Perhaps the three would lower their guard if left alone, he thought, or would decide that Garth had killed all the cultists involved in the murders after all and turn back.
Haggat wondered again who the old man was and why he had given the sword back to the overman.
As he first came within sight of the walls of Ur-Dormulk, Garth was surprised to see motion along the battlements. The distance was such that he knew he could not be observing any ordinary patrolling sentries, nor even major troop movements.
When the party drew nearer he realized that he was seeing the head of the monstrous creature, projecting above the ramparts; the movement was its impatient marching back and forth. The wizards had obviously not succeeded in driving it into the lake.
The slope below the walls was still thick with people, though they had spread out considerably from their earlier close-packed arrangement. Tents had been erected, made from robes or overcloaks draped across walking sticks or scraps of wood. The perimeter was still patrolled by brass-helmeted guardsmen; more soldiers were posted along the base of the wall and clustered around the gate, their metal headgear gleaming in the midday sun. The sparse grass of the hillside had vanished into the dirt beneath the tread of so many feet.
The great beast prowled behind the battlements, but the people seemed to pay it little heed; they had already grown accustomed to their situation. Garth wondered at that.
He also wondered why the monster stayed behind the wall when it was obviously eager to leave the city. Surely, he thought, it was capable of breaking through the stone barrier, as it had broken out of its own chamber and had broken apart the buildings of the city.
Then he remembered the long slope on the other side of the wall. The creature might be unable to climb it; the natural barrier could confine it, where the man-made one could not.
There were also the two wizards. Garth saw no sign of them; they had plainly been unable to drive the leviathan into either of the lakes, let alone destroy it, but perhaps they were able to keep it from breaking out of the city.
That assumed that they hadn’t been squashed in their attempts to defeat the thing.
The soldiers posted around the ramshackle encampment saw the party approaching while it was still some distance away. That was hardly surprising; the mounted overman, towering far above the tallest of the crops that lined the roadsides, was visible for a thousand yards or more across the flat plain. Had the guards not seen him, they would have been derelict in their duties.
Garth knew he had been seen, but was unconcerned. He had no need for stealth; he had come to perform a vital service this time. He watched as soldiers ran hither and yon, obviously carrying news of his coming up to the gate, and orders back down in response. A party began to form on the road, presumably to greet him and his companions, and to stop them if necessary.
In keeping with his idea of the dignity appropriate to his position, Garth pretended not to notice them, but rode directly forward, head held high, until he came within a dozen yards.
At that point he deigned to react visibly to the presence of an obstruction in his path and spoke a command to the warbeast. Koros could, he knew, have gone straight through the little cluster of men without even slowing down, whether they resisted or not, but that would scarcely have been diplomatic. Instead, at his order, the warbeast stopped dead, and Garth stared balefully at the party before him.
He felt a twinge of familiar bloodlust, an urge to order Koros forward and strike out with the Sword of Bheleu, but he fought it down.
“Greetings,” he said.
An officer with a golden plume on his helmet replied, “Greetings, overman.”
“May I pass?”
“That depends. As you can see, the situation in Ur-Dormulk is very unsettled at present.” The man gestured, taking in the crowded hillside. “A monster,” he said with a wave toward the ramparts, “has driven us from our homes. What business brings you here?”
“I have come to rid you of this troublesome creature.”
The officer stared up at Garth for a moment, then looked down, turned to one of his men, and muttered, “He’s mad.”
The soldier nodded agreement. Garth wondered just how poor human hearing was; he had made out the remark without straining.
There was a pause in the conversation; the officer was obviously considering how best to handle an insane overman. He glanced at Garth again, then said, “Forgive me for the delay, overman, but I must confer with my superiors.”
“Soldier,” said a croaking, hideous voice. Startled, the officer seemed to notice the presence of the Forgotten King, standing beside the warbeast, for the first time.
“Let us pass,” the old man said. “What harm can it do if the overman wishes to destroy himself?”
The officer stared for a second, then turned away, uncomfortable with looking at the King. He shrugged. “As you say, old man. Go on, then.”
Garth was at least as startled by the old man’s intervention as the soldier had been. The Forgotten King was becoming positively chatty, it appeared. He wondered if this was a result of traveling, of leaving his familiar surroundings, or was perhaps some side-effect of possessing the Book of Silence. Perhaps the seeming nearness of his long-sought goal had cheered him out of his usual gloomy taciturnity.
If so, he would be disappointed, because Garth had no intention of aiding the old man any further.
The party of soldiers divided in half, allowing the warbeast and its two riders to pass between, and the Forgotten King to follow in the animal’s wake. Garth urged Koros forward. Behind him, he could feel Frima shifting uncomfortably.
The officer signaled, and the two groups of soldiers marched alongside, escorting the overman and his party to the city gates.
Once there, they were passed over into the care of another officer and his own command of a dozen green-garbed men, who guided the travelers through the double gates and to the top of the staircase that led down into Ur-Dormulk.
Garth stopped his mount at that point. The soldiers hurriedly departed and closed the gate behind them, leaving the overman and his companions inside the city, face to face with the monster.
The creature was watching the new arrivals with dull interest showing on its immense and ugly face. It stood a hundred yards or so to the north, at the far side of a block of buildings it had trampled flat, and at the foot of the slope below the wall.
Garth looked out over the city and was appalled by what he saw. The monster had torn up or smashed down a significant portion of the buildings, leaving a crisscrossing maze of rubble. Once or twice, Garth saw, it had broken through the streets and cellars into the crypts, leaving great pits partially filled with the remains of the structures that had stood above them. A dozen fires flickered in the daylight, combining with others less visible to draw thirty or forty lines of smoke across the sky.
He was relieved to see no corpses in the streets and no circling carrion birds; the people of Ur-Dormulk had apparently had sufficient time to escape. Nonetheless, the destruction was startling and saddening; less than a week before, he had stood in the same spot and seen an intact and vigorous city where he now saw ruins.
What made it worse was that his own actions had caused this. He had been responsible for freeing the monster.
He turned back to face his foe. It was still standing and studying him; it had not moved.
He paused, unsure just how he was going to deal with the creature. He was quite certain that the sword had the raw power necessary to kill the thing, but he had not decided how best that power might be applied.
Probably, he thought, it would be wise to approach the monster on foot. He turned away and dismounted, a bit awkwardly due to Frima’s presence on the back of the saddle.
Reminded of the Dûsarran’s existence, he considered what to do with her and decided to leave her where she was, astride K
oros. The warbeast was the best protection she could possibly have, short of Garth himself.
He glanced up at her; she sat motionlessly and stared back, her lips drawn tight. The hurried, high-speed trip from Skelleth had told on her, Garth was sure; she was obviously tired, but still determined. She said nothing.
Garth shrugged and looked about; he realized for the first time that the Forgotten King was not close at hand. Startled, he spotted the old man at the foot of the steps, walking calmly down the avenue and into the shattered heart of the city.
The overman stared after him for a moment, then turned away. The old man could take care of himself; it was not Garth’s concern if he went off on his own. Garth reached up and pulled the Sword of Bheleu from where it had been strapped onto the warbeast’s harness, along Koros’ flank.
Immediately the blade flared up into a bright white glow, and the red gem in the hilt dripped crimson fire; Garth felt a surge of joyous strength, of riotous enthusiasm and vigor. He had not been wholly free of the sword during the journey, but now its power washed over him unhindered. He threw his head back and roared with laughter. The King, Saram’s widow, and the warbeast were all forgotten; nothing mattered but the sword, its power, and his intended target.
Frima watched the blazing sword with apprehension; she was exhausted from the ride, still dazed with the shock of her husband’s death, and slightly nauseated, but alert enough to recognize the danger the weapon represented. She slid to the front of the saddle and leaned forward, ready to command Koros to carry her to safety, should Garth appear to be running amok.
On the city’s ramparts, struggling to maintain the warding spells that kept the monster from climbing up the slope and smashing the wall, Chalkara and Shandiph were suddenly startled by a vivid flash of white light somewhere off to their left. As they glanced at each other in surprise, the sound of inhuman laughter reached them.
“What’s that?” Chalkara asked.
“I don’t have any idea,” Shandiph replied. “I think we had better investigate.”
Hesitantly, Chalkara nodded in agreement. The two abandoned the pentangle they had etched in glowing blue on the stone of the battlements and leaned out between the nearest merlons.
Garth, or whatever was using Garth’s body, saw them but paid no attention; he was interested only in the monster.
Frima glimpsed a lock of Chalkara’s hair as it blew out from the wall for a moment, but mistook it for a military banner accidentally left flying.
The creature itself stood motionless, as if hypnotized, watching the overman with the glowing sword march diagonally down the steps toward it. It seemed unaware of the two wizards who had done so much to thwart it.
When Garth judged that he was close enough, standing on level ground not far from the bottom step and perhaps a dozen yards from the monster’s gigantic feet, he raised the sword, gathered his will and the sword’s energy, and sent flame ravening forth.
The glare blinded the wizards temporarily; they moved cautiously back, feeling their way, blinking and trying to restore their vision.
Frima, too, blinked and turned her head aside, but could not retreat out of sight so easily. She was farther away and had not been looking directly at the sword; when the initial flare had faded somewhat, she looked back, peering between two close-set fingers, and watched.
The first burst of fire caught the monster full in the chest and splashed upward around its chin; any sound it might have made was lost in the roar of the flames.
Frima, squinting, could see little detail, but it seemed to her that the flame was not so much burning anything as it was washing away the monster’s flesh, like a spray of water washing away mud. Swirls of fire spattered in every direction, setting the air shimmering with heat and creating howling, fiery whirlwinds that seemed to pull and tear at the monster’s limbs.
The creature clutched at its chest, and the flame swept across its claws, scorching away the talons, melting away their substance and leaving bare bone.
The monster staggered, leaned forward, but did not fall; it was as if the torrent of pale fire pouring from the sword were supporting the leviathan even as it destroyed it.
Its eyes had lost their glowing appearance at the first flash of the sword’s power, paling in comparison to the weapon’s glare, and now, as Frima watched, the yellow orbs glazed over. The monster was obviously dying, but could not fall.
The flames subsided for an instant, and Frima saw that the creature’s lower jaw had been stripped clean of its flesh, leaving gleaming bone that shone white in the sword’s bleached, colorless light. No blood or ichor flowed; the heat had cauterized wherever the fire touched.
The girl shuddered at the thought of the pain the thing must be feeling, if it were mortal enough to feel pain at all; her stomach twisted in empathy. Then, as she watched, the behemoth finally fell, not so much forward as into itself, the neck collapsing, the skull sliding down into the cavity where its chest had once been.
She turned away, sickened, while Garth continued to spew forth the sword’s destructive fury, stripping meat from bone, wiping the monster out of existence.
Frima closed her eyes against the light and refused to look back. Worn out by the long ride and the ghastly events that had befallen her, she dozed fitfully, leaning forward on the warbeast’s neck, her gaze averted and her eyes closed.
On the city ramparts, it was several minutes after the initial flash before the two wizards could see again, and even then they dared not return to their earlier vantage point, for the white glow brightened and dimmed erratically as Garth wielded the sword.
When at last the light died away completely, Chalkara advanced cautiously to the break, motioning for Shandiph to stay where he was.
Although the light was gone, she was almost blinded anew by flying dust; a fine gray powder was being whipped about by a small but powerful whirlwind, forcing her to turn away and wipe her eyes clear with a corner of her sleeve.
She looked at the residue that clung to the fabric; it was white ash.
Wary this time, she again approached the opening and leaned out, squinting to protect her eyes.
She saw no sign of the monster. The whirlwind was dying down, and the swirling cloud of ash that it carried was slowly subsiding. Blinking, her eyes watering painfully, Chalkara looked down to see what remained of the overman and where the monster’s trail led.
Garth was still where she had last seen him, but rather than standing with the glowing sword raised, he was kneeling, leaning heavily on the hilt of a sword that Chalkara did not recognize at first as being the same weapon. This sword was black, from the obsidianlike stone in its pommel to the midpoint of its tarnished blade; the remainder of the blade, from midpoint to tip, was buried in a mound of debris that held the weapon upright. The overman’s arms were draped across the quillons, his eyes half-closed, his mouth half-open; a perfect portrait of exhaustion.
Where the monster had stood was only the seething ash; Chalkara stared at it, puzzled. As the cloud sank, something white protruded from its heart, and the wizard realized with a shock that it was the end of an immense thighbone.
Fascinated and repulsed, Chalkara watched as the dust cloud sank down to nothing, revealing a pile of dry, white bones, half-buried in ash, that were obviously all that remained of the leviathan that had terrorized the city. The upper portion of the skull stared with empty sockets at the afternoon sky from atop the heap, a few of the longer bones leaning up against it; with the great teeth buried in ash, and the broken-tipped horn lost in a tangle of ribs, it seemed almost pitiable.
“Shandi,” she called.
The older wizard joined her and stared down, as fascinated as she.
“I think we should leave,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“I think we should get out of Ur-Dormulk and not let anything stop us this time. We should
get out of here and keep away from anywhere else Garth is likely to be.”
Shandiph nodded, blinking away an errant flake of ash.
“We can visit Kholis, but I think we should keep going—head south, perhaps. Maybe to Yesh. They worship different gods in Yesh. Maybe Bheleu has no power there.”
“The gods are the gods, Chala; only their names change.”
“How do you know that? It’s worth trying, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s worth trying. You’re right. It’s certainly better than staying here; I’ve been in one place too long. It’s time I wandered again.”
“It’s time we both wandered. I don’t think I care to be Chalkara of Kholis anymore; I don’t think it’s safe. Chalkara the Wanderer sounds better.”
Shandiph nodded again. He did not believe that anywhere was safe, but thought better of saying so.
Chapter Twenty
Garth was not aware of having lost consciousness, but he realized from the altered light that he must have. It had been shortly after noon when he had attacked the monster, with the sun bright overhead, and now the sun was in the west, the shadows as long as the things that cast them. He had been standing, and now he knelt, leaning upon something. The sword had been hot in his hands, and now his hands hung empty, the palms stinging with mild burns. The pain reminded him of the various injuries he had received during his first visit to Ur-Dormulk, and he realized they were gone; he had forgotten until now that the Sword of Bheleu had healing properties as well as destructive ones.
He blinked and leaned back, off whatever had been supporting him. He felt drained, but managed to rise to his feet only through a concerted effort. Once he was upright he looked about, trying to assess his situation.
He had been draped across the hilt of the Sword of Bheleu, which was burned black and thrust two feet or so into a pile of dirt and ash. He stood now in a wide circle that had been blasted flat and carpeted with fine gray ash, extending from the bottommost step of the climb to the wall out across most of a city block. Its even surface was broken by three things: himself, the mound that held the sword, and a great heap of ash and bone that sprawled across the farther side, directly in front of him.
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