The web of wizardry

by Coulson, Juanita

  A second siege machine cast grappling hooks into the flaming wreckage of its predecessor, attempting to pull apart the remains to clear a path for its own approach to the walls. Still other towers vied for attack vantages all along the walls at other points.

  "Save the ricochets," Branra commanded, and the word was passed. Troopmen retrieved spent Mar-kuand arrows and returned them to Deki's archers. Soon more fiery shafts were winging toward the second row of towers, setting those ablaze, too.

  But some of the Markuand arrows could not be retrieved without the aid of surgeons. At least five men lay near Danaer, writhing and pleading for help as they struggled in their own blood. How many more defenders had been wounded or were dead?

  Though their aim was sometimes shaky and the fusillade ragged, the archers succeeded in setting more towers and barges afire. The burning platforms and the accumulation of bodies began to block all further attack at those places. Branra regrouped his units at the vulnerable spots as Markuand swarmed up the ladders not hit by the boiling oil, undeterred by the fate of their comrades.

  Danaer parried and thrust and slashed mindlessly now. The Markuand must not cross the wall, and any who did must die. The banquette was slippery with blood and the footing treacherous. It was difficult to move now without treading on the fallen. Markuand and defenders were tangled together. No man had the leisure to discover if those groaning forms were friend or foe.

  More oil, more arrows, little feathered lances— blows from the Death God tipped with deadly metal.

  No more did Deki's defenders shout defiance. They became almost as silent as the Markuand, too spent to exhaust themselves in speech.

  Danaer did not know how long this had gone on. He had never fought so desperately, not in any of

  Yistar's campaigns, not in any knife fight in a Zsed. But finally he heard Branra ordering men to hold their arrows and rest on their weapons. Danaer, sore-eyed with weariness, slumped against the wall and stared out at the river, uncaring that he exposed himself to possible return fire. There was no longer a need for such caution.

  The river was clogged with tens upon tens of Markuand boats, but most were burning. All the siege towers were in flames or already blazing to the water-line. And everywhere were bodies, crushed or impaled or broken. Piled in bloody heaps on the rocks' broken teeth. Some dangled lifelessly from the towers or across the sides of boats. Some floated in backwaters, the current tugging at them, a few beginning to drift downstream. Dawn was starting to dapple the sky with gold, and showed Deki a vista of unallayed carnage. Redder than the flames ran the mighty Irico River, streaked with the gore of the dead and dying Markuand.

  Men lay down where they had fought, heedless of the hard stone bed beneath them or the stench of death or the cries of their fellows. Surgeons came and carried the wounded to their workrooms below, and the dead were shrouded and borne away.

  There was no relief. Every warrior who had been able to wield a weapon had gone to the walls this night. In a half doze, Danaer knew that Yistar and and the Siim were conferring with Branra, speaking in low and worried tones. The Captain's helmet was badly dented, and clotted blood smeared his brow and cheek. He too had waged personal war on the Markuand. Despite his stamina, even Branra looked tired. In disjointed sentences, the officers and Lorzosh-Fila talked of losses and regrouping and how they must withstand other attacks.

  Danaer watched them listlessly. There was something he meant to say, to the officers or to Lira—some important thing he had learned amid the battle. But he could not remember what it was. It could not be so important as sleep. Nothing could.

  He wanted to go back to his barracks and sink into

  his pallet, vermin-riddled or not. But they were commanded to stay where they were. And sleep was difficult to find, even if they were exhausted. Day had come, but that was no respite. The sun was barely above the horizon when a thick fog rolled out from the Clarique bank. The Dekans muttered in superstitious fear and said the fog in these regions never behaved so. The strange mist crept over the river until it reached the destroyed siege towers, and there it hovered. In the fog there were sounds—oars and creaking of boats and noises that might have been men shifting about in craft or clashing weapons together softly as they prepared a foray. One false alarm after another was cried, and weary officers and men stared into the alien mist, unable to penetrate its secrets. If Lira was countering this latest magic, she could not remove it completely. Now and then the fog moved back a pace, only to roll in again, and the sounds came with it.

  And while they endured the uncertainty of the fog sounds, a cold sleeting rain began to fall on the defenders. This, too, was unnatural and unseasonal, as had been the mirages and the storm which tore the Destre council tent. Men shivered miserably and crawled beneath whatever shelter they could find, their chance for sleep ripped from them by discomfort and fear. Lookouts like Danaer kept short watches, taking turns trying to see into the fog, until their eyes drooped and they were told to sleep—if they could.

  Danaer had cursed bad conditions often during war and campaigns in Yistar's service. But it was patently unfair to suffer the plagues of witchcraft in the form of weather. Silently, he begged Lira to find some measure to give them surcease.

  Yet she was alone, days away from her Web, and the Web was busy in other matters they deemed equally important. Lira had to fight this battle alone. She had broken the wizard's barriers and let the arrows reach the towers. But like all the defenders, such terrible exertions must exhaust her. She too needed rest, though she wielded no sword and shed no blood.

  Danaer longed to be with her, support her as he had in the council tent when he and Kandra had kept her safe from the buffeting wind. He must stay on the walls, though, and she in her room at the inn, bearing her burden of darkness and sorcery.

  The rain was followed by a brief hail, pellets of ice that hurt and drew welts and blood. Men swore and shook their fists helplessly at the sky and endured what they must. Some raged against these unholy things and became hysterical and must be restrained by their comrades. The cost in broken sleep and tenseness was heavy.

  When the hail ended, Danaer again felt that gentle ebbing sensation, a touch of Lira, though she was nowhere in sight. After that there were no more unnatural torrents, and in what was left of the day men drowsed in peace.

  The second night was much worse than the first. The assault was no greater or more fierce, but now the defenders knew what they must expect. They had hoped Markuand had spent its fury in thak massive attack. But another flotilla left the Clarique bank, coming toward the walls. There were more siege towers to replace those lost, more white-clad, silent warriors eager to fight and die, inhuman in their refusal to be thrown back short of death.

  Many men doubted they could withstand another such terrible attack, but they found courage in themselves they had not known existed. It was not even a thing of honor, for they could not think that clearly. They fought to survive, lifting weary arms again and again, striking and killing as they must. Citizens with hay forks and other homely implements ill-made for war filled the gaps left by Deki's wounded, standing next to soldiers and militiamen. They fought clumsily but with fervor. Some were well dressed and had obviously never known privation. Others were gutter sweepings of the lowest sort, conscripted by Lorzosh-Fila in an attempt to hold his city. Merchant and peasant and beggar and soldier stood and fought together and died together.

  But they held. There was more magic, more

  shielding of the Markuand towers. And more counter-magic from Lira, the tingling in Danaer's talisman and that crackling pressure in the air, and a bursting of the Markuand wizard's spells. Like the gently bred Dekan merchants, Lira was engaged in a war much against her nature and against a foe with many times her powers. Yet the combined forces of her dedicated sorkra arts and the valiant defenders of the walls threw back the Markuand once more.

  The dead were past counting now. Deki's own losses were severe, but nothing to the
carmine harvest of the river. As Deki had protected ancient Ryerdon's people against invasion from Traecheus, now she successfully held off the onslaught of an aUen enemy evil beyond comprehension.

  Danaer had no spirit to welcome the second dawn breaking over the scene of butchery. Like the rest, he dropped in his tracks, barely able to move. Then came an order he did not believe—^he and those who had been there since the first night were to go to their quarters and sleep. Danaer peered over the parapet at the Clarique bank. There were no more boats, no wizard's fog filled with warlike and ominous sounds. The fires were gone, mute proof of the toll of the battle. Uncaring, beyond wondering on this, Danaer staggered down ladders and ramps and followed some kindly citizen who led his surviving unit mates to their shelter within a barn. Men fell on their blankets, asleep before they could stretch their lengths.

  Much later, Danaer slowly wakened and sat up, running his tongue over crusted and foul-tasting lips. The candle on the wall indicated that he had dreamed for ten marks. His arm still ached from the swordplay he had put it to, and from the weight of Markuand bodies he had thrown back over the wall.

  Had it really happened? The second night of battle was a blur. There had been towers, more arrows, more boiling oil, and many, many bodies. He ground his knuckles into his eyes and cheekbones, yawning back to some semblance of awareness.

  It had happened—all of it. And when it was done, Markuand had seemed broken, her fires gone, her

  boats all smashed, and her army drowned in the bloodied river. Markuand did not know retreat, and neither did Deki, for there was nowhere to go. Every Markuand who crossed the river attempted the walls, and all of them died. Soldiers had tried to take some prisoners, only to lose men as the Markuand stabbed their captors and killed several. After that, the Siirn ordered all to be slain, as they had dealt with the Clarique they had captured at Jlandla Hill. They gave no quarter and asked for none, and died in silence.

  Yistar had made some sort of announcement that his sorkra had penetrated the Markuand wizard's plans and found there would be no more frontal attacks. Danaer wondered if he remembered that aright. If so, it was gladsome news. As many men as Deki had lost, Markuand had unquestionably lost more, and perhaps his generals had slain their wizard, deeming him a false sorkra.

  Danaer stared down at himself. His helmet had rolled off and lay beside the pallet. He had slept on his sword, not out of diligence but because he was too tired to remove it. His clothing stank. Like any Destre, he did not scorn dirt, but the shirt and breeches were stiff with gore and spittle and chafed him sorely.

  "Awake at last?" Danaer blinked at Shaartre as the older man limped toward him. Shaartre was a bit pale. "I have found you another uniform, so give me those rags. Some Dekan laundresses set up their tubs outside and offer to serve the 'brave soldiers.' "

  Danaer began to strip, pointing to the leg Shaartre favored. "What happened? I did not know you were wounded."

  "Ah, it was not too bad. I lasted both nights. Luckily the Markuand arrow was nearly spent when it struck me. The surgeons wanted to keep me in the infirmary, but I know better than to lie abed while my leg cripples on me." The Troop Leader treated his close escape lightly. "Besides, Yistar needs everyone who can fight. We are off duty for now, but stand ready to assemble should the call come. They say there will be no more attacks, but..."

  Danaer went to the water barrel and stood in the

  catch pan, pouring several dippersful of rainwater over his itching flesh. It washed away the worst grime and left him more awake. As he put on the uniform Shaartre had brought, he noted neatly sewn tears on the tunic's belt line. The man who had suffered that wound must be dead. Danaer asked no questions. The previous owner would not come seeking his uniform, certainly, and Danaer had no compunction about wearing it.

  Shaartre snatched up his discarded garments, and Danaer had to jump to rescue his Destre mantle. True, it was also badly dirtied, but he would not risk it to the untender mercies of laundresses' rocks and washing paddles. Shaartre flung the dirty clothes to a passing, soldier and ordered him deliver them to the tubs outside. Then he grinned and winked at Danaer. "We will all get new issue when we return to Siank garrison."

  "If we ever return to Siank."

  "We shall, youngling. You have not heard all the news—your big friend Gordyan had an easy time on the bluffs, killing many Markuand. They never came close to the top. And they say Qhord's cutthroats did for the Markuand by the hundreds, and any who got through the marshes were torn to pieces by Ti-Mori's harpies. We suffered at Deki, ai, but we taught them a lesson."

  "How many wounded?" Danaer asked, not wanting an answer. "Well, at least we gave better than we got."

  "Come along with me, to an inn called the Green Skirt. We will celebrate the victory. I assure you, both the wine and the women are worth your coin, and they do not scorn even us men of The Interior."

  "Perhaps I will join you later."

  "You long to see your witch, eh? I hear Yistar has kept her busy with her sorkra deaUngs," Shaartre said with affection.

  Danaer was coming to hate the word "sorkra." "If so, she has earned a respite."

  When he left the temporary barracks, night was blackening the streets once more. The nature of the

  populace seemed to have changed. There were honest women like the laundresses and citizens' wives, those who remained with their men even in a city under siege. But now Danaer saw many more jades and women of ease. And there were men who dealt in human misery and the wages of war. They had avoided the fighting, but now they looked to reap profits in hawking scarce wares.

  Yistar's headquarters buzzed with activity, though things were less disorderly than the first time Danaer had been at the commandeered inn. Many junior officers wore bloodied clothes, and their sobered expressions showed their taste of battle had matured them too quickly. Neither Yistar nor Branra was anywhere to be seen, and Danaer edged past the other staff members, heading for the stairs. One of the aides was saying, "We threw the devils back and drowned them. That is it, fellows—a good war!"

  Danaer's momentary amusement at that boastful tone faded. A good war? How many brave men had died in this good war? And the war was not won, despite such bragging. Danaer recalled blades a finger's-breadth from his neck or chest and the gleam of the enemies' eyes, bright with a strange fanaticism which controlled pain and made them silent in the face of agony and death. Men falling, dying, lances protruding from their guts or their heads split with ax, their eyes pierced by arrow—men he had known and ridden beside for years.

  It was never easy to feel the Death God's icy breath. Danaer scorned the aide who spoke so casually of his first battle.

  He was more anxious to see Lira than he had ever been, mounting the stairs to the upper story three at a time. She was still within the same room. There was no magical parchment this time. Lira sat on a low stool, her hands folded in her lap, ordeal written large on her face.

  But she rose to greet him, and Danaer clasped her hands to his breast. He drank in her presence, reveling in her daintiness and beauty, the scent of her hair. Her dark eyes met his and he forgot blood and vomit and dying men.

  She did not resist his embrace, her lips a heady intoxication that warmed Danaer, giving him renewed vigor after the terrible fight and weariness. "Rasven kept you safe, my Sharp Eyes," she was whispering, her voice shaky with awful fatigue.

  Danaer was deaf to that note. Strangely, he played the braggart, like the young ofi&cer below. "We turned back all their onslaughts . . ."

  Lira's expression clouded. "Only for the moment, Danaer. You do not know the strength of their chief wizard, and he rules their warlords."

  He led her to a couch and drew her down beside him, heedless of what she was saying, of her mood, kissing her and caressing her. A hunger grew within him, a strong calling of the goddess's summons, male to female. "I thought of you often while I was on the walls, and called your blessing to me, qedra. Markuand will not come past my swo
rd to hurt you, ever. We have dealt death to all of them, and broken their machines."

  "Oh, indeed you are brave, but the dark power which threatens us—"

  He did not let her continue, silencing her with his mouth. For a moment Lira's response was equally greedy, all Danaer wished, a sensual promise of what would be. He had no care but the joy of this moment, wanting to prolong it and increase its delights to the full. They would leave behind wizardry and blood and feed this ardor into a life-giving flame ...

  Yet when he touched her intimately, to his astonishment Lira jerked away and cried for him to stop. He could not understand. Her hunger was as great as his. Why, then, this prudery that denied her body? Anger grew where desire had been. "How have I displeased you? Is it because I am not a man of your own people? And not one of your sorkra?" Danaer got to his feet, his lust turning to a different sort of heat.

  Lira cowered, seeing his rage, shaken. One part of him wanted to beg her forgiveness and take back the hard words. But instead he was saying still more cruel things. "Mayhap there is some young wizard who

  owns your favor, a man I can never challenge to fair combat—having no magic to counter his."

  "No, please, Danaer, do not say this," Lira pleaded, distraught.

  A stinging insect plumbed his brain, a harassment he could not put away. Desire. You are Desire. Serve the goddess. You musi noi dishonor her law . . .

  "Teach me your ways, then," Danaer said suddenly, struggling against this aberrant urge. "Teach me the customs used by SarH men to satisfy their women. I can learn. And if I cannot, I will show you that a Destre is as lusty a lover as even a Sarli woman could desire." Boldly, in a fashion that shocked them both, he seized her, starting to pull her to him.

  A lancing fire seemed to scorch his hands, and Danaer recoiled, sucking his fingers, his mind whirling. What had he done? What was governing him to make him act and speak so?