Reacher held
the bridgeway alone now, giving the others precious seconds to withdraw. His
two swords were impossible to see, licking out and swinging back and forth to
lay open or thrust through any who came close. He danced back and forth, but
never retreated or yielded an inch of the entranceway to his home. The soldiers
wavered irresolutely; he’d already slain several of their champions and many
other accomplished warriors besides.
At last there
was none to go against him and the bright imperatives of his blades. He stood
waiting silently. For an incredible moment in time the King held the bridge,
facing down a numberless host as much by bravado as skill at arms, a deed to be
told and retold long afterward.
He brought his
swords to his sides, still for the first time, and yet there was none to
challenge him. Then Reacher threw the bloodied blades down scornfully, and no
man dared meet his gaze squarely; the monarch of Freegate was master of them
all as if they were a pack of hounds at his feet.
He turned to
go. From the massed men Desenge, the feared and deadly aide-de-camp to
Legion-Marshal Novanwyn made his way through with blows and curses and charged
the Wolf-Brother with his long, heavy spear Finder at ready. It had been said
Desenge could never miss with Finder, and to prove it true he threw the weapon
with a lunge. It flashed at the King’s chest with speed that none could follow.
None, that is,
except Reacher. He bent and crouched, avoiding the spear and catching it in his
right hand. Straightening, he took Finder in both hands and contemptuously
snapped it in two with a single surge of arms and chest. Then he flung the
pieces from him and they arced out to either side, over the low walls of the
bridgeway and into the chasm below, and it was the end of a weapon that had
many evil deeds to its name. When they saw this, the troops were more loathe
than ever to attack the King.
Desenge frothed
with rage. Unsheathing his sword, he ran at Reacher with death in his eye. The
Wolf-Brother knocked the blade aside in anger, catching Desenge by the throat
and belt, and heaved the big man over his head, holding him there despite his
frantic efforts to escape. Van Duyn, watching from the turrets of Freegate, was
reminded of Hercules choking life from the giant Antaeus. The King grimaced
with effort; he closed his fist and his opponent’s windpipe was crushed.
Flinging the
body of Desenge out over the chasm, Reacher turned to run. But now two more
adversaries leaped to meet him. These were Kanatar and Deotar, twin sons of
Midwis, who was camp commander and second-in-command to Novanwyn.
They were
fair-haired and held in fondness by their father and their men, strong at war
and loyal to Strongblade because their father was. Deotar’s armor was black,
with silver trim, and Kanatar’s was silver with trimming of black; Deotar rode
a black horse and Kanatar a white.
They’d broken
through after much trying to face this King who was so feared. He’d faced about
and fled, so they laughed and mocked him as they pursued.
Reacher hadn’t
run from them, but from what he’d seen above and behind them. For, having
learned how his armies had been outfought, tricked and frustrated, Yardiff Bey
had vowed at least to have the life of the King, and to this end swooped down
on trails of fire. He didn’t want to bring
Cloud Ruler
too close to the
well-defended city, but his manic rage had the better part of him and he swept
in, disregarding the hazard to himself and his own army.
Reacher ran for
his life as the twins galloped after and the sorcerer bore down, intent on
incinerating him. Horses the Wolf-Brother could outdistance, and did. But the
airship overtook the twins and Kanatar and Deotar died, burned alive in molten
armor, victims of Yardiff Bey’s single-minded intent. Their father Midwis gave
a wretched cry and buried his face in his hands.
The race
narrowed to the king and the sorcerer, who leaned over the looking lens.
Reacher’s feet barely touched the ground. He ran as he’d never run before,
having acquired some of the fire fear of his lupine foster brothers, and he was
as close to hysteria as he’d ever been. Nonetheless, his running was
disciplined, arms and legs pumping and head bobbing up and down in regular
rhythm with his controlled breathing.
The King caught
up with the others at the gate, but the defenders in Freegate hadn’t been idle.
An engine hurled a metal-shod stone at Yardiff Bey’s predator ship.
Like a fireless
meteor it flew, narrowly missing the craft and falling into the jungle in the
chasm below. Bey’s high regard for
Cloud Ruler
suddenly quenched his
desire for immediate revenge. He ordered it to sheer off and make altitude.
But by that
time the would-be victim and the others were safely inside the gate.
That night,
when he’d had reports from pale, shamefaced subordinates on the events of the
last several days, Yardiff Bey brooded in his tower sanctum at Earthfast. He
considered asking the guidance of his masters in Shardishku-Salamá, but knew
this would be interpreted as a sign of weakness and inadequacy.
He weighed
recent news. Word had been leaked to the Mariners of the store of ship-fighting
engines; boarding pikes and grappling hooks were being prepared in Boldhaven.
Now they came to trade in fleets, with hands seldom far from cutlass hilts, and
it was rumored that they’d laid down two-score keels for craft of war.
Roguespur, that
hotblooded cub of cursed Fim, had, by sudden march in the night and deceit,
taken a key border fortress and manned it with his own mercenaries and rebels
mustered from the wilderness of the north.
And only this
evening Honuin Granite Oath had sent a solicitous message, bathed in crocodile
tears, that eleven of Strongblade’s ministers in his area were being
systematically and mysteriously assassinated.
A new shape of
things was forming in the sorcerer’s mind, incorporating the new ideas filling
the heads of the rabble, the disconcerting, clever innovations against him and
the perplexing weapons his foes were using. He remembered the humiliating
occasion in the Inferno sharply, but was sure that the machine wagon had been
dismissed from this cosmos.
It wasn’t, he
was certain, the work of Van Duyn. That one was all theory, all discussion and
generalization. No, this was the crafty influence of another, and Bey was sure
he knew who that other was; it must be the one he had seen through the eyes of
his mask-slave Ibn-al-Yed at the Hightower. It was the younger alien, the one
called Gil MacDonald; he seemed to be the causative factor of anomalies in the
plans of the Hand of Shardishku-Salamá.
A precarious
situation had come to be. Though the sorcerer hated to tear his attentions from
other phases of his grand scheme, he decided that he must remove the
unpredictable, unlooked-for cipher that was MacDonald. He already knew from
cursory investigation that the man had no presence whatsoever on spiritual
levels. He was in no sense a magician, and therefore had scant defense or
resistance against supernatural manipulation. Unlike Springbuck, deCourteney
and the rest, he wouldn’t have been provided with incantations to protect his
soul.
The sorcerer
stood up, crossed the enormous pentacle on his sanctum floor and considered
possible configurations for appropriate magical procedure. It might be
complicated, take time and require great effort, but he had confirmed his
decision to do it.
MacDonald must
be eliminated.
Defense is
the stronger form with the negative object, and attack the weaker form with the
positive object.
KARL VON CLAUSEWITZ,
“On War”
(prefatory note)
LIFE in the beleaguered city,
Springbuck found on the day after their spectacular return, wasn’t as
despondent as he’d feared.
True, rationing
was in effect, but allotments were adequate. There were enormous stores of
food, and cultivated ground on the plateau to provide more, plus forage for
herds and flocks. The job of maintaining a watch at the gatehouse was
uneventful, as the encircling army was looking to its wounded and repairing its
bivouac. Though Gabrielle demanded he remain with her for the day, he rose late
in the morning; donning fresh attire, he belted on his sword and went out to
see what could be seen. When he arrived at the bailey, he found the men there
grimly surveying the countryside, pointing and clutching their weapons in
anger. At first he thought an assault was being prepared against them, but
following the pointed finger of the guard officer he saw what had so aroused
them. To the northwest, by squinting somewhat, he could discern the smoke of
many fires climbing through the sky. He instantly knew this as the burning of
outlying farms, garths and villages.
An
unintelligible growl went up from the gathered soldiers. At the rim of the
chasm on the Western Tangent, a large horde was leaving the forest, on its way
to join the besieging army.
Despair was on
the watchers’ faces as they witnessed long files of sturdy, glittering knights
winding their way to the camp. Behind the chivalry came closely ranked
infantry, many with some bundle or bag of plunder tied to belt or back. They
carried kite-shaped shields and long, black-varnished pikes. They looked
hardened. There were many companies of them, many war banners riding the wind.
Then came baggage wagons flanked by lancers and bearing archers as escorts.
More squadrons
of cavalry divided the baggage wagons from those containing food and
provisions. After these came more infantry, men of the west of Coramonde in
Teebra, who wore the skins of wild animals over their hauberks, and necklaces
made from the claws and fangs of hunting beasts. They wore bonnets of eagle
feathers and didn’t carry guidons, but had before them animal totems mounted on
poles.
There were
strings of extra mounts next, fresh and high-stepping, then additional archers,
the sharp-eyed men of Rugor, whose sport was shooting chestnuts from high
branches with their arrows. Last came more dragoons.
“This is only
part of their second army,” the watch commander said to the Prince. “Off there,
where the fires are, there must be many more. These are here too early to have
set them.”
That sounded
logical to Springbuck. Send part of your force ahead to bolster those confining
your enemy and use the rest to raze any outposts, burn out resistance and make
a thorough forage, scouring the land so food and shelter would be denied any
guerrillas who escaped.
One of the men
at the wall began to scream oaths and threats at the unheeding foemen, clashing
his sword against his shield.
“His home,”
explained the officer, “is there, where the smoke billows thickest. It was a
farmhold this morning.”
The Prince
wanted to make some sympathetic remark, but found none that wouldn’t sound
hollow in his own ears.
Instead, he set
off back to the palace.
When he
arrived, he found that the leaders of the alliance had been called to council
in Reacher’s belvedere. They were already assembled, looking much as the men on
the bailey, except for the undemonstrative Wolf-Brother and Gil MacDonald.
The American
had just come from the deathbed of the Lady Duskwind. His face was frozen, as
vacant of emotion as Ibn-al-Yed’s had been. Hearing this news, Springbuck tried
to offer condolences, and knew a grief of his own. Gil waved them away. He’d
lost many friends to war, known that special bereavement many times. But this
was a sorrow beyond even that.
She had lost
consciousness just at the gate of the city and never awakened. He’d been at her
side through the night, futilely, as massive internal bleeding took her from
him by inches. She’d crossed the threshold of death almost imperceptibly. He
had refused to believe, would not leave her.
He’d sat with
her and cried for hours, speaking aimlessly without knowing that he did, trying
to sort out emotions he couldn’t even name and coping with pain so great that
he knew no word for it. In the end, he did the only thing he could think of; he
went out to pick up the parts of his life left to him.
The rest of
them avoided eye contact with him and withheld their words of consolation,
seeing that he didn’t want them.
The Prince
addressed the group. “It seems Yardiff Bey will divert every fighting man in
Coramonde to destroy us.”
Hightower
grunted. “Let them come! They’ll never take this city.
Pah!
I’ve
inspected it myself, and damn if it isn’t the finest fortification I’ve ever
seen! They’ll spend themselves on us by day, and by night we’ll harry them. The
men still in the hills will poison their wells and ambush their outriders.
Perchance more help will come from other tribes of the High Ranges and
Freegate’s upland tributaries.
“With no way to
get food, our enemies outside will be desperate before they’re three months
camped at our door. When their bellies force them to slaughter their own horses
we’ll sally and that will be that.”
The rest
considered this; the Prince said quietly, “No.” They turned to him. “My
Lords—and Lady—this will be unlike any siege you here have ever seen. You’re
used to fairly small armies fighting fairly autonomous wars and battles, but
this bids to be a new kind of conflict. With unlimited manpower, the army
outside the barbican will be able to keep itself supplied, even if it must
stretch its lines back to Earthfast. We haven’t sufficient numbers outside the
city to harry them.
“You’re
thinking that their size may shrink after a few months; but with proper
planning and supply, they can carry this effort through the winter and wait us
out. Yardiff Bey can even afford to rotate the men here so their morale will
not flag. He has no dearth of coin with which to pay them, with the coffers of
Earthfast at his beck and call.