Brotherhood of the Wolf Part 52

Upon the wall, hundreds of men raised their bows. Gaborn stood two hundred yards from Kriskaven Wall. Any arrows shot from such a distance would find it hard to pierce his armor, but few of the mounts in his retinue had barding. A rain of arrows would be devastating, and at this moment, Lowicker craved blood.

Yet the vile old King hesitated.

"Wait!" Gaborn called, raising his left hand. "I give you one more fair warning! I am the Earth King, and as I serve the Earth, so it serves me.

"I have been called to Choose the seeds of mankind, and those who raise their hands against me do so at their own peril! I bid all of you, let me pa.s.s!"

On the wall, Lowicker's men began to laugh him to scorn, and Gaborn stared at them, amazed at how one man's evil could subvert so many.

"Go back!" Lowicker said. Gaborn perceived suddenly that something restrained Lowicker, kept him from releasing his hail of arrows even now.

Since Lowicker had carefully pared away his own conscience with the precision of a skilled surgeon, Gaborn imagined that only one thing could stay his hand, fear.

Gaborn glanced from side to side. Binnesman rode beside Gaborn, along with Sir Langley and many other lords from Orwynne, as did Queen Herin the Red and Erin Connal of Fleeds, and Prince Celinor of South Crowthen.

Shooting at this company would have repercussions that Lowicker did not want to deal with--perhaps most of all because Lowicker feared how King Anders would react to the murder of his own son.

Indeed, Lowicker's eyes flickered across Celinor for half a second giving the lad an evil look, as if begging him to depart.

Gaborn almost laughed inside. With sudden clarity he saw that the Earth would serve him well right now.

Gaborn hopped down from his horse.

Before making a cut in stone, masons would draw upon it a rune of Earth-breaking, and thus Weaken the stone so that it conformed better to their, will. Only a week ago, Binnesman had destroyed the old stone bridge across Harm's Gorge in a similar manner.

Gaborn knew that he could wield such power now. Using the Earth Sight, he gazed not at Lowicker, but at Kriskaven Wall itself. The wall was a great expanse of stone, held together by mortar and gravity.

Yet as he studied it, he saw flaws within the stone. A splintering crack here where a root had pried the stone, a weakness there. It was not so much a wall that he beheld, as a network of small fissures.

The wall was so weak that with a little pressure here, and some there, and over there, it would come down.

"If it is a sign you seek, so be it!" he shouted to Lowicker. "I will give you a sign that you cannot deny."

Now Gaborn glanced at the wizard Binnesman. The wizard, astride his horse, whispered, "Milord, what are you doing?"

"I reject King Lowicker and any man who stands with him," Gaborn replied. "Lend me your staff."

The wizard handed Gaborn his staff, saying, "Are you sure this is wise?"

"No, but it is just." He looked up. Lowicker still sat his horse, smirking across the distance, confident. But to Gaborn's satisfaction, Lowicker's Days nervously began backing his own horse away.

Gaborn took the staff and carefully traced a rune of Earth-breaking on the dusty road. The rune looked to Gaborn like a mantis with two heads and three claws, all trapped within a circle.

"Is this how it's drawn?" Gaborn asked the wizard, to be certain he had done it right.

"The earth powers are not used to kill," the wizard warned.

"The Earth permits death," Gaborn said, "even our deaths. I will spare all those I can."

Yet he wondered if he dared spare Lowicker. Gaborn needed to protect his people, and the Earth had not forbidden him from taking the lives of his enemies. Killing an enemy as vicious as Lowicker was no worse than killing a reaver.

Gaborn raised the wizard's staff overhead and shouted a command: "By the Earth I serve, I command this wall: Be thou broken stones and dust!"

With his mind he reached out to a hundred pressure points on the wall, and then he smote the rune of Earthbreaking with the staff, and felt the impact at his feet as the ground began to roll and buck. The earth rumbled as if it would split apart, and suddenly all the smirking bowmen on the wall began to shout in terror.

The command that Gaborn uttered came not from a weak-willed mason who served the Earth only enough to get something in return. It was the command of the Earth King, and so carried more force than that of any other.

King Lowicker's horse reared, tossing the old man from his saddle. The knights in his retinue broke rank, turned, and began to flee. The men atop the wall raced for the stairs or tried leaping to safety.

The breastwork of Kriskaven Wall had stood for a thousand years. Now with a booming of thunder and a screaming protest of stone, the Earth King's power wracked it. The wall shuddered and twisted for half a mile in each direction, writhing like a snake.

Yet Gaborn could not lightly kill those who defied him.

He felt the wall ready to buckle and shatter, according to his will, but for a moment longer he sought to hold it together until the men atop could leap to safety.

Then, even he could no longer hold it, and the wall snarled like an enraged animal, and exploded. Stones shot high in the air, then dropped like hail, pinging on Gaborn's helm. Dust rose into the air in acrid clouds, and was captured by the wind and blown to the north.

Archers who had leapt for safety raced from the base of the wall, trying to cover their heads with their hands.

When the dust settled, a mile of Kriskaven Wall had crumbled. Even in ruins, it was an impressive pile of rubbish. Where Feyman's Gate had stood wide, now there was but a tangle of broken stone from the fallen arch.

A few men had leapt from the wall and injured a leg or arm. Another dozen knights had been unseated from their horses.

As far as Gaborn could discern, he had not slain a single man.

Now, beyond the low pile of rubble, Lowicker's knights fled, hundreds of men racing from destruction.

Erin, Celinor, and a dozen other knights raced to the fallen Lowicker. Their mounts circled the old King, cutting him off from any escape.

Gaborn rode forward with his company over the pile of gravel and cracked stone that had once been the arch to Feyman's Gate, up to where his former friend lay on the ground. King Lowicker's face was contorted with pain, and his right leg askew. It looked as if his hip had broken yet again.

"d.a.m.n you!" Lowicker shouted. "I hope you and Raj Ahten kill each other!"

"A likely scenario," Gaborn said. He gazed down at Lowicker, full of concern. He did not want to kill the man, to kill any man. Yet Lowicker was such a great evil, such a powerful king, Gaborn knew not what else to do.

Gaborn still dared hope that he could lead Lowicker's troops to war.

"I've given you a sign," Gaborn said. "Will you swear fealty to me? Will you repent of your crimes?"

Lowicker merely laughed in derision. "Of course, milord. Allow me to live, and I swear by the Powers, I'll clean your bedpans every morn!"

"Would you rather die, then?" Gaborn asked. "Would death be preferable to a life of service?"

"If I am to live, let me live to be served," Lowicker roared.

Gaborn had expected no better. He shook his head sadly. He looked back at his knights. To slay a king even in the heat of battle was a hard deed, for it might easily bring retribution from another lord. Few in Gaborn's company would dare risk it. But to execute a king in cold blood was more perilous still, for it would incite Lowicker's allies to rage, Though it was a deed best done by a man of equal rank to Lowicker, Gaborn was loath to do it. He turned to the lords accompanying him and asked, "Will any of you put him down?"

"I will," High Queen Herin the Red said in a hard tone. "I always admired Lowicker's wife. I will avenge her now."

When Celinor heard Queen Herin's threat, he said, "You should make the cut, milady. But it would please me if you would do the honor of using my sword."

She leapt from her gelding, took Celinor's sword.

King Lowicker shouted, "No, please!," and feebly tried to crawl away as Queen Herin advanced.

Though Lowicker lay wounded, he was not defenseless. He was a Runelord still, with endowments of brawn and metabolism to his credit.

As Queen Herin drew near, he blurred into motion. From somewhere in his robes Lowicker produced a knife, hurled in expertly.

Queen Herin sought to parry with her sword, but the knife blade took her full in the chest.

Her mail blunted the impact, and the heavy quilting of her underjerkin held the point.

Lowicker's eyes went wide as Queen Herin rushed in with the sword.

In Fleeds the penalty for regicide was the removal of the criminal's hands and feet. Thereafter he would be left to languish. Lowicker did not die quickly from his wounds. He had so many endowments of stamina that he could not die quickly.

According to those who followed, Lowicker lived on in torment until sunset, when the cold leached the heat from his body, so that he died like a snake.

CHAPTER 44.

THE STALEMATE.

The fell mage merely stood before the walls of Carris, her sickly citrine rod throbbing with light, the gleaming runes tattooed into her carapace glowing dimly. She played it over the walls, and Roland imagined that at any second she would cast a horrid spell and the barbicans would melt into slag or crumble to ruin.

Instead, she merely pointed her staff toward the castle gate, and for along time, nothing happened.

Roland was a good swimmer. Given the chance, he would throw off his clothes and dive from the castle wall. He could probably swim south a mile or more, then cut for the sh.o.r.e. From there he might be able to escape.

Then, at last, he saw her plan.

She cast no spell.

Instead, from the ranks of ten thousand reavers, a single reaver strode forward. It was diminutive compared to its companions. Small, wretched, and covered with old scars.

It marched toward the castle alone, toward the nine fiery green s.h.i.+elds that the flameweavers had set as wards.

Everyone in the castle saw the reaver's plan at once. The captain of the artillery shouted for his men to fire at the wretched creature, and fire they did.

But as before, the ballista bolts careened away from their target, and the miserable little reaver trundled forward to the mouth of the causeway, into the midst of the green glowing s.h.i.+elds.

Roland did not see what happened. He dropped for cover before the small reaver triggered the flame wards. He merely felt the castle walls buck, the roiling heat blast overhead. Light and dust swirled up into the air.

And then the castle's protective wards were gone.

The flameweavers that guarded Carris had spent their power in vain. When Roland got up, he glanced down toward them. Two of the Flameweavers, naked now even of flames, began slinking down the steps, as if seeking retreat, while the third merely stood studying his ruined wards in defiance.

With the wards gone, the fell mage turned and began to stride north, as if she were no longer concerned herself with the castle.

But a cohort of a thousand blade-bearers remained in place, forming a long wall before the castle, just a few yards out of artillery range.

Their intent was clear. There would be no escape from Carris.

The fell mage led her horde north, and Roland was glad to see her go. But she did not travel far.

Just north of the castle was a small rise called Bone Hill, where lords had fought for centuries as they sought to take Carris.

The fell mage stopped at the foot of the hill and dropped her head close to the ground, like a hound eagerly catching a scent. Slowly she began to tread in a circle around the base of the hill, while minions stayed back a hundred yards.

When she had circled it completely, the fell mage dropped her head and trotted round it again, more quickly--so that her shovel shaped head scooped out a perfect circle.

Then she galloped around a third time, widening the furrow.

As she did, all of the other reavers began to hiss.

Moments later the wind brought a scent from beneath the snow and ash unlike anything Roland had ever smelled before. It was sweeter than the nectar of a rose, more fragile and exotic.

Of anything he'd witnessed that day, the scent alone seemed the most wondrous. He breathed deeply, sought to fill his lungs with the heady perfume.

"What's that smell?" a farmer asked Baron Poll in a whisper.

"Something the reavers are making," Baron Poll said.

"But...I've always heard that reavers don't have a scent, that they can't be tracked even by dogs!"

Baron Poll shook his head in wonder. "Sirrah, the smartest man in the world could fit everything he thinks he knows about reavers into a ten-page book, and once you read it you might as well throw it straight in the jacks.

"Some say that reavers don't have a smell, and others say, that they mimic the scent of their background, and I've heard some say that they can manufacture any scent at will. But...it's been two thousand years since we've fought a surface war with reavers. Most of what men once knew is lost. All that's left are exaggerations and half-truths."

When the fell mage had paraded the hill six more times, she climbed to its crown.

Reavers pulled crystalline skulls from the mage's palanquin and used them to decorate the crown of the hill, so that eyeless reaver skulls stared from it in every direction.

Then the fell mage raised her staff overhead. Lesser mages formed a circle at the base of the hill. Each carried a dead or dying man in its jaws, and now the mages grasped the carca.s.ses and wrung each man as if he were a rag. Blood and guts and bodily fluids squirted into the trench. Then the corpses were thrown over the top.

When the reaver mages had wrung their victims dry, a new scent began to arise--a ghastly odor that seemed a mixture of smoke and putrefaction.

Then the howlers and blade-bearers left Bone Hill and began to spread over the countryside. They began dismantling every artifact of human manufacture, tearing down fortresses and cottages, uprooting trees and orchards, cras.h.i.+ng through stone fences that had stood for hundreds or thousands of years.

They demolished everything, spared nothing, and worked with terrifying speed and efficiency.

The Glue-mums began eating every plant in sight, masticating whole trees and the thatch from cottages, then spitting it out in the form of sticky saliva. Howlers grabbed the masticated pulp and pulled it into ropes, as if it were taffy that quickly hardened. The howlers dragged the lines to the base of Bone Hill and twined it about, forming a rigid coc.o.o.n around the hill, a screen behind which the reaver mages continued to work. They began excavating the hill, forming strange and sinuous patterns in the ground.