Empire of the East

by Fred Saberhagen

  “Nooo. The fighting has been in front of the big doors; they are still closed. The Stone you carry will help you thrust them open from the inside. Ekuman would trust none of his people to enter the cave without him; so I have been able to fix a rope in the place you carved to hold one. When we get there I will let it down for you to climb.”

  Several times Strijeef had him detour around enemy troops, or wait for them to pass. In the intervals when it was safe to talk Rolf could move swiftly, while Strijeef told him much of what had happened; how Feathertip had been killed and himself wounded, helping Thomas, and Rolf therefore left to himself in the cave. How the Thunderstone had been found, and used to cover the Free Folk’s passage across the desert today; and when they were hidden at the side of a mountain, how it had been returned, in a captured pouch, to the body of the reptile that had fallen with it, and that body uncovered again for Ekuman’s scouts to find.

  “And this Stone you dropped to me, Bird. What’s this note tied to it? Do you know I was nearly killed trying to get it open to read it?”

  “Whoo!” Strijeef thought that was funny. “The note just tells you what the Stone is; you found that out for yourself. Hoo! it was fun to watch the way you flew, over a roof and through a wall!”

  By this time Rolf had crossed the road at the bottom of the pass, and now the northern slope was steepening under his feet. He passed a nearly-burned-out signal torch, still casting brightness on the sand in a little circle which included the dead hand of the soldier who had held it. Rolf would have stopped to grope around the dead man for weapons, but Strijeef chided him to hurry. “The enemy is still holding in front of the big doors. The fighting there has stopped right now and our men have pulled back a little. I’ll guide you around them all.”

  They went on up the northern slope. Once more Rolf had to stop and wait, crouching in silence, listening to a file of the enemy go past him, moving west to east across the slope. When the last sound of them had died away, the hovering bird plucked at Rolf’s shirt with a silent claw, and he arose and followed Strijeef on up the hill. Now he recognized the silhouette of the familiar towers of rock against the sky. Now around him in the darkness there rose the pitiful loud moaning of the wounded.

  “How has the fighting gone?” Rolf dared to whisper, once when the bird’s wing came near enough to brush his face.

  “Not too bad, not too good. The Castle-men have no eyes to see for them in the dark, but still they have the greater numbers. Quiet, now.”

  Strijeef led Rolf by one of the eastern crevices into the complex of tumbled rocks. Rolf groped his way, climbing over boulders and squeezing between them. At last he felt the canyon’s familiar sandy floor beneath his feet, and then the jagged rocks that he knew were right below the mouth of the high cave. Strijeef went rising silently ahead of him, and a moment later the climbing rope came hissing and uncoiling down the cliff to touch Rolf’s face.

  He gave the rope a hard precautionary tug, then went up swiftly. From the wound on his back there was a light tugging pain, too small to be worrisome. Once having gained the high cave—with Strijeef fluttering nervously just outside, still urging him on—he quickly pulled up the rope. Leaving the anchor-stick in the notch, he crawled through the blackness to the chimney and let the rope down again. On the descent into the lower cave there was no room for the bird to guide him, but he could easily feel his way. Soon he could lay first his hand and then his forehead against the cool solidity of Elephant’s flank.

  At that moment all exhaustion seemed to drop away; and only as his weariness left him did he realize how great it had become. Now it seemed that some of Elephant’s age-old power came flowing into him, the strength of some fantastic metal army descending to his muscles and his hands. His hands, moving caressingly rather than groping over Elephant’s cool side, quickly found the recessed steps and grips. Before he tugged open the circular door, he remembered to close his dark-adjusted eyes, and to warn Strijeef to do the same.

  The expected shock of light from within came redly through his eyelids. He climbed inside and tugged the door tightly shut behind him, squinting to make sure the massive latch was caught. With an odd feeling of homecoming he made his way to the seat that he had occupied before, meanwhile gradually getting his eyes opened. The familiar whisper of air was moving around him. His hands at once began their half-remembered task of goading Elephant up out of his slumber.

  Blinking sleepy panel-lights at Rolf, Elephant uttered his first groan. This wakening was not so shuddering and agonized as his last had been—Rolf supposed Elephant had not had time to sink age-deep in sleep again. The CHECKLIST symbols lighted reassuringly, and once more Rolf began the ritual of wiping out the colored dots. The vision-ring descended as before to make a circle around his head. Through it the cave grew visible around him, and Strijeef flying in the cave in anxious circles. The bird’s eyes were open wide, black fathomless pupils dilated as Rolf had never before been able to see them; every feather of the bird’s spread wings, and the bandage on one wing, were plain. Elephant’s night-seeing was evidently as good as any bird’s; if Rolf could once burst from the cave, he would need no guidance to find the enemy.

  Dot by dot CHECKLIST vanished. This time the process went much faster than before. Elephant’s unbreathing voice roared strong and sure. Strijeef said the sound of that voice had led the enemy to the cave. Well, let them hear it now. Let it shake the ground beneath their feet, all across the valley. Let it vibrate in the dungeons of the Castle, and quiver in the bones of those who stood commanding in the proud tower above!

  Suddenly the green tracery of light showed on the two big levers, standing one on each side of Rolf’s chair. He reached inside his shirt, to touch again the Stone of Freedom where he had it tucked away. And then he gripped the levers and gently pulled.

  Elephant backed up, grumbling, turning at Rolf’s direction to aim head-on at the doors that must be opened. Strijeef’s flying circle in the air blurred with the speed of his excitement. Rolf shoved both levers hard forward.

  His huge mount shouted out, as if in rage and charged like a raging beast. Rolf seemed to feel the Stone he carried twitch inside his shirt. Before Elephant had touched the big doors they were opening, jerking sideways like cloth curtains before the invisible influence of the Stone. Elephant’s impatient shoulders caught them even as they parted, and Rolf heard the metal barrier give way, like paper tearing noisily.

  The boulders that Ekuman’s slaves had not yet been able to remove slowed Elephant as he went tilting out upon the open slope. But they could not stop him; they slid or rolled or bounded, making way.

  Startlingly plain, the Castle was suddenly in front of Rolf. And visible were both armies in the field, spread across the valley of the pass in groping files and squads and ambushes. All of them were still now, waiting for the outcome of this moment, hearing the mighty unseen crashing and bursting out of Elephant, knowing what it was but not what it might mean. Elephant’s buried voice had warned them all a little distance from the doors, but still some, both friend and foe, were near enough for Rolf to see their wonderment and fear. All their faces, blind with darkness, were turned straining toward him.

  Rolf kept his two drive levers pushed well forward. Bellowing out his rage across the valley, Elephant charged down the slope, rapidly picking up speed. Rolf had selected his first target—a company of enemy cavalry. They were just starting to walk their mounts upslope from the bottom of the pass, coming too late to reinforce their mates in the fighting near the cave.

  Rolf steered to hit their file head-on. He jounced and bounced with his mount’s increasing speed but kept his seat. Hearing Elephant’s approach if still unable to see it, the company mounted. But in another moment their animals were uncontrollable, they panicked and fled before the earthshaker hurtling at them through the night.

  Those who galloped to one side or the other escaped Elephant, but those who fled straight back could not run fast enough. Beasts and riders alike we
nt down under the wide, swift-racing treads. Rolf looked back, but only once.

  The cavalry company scattered or destroyed, Rolf crossed the highway. Seeing no more enemies before him, he pulled back on his left-hand lever, guiding Elephant through a thundering, jolting turn that brought him back onto the road. He followed the road westward, passing below the Castle. Now the enemy in the field seemed no more than scattered ants. As targets they were unworthy of his wrath, as long as the anthill itself was still standing, arrogant as ever.

  He thought of turning Elephant straight uphill, charging at the Castle wall by the shortest route. But despite himself he was dissuaded by remembering the awesome thickness of those high, gray walls, the hugeness of the slabs of stone that formed their base. In his concentration of fury and joy, he scarcely noticed excited birds come sailing round him and depart again. No, he would take the Castle at its weakest point. He would ride the highway into the village, and turn onto the road that led up to the gate through which he had once been dragged behind an animal.

  Let the teeth of that portcullis bite down upon him now!

  Thomas stood halfway down the northern slope of the pass, straining his eyes to see through the night, and heard the mighty voice and tread of Elephant go past.

  “Where’s he going now?” Thomas demanded of a bird who hovered near. “Tell him to wait, till I can talk with him!” Tonight, naturally, the Silent People were Thomas’s eyes and communications system. Thanks to them, he held in his mind a picture of the battlefield very nearly as complete as Rolf’s view through the vision-ring. To Thomas, accustomed to thinking in tactical terms, it was obvious that Elephant’s first charge had outflanked the enemy in the field, cutting them off from the Castle and completing their demoralization, begun by the night itself. The Elephant with its demonstrated night-vision, speed, and invulnerable strength, seemed quite capable of mopping up the enemy, completing their scattering, sending the survivors fleeing in exhaustion and panic into the river or the desert to be hunted down later by Thomas’s own rested men….

  But Rolf was simply driving along the road.

  Strijeef came dropping out of the sky, crying, “We cannot speak to him! Elephant seems to have no ears, though its eyes must be as good as mine!”

  Thomas demanded, “Where’s he going? It sounds like he’s in the village now.”

  “He is.” Strijeef rose higher, looked again, cried out, “He turns with the road! He’s going up toward the Castle!”

  After thinking for a moment, Thomas ordered, “Then you and the other birds gather all our people to me, here, as nearly as you can. If Rolf can’t hear us—well, he who can’t take orders must be the leader, if he fights.”

  Rolf was not yet expert at guiding Elephant through sharp turns; though he passed through the village at a moderate speed, a brush of Elephant’s flank still tumbled one deserted-looking house. He saw no people tumbling with the house; the village seemed already depopulated. He was soon out of it, on the road that climbed upward to the Castle. The great gate at the road’s end was open, a company of fleeing foot soldiers pouring into it; the last man was barely in before it was pushed shut. Now the bars as thick as tree trunks would be dropping into place to hold it fast. Let them work at making their defenses all secure. Yes, let them think that they were safe.

  With the drive levers only half-forward, Elephant came up the ascending road at the pace of a trotting man. The Castle walls grew. Even now, Rolf felt a shadow of his old awe at their size. Now the defensive towers that flanked the great gate seemed to be leaning almost over his head, their height reaching the blind spot that the vision-ring left directly above.

  Still, as he halted a little distance from the gate, he could see that there were men atop the towers. Arrows and slung rocks began to spray down over him. Elephant did not notice such things; Rolf could scarcely hear them. He urged Elephant forward, thinking to request admittance, and the men above began to pour some sort of liquid fire; Elephant minded it no more than rain.

  There was no room on the small level space before the Castle to build up headlong speed. Still, at Elephant’s first knocking, the iron teeth of the portcullis bent in like so many straws, and the great gate itself sagged in with timbers cracked and splintered. Elephant was stopped from pushing through not by the gate’s strength but only by its narrowness; the broad bulk of Rolf’s mount was caught and held by the towers on either side.

  The burning liquid from above came pouring in an orange glow across Elephant’s eyes, then dribbled harmlessly away, leaving Rolf’s view as good as ever. Rolf pulled his levers back, backing Elephant up. He wondered briefly that the gate should be able to resist him, with the Prisoner’s Stone still in his pocket. But it occurred to him that he was a prisoner no longer; he was trying to break in, not out. Delicately he worked his levers, turning Elephant slightly to the right, aiming him head-on at the tower on that side. He charged again.

  The massive tower stopped Elephant, and sent Rolf sliding unsuspecting forward in his seat. His forehead struck against the inner surface of the vision-ring. He was half-stunned for a moment, then roused to a fury of frustrated anger. Growling and muttering, he hauled back the levers. Elephant, quite unhurt, responded; when they had backed up Rolf saw with satisfaction that several of the great stones in the tower’s base had been shifted and loosened. The battered gate was now leaning more crookedly than before, and its timbers were beginning to burn from spatterings of liquid fire.

  Again Rolf charged, hurling Elephant’s brute power against the strength of the gigantic masonry. This time he braced his legs as strongly as he could against the lower part of the panel before him, setting himself to meet the impact. More stones caved in, like teeth before a club. Working in a cold rage, Rolf again and again drew Elephant back, and again and again rammed him forward. Elephant did not tire or weaken. Parapet-stones began to tumble, from atop the shaken tower, and now fell jumbled with contorted men and bundles of unshot arrows and a spilling cauldron of the liquid fire. Ekuman, where are you? Hide in a bigger tower than this, or burrow into your deepest dungeon, if you will. Ardneh has come to find you out!

  The impact of the next charge burst in the gate completely, sending burning timbers bounding and spinning with seeming slowness across the deserted yard. But still the towers stood, narrowing the gap enough to keep Elephant from passing through.

  Elephant’s last charge at the damaged tower did not come to a sudden stop. Instead it lurched on through a long satisfying yielding grinding thunder of collapse. Elephant’s eyes were covered for a time—first by rebounding blocks of stone, and after that by a fog of dust so thick that no bird or machine might see through it. Covering his ears with hands and arms. Rolf bent over in his seat, hearing the tower come falling on his head.

  His progress having ground at last to a halt, Elephant stood tilted somewhat on one side, his belly-voice droning on imperturbably. Rolf had just regained a firm seat in his chair, and was reaching for the drive levers, when he was surprised to feel a new current of air come swirling around him. The draft brought with it outside noises and the smell of rock-dust. He turned to look back at the door and saw with utter astonishment that it was open. A warrior stood there. His garments and his helm and shield were black and red; he held his sword out in a half-extended arm, so that the point was scarce a meter from Rolf’s heart. The warrior’s face was hidden in a barbut helm, black with a demon-mask outlined on it in red; Rolf had not a moment’s doubt that this was Chup.

  Even Chup, entering the Elephant for the first time, must pause for an instant in sheer awe and bewilderment. And in that instant Rolf slid from his chair on the side away from the sword.

  The sword came flicking quickly after him. But the Stone of Freedom was still inside Rolf’s pocket, and even now it opened a way out for him. A panel whose existence he had never guessed swung open in the floor beside him. A head-first dive into the dark space thus revealed took him into a cramped place surrounded by strange heavy machine
ry. Even as the panel closed itself over his head, the surface on which he was crouching parted, made way for him to exit. He wiggled out, straight through a solid slab of armor thicker than a man; the metal sealed itself perfectly again behind him.

  He was sprawled on one of the stones of the fallen tower, lying half under Elephant’s tilted body. Dust still hung thick and choking in the air. There was some light to see by, from wood amid the ruins caught ablaze by the spilled fire.

  Here, Elephant’s voice was deafeningly loud; but as Rolf slid out from under the tilted bulk he could hear shouts in the middle distance. He rose to a crouch, looking this way and that for some kind of weapon; Chup would be on him at any moment. At least there were no other soldiers in sight; Chup’s degree of courage seemed unique among the defenders of the Castle.

  No, here was one Castle-man who had stuck bravely to his post—or else had simply been too slow in taking flight. He was under some rocks, now. His protruding hand still clutched a sword; Rolf bent to take it and found that he must pry the spasmed fingers loose.

  He had just got the weapon for himself when Chup came into sight around Elephant’s forequarters, stepping over wreckage. The warrior chief had evidently given up trying to follow Rolf’s magical exit and had backed out of Elephant through the ordinary door. Rolf had no time now to puzzle over how Chup had opened that door in the first place.

  “There you are, young one!” Chup’s voice sounded almost jovial, but he moved carefully as he came toward Rolf. Even Chup was wary of one who had mastered the Elephant’s power. “My infant gladiator—a precocious wizard also, it seems. Come now, you have fought well, you have fought like a giant, but you have lost. Give me the spell, the rein, the whip, whatever it is you use to bridle this monster to your will.”

  Rolf wasted no breath on words, only bent and picked up a rock with his left hand, meanwhile holding his borrowed sword ready in his right. Now some of the shouting voices were coming very close, sounding from just outside the ruined gap where the gate had been, the gap now half-blocked by the tilted Elephant.