by Hugh Cook
Yet this time, the sight of the wounded affected him oddly. He had never before had supreme command of a battle – he had always been somewhere in the midst of the fighting, hacking out a reputation for himself with a bloodstained sword. Afterwards, he had never felt guilty about the wounded because he had taken the same risks and shared the same dangers.
But now he suffered an unavoidable guilt which he could not free himself from. As supreme commander of the army of the Harvest Plains, he had sent people to their deaths without risking as much as a cat-scratch himself. And, as so much had been decided by chance, error and luck, he could not even console himself with the thought that his generalship had secured the victory.
So this was what it meant to be supreme commander!
Hearst thought he began to understand why Alish had ceased campaigning in the Cold West. To stand apart and order brave men to their deaths made demands few could find easy to bear.
He saw a rider coming from the west: it was Watashi. Hearst met him, and received his report.
'The enemy is now confined within the walls of Androlmarphos,' said Watashi. 'We are raising walls and building strongpoints to protect our siege lines in case they try a sally, but I do not think they will'
'With Elkor Alish in command, I wouldn't put any money on it,' said Hearst. 'Tell those in the siege lines I believe Alish may well try a sally – possibly tonight.'
'The enemy have taken heavy losses, my lord.'
'So have we! To win, we have to destroy the enemy's fist. That's the ruling law of warfare. Today, we bruised their knuckles – but their fist can still strike back.'
'Yes, my lord,' said Watashi.
And bowed, and left.
'So we're not finished yet,' said Farfalla, watching her son go. 'There's to be more fighting, more killing.'
'We didn't choose this war,' said Hearst.
'But we could choose to end it. With the death-stone.'
'We cannot! War with such weapons would wreck the entire world. Others can venture the Dry Pit to get such weapons.'
'Then perhaps others will,' said Farfalla. 'That does not alter our need.'
'I've seen what the death-stone does,' said Hearst. 'You haven't. You don't understand. If we started that kind of warfare, it wouldn't stop before… before…'
Hearst shook his head. It was unthinkable.
'Surely a commander errs if he wastes flesh and blood in battles a stone egg could win… surely that's a matter of… competence.'
'The death-stone would wipe out the whole city,' said Hearst. 'Do you want to save the city by destroying it?'
'Use the death-stone against the walls.'
'The stones would come alive. People would die.'
'People will die anyway. Why are you so… so afraid of this death-stone?'
Hearst pointed at the sea.
'Out there, the Central Ocean. Out to the west, Rovac. Beyond that, the Cold West. For thousands of years Rovac has concerned itself with the history of the lands bordering the Central Ocean, inasmuch as we've fought in the armies of those lands. But if I was to use the death-stone… everything would change.'
'To live is to change,' said Farfalla. 'Birth to death. That's the cycle.'
'The death-stone would end all cycles,' said Hearst, and turned on his heel and walked away.
Knowing full well that he had another reason not to use the death-stone: Elkor Alish was in Androlmarphos, and might well become a victim of the power of the death-stone, whether it was used against the city as a whole or just against the battlements where, no doubt, the fighting men would be concentrated.
***
Elkor Alish led a sortie from Androlmarphos that night. There was bitter fighting under cover of darkness: confused struggles in which knots of men fought to the death with no quarter given on either side. The earth works of the siege lines gave the defenders an advantage, but they were hard pressed to hold those lines.
Then, at the height of the fighting, Hearst brought fire ships down the river. They advanced under cover of darkness – galleys with oars muffled. In Lake Ouija, they were set afire – the crews only had to swim to the eastern shore of the lake to gain the safety of their own lines. Morning revealed that half of Alish's ships in Lake Ouija had been destroyed.
At a council of war, Hearst listened to battle reports in silence.
'Will they try another sortie tonight?' said Watashi. 'They'll try something,* said Hearst. 'You can count on that.'
'So there'll be more dead,' said Farfalla. 'More maimed and mutilated war victims, crippled for the rest of their lives.'
Hearst winced. if we can't accept casualties, then we'd better surrender now," said Hearst.
'Morale is good,' said Watashi, 'We're ready for a long siege, if that's what's necessary. But it won't be easy.'
'You don't have to tell me that,' said Hearst. 406 It was then that their council of war was interrupted as a messenger was brought into their presence by armed guards. He was exhausted, his clothing bloodstained; it was clear he had been wounded in the chest. He tried to stand up straight before them, but staggered. A guard supported him. He tried to speak, but no words came.
'What's this about?' said Hearst. 'He brings a message,' said a guard. 'He passed it to me.'
'Let me read it,' said Hearst. 'Sit him down. Bring him some water. Here. Now.'
And Hearst took a piece of parchment from the guard. On one side was the original draft, written in the language of the Harvest Plains, which he could not understand; it was adorned by an elaborate signature and a wax seal. On the other side, someone had scrawled a translation in the Galish Trading Tongue.
'Who translated this?' said Hearst.
'Patrol,' said the messenger, getting the word out with difficulty. 'Thought me a spy. Questioned me, long time. Translation by patrol leader, your attention. Believe me.'
'Maybe he is a spy,' said Hearst. 'However, the message purports to be from a fortress commander on the border between the Rice Empire and the Harvest Plains. He says his castle is besieged by part of an army from the Rice Empire, and the rest of that army marches for Selzirk. He is sending this message with a sortie party.'
Hearst passed the parchment to Watashi. it's authentic,' said Watashi. i know the seal. I know the commander, too – the original message bears his signature, and has been drafted by his hand.'
The messenger spoke again. His voice was weak: 'Only one. Me. Only one alive. All the rest…'
'We understand,' said Farfalla. 'Lie back. Rest. Don't do yourself further injury by trying to talk.'
'So the Rice Empire hopes to profit from our troubles,' said Watashi, 'If they reach Selzirk…'
'Well,' said Farfalla, looking at Hearst. 'Do you still think you have time to break Androlmarphos by siege?'
Hearst met her gaze in silence. Then spoke: 'I am not going to use the death-stone.'
'You could threaten to use it.'
'Elkor Alish knows the population of Androlmarphos is his guarantee against attack by the death-stone,' said Hearst. 'He also knows that sooner or later we'll have to take the death-stone south – or else a party from the Castle of Controlling Power will come north to take it from us. Time is on his side: he won't listen to threats.'
'Then what about that pirate creature, Ohio?' said Farfalla. isn't his brother the commander of the pirates? Isn't that what you told me?'
'I can't use a friend as a hostage,' said Hearst, regretting now that he had. in an intimate moment, revealed Ohio's secrets.
'Pretend, then,' said Farfalla. 'Ohio would surely consent to being tied up and led out on a horse in front of the battlements of Androlmarphos. If we made his brother believe we had murder in mind, perhaps he'd parley with us. We could come to an arrangement.'
'Alish won't surrender no matter what Menator says.' said Hearst.
'Then we can surely persuade Menator to murder Elkor Alish,' said Farfalla. 'He gets Ohio's life – and money, if he wants. And a treaty to guarantee his hold o
ver Runcorn.'
'That's a foul way to work,' said Hearst. i've seen the dead,' said Farfalla. i've seen the wounded. All war is foul'
Hearst thought it through, then said, his voice heavy: 'Go and bring Ohio to me.'
Watashi moved to obey.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Hearst and Miphon stood on the plains two leagues east of Androlmarphos and a league west of the burial mound and the pyramid. In the green bottle, they had two horses and four hundred soldiers. There was nobody between them and the city; the siege lines had been evacuated the day before.
Miphon was looking inland, to the east, waiting for a signal to come from the fleet anchored upriver. Hearst, on the other hand, watched the walls of Androlmarphos, and remembered what had happened outside those walls.
Ohio had agreed readily enough that they could use him as a hostage to try and get his brother Menator to negotiate with them. Ohio had been tied up and put on a horse which had been led out onto some open ground in front of Lake Ouija.
A small party, including Hearst and Watashi, had waited to receive an equally small delegation from Androlmarphos, which had included Menator. The pirate commander had refused to make any bargain with the people from the Harvest Plains, but, thinking the threat to Ohio's life was real, had tried to rescue him, even though there had been bad blood between them in the past.
In a short fight, Menator and most of his party had been killed; Ohio had died when the horse he was seated on had reared, throwing him to the ground. With his hands tied, he had landed heavily, breaking his neck.
Hearst was now forced to use the death-stone. He did not have time to recapture Androlmarphos by siege: he had to march Farfalla's army east to defend Selzirk against the invaders from the Rice Empire. As it was, he calculated they would barely reach Selzirk in time. 'Any smoke yet?' said Hearst. 'Nothing,' said Miphon.
Hearst wondered where Alish was at that moment -and what he was thinking. Did Alish suspect the death-stone was about to be used against him? 'How is the messenger?' said Hearst.
'The messenger?'
'The one from the south who brought the message about the army from the Rice Empire. I wanted you to have a look at his wound.'
'He died before I could see him.'
'Oh,' said Hearst.
So that was another death to take into account. One amongst many. Now Hearst was going to use the death-stone: but that in itself should not produce too many casualties, for he had calculated that, from where he stood, its effects should extend just far enough to destroy part of the city walls.
'Green smoke,' said Miphon.
There was indeed green smoke rising in the east. Ships anchored upriver would soon attack, expecting to find the walls of Androlmarphos breached. Hearst could have sheltered thousands of men in the green and red bottles, but, as no more than fifty men could be taken in or out of one of the bottles at a time, the fastest way to launch a mass assault on the city was by ship.
'Take your position,' said Hearst. •Miphon sat cross-legged on the hard dry ground at Hearst's feet.
Hearst took the death-stone from a leather bag. The stone egg was cool. Heavy. He raised it above his head. The shadow of a buzzard flickered over the ground. The death-stone kicked in his hand like a human heart. He cried out, his battle-hoarse voice naming the Words. The death-stone warmed in his hand. His heart faltered, trembled, kicked three times in an odd, irregular rhythm.
There was a grinding sound in the sky, which grew steadily stronger.
As Hearst watched, the few pebbles he could see on the dry earth began to tremble as the grinding sound grew louder. In a moment of hallucinatory clarity, he remembered the desperate moments at Ep Pass – rocks shifting underfoot as he fled from Heenmor, his hands and face stinging from burns, his nostrils filled with the stench of burnt leather, his eyes watering from smoke.
Now, as he watched – the death-stone heavy in his hand, his arm trembling – the little pebbles, shape-shifting, began to move. Like insects. The air was turning grey. The ground… the ground, outside a small circle he could have spanned with outstretched arms, was turning grey. As the ground turned to stone, the mobilised pebbles skittered across its surface like raindrops wind-driven across a pane of glass.
The air was turning grey.
And the death-stone – 'The death-stone's getting cold,' said Hearst. His voice sounded hollow, echoed back to him as if they were standing in a cave. 'Hold it,' said Miphon.
Hearst tried to look out across the countryside to see what was happening. He saw a buzzard in the sky, saw it suddenly stall – as if hit by an arrow. Then fall. Crashing down to earth with no flap of feathers: a stonemade bird falling like a rock. Beyond that, everything was blurred and obscured, like a landscape seen through heavy rain.
The death-stone was now frost-cold in his hand.
Hearst knew the grey death was now sweeping outwards almost as fast as a man can run. He remembered Looming Forest, remembered the wizard Garash treading on a stonemade face, breaking the stone curve of an eye to reveal an eyesocket empty but for a bit of stone the size of a pea. He remembered Prince Comedo's toy – a survivor living on with stonemade hands and mutilating injuries to the legs and face.
And he remembered, again, Ep Pass – a raft and its crew freezing to stone then sinking. The wizard Phyphor. the big bone in his thigh shattered by a rock. A skin of stone forming on the river's surface, then breaking under its own weight and sinking. And later, months later… stonemade bodies of a defeated army that had tried to defend Runcorn against Elkor Alish.
'Rest,' said Miphon.
Hearst lowered the death-stone.
His arm was shaking.
The air was clearing now, sunlight sharpening to shadows, and he could see across a grey stonemade plain to Androlmarphos. As he watched, the walls appeared to dissolve as the stones they were made of took advantage of their freedom.
'The pyramid!' said Miphon.
And Hearst saw the pyramid to the east was similarly dissolving. He heard a strange sound, reminiscent of shattering ice. Was it from the pyramid? No – it was the skimrock surface of the rivers breaking up. The air was absolutely dry, like the freeze-dried air of winter in the Cold West, and sounds carried with precision for great distances. He heard a distant, inarticulate roar, like the far-off sound of surf beating against a beach or ice-cliffs breaking away from a glacier undermined by the sea.
'What's that noise?' said Hearst.
'The rocks,' said Miphon. 'Shouting.'
The death-stone still felt cold in Hearst's hand. So much power – which any coward or criminal could use. given the chance. Appalling wars could be fought by men who would never be faced with the necessity of meeting their enemies face to face. Given such weapons, war could become, for the victors, an abstraction, a game – they would be like gods, removed from the realities of hand-to-hand combat. They would never have to make the true warrior's commitment to death, but they, standing at the centre of a circle of sanitary destruction, would wreck entire civilizations.
'I'm going to get the first batch of soldiers,' said Miphon. 'Stand clear.'
He turned the ring on his finger, disappearing into the green bottle. Hearst walked out of the circle of soil onto the plain of stone, leaving the green bottle behind, so the ground was clear for the first batch of soldiers Miphon would bring out.
Abruptly, the stonemade ground in front of him began to crack and split, like ice breaking up when a heavy man steps on it. But the centre of this disruption was twenty paces in front of him, and there was nobody in sight. For a moment he imagined that something gigantic yet invisible was standing on the plain of stone, some avenging hell-fiend or star-giant.
Then the ground erupted upwards.
A rock lurched free of the clutching earth. It was large as a ship. And it roared. A funnelling vortex shape-shifted to a thunder-black mouth, lipless gash grinding as it moved. Hearst staggered backwards, stumbled, fell.
And the monster lurche
d toward him.
Hearst held up the death-stone, his last resort. And the monster stalled, flinched, shied away, then fled, bellowing, running like a cockroach from flame.
Elsewhere, more rocks were breaking free from the earth. Suddenly fifty men materialised around the green bottle – Miphon and the first batch of soldiers.
'Miphon, no more soldiers!' shouted Hearst. 'Stay! We need you to command the rocks!'
They advanced, Miphon driving rocks before them.
As they approached Androlmarphos, ships that had come down the river began to disembark Farfalla's army. Organising the rocks into an arrow-head formation, Miphon urged them forward, and, as the monsters smashed into the city, Hearst knew that Alish's army was doomed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Morgan Hearst opened his eyes and saw a dragon watching him. 'Hello,' said Hearst.
The dragon said nothing, but watched him, eyes unblinking. He could not outstare it. His head hurt too much. Hoping for a few mouthfuls of wine, he reached for the leather bottle that lay beside the bed – but it was empty.
'By the balls of hell,' muttered Hearst.
The woman in bed beside him moved, and murmured something as she dreamed away the last of her sleep. Hearst eased back the coverlet, exposing bum and back: Could he rouse himself to desire again? No: he had debauched himself so thoroughly by now that all his appetites were satiated.
And he had a headache. A bad one.
His mouth, which was dry, tasted foul, as if a stale sock full of dead blowflies had been sitting in it for a couple of weeks.
And his eyes winced from the light.
He had, in short, a hangover. Not the worst one of his life – he did, after all, finally manage to drag himself out of bed – but a pretty bad one.
He dressed, slowly.
The dragon, cunning as a cat, watched him, its eyes unblinking. The stare irritated Hearst: he reached up and tore the banner down from the wall, bunched it up and threw it into one corner of the room. Then he opened the shutters, letting in dazzling morning sunlight. A mistake! He flinched as the light chiseled into his eyes.
