Back | Next
Contents

26

The sun was hot on his face. He smelled sweat and dust; the animal smell of the Islanders; the coarse, hairy reek of the hounds. He ran, and the sword in his hand was bright.

People scattered from the pilgrim roads. The many-gated walls of Ged Darod rose above the plain, and the gates were open. They were always open. But now the heavy valves were stuttering to and fro. The army had been seen, the order given to shut the gates that had not been shut for centuries. Those within struggled to obey. But from the huddled camps without the walls came panic mobs to push the other way, lest they be barred out and left to the mercy of the foe.

Stark yelled—a high, strange cry that startled even the Islanders, a cry that belonged far away on another world where snouted half-men urged each other on to the kill. The Northhounds bayed, a deep-mouthed sinister belling.

One gate of all the gates, the nearest one, became the focal point of their rush. People were locked there in a single, swaying mass that broke and fragmented before them, shredding away at the edges, falling beneath swords and spears and the killer-minds of the hounds. No firm resistance was met. One small band of mercenaries fought determinedly but were soon disposed of. The others—Farers, pilgrims, refugees—simply ran. The Islanders had scarcely lost momentum. With great difficulty Stark held them until Ashton and part of his own troop came up, the Thyrans clanking after them, grunting and puffing. The Fallarin had drawn aside with their Tarf to sit out the messy business; there was nothing much they could do in a battle of this kind.

Stark saw that the Iubarians were coming, for once on the double, except for the men who hauled the catapults. He detailed a force of Thyrans to secure the gate and then ran on again with the Islanders—Irnanese and tribesmen at his back and Halk's long sword swinging. The balance of the Ironmaster's force tramped heavily behind, a moving shield-wall bristling with swordpoints.

Pedrallon alone bore no weapon. Himself a Wandsman of high rank before his downfall, this had been his city, where he walked in pride and power. Stark wondered what his thoughts must be as he walked here now, seeing what had happened to Ged Darod. For much had happened.

Buildings were in flames. Storehouses had been plundered. The temples with their peacock roofs had been sacked, even the golden Sun Temple, where bodies were scattered on the steps. Dead priests and Wandsmen floated in the sacred tank. Ragtag mobs ran this way and that, disorganized gobbets of fear and fury. They did not present much of a threat, but Stark knew that mercenary troops were in Ged Darod, and he wondered why they did not appear.

The stench of the streets rose about them in the heat. Delbane spat and said, "Our land has been defiled."

Darik answered, "It shall be cleansed."

Gerd growled. Death, N'Chaka. Men fight. Kill. Stark nodded. He had already heard the distant voice of war.

Again he restrained the Four Kings, all but beating them back to give the Thyrans time to close up. He felt nervous in the narrow streets, which compressed and diminished his effective force.

He led on toward the roar of the mob, because that was where they had to go.

They came out into the vast square below the Upper City. It was packed with people, a surging multitude that beat like surf against the white cliff that reared above with its rows of small, secret windows. The outer portions of the mob were Farers and refugees, armed with whatever makeshift weapons they could lay their hands on. Up front, and leading the assault, were the mercenaries; and now Stark understood why they had not bothered to defend the city. They were clustered on and around the dais from which the Wandsmen had used to speak to their people, and there were more of them in the tunneled gate above, where ceremonial steps ran upward, out of sight. From deep within this tunnel came the muffled booming of a ram.

"What are these people doing?" asked Delbane.

"That is the sacred enclave of the city. They want to take it."

The mob had begun to turn and face the new threat. The mercenaries, from their higher vantage point, had also become aware of them. Stark saw a sudden flurry of activity around the tunnel mouth. Tough, well-disciplined ranks began to form.

"But we must have it for ourselves," said Delbane. "Is that not so?"

"That is so," Stark answered, looking at the overwhelming mob and the monolithic wall beyond it.

"Well, then . . ." said Delbane. He turned to his brother Kings. "Let us sweep this scum away!"

It was Pedrallon who said, "Wait!"

Something in his voice carried enough conviction to make the Islanders listen. They despised him for his physical weakness, but he was still a red Wandsman and a prince, and the old authority was there. He gestured toward the tunnel.

"No one will gain entrance through that gate. Because of the angle of the steps, a ram is almost useless. They may pound till they drop, but the gate will stand. It would be the same for us. I know another way. The way I used when I had occasion to leave the city unseen."

Stark could hear the Iubarians coming up. Between them and the Thyrans, the besieging force could be contained, and possibly defeated. He gave quick orders to the Ironmaster and then spoke to the Kings. "We follow Pedrallon."

The Islanders snarled. The mob was upon them and they wanted to fight now. In a moment more they would have no choice, and Stark grasped Delbane by the thong of the golden plaque at his throat. "Do you want this city, or don't you?" The fierce eyes stabbed at him. The bone knife in the powerful knotted hand lifted. The hounds clamored warning. Stark silenced them. He twisted the thong tighter.

"Do you want this city?"

The knifepoint lowered. "Yes."

Stark turned and motioned on his troop. They began to run—away from the square.

The mob swayed forward, hurling stones, swinging makeshift weapons. They enveloped the Thyrans, who formed a square to protect their flanks and rear and began to crunch forward with their shield-wall. The first Iubarian contingent came up, with some of the tall Ssussminh. Within seconds, the square was a floundering confusion as the disciplined ranks began to push the mob back against the pressure of the advancing mercenaries.

Pedrallon led the way swiftly, by streets that were almost deserted now, toward the Refuge, where the Farer girls came to have their babies and give them to the Wandsmen to rear. The windows of the Refuge were full of anxious faces, and there was a great crying and wailing and clashing of shutters as the troop swept by.

Behind the Refuge, and behind the high hostel where Farers who were past their faring could idle out their last years, the wall of the Inner City bent itself around a shoulder of rock. Storage sheds were built against the rock, and at the back of one of them, hidden from any but the knowing eye, was a narrow door.

Pedrallon took them through it into a night-black passage, a rathole where they must tread in single file, Stark and the tall Irnanese doubled forward under a low roof.

"This is madness," Delbane objected, thinking of his men strung out in a long and useless line. "Will the other end be guarded?"

"The hounds will let us know," said Stark. "Just hurry!" And he asked Pedrallon, "Are there more secret ways like this one?"

"Several. Palace intrigues are not unknown among Wandsmen. Also, there are times when the monastic life becomes too boring, and some things are better done unobserved."

There were no side passages, no fear of losing the way. They shuffled forward at a rapid pace, and then came to steps, steep and winding, that slowed them down. The steps went on until all were breathing hard, and it was a relief to find a level stretch again.

"Softly now," Pedrallon warned, and the long line jarred slowly to a halt, all the way back down the stairs and into the lower passage. Gerd?

Wandsmen. There. Waiting. Kill!

Somewhere a man screamed. Pedrallon fumbled quickly in the dark. A strip of light showed, widened, and became an oblong through which Stark ran with his hounds into a huge chamber filled with dusty boxes, dead furniture, and dying Wandsmen with futile weapons in their hands. The chamber contained no more than a dozen of them, more than enough to hold the narrow doorway against any ordinary force. In any case, they could hardly have believed that anyone would come.

The hounds finished their work quickly. Men poured into the chamber in a steady stream.

"We need room," Halk said. "If they come at us now in any force . . ." Beyond the chamber was a corridor, stretching away on either hand between rows of doorways. They saw a flickering of robes—blue, green, apprentice gray—where men and boys ran from the intruders or stopped to fight them. But there was only token resistance.

Some of Stark's men were deployed to hold the corridor while the rest of the Islanders caught up. Then the head of his line moved on to a wide doorway, and through that into a cloistered quadrangle where there was more than enough room in which to form their ranks. Wandsmen shouted from the high windows on three sides, and Stark could hear the sounds of the Upper City all around him, stirring and crying like a disturbed aviary.

The cat-footed Islanders formed their companies quickly, rallying to the golden Head. Then they set off again, across the quadrangle and through an arch into a place where three streets came together. All three were narrow, cramped between massive walls. One was short, ending almost at once at the ornate portico of some administrative building. One led steeply downward to the square behind the gate. The third became a flight of steps that swept upward to the Palace of the Twelve.

The square was crowded with Wandsmen, mostly young ones in the lower ranks. A company of mercenaries stood within the gate. From their appearance and accoutrements, they had come from several different troops. Stark could not see how many there were. On the steps of the palace more mercenaries stood on guard, with ranks of Wandsmen behind them.

Stark said to the Four Kings, "There is the gateway to your city. Take it and hold it."

Aud said scornfully, "There is not honor enough there for all of us. What will you do?"

"Take the palace."

"Good," said Aud. "Let us go forward."

The mercenaries on the palace steps included a company of bowmen. They commanded the street up which the attackers must move. Aud was for rushing them at once, but Stark restrained him. Delbane, Darik, and Astrane were already pelting down the way to the square. The sharp, clear sounds of strife from beyond the gate were drowned by sharper, clearer sounds from within.

Stark said to Aud, "We'll parley first."

He borrowed a shield from one of the Irnanese and went up the step, his right arm upheld, weaponless.

Halfway up, he stopped and shouted, "There is an army in the Lower City. There is another one here. You fight for a lost cause. Lay down your arms."

The captain of the mercenaries answered, "We have taken gold. We will not betray it."

"You are honorable men," Stark said, "but foolish. Think."

"We have thought," said the captain, and the arrows flew.

Stark crouched behind the shield. Barbed heads thumped on the hard leather. Shafts whistled past him. No sound came from the Islanders, but one of the hounds screamed and cries rang out from among the tribesmen and the Irnanese.

Kill! said Stark to the hounds, and they killed, and the human wolves behind Aud came up the steps with such ferocity that they almost overran Stark, who had taken time to draw his sword.

Another flight of arrows cut into his front ranks, but those behind simply hurdled the bodies without pausing. There was no third flight. The hounds were angry and their eyes blazed like evil moons. The mercenaries fell, and then the Wandsmen; and those who could do so fled back into the palace.

Stark and the Islanders burst in after them. The bone-barbed spears rose and fell. Beautiful carpets and marble walls were stained with blood.

A magnificent staircase rose from the vaulted hall to the upper floors.

Stark found Pedrallon, and asked, "Where is Ferdias?"

Pedrallon pointed to the staircase. "The apartments of the Lords Protector are above, on the next floor."

"Lead!"

Stark half carried Pedrallon up the stair. The hounds raced ahead and he did not care who followed. But Ashton came, and Halk with his handful from Irnan, and Sabak with his tribesmen, and those of the Islanders who were not still busy.

They found halls of many-colored stone, marvelously fretted and carved; windows of pierced work; doors of carved wood with splendid lintels.

Wandsmen of all ranks tried to defend the halls against these wild, bloody, wayworn men and their terrible hounds. But they had lived so long in an ambience of power—unassailable, unthreatened, adored as demigods by their children—that when the unthinkable happened and these same children came howling at their gates, hungry and betrayed, they had no defenses. They had depended always on mercenaries to do for them what disciplinary work was needed among the providers to keep peace and order. Now even the mercenaries, knowing their power was gone, had turned against them. They were as helpless before the wrath of the lawless as monastic communities have always been, and the proud Wandsmen of the palace died like seals under the spears of the barbarian.

Pedrallon pointed to a massive doorway at the end of a long, painted hall and said, "There."

But Gerd said, N'Chaka. Wandsman. There!

"There" was a side corridor, and the likeness of the Wandsman Stark received from Gerd's mind was the likeness of Gelmar, who had once been Chief Wandsman of Skeg.

Think he kill.

Who?

Not person. Thing. Strange thing. Not understand. His mind think: voice that speak, kill.

Stark said to Aud, "I want the Lords Protector alive, you understand that?" Then he was off at a flat run, along the hall, into the branching corridor.

He saw the swirl of a red robe as it vanished through a doorway.

There! said Gerd. Kill?

Wait. . .

The door was of dark wood, polished and blackened by the passage of centuries. The metal of the latch was cool and smooth, worn by the touching of countless hands. It worked easily. The door swung inward, into a small room with beautiful linen-fold paneling. A table stood against one wall. On it was an ugly, incongruous black box, defiling with its mass-produced dials and verniers the loving handwork of the wood below and behind it.

Gelmar stood before the box, smashing at the perspex dial covers with the iron pommel of a sword. "They won't break," Stark told him. Gelmar dealt the plastic one last vicious blow. "May the gods curse all such matters! And all the men who make them!" He turned the sword on Stark. Let be, said Stark to the angry hounds. There was little fencing room in the small chamber, but not much was needed. Gelmar was no skilled swordsman; he only wanted with all his heart to kill. Stark parried his first savage rush, surprised at the man's strength. A sharp clash of blades sounded, and then Stark struck the weapon from Gelmar's hand. "I will not hold the hounds another time," said Stark. The dark blood that had been in Gelmar's face drained away, leaving it pale and set, the face of a man who has reached the end of his way and knows it. Yet his voice was perfectly steady when he spoke.

"The transceiver is of no use to you, in any case. Ferdias has already spoken to the ship. It has left us, and will not return."

Back | Next
Framed