by Garon Whited
“We must be a little north of Eastgate. It is the fortified city that guards the pass of the Eastrange against invasion from the savages.”
“Big city?”
“Not really. A city with walls and a garrison of King’s Army, though.”
“Good to know. Any idea how far?”
“Two or three days, depending on the weather… oh. We should be there well before tomorrow morning.”
“Good.”
We rode Bronze up to the bridge, spied no one, and started on across. Bronze’s hooves sounded odd on the stone of the bridgeway; not quite right for a shod horse. Then again, that’s understandable. I considered how to make Bronze a bit more like a normal horse, to blend in, and was lost in thought when the gate-guard stepped out of the far gatehouse.
“Hold!” He shouted. I drew rein and he continued, “Who are you that crosses the King’s bridge?”
“Travelers from the north, heading for Eastgate,” I called back.
“Why?”
“Because there’s good money to be had in hunting savages?”
“First I’ve heard of it. Be that as it may, you’ve yet to pay the toll.”
“How much?”
“A milling for you and her, two millings for the horse.”
I flipped him a silver coin, what they call a decius, worth ten millings. He caught it on the fly.
“Pass.”
“What about my change?” I asked, once we were abreast of the gatehouse.
“You want money back? Push off; there is no moneylender here.”
I grumbled and pushed off. I was irked, but it seldom pays to argue with the cops.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH
That night, after my momentary lapse of health, we mounted up again and made some serious time. I pushed Bronze, to see if she retained any of her speed from the night before. She did. As we ran through the night, she started to edge up even faster as her joints and muscles—does a solid block of bronze have joints and muscles?—burned in more thoroughly. I think.
Magical Constructs 202: Golem Anatomy and Physiology. Ah, the benefits of higher education! Is it possible I might attend a magician’s academy, someday? Or open a wizard’s school? The latter seemed more likely; a group of students and myself, exploring the intricacies of magic, and experimenting with new spells—I like that idea. Heck, we could work on just plain old knowledge—things they don’t know about on this side of the doorway. Physics is a broad subject, covering everything from the lever to nuclear reactions.
I wonder if the Yankee felt like this around King Arthur?
We blazed down into farmland—literally in Bronze’s case; her eyes were glowing and spark-like flames were mixed in with the steady smoke that came from her nostrils—about the same time I started reining her in. We were headed up and down hills with terraced farms; there was no telling who might be seeing what by moonlight. The occasional farmstead I saw had no light on, but that never guarantees those within were asleep. Better to be cautious. We slowed to a canter.
The road worked up and up, finally running along the foot of the mountains. Eastgate came into view below us as we rounded a shoulder of stone. The banner of the town appeared to be green sinister, red dexter, with a black bar dividing the two colors down the middle. The midpoint of the black bar had a white, six-pointed star.
Actually, it wasn’t a town; it was a walled city. The main walls, however, were not around the city proper, but around a fortress construction that occupied the mouth of the pass. There was a smaller wall around a large, upscale section of town, but there were no walls around the outlying suburbs.
First, a word or two on the pass.
The thing reminded me of a road. I could not see very far down the pass from my vantage, but I was almost on the same level as the top of the fortress wall blocking it. It was like a giant smote the range with an axe, leaving a gash all the way through it. The foothills rose up into the mountains and up to the floor of the pass. The walls of the pass slanted slightly back from vertical, and looked to be nasty buggers for climbing. As far as I could see, the pass extended straight and clean.
Now, the fortress…
The designer had chosen to cork the pass with the fortress; anyone who wanted to come down the pass could do so easily, without any resistance, until the gate. The mouth of the pass was plugged with an earthwork topped by a fortified wall. Crenellations toothed the top of the wall and outworks grew along either side of the pass, putting any assailants into an area where the defenders could rain down death from three directions—or fire into the backs of troops actually assaulting the gate. The gate was large enough for two wagons to travel abreast. It opened away from the pass, but was held closed by three large beams, as well as an iron portcullis.
Not bad at all. I’d hate to have to force the thing without a tank. Still, from the condition of the gate and the rust on the portcullis, it had been a while since anyone had tried.
Which made me wonder. Why all the bother? How dangerous were these “savages” I kept hearing about?
Judging by the fortification, pretty damned dangerous.
We killed some time in the outwall areas of Eastgate. The people who couldn’t afford a house within the walls of the city were suspicious of strangers, of course, but a silver coin persuaded one man to part with his loft for a few hours while Shada slept and I stood watch—and then she watched while I crawled into a plastic bag for a few minutes. Then we went to town.
It was quite a letdown.
I was all primed to be a tourist in a quaint medieval city. It wasn’t all that much fun. The people were dirty, the animals more so, and the gutters indescribable. Stonework seemed reserved for fortified walls and such; houses were wood with thatch for the roof, with the occasional wood-shingled building. The place was a firetrap, an arsonist’s wet dream. Well, incendiary dream.
Shada told me this was a pretty average town.
“It was once greater, but the barbarians of the eastern plains have ceased to raid through the pass. It has been many years since last they ventured within sight of the gate, and the King has withdrawn many of the forces that once guarded it, sending them north.”
Sounded good to me. Fewer cops to dodge, and I was definitely not up to a close inquisition. We found a store and bought some supplies. She sold some salvaged jewelry and valuables; I bought a couple of blankets, some dried meat, some cheese, a waterskin—that sort of thing. Traveling stuff.
We got out of the walled area before sundown; they locked up at night, and I had no desire to wear myself out by playing with gravity again. I was still feeling below par after the effort of that levitation spell. We hung around in the poor section until after sundown. I needed a midnight snack.
WEDNESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 14TH
I found my midnight snack inside one of the nicer houses outside the walls. He was on his knees, curled up in misery beside a dead woman. From the looks of things, he’d just done a nice job of strangling her. The pain within him made him long for death, and that made him—to me—legitimate prey.
So I fed on him. I coiled dark lines around his spirit and drew on it like a fisherman hauling in a catch of lightning. I drank him fairly slowly, draining him thoroughly.
Yes, he had strangled her. He was a poet and a troubadour. He loved her and desired her and she had been a whore. She accepted his money, his gifts, his poems, his songs. She kept right on working, greedy for both the money and the feelings—taking temporary lovers for an hour’s ecstasy or for a night’s languid pleasure. The troubadour entered her home, surprising her—and her latest patron. The patron fled the scene, but the troubadour and the harlot shouted, fought… and he, in his rage and jealousy, his envy and his hurt, had taken her throat in his hands and strangled her.
He had written many songs of cheer and gladness that lightened the world. He had loved lightly many women; he had been a good friend to half a hundred people in each of twice as many towns. He had always given
a coin to beggars who were lame—luck for the road, he called it, but it was his generous heart that was to blame. He had always been kind to dogs.
He was a human being. And he was gone… or almost, save only for that spark that lived on in me.
I fastened my fangs in his throat and drank off half of him, then did the same to the body of his ex-lover. I didn’t need it, but it pays to stay ahead! Quick work with a knife and her fingernails made this scene much more of a mutual killing in a jealous quarrel.
Good enough for me. I left the bodies as they lay and slipped out into the night.
We made good time southward on Bronze. Once we got out of the farmed area around Eastgate, we stepped up the pace and she leaned into her run. Shada had complained about the freezing effect of high wind on her at night, so she rode behind me, now bundled up. After a while, I’m sure the heat from Bronze warmed her a bit; I know I could feel surges of warm air blowing back over me as Bronze’s gait made her blow flaming smoke back over her shoulders.
The night poured past us like a sea of ink. For the first time in a long time, I loved the way the sky looked, the way the stars blazed with unreal brilliance for me. It was a good night to be dead.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH
We reached the southern coast a little before midnight, I think; I’ve given up on trying to keep track of time by my watch. The night sky is no help; the stars around here don’t move! The Moon rises and sets like the Sun, and apparently opposite it; that’s how I can guess the time. But the stars don’t change position. A constellation on the eastern horizon at sunset remains there until blotted out by sunrise!
What a weird world I am in.
Shada was nice enough to watch the sky with me a few times while we were resting from the ride. Okay, let’s be honest: while I pulled over for her to rest. I’m unnaturally tough and night after night in the saddle at fifty to sixty miles per hour doesn’t bother me. God forbid I should try this as a normal human being; I’d be done in after one night. I used to be just an average guy—maybe above average for the typical pocket-protected academic. I don’t know how Shada managed, but she never complained.
The place Shada had in mind was called Baret and it straddled the Caladar river where it flowed into the Southern Sea. A cursory once-over in the evening told me it was a farming and fishing town, with some mining in the Eastrange and a fair amount of trade. There was a lot of farming in the delta area, especially rice. Wheat and corn were more upland from the river, and it looked like one wing of the city stretched eastward along the coast toward the cliffs of the Eastrange; there seemed to be a natural harbor. Above the walls, the city’s banner was dark blue with a silver sword in the upper right, a golden harp in the lower left.
From the look of it, it was fairly well-defended; the walls were good, solid construction and the river—at least, the last mile or so, the part that would be in the city itself—ran through a stonework pipe out into the sea.
I reflected on that. It made a sort of sense, from a defensive standpoint; I wondered how they mucked it out when it got silted up. Considering the size of the river, it was a safe bet invaders wouldn’t even consider trying to get a force down the pipe; they would wash away. And it did make the land-wall and the sea-walls pretty much solid. I must have wasted an hour examining it and wondering at it; it was a big sewage pipe, too. A lot of the town’s gutters drained into it.
Which might explain why the pipe runs out so far into the sea. I was impressed with it. It rivaled Roman waterworks and surpassed them in some ways—I’m sure that Rome could have built such a thing, given time and men, but how much easier is it when you have wizards to help out?
It must have cost a fortune, both in money and time. That spoke well for the prosperity of the place.
I also noted the sea defenses seemed geared to repel smaller craft and invaders. There were arrow engines—big, crossbow-like devices that fired twenty arrows at a time—and small ballistae on the seawall, but no such engines on the landward side. Apparently, the city was more concerned about an attack of the 23rd Armored Canoe Division than a bunch of regular infantry.
Or mermen? I wondered.
I faded back into the night—an easy trick, these days—and rejoined Shada and Bronze to wait out the dawn.
I underestimated the locals.
The first words out of the gate-guard’s mouth were: “You a magician?”
I blinked down at him; I was still on Bronze. “Not that anybody ever told me.”
“Magician-type horse, that is. If you’re a magician, you have to talk to the baron.”
“Sorry. I’m a wizard.”
The guard looked more alert. I got a sinking feeling at that.
“Oh are you, now? Well, then, the baron’s wizard is the one you’ll be needin’ to see. And quickly, too.” He whistled sharply and waved; a younger man—maybe fourteen, but considered an adult around here—came out. “Take this fella up to see the wizard.”
And he did. I followed him through the cobbled streets to the fortified manor that served as the baron’s residence. From ground level I noted other details of the city construction. Most of the buildings seemed to be stone construction for the first floor; second storeys were optional, but were mostly wood. I also noted that there were carts rumbling along, scooping up the gutter-leavings—a process made easier by the smoothness of the gutters; it looked like cement or concrete under the filth.
Why not? The Romans had concrete.
Another thought: how much of this crap—literally—made it into the river/sewer pipe? And with such a handy disposal, why bother to scoop it up? Did they use it for fertilizer? If so, why? River-delta land is unusually fertile to begin with.
There’s so much about the world I don’t know.
In fairly short order we were shown up the hill to the manor; it was the highest piece of ground in the city. Shada was told to “wait here” by one of the manor guards and I was told to “follow.” The guy doing the talking had six other guys with him, all in chain-and-scale, and all carrying swords.
I leaned on my staff and noted them eyeing my sword.
The chief guard blinked. I felt/listened to Firebrand; apparently, it was awake enough to eye him back. I don’t think they liked each other.
“I’ll have to ask you for your sword.”
I nodded. “I’m sure you do.”
He waited. I waited.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” I asked.
“Are you going to give me your sword or not?”
“You haven’t asked.”
“I just did.”
“Not that I noticed. You did say you would have to ask for it, and I agreed you would have to ask for it.”
He got that pained expression all security professionals learn. It’s the one where they have to be polite as long as they possibly can. The one they get when they can’t just smack you in the chops and say something like “Shut up, sit down, and be quiet before I feed you your shoes—with your feet still in ’em!”
“I’m afraid I am now asking for your sword. Please give it to me.”
“No.”
There was a long, ugly silence. Shada kept her hands visible and began to edge away from the center of attention—me. I leaned back against Bronze and waited it out.
“I insist,” he tried.
Bronze pawed the flagstone tossed her head, and snorted. It was hard to hear the snort; her hoof made a scraping, ringing, screaming sound of metal on stone. It scored the flagstone. Deeply.
Hands came out from under helmets; it’s hard to cover your ears when you’ve got a metal bucket on your head. I waited a couple of minutes to let them get their hearing back. Okay, okay—I was waiting for mine to recover too, but I could slap my hands on my ears a lot faster and easier.
I’m pretty sure the head guard—a sergeant, maybe?—said, “and the horse will have to wait outside,” but I wouldn’t swear to it.
I pointed at Bronze, then at the man
or gate, and made a negative, handwaving gesture. He nodded and made a sort of blocking motion with his hands, then pointed at Bronze.
I motioned to Shada; she came over and we all walked out the manor gate. I mounted. Shada got up behind me. The sergeant had a couple of men draw steel and get in the way.
I looked at him, appearing puzzled.
Fortunately, the ringing in our ears was dying down.
“I said that thing has to be outside the wall—not you!”
“Oh. Bronze, stay.” I got off and helped Shada down. “Mind if my wife waits here with my horse?”
“Is she anything like the horse?”
“Better,” I said. Shada looked startled.
“Then she stays here, too.”
I smiled inwardly; Shada seemed amused.
“Shall we go in, then?” I asked.
“I still have to take your sword.”
Looking tired, I unbelted it and hung it on the pommel of the saddle.
“Go ahead,” I suggested.
“Um.”
There was a lot of whispered consultation.
“That will do,” the sergeant decided, finally. “This way.”
I was half-disappointed he didn’t say, “walk this way,” as it would’ve given me a great opportunity to annoy him further. I guess only hunchbacked henchmen say that. Minions and guards just escort. No sense of humor.
The manor house had at least started life as a manor. Someone had decided to turn it into his home—much like I had decided to take Sasha’s house and make it my home. There was an outer wall for the manor. The ground floor walls were now solid stone, without a single window. The double doors into the house were serious, no-nonsense, doors—doors that said, “We are a Portal,” in deep and ominous tones.
