by Tad Williams
Chert led the princess and her soldiers down a stairwell to a passage. A short while later they reached the basement door of the observatory where one of the soldiers slipped the latch with his dagger, then they were inside.
Chert looked around at the hangings and remembered when he had hidden here with Chaven from Hendon Tolly and Brother Okros. That seemed so long ago! Briony looked as though she had memories of her own. "And this is truly part of Chaven's house?" she whispered. "Incredible!"
"The last time I was here, there were guards," Chert warned her.
There were guards still. One of them, probably returning from a trip to the jakes, stumbled on the Syannese soldiers as they emerged from the stairs onto a ground-floor landing. The guard lunged at Chert with his spear, almost spitting the Funderling like a suckling pig, but Princess Briony's Syannese soldiers surrounded the guard and cut him down before he could call out.
"Tolly livery," she said quietly, prodding the dead man with her shoe. "An ugly sight. I have seen it everywhere since I returned."
They encountered no one else as they made their way through the observatory. Chert did not take Briony and her soldiers out the front door, but led them out from a lower floor and along one of the other secrets of the observatory, a narrow passage that opened into the basement of a small building within the walls of the inner keep some distance from the physician's house. "Even Chaven himself isn't aware that I know of this one," Chert said. He didn't mention that it was actually Flint who had discovered it on one of their earlier visits.
"Our entire keep is riddled with tunnels like a rabbit warren!" Briony said in astonishment. "Not meaning any offense, Master Blue Quartz, but I thought I could not be surprised by anything else."
"We aren't rabbits," Chert said. "But we are small and we like to dig."
"Don't misunderstand me," she replied. "Just now, I am very happy with my Funderling subjects and their delving!"
The streets of the inner keep were all but empty, which was especially strange so close to Midsummer, when ordinarily the streets would have been full of revelers, but soldiers stood in numbers atop each of the cardinal towers and even in the shattered upper stories of Wolfstooth Spire.
"Now I must go, Highness, with your leave," Chert said as they stood in the shadows of the passage from the observatory. Briony's men had extinguished their torches and waited for her on the stairs just below.
"Go? I had hoped for more of your help, Chert Blue Quartz." The princess did not sound pleased, and he feared her anger because he truly had no time to waste.
"And I would gladly give it, Highness, but I have an errand of my own-one just as important as yours, if I do not overreach myself to say so, perhaps even more important. An errand for your people as well as mine. But time grows short."
She considered his words. "Yes, time grows short-it doesn't take the wisdom of the gods to know that. Do what you must. I hope if we both survive we can have a proper talk someday about this night's doings, Chert of the Funderlings, because I still have many unanswered questions. For one thing, you seem very familiar with the plan of the royal physician's house…"
"I… have been there before. A time or two."
"I thought so. Will you promise me that talk, then?"
"I'd be honored, Highness. But as you said, it can only happen if we both survive. Be careful, Princess. Your people do not want to lose you so soon after your return."
She laughed quietly. "And I feel sure your people would want you to be careful, also. Go with Zoria's blessing."
"And the Earth Elders protect you, Highness."
A moment later she had trotted down the stairs, quiet as a cat, leaving Chert alone on Chaven's doorstep.
The moon was high in the sky, mostly full, a lopsided white grape that shed so much light, sharp-eyed Chert felt quite conspicuous as he made his way across the inner keep in the shadow of the walls. The crashing of the cannons had finally ended, but he could still hear the sentries atop the walls shouting insults down at the Syannese in the outer keep.
The castle was quite different than he remembered-so much damage in such a small time! Rubble lay everywhere, and the once-beautiful greens had disappeared beneath dozens of refugee encampments, but the makeshift village abruptly ended at the hill on which the royal residence sat, enforced by a ring of armed sentries, an arrangement which made it plain that Hendon Tolly did not welcome peasants setting up housekeeping on his front doorstep.
Staying to the shadows, freezing at every unfamiliar sound or movement as though he really were a rabbit, Chert made his careful way across the inner keep beneath the rising moon, its great yellow bulk becoming smaller and colder as it climbed the sky. A lone bell in a residence tower was chiming midnight when he reached the Eddon family's ivy-covered chapel on one corner of the Throne hall. It was the only place he could think of to come for what he needed. But even after almost being blown to flinders by a cannonball and being thrown in a sack and kidnapped, the worst part of his day's work was still ahead. He had to climb to the roof.
Puffing so hard he saw little flashes before his eyes, so damp with sweat that even the cool night air could not ease it, Chert at last managed to pull himself over the wide, leaded gutter and onto the roof tiles. For long moments he could only lie on his back gasping for air. At last he was able to sit up again, wiping his forehead with his hands. The rooftop was empty but for the billowed moon perched between two chimneys as though someone had washed it and hung it out to dry.
He raised his voice as loud as he dared and called, "People of the rooftop! Subjects of Queen Upsteeplebat, it's Chert of the Funderlings-a friend! I need you!"
Nothing happened. He tried again, certain that down in the darkness of the courtyards or across the narrow streets someone must be listening, perhaps even hurrying off to report what they heard to Tolly's soldiers, but there seemed to be no movement on the rooftop. At last, just when he thought he might lie down and rest for a while and then try again when the moon had dropped behind the nearest tower, he heard a rustling sound and looked up to see a tiny shape crouching atop the roofline above his head, silhouetted against the parchment-colored moon.
"What be your business with Her Exquisite and Unforgotten Majesty?" demanded the tiny fellow. Chert crawled a few yards up the roof before answering so that he could keep his voice low. The little man watched him with what Chert imagined was amusement at how this monstrously large and clumsy creature kept its belly pressed against the roof as though a stray wind might sweep it up and blow it away.
The Rooftopper was a Gutter-Scout, but not one Chert had met before. Still, he seemed to know the Funderling's name. After listening to what Chert had to say he just nodded his head, said, "Tha must be waiting," and then dropped down the far side of the roofline out of Chert's sight.
Chert sighed and settled back, taking out the bit of bread and fungus he'd packed for himself. Tha must be waiting, Blue Quartz, he told himself, mimicking the little man's calm words. Tha must. After all, we wouldn't want to hurry just ourselves because it's the end of the world, now would we?
33
Spearpoint "When the god was snoring the Orphan stole a little piece of the sun, but it was too hot for his mortal hands to hold… He hid it in one of the eggshells from Zmeos' plate… and escaped the great castle."
-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"
"We cannot waste time fighting the autarch's troops from behind," Yasammez declared. Her thoughts were weighty, hard and cold as metal. "Time is short. This is no ordinary siege. We have already broken their chain of supply, but the southern emperor does not care."
"Then our only hope is to continue downward as we have planned." Saqri spread her fingers. "With good luck we might slip past to the Last Hour of the Ancestor before them."
"Where we'll still be outnumbered," Barrick pointed out.
Yasammez barely glanced at him. "We do not fear mortals in any numbers."
&nb
sp; "Still, speed is our only hope now," said Saqri. "And our way down requires us to cross the Xixians' main path of descent below the Cavern of Winds. If the defenders are still holding back the southerners farther down, then that main tunnel will be full of Xixian soldiers and we will have to fight our way through the junction. It is a wide space, less than ideal for our purposes, but if we can cut our way through them we can make our way to the great pit itself where we can descend much more quickly."
"We will slice through them, never fear," Yasammez said. "We will be hard as a spear's point. The Fire of the Book has tempered us."
Even as the Fireflower filled his head with memories of the Book of the Fire in Void and ideas about the Always Fire that had caused it to be written, as well as a thousand other things as dear to the Qar as their own names, Barrick realized that Yasammez had reminded him again of his old tutor Shaso dan-Heza. What she had said about making their army into a spear's point was almost exactly the same as something Shaso had told him more than once.
"An army is a tool, boy. A good army is a very useful tool indeed. It can be hard and heavy where it needs to be, as difficult to breach as a piece of well-made armor. But it can make itself sharp as a spear's sharpened tip so that it can pierce another army just as a spear can pierce a breastplate, no matter how strong. When you narrow the force, you make the force greater where it strikes, you see…"
It was an odd thing to find Shaso looking back at him from the chilling, ageless eyes of Yasammez, but that did not make it any less true. Both warriors would have died before they would do something they considered dishonorable, but both could make mistakes because they were so certain of their own truths.
Which meant that Shaso had probably been innocent of Kendrick's death all along, and he, Barrick, had been wrong. It had been just as Briony had said after all. For the first time he wished he had spoken to his sister, really spoken to her. A pang of something he didn't recognize at first bloomed inside him, an ache of loss so sudden and powerful that it took his breath away.
Homesickness. Barrick was astonished. At this late hour? After he had changed so much? This place was not his home, nor had it ever truly been so, he was certain of that. The castle, the people-he felt nothing for them. So where did this strange yearning come from?
"We should stop talking and go," he said out loud, earning a look of chilly annoyance from Yasammez. "Time is short. Nothing would be worse than looking back on wasted time and mistakes we didn't need to make."
"Ah, friend Chert," called the tiny man on the white rat as he appeared over the crest of the roof. "Told Her Majesty, I did, 'Not seen the last of 'un, I haven't.' And here tha be."
"Beetledown." Chert couldn't help smiling. "You look well. That's a very handsome rat."
"Un's from the queen's own stable," he said proudly. "A reward, like."
"I'm glad to see you've been treated as you deserve. Would the queen let you do one more thing for me?"
The little fellow tilted his head. The rat began to groom. "Tell me what tha needst. I will go to my queen and ask." He straightened a little. "We Rooftoppers fight alongside of the Old Ones for the first time in many hundred years, you know. After all this time!" He began to explain some of his recent deeds of heroism, but Chert cut him off.
"It's good to hear the Qar have finally decided to take a stand, but what I'm asking of you may be the most important task of all." He quickly explained his need to Beetledown, who seemed less than enthused. "And then bring the Astion back to me at the place I've drawn on this map, quick as you can." He handed the little slip of parchment to Beetledown. "If I'm not there yet, give it to Brother Antimony."
"So important, truly?"
"Truly."
Beetledown did not look entirely convinced, but was polite enough not to say so. "Then so will it be, friend Chert. I can do nothing without queen's permission, so let us go."
"Of course. Lead the way. Just remember that I'm not a very good climber."
"Not very good?" Beetledown laughed. "Like a dog with one leg, to put truth to it."
A man who needs a favor, Chert reminded himself as he inched his way across the treacherous tiles, should under no circumstances squeeze the little fellow who will do that favor into a jelly, no matter the provocation.
The Qar's attack took the Xixian soldiers by surprise, fairies pouring without warning out of what must have seemed just one more side tunnel out of the hundreds the southerners had passed on their way down into the depths, a crevice scarcely large enough for the bulky Ettins to squeeze through. In fact, it was Hammerfoot and his cousins who burst out first, roaring and waving their weapons, inspiring such fright that some of the startled southerners fell down with stopped hearts. After that it was blade on blade as the Qar fought to keep the much larger Xixian force split so the fairies could forge a path through to the other side of the large passage and the cross-tunnel waiting there.
For a time the blood flowed like rainwater in gutters as the desert warriors and the most warlike of the fairies, the Ettins, the Unforgiven, and the Changing tribe, hacked and ripped at each other in near-darkness. Although a few of the Ettins fell, swarmed by soldiers as a beetle might fall to attacking ants, the giants still dealt terrible casualties among the southerners until a Xixian commander, or at least the highest ranking of their soldiers in that cavern, pulled most of his men back to the far side of the passage. He had brought up archers and now they sent flights of arrows hissing toward the Qar, who fell back behind the gigantic shields and rocky hides of the Ettins, still unable to cross the broad passage.
Barrick, still trapped in the side tunnel but close enough now to see what was happening, wondered how they could possibly survive this. Unless they fought their way through to the other side, the Qar were trapped between the Xixians who had already passed this spot and those above who were on their way down. No matter how many of the southerners Saqri's fighters killed more would just flow back into this place until the Qar were finally overwhelmed and destroyed.
Why didn't Saqri let Yasammez lead the way? The dark lady's name was a byword for destruction; even without the Fireflower, Barrick knew the stories told by the survivors of her destructive advance across the March Kingdoms, how she had singlehandedly unhorsed and slaughtered the defenders of all the towns in her way, sometimes fighting half a dozen or more by herself and killing each and every one. But the Fireflower told him more-much more. Its voices sang to him triumphantly of Yasammez Aflame, the Scourge of Shivering Plains, the daughter of a god! And in images of so distant a past that even the memory of the Fireflower had dimmed a little, he saw the Yasammez of the elder days, glowing with green fire that hung about her head as she fought, so that she breathed it and spewed it out again in little streaks and sparks. In the stark instant of the lightning's flash at Silvergleam's hall, when all the field of war, men and Qar and even the gods themselves seemed to be frozen together as one thing, she had stood twisted in a spray of blood, the headless bodies of her enemies flung tumbling away by the force of her blow. That was the weapon that Saqri kept sheathed. Why?
Barrick could not begin to guess, but he knew as well as he knew his own name that the women of the Qar's highest house, and especially those who took the Fireflower, were no less subtle than their husbands. It was better simply to trust the queen of the Fay…
But feel free to ask questions, a sly thought suggested to him. It might have been Ynnir, faint as a bird chirping at the top of a tall tree. Just be prepared to defend yourself afterward-a queen does not like to be second-guessed!
And then the first wave of Xixian arrows had spent itself. In the moment that followed Saqri's troop leaped forward toward the center of the passage, into the flail of shadows and torchlight. Barrick was among them this time, caught up in the remembered glories of the Fireflower, shouting out things that even he did not understand.
Contorted faces, blades, the clank of metal on armor, or sometimes the weirdly thrilling chunk of an edge biting flesh-B
arrick was terrified, but at the same time he felt hard as stone, cold and clear as diamond. The memories of a hundred kings were in him, some as warlike as Yasammez herself. Their ghostly voices sang with joy and their blood seized and pulled in Barrick's veins. He did not resist these spirits, but let them lead him in a complicated series of strikes and defenses that his thoughts could not at first keep up with. He used Hawk's Tail to catch a falling blade in the crossed metal of his sword and dagger, then kicked out and crushed the knee of the Xixian soldier. Even as the man toppled and Barrick whirled past, he dragged his blade backhanded across the man's throat, then tightened his grip on the suddenly blood-slick hilt, ducked the strike of a second man, and came up under his chin with the dagger-Spiked Fist-so near the man's face that he could hear the southerner gasp and then feel the man's dying breath leap from his body.
Spin, sweep with his sword to catch an enemy's hamstring, step on the man's throat as he went down, and then direct the spear thrust of another away with his arm-shield. Barrick found himself shifting deeper and deeper into an unthinking dance, as if he were nothing but a line of heat passing through the cavern in a complicated filigree of motion, like the mark a burning brand swirling through the night air could leave on the eyes for moments after the torch itself had passed. But although he nearly lost himself in the wash of sensation, the rush of memory, and the demanding movements, he could not ignore the fact that as many of the enemy as he killed or disabled, and as many of them as his comrades destroyed, still more were always coming, flowing into the passage from either direction like the immense weight of seawater that must surround the land beyond these stony depths.
Might as well try to kill the sea itself. Saqri, where are you?
Here, manchild. Behind you and nearer to the southerners who had already passed through the cavern, but now have come back to join the entertainment. There was a wicked joy to her thoughts he had not sensed before-war agreed with her, it seemed.
