Brotherhood of the Wolf Part 57

Shall we halt their work for three seconds and then flee, like a child pelting a knight with rotten figs?

To do so was folly.

No more than sixty or seventy dead reavers littered the plains; Raj Ahten was forced to retreat, and now he would be chastised by the fell mage and her minions.

As if she had been waiting for this moment all along, the fell mage struck.

The huge mage perched atop Bone Hill raised her great staff to the sky, and an odd hissing roar issued from it. Even now, she wore her fiery runes like a coat of light.

There was a noise like a peal of thunder, and a blast of wind surged from her, sweeping across the hill as if an invisible stone had dropped into a pool, sending out a ring. Roland would not have been able to see it at all if not for the gree that writhed through the air. When the wind struck them, it sent them swirling like leaves.

Down on the plains below, the wind smashed into war-horses. It looked as if they had merely been hit by a blast of air, but the mounts suddenly lost their footing and crashed over the stony land, armor clanging. Warriors cried out as they fell to their deaths. Some got up and feebly began to crawl about, while reavers raced in and finished them.

Raj Ahten and his men neared the causeway, a ragged company of three hundred men and chargers. The knights' mounts staggered about blindly, as if stricken, while a wall of blade-bearers charged to meet them.

Then the wind hit Roland with a vengeance. He felt the icy kiss as if it were fear itself, an unmanly fear that sent his heart racing and made him wish to hide. The smell of the air was like burning hair, but a hundred times more intense. A roaring sound raged in his ears, far louder than a thundering waterfall. His eyes burned painfully and, in that moment, everything went completely black.

Suddenly stricken blind, with a roaring like the sea blocking all sound, Roland cried out and clutched the battlements on the castle walls. A disorienting dizziness a.s.sailed him, so that he grasped the wall but could not tell which way was up or down.

All about him, men began to scream in terror. "Help! I'm blind! Help!"

But there would be no help. Such was the power of the fell mage's curse that Roland merely lay in terror, gasping great breaths, struggling to stay alive.

No wonder the reavers do not fear us! Roland thought.

His eyes burned as if a hot drink had scalded them, and the knotty cords within throbbed in pain. He gasped and wiped copious tears from his face. He felt utterly unmanned.

For a long minute he lay thus, until the hammering in his ears began to subside, and through his tears he could see the sun riding dim as the moon through the gray sky. He made it to his knees, peered through his blindness, blinking rapidly. Black clouds seemed to obscure all sight. All along the wall-walks, men around him huddled, wiping their faces, squinting to pierce the darkness.

In moments he realized that reavers must have reached the causeway, coming within artillery range. The marksmen called for the artillery to shoot, and from the castle walls men cut loose with ballistas. Loud whonk sounds filled the air as ropes thudded against the steel wings of the ballistas, then giant metal bolts whooshed through air, landing with loud whacks as the bolts pierced reavers' carapaces.

Roland blinked into the gloom over the wall, until he could see reavers, gray shapes writhing in the dark. Raj Ahten's cavalry looked as if it would be overwhelmed.

But Raj Ahten was no common lord, and his men were no common warriors. They'd recovered enough from the fell mage's blast so that they could fight.

They charged manfully into the fray. Lances pierced reaver flesh. Horses screamed when blade-bearers slashed through them. Glory hammers rang against armor.

Dozens more reavers died in the onslaught as Raj Ahten tried to win his way back to Carris. Men with great endowments of brawn and metabolism leapt from dying mounts, charged into battle, long-handled horseman's warhammers rising and falling, chopping into the thick skin of reavers.

At the ballistas on the castle wall, artillerymen shouted and struggled to rewind the winches that drew back the ropes on the enormous bows, while boys lifted the heavy bolts and slid them into their grooved channels.

Raj Ahten himself, the most powerful human lord, screamed a war cry that shook the castle, dislodging plaster from the outer walls. As the pain in his eyes eased, Roland could make out reavers falling back, briefly stunned by the sound, but then they attacked more fiercely, as if enraged Roland heard men shout in dismay; down at the Stone s.h.i.+pyards, five dozen s.h.i.+ps cobbled from rock and glue-mum resin had been launched into the water.

They bore no sails, sported no oars. Instead, reavers thrust long steel war blades into the water, using weapons to row.

Roland blinked and fought back tears. The strange craft with their high prows looked like black halves of walnuts floating in a pond. Except that these s.h.i.+ps raced toward him with reavers by the hundreds.

Terror seized him. He'd hoped that he would not have to face the enemy. He was on the south wall, after all, and everyone knew that reavers could not swim, but sank like stone.

Besides, he reasoned, the plaster walls of Carris were far too smooth for man or reaver to get a toe-hold, and though the plaster had been damaged, no one could hope to scale the walls.

He clutched his little half-sword, which had seemed adequate protection from highwaymen just two days ago, and wondered what use it would be in the battle to come.

It was folly for him to be here, folly for a commoner to fight a reaver.

Out on the causeway, Raj Ahten shouted again, hoping to stun the reavers. Roland glanced his way, saw that the reavers not only ignored his cry, but scurried toward him all the faster, as if recognizing that he was a threat.

"Get ready!" Baron Poll shouted. "Get ready!" Howlers began emitting their weird cries in an unearthly chorus.

Everywhere around Roland, men rushed to and fro, hoisting s.h.i.+elds, grabbing battle-axes. Some men bellowed for Roland to move, and they came and perched a heavy stone on the merlon next to him, went back for another.

"d.a.m.n!" Roland found himself shouting excitedly for lack of anything else to say. "d.a.m.n!"

"Look," some fellow behind him cried. "They're at the gates!"

Roland glanced west. Blade-bearers rushed behind Raj Ahten's retreat. They raced in before the gatekeepers could raise the drawbridges, and thus burst past the first two barbicans. Roland could not see if reavers made it into the castle proper, for the gate tower hid his view.

Again the fell mage atop Bone Hill raised her great staff to the sky, and the hissing roar issued from it. All along the castle walls, men cried out, for none wanted to be stricken by the fell mage's curse again.

"Close your eyes! Cover your ears! Don't breathe the fumes!" men shouted.

Roland glanced back; toward the gates, watched men fall as the reaver's curse struck them down.

He crouched down by the wall, clutched his ears and squinted his eyes tightly, held his breath as the second curse washed over him.

It struck like thunder, and the cords in his eyes twitched despite his care. He dropped to the ground, kept his eyes closed for several long seconds, dared not unstop his ears.

To his relief, his efforts helped him somewhat. He felt no disorienting dizziness.

Roland opened his eyes, and though they burned painfully and his sight was somewhat dim, he was not completely blind. He found himself face-to-face with a lad who was so frightened that the boy seemed leached of blood. The boy's teeth chattered, and Roland knew that he was too afraid to fight, that the boy would lie here and die in exactly this position.

And as he huddled by the wall, Roland also knew that the fell mage was uttering her curse in an effort to keep him from defending Carris.

Roland had always been a man that life happened to. He'd steered the course of his life by a plan that his parents had set out for him, responded to every prodding from his wife with a snarl of his own. He'd ridden north to find a son he'd never known, not because he felt much for the lad, but simply because he knew that it was the right thing to do.

Now he gritted his teeth, filled with regret for all that he'd never done, for all that he'd never be able to do. He'd promised to be a father to Averan, wanted to be a father to his son. Now he doubted that he would ever get that chance.

Either I can lie here and die like this dumb lad, or I can get up and fight! he thought.

He heard a thud as one of the odd stone s.h.i.+ps below collided against the castle wall. He could wait no longer.

"Come on," he growled to the frightened lad. "Let's get up and die like men!" Roland rose, grabbing the boy and giving him a hand. He leaned between two merlons, tried to peer through foul vapors that made him weep uncontrollably.

A hundred feet below, a reaver s.h.i.+p nuzzled the walls of Carris. One monster thrust its huge claws into the wall of the castle, piercing the thick layer of white plaster that lay over the stone.

A crow went cawing just over Roland's head as the reaver leapt from the s.h.i.+p. To Roland's astonishment, the reaver thrust its great blade between its teeth, like a dog fetching a stick, and climbed upward, raking the walls with its enormous foreclaws.

We are all commoners on this wall, Roland thought. No man here could stand against a reaver, even if it was unarmed.

Behind Roland, someone shouted, "Get some pole-arms up here!" Shoving the monsters from the walls with pole-arms sounded like a good plan, but there would be no time to fetch such weapons. Most of the halberds and falchions would be in use down below, by the castle gates.

Roland plunged his half-sword into its scabbard and grabbed for the huge stone nearby. He was a strong man, and large. But the stone he grabbed weighed upward of four hundred pounds.

With all his might, he strained to lift the d.a.m.ned boulder and drop it over the battlements.

It landed with a thud, hitting the reaver solidly on its eyeless head, some sixty feet below. The reaver halted for a second, stunned, and clung to the wall, as if it feared another rock.

But to Roland's distress, the huge boulder was not enough to dislodge the beast from the castle. Instead it hooked the bonespurs at the juncture of each elbow into the stone and continued scrabbling more carefully. The bone spurs dug into the plaster, finding holds that no human could see.

In three seconds the monster reached the top of the wall and reared, ready to leap over.

The reaver perched on the merlons, its enormous talons raised in the air. It grabbed its great blade and swiped down at the young fellow nearby.

The blade crushed the pasty-faced boy against the stone floor in a spray of blood. Roland drew his small half-sword and shouted a battle cry.

Gathering his courage, he rushed forward. The monster was balanced precariously atop the wall, holding itself to the merlons with clawed toes. Roland could see the joints that held the toes together, knew where to cut so that his blade would separate a toe from the foot.

With all his might, he thrust his blade deep into the joint of the reaver's toe, heard it hiss in pain.

The half-sword buried itself to the hilt, and Roland struggled to wrench it free again. At his side, Meron Blythefellow leapt forward with his pickaxe and hit another joint.

"Watch out!" Baron Poll shouted. Roland looked up to see an enormous clawed talon swipe toward him.

The talon caught Roland's shoulder, ripped into his flesh, and carried him into the air. For half a second he was thirty feet in the air above the tower, looking into the maw of the reaver, row upon row of crystalline teeth.

He was aware that men below were using this moment of distraction to attack the beast. One huge fellow went racing underneath, threw himself against the monster in a s.h.i.+eld rush.

Then the reaver fell, and Roland fell with it. He landed upon some defenders below and stared in horror at blood spurting from his right shoulder. The fiery pain was excruciating.

Men cheered as the reaver tumbled from the wall, went splas.h.i.+ng into the water. "Surgeon! Surgeon!" Roland cried.

But none came forward. Roland grasped his arm, tried to hold the gaping wound closed, to keep his lifeblood from flowing out. He shook uncontrollably.

In a daze, he crawled backward against the stone of the wall-walk, tried to clear out of the path of other castle defenders.

He stared hard for a moment at the merlon where Baron Poll had sat for the past day, but the Baron was gone. Other men rushed to defend the wall. Roland looked all around, still fighting the tears and the black fog that threatened his eyesight.

Suddenly in his mind's eye, he recalled the fellow making the s.h.i.+eld rush, knocking the reaver into the lake. No commoner could have performed such a feat-only a man with endowments of brawn.

And he knew where Baron Poll had gone.

Roland's heart seemed to pound in his throat; he pulled himself up. To the east and west, reavers gained the top of the wall. Commoners struggled to repel the monsters.

But here the attack had stopped for now. Roland gazed into the lake. The water was choppy, for the reavers were still trying to land. But the s.h.i.+p beneath his post was sinking. The bulk of a falling reaver, weighing more than a dozen tons, had been too much for the stone s.h.i.+p. The prow had shattered, and the reavers sank with their vessel.

Sank the way Baron Poll had, in his armor.

Roland shouted to Meron Blythefellow, "Baron Poll! Where is he?"

"Dead!" Blythefellow shouted in reply. "He's dead!"

Roland floundered to his knees in a faint. Cold sleet pelted his neck. Gree; wriggled overhead painfully.

The skies went black though the fell mage all dressed in light had not yet uttered another curse.

CHAPTER 51.

STRANGERS ON THE ROAD.

"Flee!" Gaborn's Voice rang through Borenson's mind. For half a second he drew rein on his horse and peered down the road west toward Carris, squinting to pierce the gloom. He raised a warning hand for Pashtuk, Saffira, and her bodyguards.

Borenson was in the lead. Pashtuk rode up next to him.

"What is it? An ambush?" Pashtuk squinted ahead, trying to pierce the darkness thrown by the shadows of the mixed oaks and pines along the hillside to their left. For the past few minutes, Borenson had been exceedingly ill at ease. Five miles back, they'd crossed some sort of invisible line.

The plants there had been steaming and wilting, blasted by some strange spell. Gra.s.s hissed as if it were full of snakes. Branches drooped in the trees. Vines in the ground had been writhing as if in pain, and all of this was accompanied by an odd stench of premature decay.

The farther they rode, the more decrepit the land became. Nothing was left alive. Low brown fumes clung to the ground.

The vegetation here had been blasted with a curse more dire than anything he'd ever seen. It left him feeling anxious, antic.i.p.ating trouble.

"I...don't know if it's an ambush," Borenson answered. "The Earth King warns of danger ahead. Perhaps we should turn aside and go cross-country."

Suddenly, down the road at the corner of the bend, a girl ran beneath the barren limbs of a h.o.a.ry oak. Distantly her voice could be heard as she raised a hue and cry. "Help! Help! Murder!"

She turned the corner, saw Borenson, and relief transformed her face. She was a small girl, with long red hair the same color as Borenson's, wearing the dirty blue tunic of a skyrider.

Borenson had been galloping hard for the past hour, hoping to make Carris by sunset. He'd feared reavers along the road, and he'd hoped that if he rode fast enough, he could outrun them. But now they'd slowed the horses to let them cool.

"Help!" the child cried, and a woman came loping behind her. The two raced under blasted trees, over limp gra.s.s, as if running from out of some nightmare of desolation. The fading rays of the afternoon sun showed full on their faces.

The woman seemed to have fallen into a vat of green dye. She wore a black bearskin robe that flapped open as she ran, revealing the fact that she wore nothing else beneath that single garment. She had small b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a slim figure, and the green dye seemed indeed to cover every part of her body. Yet something about her gave Borenson pause, made him feel unaccountably distracted. It was not the fact that she was beautiful and half-naked. Rather that, even at two hundred yards, she looked familiar.

His heart hammered. Binnesman's wylde! Though he'd never seen the creature, every lord in Heredon had been told to look for it. Borenson wondered how it came to be here.

Pashtuk tensed, and Borenson reached behind his saddle for his horseman's warhammer.

"Flee!" the Earth King warned again.

"d.a.m.n it, I hear you," Borenson shouted back at Gaborn, knowing full well that Gaborn could not hear.

"Is this an ambush?" Pashtuk asked. In Indhopal, women or children were sometimes used as decoys to lure warriors to their deaths, though no decent lord of Rofehavan had ever done this.