a little damp, mossy rather than grass-covered. He was standing under a pear tree in a garden; part of the Count's palace, he guessed, though not a part he'd seen before. There was any number of soldiers coming through the door in the building, but a pair of cavalry officers from Lord Waldron's staff were there to keep the newcomers from crowding in too fast.
Cashel must've just popped out of the air so far as the soldiers tramping past were concerned, but nobody said anything or even looked surprised. As a matter of fact, they didn't really lookat him, even the men whose eyes were turned in his direction.
The line coming out of the palace led to a narrow stone table at the back wall of the garden. Behind it, mostly where the brick wall ought to be, was a shimmering purple oval. Soldiers climbed steps made from lengths of pillars set on end, then jumped through the disk of light. An officer in high boots stood at the base of the steps, using his sword like a baton to keep men from rushing up before the fellow ahead was through the disk.
There were three steps: a section of column not much thicker than Cashel's thigh; a taller section that was also about twice as big around; and another of the little columns set on top of another big one. They didn't have a proper foundation, so a Blood Eagle noncom squatted beside the double step to brace it.
Beside the table lay a dead man, opened up like a fish for frying. There was blood all over the stone and the ground around it, which explained why the corpse's skin had the pale yellow look of beeswax. Cashel hoped he'd deserved it; but he didn't know what you'd have to do to deserve what happened tothat fellow.
"What's happening?" Cashel said to a man in line. The fellow kept shuffling forward, so Cashel walked along with him. "Where're you going?"
"We're going to Hell to fight demons," the soldier muttered. He didn't look up as he spoke. "Some demon grabbed Prince Garric and the whole army's supposed to go get him back. That's whatI heard, anyhow."
"We're going to Hell, that's no rumor!" said the man ahead over his shoulder. "Look at that thing we're supposed to jump through! It's wizard work!"
"Just sitting down to dinner and the trumpet sounds," said the first man. "We don't even get to die on a full stomach. May the Sister take all wizards!"
"Well, there's some good ones," Cashel said mildly. He frowned. "One good one, anyhow."
He'd met his share of wizards since Tenoctris washed ashore in Barca's Hamlet, but even if pushed he couldn't think of another that he'd really call "good." There's been no fewpowerful wizards, which was a different thing; and the Sister was welcome to every one of them so far as Cashel was concerned.
He and the two soldiers were nearing the base of the steps up to the purple disk. Neither man seemed frightened, for all they said they expected to die. They weren't happy, but they kept shuffling forward as fast as the line allowed. The man Cashel'd started talking to snugged up a buckle on his breastplate that he'd missed in his hasty departure from camp.
Cashel nodded in understanding. He guessed that was what he looked like when he went out to the byre in a rainstorm to calm the sheep. He knew he'd be cold and miserable, and the folks who owned the flock wouldn't bother to thank him. It was his job, though, and somebody had to do it.
"I think the sheep appreciate it," Cashel said aloud. The soldiers were lost again in their thoughts. They probably didn't hear what he said, and if they had they wouldn't have understood it.
"Hold it!" snapped the officer at the base of the steps as the first of the two soldiers who'd been talking with Cashel started up. He stuck his long sword out. The man ahead was still climbing.
"I'll go up ahead of them, sir," Cashel said politely to the officer. He wished he'd had room to give his staff a trial spin, but this garden with the trees and all the soldiers in it was just too tight for that. "I'm a friend of Garric's."
Cashel put his foot on the bottom step. The officer's face went red. He grabbed the throat of Cashel's tunic with his left hand and raised his sword. "You peasant scum!" he shouted. "You'll get out of here now or I'll feed you to the dogs in pieces!"
"Lord Artis!" said the Blood Eagle who'd been chocking the steps. He straightened, holding his hands up toward the staff officer. His blackened-bronze helmet had its crest crosswise instead of front and back; that meant he had some rank also, though Cashel had never tried to keep that sort of thing straight. "He really is a friend of his highness! That's Lord Cashel!"
"I don't care of he's King Valence the Third!" the officer shouted. "Civilians haven't any business in this affair!"
"Garric's friends do, though," said Cashel in a growl that he could barely understand himself. He hadn't realized how angry he was that something'd happened to Garric while he was off in a place where he rightly didn't have any business.
The officer was nervous too and probably angry that orders kept him back here and not up with the fighting. At another time Cashel might've sympathized with him.
But not now.
Cashel rapped the officer's right hand with his quarterstaff; the man shouted and dropped his sword. Cashel grabbed him by the throat and took a step toward the back wall. The fellow'd lost his grip on Cashel's tunic when the staff numbed his other hand; his face, red to start with, bulged and turned purple.
Cashel
cocked his right arm, then straightened it in something between pushing and throwing. The officer flew over the brick wall. It wasn't a clean toss-his heels caught on the coping and flipped him into what would probably be a complete somersault when he landed on the other side-but it was enough to get the fellow out of Cashel's way.
"I'm going to find Garric now," Cashel said to the Blood Eagle in a husky voice. He was breathing hard.
"So are the rest of us, milord," said the Blood Eagle, gesturing toward the lens of purple light. "Just don't hold the line up, if you please."
"Right," said Cashel. He climbed the steps deliberately, planting his feet with care because he knew that somebody his weight'd push the steps over if he came down skew. With the staff angled in front of him, he stepped into the disk.
"Bloody wizard's work!" muttered the soldier following on his heels.
***
"Master Alfdan's gone!" cried Werbeg, a big man who'd been a wine merchant before She came. "What'll we do! We can't run!"
"We'll fight, of course," said Sharina, raising her voice to be heard though she didn't shout. "Line up to either side of me. I've got the axe and I'll, I'll try…"
Werbeg's panic disgusted Sharina. She was very frightened. Her legs shook. She watched the portal open to spew hellspawn in the certainty that she was about to die; but she was human and this was evil, soof course she'd fight.
"Oh, many more lives!" Beard chortled. "Rivers of blood for Beard to drink, blood and lives and hot, steaming brains!"
The men had wadded a buffalo robe into a plug for the hole by which they'd entered the cavern; wind-swirled ice crystals had set it in place. There was probably ice inches thick over it now. They could break it clear, but not instantly, and what kind of escape would the glacial desert of the surface provide?