by David Drake
“Keep your guard up, boys!” shouted Pont as he rushed in. The scorpion’s pincers were each the length of Sharina’s outstretched arm. One reached out and closed on the top of the veteran’s shield, crunching it into separate layers of wood. Pont stabbed up, into the joint. The other pincer grabbed for his head, but a soldier blocked it with his shield and Prester’s sword cut through that joint as well.
The scorpion’s tail curled, ripping with it the upper part of the screen that had closed the sanctum. The creature snapped the bronze backward and forward as it tried to shake it off. The perforated plating flexed like thunder in the vaulted temple.
Sharina poised. Ascor bellowed a warning, but she ducked between the first two of the four legs on the creature’s right side, chopping right and left. The Pewle knife cut through both joints from the inside.
Yellow ichor that smelled of vinegar spurted from the wounds. The scorpion’s massive body sagged, battering Sharina to the stone floor. Ascor and Prester each grabbed an ankle and jerked her back on her belly. The tail flicked down, free of the screen, and stabbed the hooked six-inch sting into the shield which Pont had interposed.
Pont slid his arms from the straps and backed away, his sword lifted on guard. With his left hand he drew his sheathed dagger.
The scorpion shambled forward. Soldiers hacked at the legs on the left side, but the outside joints were protected by stiff hairs and plates flaring above and below the flexible part of the case.
Sharina rolled away and scrambled to her feet. The white-haired priest was trying to get up also, but each time his foot flopped under and he fell down again. The scorpion stepped on his torso and pinned him screaming, then stepped on him again. Blood sprayed from the priest’s mouth and he finally fell silent.
Pont and Prester moved in together. The scorpion slashed at them with its right pincer, though the lower blade couldn’t close anymore. Pont lunged to meet it with the edge of his sword. The blow slammed him down, but he’d bought his comrade enough time to cut twice. Prester didn’t have the advantage of being underneath, but his arm was strong and his sword was much heavier than the Pewle knife. The creature’s two hind legs collapsed, dropping it helpless to the ground.
Dawn, flooding in through the opening in the eastern pediment, painted the nave the dusty red of blown roses. Soldiers enthusiastically cut at the legs on the left side, gashing chitin and spraying ichor in all directions without doing real harm. The scorpion was working itself around. Its remaining legs clacked sharply to get purchase on the polished stone.
Sharina gasped to breathe, bending over slightly. Fatigue and the stink of the monster’s fluids made her stomach churn.
“Out of the way, farmers!” Ascor shouted. He had a javelin, perhaps the one Pont had dropped on the temple porch; he held it behind the balance. The heels of both his hands were forward as though it were a harpoon.
One of the regulars turned and gaped at the Blood Eagle. Prester grabbed the man’s swordbelt and hauled him clear with careless ease. Ascor took a long stride and lunged, thrusting the spear with all his strength into the scorpion’s mouth. It sank to the wooden shaft.
Ascor backed away. The scorpion’s body arched together. The stinger was still stuck in Pont’s shield, a curved section of plywood that delivered a crushing blow to the creature’s head plate. The great body shuddered, but its movements were as mindless as ripples dancing on a pond in a sudden squall.
Sharina straightened as she got her breath. She stood in a pool of dawn light. Men were shouting, and her arms were covered with ichor that thickened as it dried. Her skin itched.
She heard, she felt, a buzzing sound; the light about her changed. Dawn had become the cold ruby insistence of wizardlight.
“The time is accomplished, Sharina,” boomed Black’s voice. “Now you must come to me!”
The last thing she was aware of as she dropped out of the waking world was Burne, leaping from the floor to her right shoulder.
THANK YOU,” GARRIC said to the boatman as the vessel grounded in the cypress grove. Rather than hand Tenoctris over the high gunwale, he took her satchel.
“It’s a rare pleasure to meet a scholar,” the boatman said with a wan smile. “But I made a conscious choice. It wasn’t a bad one, all things considered.”
The smile faded somewhat. The boat dissolved in mist and shadow as soon as Garric’s boot touched the forest loam, but he thought he heard the boatman add, “And I’ve had a very long time to consider.”
It was midmorning by the angle of the sun through the leaves. Tenoctris appeared beside him—out of thin air, it seemed. She wore a cheerful expression, but the lines of strain at the corners of her eyes hadn’t been there when the two of them entered the grove the night before. If it was only one night.
“Your Highness?” called Lord Waldron from just beyond the circle of trees. His presence here, a mile from the camp, was as unexpected as a troupe of dancing girls and it suggested much worse possibilities.
Waldron swung himself into the saddle. “Marstens, bring the mounts for his highness and Lady Tenoctris! Your Highness, I’m very glad you’re back.”
He rode to Garric’s side; it was only five or six doublepaces, but Waldron couldn’t imagine walking if there was a horse available. He continued, “The enemy’s approaching, about three days south of our present camp, and this isn’t the best terrain to meet them on. We couldn’t, of course, displace until you’d returned.”
“You say ‘the enemy’s approaching,’ ” Garric said. He felt buffeted by the change from discussing ancient historians on a boat sailing through the cosmos to planning a battle with an unknown enemy, but he supposed that was what it meant to be king. “The main body, you mean?”
The king in his mind laughed merrily. “That’s what it means to be a soldier, lad,” Carus said. “Though I could’ve done without arguments on Poleinis and Timarion.”
“Yes, and the Emperor of Palomir himself is with them,” Waldron said as his aide trotted up with two horses—a powerful bay gelding and a cream palfrey wearing a sidesaddle. “At any rate, there’s a green banner with a white wedge that the scouts haven’t seen before, and the pole seems to have a crown on it.”
Tenoctris lifted herself easily onto the palfrey and wheeled it around so that she faced the men again. “Yes,” she said, “that’s the imperial standard. It’s Mount Sebala rising above Palomir City. I can easily do a divination to make sure the emperor’s really present, of course.”
“No, no!” said Waldron with more than a touch of impatience. “We have to get back immediately and give the order to march. I’ve made the preparations, but of course the order—”
He looked at Garric, now mounted beside him, and dipped his head in brief deference.
“—will come from you, Your Highness.”
He gestured to the trumpeter beside him. His quick, silvery Advance was echoed by the deeper notes of the cornicenes of the individual troops. The cavalry squadron started forward.
Garric prodded his gelding into motion to keep up with the army commander. “Milord?” he said, not quite as irritated as King Carus but not pleased with the situation either. “Before I give any orders, what do you propose to do?”
“Haft has a range of mountains down the spine, Your Highness,” Waldron said. “Not so high as Blaise, but there’s only one pass for fifty miles in either direction from the east coast to Carcosa.”
He must’ve noticed Garric glancing over his shoulder, because he added with the same impatience, “Your guards will follow at their own pace. I’ve given Lord Asterpos his orders.”
“I know Haft has hills,” said Garric, controlling his exasperation in part because the boiling fury of the ghost in his mind was so obviously excessive. “And I’ve crossed from Barca’s Hamlet to Carcosa, so I know the pass as well. Are you proposing to retreat to Carcosa?”
“Your Highness, I forgot you were from Haft,” said Waldron in startled contrition. Though it wouldn’t be obv
ious to anyone who didn’t know him, the army commander had just bestowed a great compliment: he had been thinking of Garric as a noble from northern Ornifal like himself, not as a hick peasant from a backwater island. “And no, not retreat to Carcosa, but if we hold the pass the rats will have to come at us on a narrow front where they can’t use their numbers.”
He cleared his throat and went on, “The Palomir army is larger than we’d expected. Lord Zettin estimates there are at least forty thousand rats. I find Zettin a bumptious upstart, but his scouts seem to have a good grasp of their duties.”
“From previous reports it looked like the rats would come from the south rather than due east,” Garric said. King Carus was sifting the data with a quick precision that his descendent would never be able to equal, but they’d come to the same conclusions regardless. “Is that still the case?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Waldron, visibly pleased that the camp was in sight. “They seem to have planned to overrun Cordin, but they turned north when they realized we were marching on them.”
Horns were calling from the camp. The ghost of Carus scowled and said, “And I bloody well hope the artillery in the gate towers either isn’t cocked or doesn’t have bolts in the troughs, because they’re pointing them at us.”
“Right,” said Garric. “So we don’t have to worry about Palomir maneuvering around us—they want a battle. We’ll march half a day south into the dry grasslands between what used to be the coast of Haft and the reefs paralleling it. We’ll give them their battle there, but I don’t think it’ll be the battle they want.”
“Your Highness!” Waldron said. “I don’t want you to think that I’m afraid—”
Though the army commander had personality defects, nobody who knew him would suspect him of cowardice.
“—but the safety of the kingdom depends on this battle. There’ll be time for the people in your home village to evacuate. And even if there wasn’t, there’ll be no hope for them anyway if the rats surround and destroy the royal army.”
The ghost in Garric’s mind had a dangerous expression, but Garric gave Waldron a lopsided smile. “Milord,” he said mildly, “if I ordered you to expend all your efforts in protecting Barca’s Hamlet, what would you do?”
Waldron frowned like a thundercloud; then his face slowly cleared. “You wouldn’t do that, Your Highness,” he said slowly. “I . . . I hadn’t thought or I wouldn’t have suggested that your plans were based on where you grew up. Your pardon.”
After a further moment he added, “Though of course if you did, I’d obey my orders. I hope I know my duty as a soldier, Your Highness.”
“Much as I thought, Waldron,” Garric said with a warmer grin. “My actual train of thought is this: the rats are more agile than we are. In broken terrain they’ll always have the advantage. In the hills in par tic u lar, they’ll be able to get around and above us, even our light troops.”
“But our troops are stronger man for man,” Waldron agreed with increasing animation, “and we’ve got discipline that I certainly didn’t see in the rats when we engaged them earlier.”
He frowned. “But they will surround us, Your Highness.”
Garric nodded. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll win the battle or die, no question about that. But milord, that wasn’t really in question to begin with, was it?”
Lord Waldron’s expression remained fixed for a moment. Then he barked a laugh and said, “No, I don’t suppose there was, Your Highness. This isn’t like fighting the Earl of Sandrakkan, is it? Yes, we’ll give the rats a battle—but as you say, it’ll be our battle, not the one they want.”
“Put the men in heavy marching order then, milord,” Garric said, echoing the words of the ghost in his mind. “I want a week’s rations and water, though I don’t think we’ll have that much time. We’ll have to pack it or push it in handcarts, because we won’t be taking any horses and mules.”
Waldron sighed, then brightened as they rode together through the east gate of the camp. “Well,” he said, “I don’t mind marching for a day if there’s a chance to kill rats at the other end.”
King Carus laughed. “I’d have gotten along with Waldron, lad,” he said. “At least until I lost my temper and took his head off. He’s got the right idea this time, by the Shepherd.”
Garric didn’t have his ancestor’s enthusiasm for battle, but sometimes there was no other choice. He grinned wryly at Tenoctris, then said to Waldron, “I don’t know that I’d make that a general rule, but in the present circumstances, milord, I completely agree.”
ILNA SMILED COLDLY as she wove and knotted the long strands. The sisal from a captive’s basket was stiff and had a harsh texture, but that made it even better for what she had to do. Not that she really needed more than her own skill.
“You’ve come to worship me, Ilna os-Kenset,” said the king, “though perhaps you didn’t know it at the time. You have no choice, you see. Your former gods are gone since the Change, but I’ve been preparing for this moment for longer than you can count. The Gods are dead, and the King of Man is God!”
Usun spun his armed staff like a baton and laughed. “If living in a cave for thousands of years makes you a god, then Mistress Ilna and I just spilled another god into a canyon. Do you have any canyons here, ape boy, or do we need to find another way to dispose of you?”
Ingens was talking to Hervir; they seemed to be paying no attention to the giant ape or their present circumstances. The secretary’s posture suggested a degree of deference, but they were still old acquaintances meeting in unexpected circumstances.
“Nothing can harm me here!” said the ape with booming certainty. “You call this a cave, little doll? My congregation has been polishing away the living rock for millennia, creating this sanctuary in which to worship me. I rule men now, but from their prayers in this sacred vault I will rule the cosmos!”
The apes who’d brought Ingens to the cavern were waiting to either side of the doorway, as dull-eyed and motionless as a pair of marble statues. Ilna was glad not to have to deal with them. They were each about the size of a man, but they’d be far stronger. She wasn’t sure what effect the pattern she was weaving would have on them.
“Please don’t judge us harshly, mistress,” said Perrine with a look of misery. “We had no choice.”
“The King of Man rules this valley,” her brother said. He wouldn’t meet Ilna’s eyes. “There’s no will but the king’s.”
Together the twins whined, “We had no choice!”
There’s always a choice, Ilna thought, but folk like these wouldn’t understand that sometimes it’s better to die. Her fingers wove and knotted. She’d done worse things than Perrin and Perrine had, but she’d never pretended that she’d been forced to them. Out of hurt and anger she’d surrendered herself to Evil, and for a time thereafter she’d been one of Evil’s most subtle and effective tools.
She gave the twins a look of hard appraisal. They weren’t even good tools . . . though they’d apparently been good enough to trap Ingens and Hervir and—
Ilna let her eyes drift across the huge cavern. Polished out of nothing! Unless the king was lying, and she didn’t see any reason he should be.
—tens of tens of tens of men and women. Human beings were no better than sheep! But neither sheep nor humans would be left as prey for wolves while Ilna and her brother were in the world.
“You can put that rag away, mistress,” the king said contemptuously. “Nothing harmful to me can exist in this vault. Pray to me and it will go easier for you.”
“I don’t pray,” Ilna said as she wove. “And ‘easy’ isn’t something I’ve had much experience with, so you needn’t expect that that offer would get me to change my mind even if I believed you. Which of course I don’t.”
“Mistress,” said the prince. “The king really can’t be attacked here.”
“Anywhere in the valley,” his sister agreed sadly, “but especially here in his chamber of worship.”
&n
bsp; Sheep! thought Ilna. To the great ape she said, “You’re afraid that I’m going to make you tear your eyes out, is that it, monkey? No, that isn’t what I have in mind.”
“Are you too stupid to understand?” said the king. “You can do nothing to me! No fabric of yours can touch me. I cannot be attacked!”
The lungs in that huge chest gave the words the volume of an ox bawling, but the hollow chamber drank it nonetheless. The captive humans fell to their knees in terror, the prince and princess along with the others. Perhaps that was an effect of the drugged wine too.
Ilna met the beast’s gaze squarely. The beetling brows and massive jaws would’ve given it an angry expression anyway, but she didn’t doubt that it was really angry. Stiff silvery bristles stood up along its spine. She hadn’t actually done anything, but the mere fact that she wasn’t bowing and scraping was enough to infuriate it.
There were human beings like that, of course. She had a short way with them too.
“I’ll give you a final chance,” Ilna said. She wondered if she’d make the offer if she thought there was the least chance the beast would take it. Perhaps, perhaps she would . . . but the creature wasn’t going to accept. “Release all these humans. Take no more. And I’ll let you live here and rule the little monkeys for as long as you please.”
“I will pluck your limbs off,” said the king. There was a touch of rumbling wonder in his voice; he was no longer shouting. “I will pluck them off, and as your torso writhes on the floor you will pray to me for the mercy of death—which I will not grant!”
“When people learn my skill with patterns . . . ,” Ilna said in a conversational voice. She had a sufficient fabric already, but since the time was available she continued to embellish the present design. “They often ask me if I could foretell the future.”
She gave the king a hard smile. Her mind was considering what would happen next, and after that, and the next thing following . . . but that was out of her control. What she could control was what would happen to the beast before her, the one who’d enslaved humans for . . . well, the ape was probably correct in saying it was more years than she could count. That would end.