Shadowheart

by Tad Williams

  A moment later Dolomite whispered, “I think the southerners are breaking through the last of the rubble we stacked. Some have shuttered lanterns—even you could see them if they were a little closer, Captain!”

  But Vansen had chosen this place at the opposite end of the wide Counting Room quite deliberately for his command post. The cavern floor was covered with broad, tablelike mounds of stone, and the cover they provided was why Vansen had decided to contest this cavern as fiercely as he could. He knew he would eventually have to give ground, but first he planned to make this stone room deadly for the Xixians. “Save your breath for the facts,” he told the young warder, making his voice harsh. “Jasper sent you to me to help me. If I have to argue with you, I’ll get another messenger and you’ll be making your explanations to Jasper.”

  “Sorry, Captain.” The young fellow was clearly surprised, his voice unsteady. “Won’t . . . I won’t do it again.”

  “No, you won’t. And speak more quietly. I may be an upgrounder, but even I know that sound travels strangely in caves.”

  “You’re right, Captain. I beg your pardon.”

  “Withheld, for now. Get on with it.” Doubtless the young warder was only trying to keep fear at bay. Still, it was distracting.

  “Sir,” Dolomite said after another sustained silence, “a troop of southerners have formed up and look like . . . yes, they are moving forward. But these don’t look like Xixians!”

  “Their emblem? Can you see one?”

  “A wolf or a dog, Captain . . .”

  “The autarch’s White Hounds,” Vansen said. “I wondered when we would see them. They are northerners—from Perikal, or at least their fathers were. Fierce as a wounded bear in a fight. How many?”

  “Looks like one lantern for every ten or twelve, Captain. I can see . . . perhaps twenty lantern in the first mass of troops.”

  “So many? And Jasper and the others?”

  “Crouched out of sight. The Hound-men are still coming forward, but slowly. The ones in front have spears, but there are bowmen just behind them.”

  “Can’t let them get too close. Tell me when they are halfway between the rest of their troop and Jasper’s rocks.”

  Dolomite squinted. In the silence Vansen could hear his own blood throbbing in his temples. The White Hounds may be a couple of hundred trained soldiers, he told himself, but they’re the ones on unfamiliar ground. My men are fighting in their own fields. Still, he could not help thinking of the vast line of Xixians snaking back up the tunnels behind these ten or twelve score, swelling to fill the larger chambers with armed men, several thousand in all, their ranks eventually leading up to the encampment on the surface where twice that many soldiers waited. The Funderlings talked a great deal about rockslides, and this would be a rockslide of murderous humanity; no matter what heroics they performed or good fortune they might have, they would never overcome such odds.

  “Those Hounds are almost halfway, Captain,” whispered Dolomite, startling Vansen out of his unkind thoughts. “Almost . . . almost . . .”

  “Then give the signal!” Vansen said. “Here!” He handed up the lantern; the warder lifted its shutter and stood to hold it in the air above his head.

  “Jasper’s seen it!”

  “Then get down, man!” Vansen reached up and yanked hard, toppling him backward. As the lamp spun away, spattering burning oil as it bounced down the shallow slope, three arrows splintered against the stones just in front of them.

  “Sorry, Captain . . .”

  “Don’t apologize, Warder, just get back to work. They won’t be shooting at us again now that we’re dark. Tell me what you see. Are our crossbowmen taking any of them down?”

  “Some, but there are many more arrows stuck in shields.”

  “We could aim lower if the cursed floor wasn’t covered in lumps of stone. You Funderlings need to keep things a bit more tidy.”

  “Captain?”

  “Never mind, Dolomite. Tell me more.”

  “They’re down low, those White Hound men, and they’re going forward only a little at a time, when their archers are firing. And . . .” He stopped, suddenly. “By the Elders,” he said then in a strangled voice, “that was Chrysolite. I know him!”

  Vansen let him have a moment, but only that. “Many good men will fall. We need to make sure we take down more of theirs—many more. Report.”

  “The Hounds have almost reached the place where our men wait. Ah! And now they come together, they come together . . . ! Oh, no, stop them! Don’t . . . !”

  The cries of men fighting and dying now echoed so densely that Vansen could hardly hear what the Funderling was saying. “Dolomite, I need you to tell me what you see!”

  “The southerners, the White Hounds, they’ve reached the rocks and they’re trying to push out Jasper and the others. They’re using spears. Oh, Elders, it is terrible to see!”

  “Don’t see it, then, just tell me what’s in front of you. As if it were a picture in a book.”

  “The . . . the southerners and ours are fighting very fiercely in the rocks. In some places, the Big Folk have pushed in between the stones and are fighting with our people in the open spaces. In others Jasper’s men have fallen back. Ah, there is Cinnabar bringing men to help them—they are all holding near the back of the rocks . . .” He stopped to lean even farther, so that Vansen reached up and grabbed the little man’s collar to prevent him from tumbling off the rock. “Oh, no, Captain! The southerners are getting past!”

  “What does it look like?”

  “Sorry, sir. Some of the White Hounds have found a way past along the edge of the cavern—they’re slipping by while the rest are fighting in the middle. They’ll be behind Jasper’s men in a moment . . . ah! Ah!”

  “Keep talking, boy.”

  “It’s bad now, sir! The White Hounds have gotten past on both sides of our soldiers. They’re surrounded, our men are surrounded; they’ll be overwhelmed . . . ! Let me go help!”

  “No! Stay here. Curse this dark place!” Vansen fumbled in his pack. “How I wish I could see. Tell me things that are happening, Dolomite, not what you think might be happening. Are the White Hounds all around our men now?”

  “Yes, sir. Almost as thick on this side as on the other. It’s a ring of torches all the way around . . . !”

  “Good.” Vansen held something up. “Do you know what this is?”

  He felt certain that the young warder was staring at him as though he had gone utterly mad. “It’s . . . it’s a cuttlehorn, sir. One of those stony seashells. Like the one the Brothers blow to call the monks to prayer.”

  “Would you like the honor of blowing it, then?”

  “Sir?”

  He put it in the warder’s hands. “Blow it. Loud as you can. It is time to call those White Hound bastards to temple.”

  After a long moment, a rasping, breathy note rose beside him, growing louder and louder until its triumphant clamor set echoes bouncing all over the Counting Room. In the shuddering aftermath of the horn’s call came a sudden roar from Malachite Copper’s Funderling troop, who had been hidden in the rocky slope above the place where the autarch’s soldiers had first entered the cavern, and now came streaming down onto the backs of the nearest White Hounds.

  “There are Funderlings—Copper’s men!” said Dolomite excitedly. “They are attacking the upgrounders!”

  “I know.”

  “The killing is terrible, but they are forcing the White Hounds forward into the rocks! Some of Copper’s men are shooting crossbows into the entrance, keeping the other southerners out of the Counting Room.”

  Vansen nodded. “It is time to sound the horn again, Warder Dolomite. You haven’t lost it, have you?”

  “No, Captain!”

  “Good. Then let them hear it once more. Let Sulepis himself hear it, somewhere back up the tunnel—let’s hope it makes his skin crawl!”

  “Yes, Captain!” A moment later the mournful call rose again, louder than the f
irst time, so loud that Vansen felt pleasantly sure that the Xixians who survived were going to remember it with fear.

  “Those Hounds know they’re in a fight now!” Dolomite called a few moments later, having quite forgotten about silence. “And their other troops can’t get in to help them! Look, the autarch’s men are turning into hedgehogs, all spiked with arrows! Oh, Earth Elders, but they are still fighting.” His voice faltered a little. “So much blood!”

  Vansen decided it was time for his next trick. He sent Dolomite down the slope to Corundum’s engineers to make certain they were ready, and while he waited for the young warder’s return, he hefted the weighty cuttlehorn in his hand. Brother Antimony, who had given it to him, had told him it was made from a creature of the ancient days that had turned into stone.

  Turned to stone—just like the greedy merchant in that old story. Can even a mute creature offend the gods? Vansen didn’t know whether he understood all that Chaven and the others had told him, but he knew from his own experience that the gods’ power was everywhere and it was dangerous. He knew enough of the gods to fear them more than he had ever feared anything else, even failure and ridicule.

  “Corundum says they’re ready,” Dolomite reported, his sudden, quiet approach making Vansen jump. It was harder than he had thought to sit in the empty black, to rely on the eyes of others, but he knew darkness was their greatest advantage over the autarch’s soldiers.

  “Then we will fall back now while they are reeling.” He lifted the horn himself this time, and its call soared once more through the great stone chamber. The White Hounds flinched and crouched a little lower, waiting for whatever would follow this time. They did not seem to realize for long moments that their enemies were stealing quietly away from them toward the passage at the back end of the Counting Room. Vansen and Dolomite joined the retreating group.

  The White Hounds finally let out a shout as they realized that the last horn call had signaled retreat. The autarch’s fiercest soldiers leaped forward, and with Malachite Copper’s crossbowmen gone, for the first time their comrades trapped in the entranceway could finally join them. Together, the invaders surged like a wave across the uneven cavern floor, ducking as an occasional bolt snapped invisibly past, their cries for revenge growing louder and more savage as they sensed that they at last had these surprising little men on the retreat.

  “Let the first half dozen lantern-bearers through,” Vansen told the engineers as he and the others hurried out of the tunnel into Ocher Bar, the long cavern below the Counting Room.

  So it was that when the first few dozen of the autarch’s men came out of the passage in a half-crouch, holding their shields up and their torches even higher to see what was before them, no horn had to be blown. The commander of the engineers waved his arm and his minions threw their weight against the great iron wedge the Funderlings had brought down from the quarry for just this purpose. Wedge-staves bent, the wood groaning and the men groaning louder, and for an instant it seemed they would fail. Then, even as the first of the White Hounds below them realized what was happening and began looking up into the darkness for something to aim an arrow at, the slab of stone shivered loose and slid down onto the men just below so suddenly that only the wounded survivors had a chance to scream. They did not scream long.

  The passage between Ocher Bar and the Counting Room was now sealed, at least for a few hours. Copper’s crossbowmen loosed the rest of their bolts into the autarch’s soldiers, mostly White Hounds, who were trapped on the near side of the rockfall, then the rest of the Funderlings hurried forward to finish the job, dispatching even the helpless wounded before Vansen could stop them. He had not guessed there’d be such reserves of ferocity in the little folk.

  Ferras Vansen came forward as the first lanterns were lit. He stood over the bodies of the autarch’s White Hounds, their armor so beautifully made and their beards so carefully braided. “Look at them,” he said. “They must have thought Death invited them to a wedding instead of a funeral.”

  They came to a land they did not know, he thought, to kill people they did not know, simply because a madman told them to do it. He shoved them over with his foot, turning the nearest faces to the ground. Yes, they were soldiers too, like me. I feel for them—but I do not feel sorry.

  The guards at the scotarch’s tent stepped aside, their eyes so firmly downcast that Paramount Minister Vash thought it a wonder they’d been able to see and identify him in the first place. The scotarch’s body servant, a eunuch almost as old as Pinimmon Vash, had the door open before Vash could even clear his throat.

  “Come in, Paramount Minister,” the Favored said. “I will tell the Desert Kite that you are here. No doubt he will graciously offer you audience.”

  Yes, thought Vash, he no doubt will, seeing as I can walk in when I want and Prusus can do nothing about it except to wag his head and make noises like a dying calf. “That is well,” was all he said aloud. What was the eunuch’s name? It was a curse to grow old. “And when you have announced me, and he has graciously agreed to the audience, perhaps you will be so good as to leave us alone for a space—the merest quarter of an hour.”

  Vash would not have seen greater suspicion in the Favored’s face if he had announced he planned to put the scotarch in a sack and take him for a walk in the sun. “Great one, I do not understand,” was all the body servant came up with.

  “No, you don’t. Come back after a short while, as I said. You shall find your master quite unharmed.”

  The smooth-faced man looked very undecided, but at last bowed again and went into the larger part of the tent, which had been separated from the rest by screens showing silk pictures of sand larks guarding their nests at the base of some of desert shrub Vash could not identify. No one in his family had actually seen the deep desert for several generations. Of course he hadn’t ever wanted to be deep beneath the earth either, yet here he was.

  The eunuch pulled back one of the inner screens and gestured him through with an appropriate amount of bowing, then ostentatiously let himself out of the tent, making enough noise that even if blindfolded Vash still could not have missed him leaving.

  Vash walked to where Prusus sat, or rather leaned, in his traveling throne. It was a mark of how bizarre the autarch’s choice had been that Prusus had no attendants beyond the single eunuch, and only a handful of guards. Previous scotarchs had commanded retinues only outstripped by those of the autarch himself.

  But previous scotarchs, even the worst of them, had been able to talk and had possessed at least a little wit. Their heads had not lolled on their shoulders like overcooked mushrooms. Still, if poor crippled Prusus was like a mushroom, then he must feel comfortable here, down in the depths where such things thrived.

  “Good afternoon, Chosen One, if it is indeed still afternoon.” Vash bowed. “Please do not let me disturb you. I have come only to look for something.” He gazed at the empty, rolling eyes, wondering if he would see any recognition there. “King Olin said I should listen to you.” He could not help smiling and, in fact, almost laughed. “Which is, of course, a sort of code, since you don’t actually speak. But I believe I may have underestimated you—as have many others. I believe you are not as addled as we thought. So tell me with your eyes, if you understand me. Did he leave something for me? Did Olin leave something for me?”

  For a moment, as if his task could be accomplished only with a supreme effort of will, Prusus stopped shaking. He stretched forward his head as though trying to fall out of his chair—as though terror had gripped him and he sought escape. Vash fought back anger of his own. Why should he be forced to sully himself treating with a mismade creature like this? Then he realized that Prusus was looking fixedly in one direction, toward his own lap, and that he might have been trying to use his head to point the way.

  Vash leaned in. There, clutched in the scotarch’s bony fist, was a wisp of white—a piece of parchment.

  “Ah,” said Vash. “ ‘Look to the scotarch for help,
’ he said. Very clever.” He reached out and fastidiously wiggled loose the folded scrap of parchment without touching the skin of the scotarch’s hand. “And what treason against our beloved Golden One does the enemy king propose?” He said this for the benefit of any listeners, who always had to be assumed in the court of Sulepis, as in the courts of the autarch’s father and grandfathers.

  The parchment was unsigned, and from the clumsiness of the letters been written in a hurry.

  “It is not too late to save yourself. Get word to Avin Brone inside the castle. Tell him what you know. Otherwise, both Southmarch and Xis will be destroyed. The madman S. has no allies. Everything that lives is his enemy.”

  Just looking at such a thing made Vash feel as if he stood in an icy wind, that he held a restless, angry viper in his hand. He knew he must destroy it, and quickly. Whether he remembered the words written in it or not, whether he let himself think about them or not, he would have to make sure nobody ever saw this piece of paper. Avin Brone indeed! Pinimmon Vash looked around, suddenly feeling like a thief forced to walk slowly down the street with stolen goods bulging in his pocket. Did he dare carry it all the way back to his own tent where he could burn it in his brazier?

  Something made a bubbly, sighing noise nearby. Vash, his thoughts racing so fast he could barely move, looked absently at the scotarch, whose mouth was already moving again. This time Vash realized that the eerie noise, a nasal moan punctuated by wet sloshes of consonants, was actually somebody speaking words, and that with a little concentration he could even understand what was being said.

  “Parsshhhmen isssh . . . shmalll . . .” Prusus repeated, his hand clenching and wriggling in the air as though it had its own life, its own secret joys and sorrows. “Jushh eaddd iddd . . .”

  The parchment is small, he was saying. Just eat it.

  Astonished, Vash did. It almost stuck in his throat, but he got it down at last.