by Glen Cook
Three of Drear's Braunsknechts returned with armor fit for a grown man. They brought two long couch lances as well, complete with pennons.
There were no volunteers to don the armor and spring the trap.
Prosek grumbled, "It's too damned cold out here, anyway. Stern, Varley. Let's pack it up. These people aren't really interested."
Drear took the longer lance. "We'll see if I can still stay on a horse wearing all this plunder."
Helspeth kissed the knuckles of Drear's left glove. "Don't do anything stupid."
"You want me to do this? Or not?"
She stepped back, silent. He did not expect, or maybe even want, to survive this. He would suffer no end of grief if he did.
He had no business letting her be here. And no business leaving her to draw the monster into a position where it could be destroyed. That was not his job. That was not his mission.
Guilt pierced her down to the anklebones of her soul.
Drago Prosek followed Drear at a distance, still making measurements. Still making arcane preparations.
Helspeth pulled Lady Hilda close. "When we hear Drear coming back I want you to distract the other Braunsknechts."
"Princess?"
"Whatever it takes. Just get me a few seconds."
Algres Drear was up the pass, out of sight. The weather had turned more benign, though the wind still sounded like ghosts quarreling amongst the boulders and stunted trees. The falcon crews waited, ready.
Drago Prosek put no faith in matches or punks where there was no margin for failure. A charcoal fire burned near each weapon, warming the crew and heating an iron rod that could not be blown out by the wind nor extinguished by a raindrop. Prosek himself remained in constant motion between the weapon sites. He was nervous but not for the reasons everyone else was. He was worried about things working right when he needed them to work. The rest were worried about surviving.
The Braunsknechts had no familiarity with Prosek's weapons. They expected nothing good. The falcon crews did not know what to expect, either. They had yet to be in this position.
"Princess?" Lady Hilda whispered. "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to pray. I'm not very good at it." Nor good at being a leader, either, she feared. This was what happened when you let personal desire overrule your need to be responsible. People got hurt.
A noise rolled down the pass, indefinable after battering back and forth between the canyon walls. It was loud.
Lady Hilda understood what was bothering her. "Like everybody else in the world, you're doing the right thing for the wrong reason."
Algres Drear appeared, low on the neck of his mount. The animal was fleeing but making no speed because it could not use its right hind leg. Drear no longer carried a lance. He had lost his sword, too.
A heaving something appeared behind him. It was the source of the echoing noises. Drear's broken lance protruded from what might be called a left shoulder. At eye height, as though the monster had dodged to avoid being blinded.
Helspeth started forward, meaning to snatch up the second lance. Drear's men seized her. She struggled weakly. As she did, she noted that the monster's lost claw had grown back.
The thing was in a mad rage. And gaining on Drear. Who was injured.
One of the Braunsknechts took the lance. He started forward. Prosek smacked him. "Let it unfold the way it was designed." But the man from the Brotherhood moved forward himself.
Drear's mount spied friendly folk ahead. She found some last reservoir of will and picked up the pace for the last fifty yards.
Drear's men swarmed round her once she passed between the last few boulders shielding the lower falcon.
The monster in pursuit sensed danger at the last instant. Limbs flailing, it stopped. Its hideous head rolled back and forth. Antennae waved, tasting the air. But the wind was blowing down the pass. The monster oozed forward, seeking a better taste of what had fired its suspicions.
Helspeth told the Braunsknechts to stop making a racket. Unaware that hearing was the monster's weakest sense.
Drago Prosek kept moving forward. He made no effort to avoid being seen. He carried a yard of burning slow match. The very thing he did not trust his falconeers to depend on.
The monster scooted forward a dozen yards, alert for danger. Had it not been excruciatingly wary it would be feasting already.
Its head rolled. Its antennae sampled the air.
It found something. It stiffened, then collected itself for flight.
Prosek stepped aside, between boulders.
The lower falcon discharged, hitting the monster's underside as it reared to turn. It rose yards higher, shedding noises describable only as painfully loud. It fell back and stumbled a few yards. Stunned.
The upper falcon discharged. Some of the thing's limbs flew away. Chunks of chitin flew out of the monster's back. Pale yellowish green liquid splattered the surrounding rock.
Then the thing's smaller wounds began shrinking. It began to regain control. Began to examine its surroundings. An antenna brushed the smoke trailing from under the overhang sheltering the second falcon.
The monster started to strike.
The lower falcon spat poison again. The impact shoved the monster back. The beast made horrible noises. Helspeth's thoughts entangled with its madness as it entered her mind briefly. Everyone experienced the phenomenon. Now the beast rushed the lower falcon, all reason fled. Sudden serpents of fire scurried along the walls of the narrows. First from the right, and two seconds later from the left, explosions savaged the monster's flanks.
What? Helspeth had seen Prosek fiddling around out there but… What was this?
The blasts near tore the monster in half. But it persevered. The upper falcon barked again. Then the lower weapon exploded. Its crewmen shrieked.
Prosek materialized, running. He was pale, his face contorted by horror. He glanced back to see if the monster was gaining.
It no longer cared about anything but getting away. Its wounds were not healing. It had a huge problem turning without tearing itself in two. Steam the shade of its ichors rose from its injuries.
"It's not going to die," Helspeth murmured. "We did all that and it's still not going to die!"
Prosek stopped amidst the rocks piled round the lower falcon. He called for help. The higher falcon drowned him out. Its charge lashed the monster's side, destroying more legs but doing little more damage to the body proper. The thundering echoes faded. Prosek began yelling at Stern's crew.
A couple of Braunsknechts went to help the falconeers. Prosek zipped out of the position, staggering under the weight of a cask of powder and the charges Varley's weapon had not expended. He clambered up to the overhang.
Drear, though injured, managed to regain his aplomb. "Cheated death again " he muttered as he fumbled at the ties on a bent piece of shin armor, the name of which Helspeth could not recall. "But this leg may be broken. Somebody needs to run down to the teamsters' camp. Have them come take away the wounded." Braunsknechts brought Varley and his falconeers to the fireside. None were dead. Varley might prefer death, though. Only a massive growth of beard had kept the left side of his head from being torn off. That side of his face would become a mass of scars.
One of Varley's assistants explained, "We used a double charge of powder, second shot. It must've cracked the falcon, inside. Leaving a place for burning wad to hide. The next charge exploded when we were ramming it." He accepted water from Lady Hilda. "Get the falcon. We can't leave it."
Stern's weapon barked again, louder. The least injured gunner muttered, "Overcharged it. They'll be sorry."
Helspeth crept forward far enough to see the monster. It lay still, now, surrounded by pale green mist. Her bodyguards were not paying attention. She crept farther forward, to Varley's falcon. The blast had opened a break in its side. The stench of firepowder was strong. It would have been impossible to see had the wind not driven the smoke down the pass.
Pebbles rattled a
round a few yards out front. Prosek and Stern bringing the second falcon down. Cursing the thinness of the air, Prosek told Helspeth, "It's too far off, now. The charge scattered too much, last shot. We're going to go blow one up its… We're going to hit it point-blank."
"Mr. Prosek."
"Uh… Ma'am?"
"False flight. Watch out." She could not be sure because of the mist but thought the monster might have resumed healing.
"Good thinking," Prosek said. "Never take the Night at face value." He and his falconeers made sure the weapon was ready. Then they moved it toward the ascended Instrumentality.
Helspeth was right. It was less severely injured than it pretended. It would have destroyed Prosek, Stern, and the others had they not been ready.
Prosek had risked another overcharge. Some of the shot passed all the way through the monster.
Echoing thunder faded. Out of the ensuing silence came Drago Prosek's continuous cursing. He and his men came back down fast. 'Time to leave, ma'am," he said as he reached Helspeth. "That last one did for this falcon, too."
The mouth of the tube had peeled back like the petals of a lily. "If that thing gets up again there ain't a lot more we can do." He did not keep running, though. He barked at his own men and co-opted two of Drear's. He got the damaged falcons moving downhill, then collected the remaining firepowder. "The thing knows the scent of its pain, now. It'll smell the powder and not want to get too close. That was why I planted those torpedoes. To teach it to fear unspent firepowder. Go back to your lifeguards. Get out of here. I couldn't forgive me if you got killed, now." He got busy with the powder. "Go, woman! Go."
Helspeth retreated. She found Algres Drear on his feet. "You said your leg was broken."
"I was insufficiently optimistic, Princess. It's just a bad bruise. Ouch!"
Helspeth had prodded his calf with her toe. "Be stubborn and manly all you want, Captain. But don't expect the rest of us to hang back because you can't keep the pace."
"In that case, I'll get a head start now."
The teamsters had arrived, bringing litters. The Braunsknechts sent the wounded down first. No one rode. Not even the Princess Apparent. Whose attitude scandalized some and made a lot more love her because she did not set herself beyond those who served her.
That news would not set well when it reached Alten Weinberg. "Hilda, my days of independence are definitely numbered. Even if this is a howling success."
"More probably, especially if this is a success. A girl your age conquers a monster none of the grand old farts of the Empire even dared attack? The daughter of Johannes Blackboots? Not good, Helspeth. Your sister will be afraid of you, now. So will the blackhearts who whisper wickedness in her ear. And her foes will all want to use you. Arguing that you're the truer daughter of the Ferocious Little Hans."
Algres Drear, injured leg in a splint despite his protests, observed, "No good deed goes unpunished, Princess. And the loftier your intentions, the worse the unintended consequences." He took another long drink of distilled painkiller.
Helspeth wanted to argue but was too tired and emotionally spent.
Brilliant light flashed above the pass they had recently deserted. Smoke or dust rose to be painted orange by the setting sun. Pale green threads wormed through it.
The roar of the explosion tumbled down the pass, arriving only after the light faded.
"Can we run?" Drear asked.
Helspeth said, "It's never come this far down."
Drear reminded, "It did on the other side of the Knot."
The teamsters were not too tired to run. And their teams were fed and rested. They loaded up and moved out, all the injured fighters riding.
"He'll catch up," Stern promised his fellow falconeers. But Drago Prosek never did.
Neither did the terrible ascendant Instrumentality.
That suited everyone perfectly.
Traffic through the Jagos resumed almost instantly.
16. Castreresone: Siege
"I'm an observer," Brother Candle told Socia Rault. "I belong here, doing what I'm doing." The ferocious young woman tried to glower but failed. She was in a good humor, confident the Patriarchals had made a fatal error by coming to besiege Castreresone.
As had become their custom, the two were atop a wall, watching the unfriendly folk outside. This time including the Captain-General of the Patriarchal armies himself. Accompanied by an impressive armed gang.
Impressed, Socia said, "There sure are a lot of them."
"The Captain-General has strong backing from Sublime and the Collegium."
"But those are forty-day men. Right? If we hold out for a month, they'll go away."
She was whistling in the dark. Wishful thinking. The backbone of Sublime's crusade were the professional, full-time soldiers raised and trained by the Captain-General. A huge anomaly in an age when army commanders were not professionals. Not in the Chaldarean world, outside the fighting orders.
"Some of them," Brother Candle said. "I'd guess some forty-day levies have cycled in and out already. But the majority of those men will stay till they starve or succumb to disease." Brother Candle was no fierce patriot, yet the notion of successfully besieging Castreresone was outside his Connecten conception. Roger Shale had rendered the White City proof against any attacker.
The Patriarchals arrived in a businesslike manner. They established their camp and saw to its safety before doing anything but put out patrols. No herald came to demand surrender, offer terms, or suggest any other interaction. The invaders began to dismantle the undefended Inconje suburb, using the lumber to build their engines and camp and the stone to erect towers at the ends of the bridge, and as ammunition.
The professionalism of the Patriarchals preyed on the imaginations of the Castreresonese. They went about their work like it was, indeed, just a job. They ignored the city until their first artillery pieces began lobbing stones at the outer wall-concentrating on exactly those points the Castreresonese knew were weakest. And on the carpenters belatedly trying to install hoardings.
Socia opined, "We should've kept on going to Khaurene. Or even into the Altai." She watched a siege engine loft a huge stone almost directly toward them. This crew were not yet expert in their craft. They had not scored a solid hit yet. This stone flew way long. When it landed it shattered like a thrown dirt clod.
Local field stone was soft and broke easily.
"You may be right," Brother Candle said. The absolute confidence of the besiegers troubled him. This was no mob of Grolsachers, nor an undisciplined mix of fanatics and adventurers like the Arnhanders who had come and gone. These men all had jobs, knew how to do them, and worked hard at them. And their efficiency and competence were being shown deliberately.
"They can't last," Socia decided. "There isn't enough food and fodder. We just need to hang on."
Food and fodder were likely to be problems inside Castreresone, too. Every refugee from farther east had been allowed into the city, where the Maysalean partiality for sharing was strong. Useless mouths would consume stores better reserved for fighting men.
Uncharitable of him, to think such things.
He should put the world aside and go into retreat. He was no longer Perfect. Not even close. The mundane had insinuated itself too deeply into his being.
The people of the White City mocked the Patriarchals. Their confidence in their walls remained high. And the enemy had not surrounded the city. For all his numbers, he was not that strong. Round to the northwest and southwest, where new suburbs had been added on, people came and went as they pleased. The enemy did not interfere. Both suburbs, the Burg in the northwest and the New Town down south, had their own walls, extending from the older main walls. Theirs were lower and thinner.
"They may not be entirely serious," the Perfect Master mused one afternoon. "This could be a show of strength meant to awe the city into giving up. They do say this Captain-General is niggardly with the lives of his men."
"They say he's pretty
clever, too."
News of the extermination of the god grub on the Ormienden side of the Dechear River had reached Castreresone shortly before the Patriarchal vedettes. People did not want to believe that the Captain-General had faced down and destroyed a major Instrumentality. But he had captured Sonsa easily. Had taken Viscesment and Immaculate II by surprise, so quickly that Immaculate's bodyguards had offered only a token defense. His sub-commanders were at Antieux and Sheavenalle, now, the latter chieftain enjoying unanticipated success.
A week after the Patriarchal army arrived the White City's mood began to turn. The enemy had begun systematically capturing nearby towns and fortresses. The swiftness of their fall was frightening.
The mood blackened further when news spread that the darkest brethren of the Collegium accompanied the invaders.
Sorcery explained the failure of so many strongpoints.
Sorcery and treachery.
The Patriarchal Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy had people planted everywhere. Those traitors worked their wickedness.
Bernardin Amberchelle was a crude, cruel man, not without cunning. His agents had penetrated the Society. On the eighth day of the siege one of those betrayed a plan to seize and open a hidden postern. Amberchelle's status ballooned after the traitors had been thrown off the taller barbican tower. Seventeen priests and lay brothers. Including an otherwise innocent Brothen Episcopal priest who had the nerve to beg mercy for the captives.
There was no central power in the city. Roger Shale had not been replaced. The magnates could agree on nothing. Isabeth was en route from Navaya with a hundred of Peter's knights and all their train. Having planned to land at Sheavenalle, then march up the Laur. But much of Sheavenalle was in the hands of the Patriarchals already. An attempt to land would be risky. So the ships were back at sea. They might put in at Terliaga, two-thirds of the way back to Platadura, whence they had sailed.
