EXILED Defenders of Ar

by Jack Lovejoy

  Nizzam gaped. But if he was astonished that no shock or concussion drove the sorcerer back, he was astounded to see him calmly open the engraved casket—something he himself had been unable to do, applying all the knowledge and power at his command—and withdraw a great phosphorescent jewel. Nizzam reeled giddily and almost fell. There was no escaping the horror of what he now saw before him, a horror so overwhelming that at first his mind refused to accept it. Even more excruciating was the knowledge that he had been duped. The lantern again began to tremble in his hand.

  He had never seen the phosphorescent jewel before; no one had for over a generation now, though great wizards had searched everywhere for it, high and low, in every corner of the land and beyond. It was the Third Eye.

  “So it was all just a shabby trick,” he heard himself saying in a hollow, quavering voice.

  Khal ignored him as if he were some mere clamoring infant or house pet. He made an occult pass, and the mystic stone seemed magically to become indeed a third eye, glimmering between his real eyes from a golden uraeus.

  “Yes, I have heard that the bauble grants power,” Nizzam continued to rant hollowly, as if more terrified of silence than of Khal himself. “But you will soon learn that I too wield a powerful magic, that I—” He gaped at his ring finger. The fragment of the Khavala was gone.

  Dark laughter echoed through the caverns; as if he were being mocked out of the shadows all around him by a thousand tormentors. The ring was now on Khal’s finger. A triad of ruby eyes leered sardonteally at him.

  “Have no fear, Nizzam.” Khal’s voice was raspy and gutteral, like the hissing of vipers. “You have done me a valuable service. In no other way could the Third Eye have been returned to me. For many years now I have pondered a means of communicating with my servants. Only lately have I discovered that means. Be assured that you are precious to me.” His whisper seemed more sensual than cruel. “Too precious to squander in haste or greed. Besides, as you say, you are a powerful magician. So I’ll have to take care not to offend you. But first I must assure my servants that you have indeed performed your service, and that they are now free to perform theirs. I shan’t be long. Meanwhile you may go wherever you like, for I shall always know where to find you.”

  Dark laughter again echoed mockingly through the caverns, and then Nizzam found himself alone. Dazed, mortified by what he had done, his mind reeling with terror, he stumbled up the long shaft toward the surface. He shut the entrance door behind him, and was foolishly relieved when he was unable to open it again. He literally staggered into the open.

  Then he flinched, as the whole world erupted below him.

  Green fireballs arched over the city of Kazerclawm, and from the dark countryside surrounding its walls rose the battle cries of thousands of barbaric voices: rude, violent, and greedy for plunder, seeming to rise out of the very ground. The response from the ill-guarded walls was tardy and confused. The thud-thud-thud of battering rams against the gates echoed through the streets before a lone bugle timidly summoned the garrison.

  Nizzam was again relieved, as he thought about his own escape. He would surely have been summoned up with the supernumeraries; even if he didn’t do any of the real fighting, he would have had to work until he was exhausted, hauling supplies and ammunition to the troops. And what if the attackers—whoever they were—sacked the city? What would have happened to him then? Yes, he was well out of the way up here.

  It only remained for him to stay out of the way until the danger passed. He wished now that he had brought food with him. He didn’t like missing meals. Oh, well, whatever happened to Kazerclawm, he himself would be safe. It could be only a razzia of desert marauders, perhaps reinforced by bandits and highland renegades. They would at worst sack the city, then retreat with their booty before the King of Ar had a chance to dispatch a relieving force. It shouldn’t cause him more than a day or two of personal inconvenience, and he began probing along the ancient wall for some snug gap where he could bed down for the night. Leaves and dried grass were everywhere, and there were berry bushes on the lower slopes.

  Then he noticed that the fireballs had ceased, and peeked warily out from behind a heap of wall rubble. He spotted Khal on a height strategically overlooking the city, among a group of mysterious hooded figures, tall hooded figures, one monstrously tall. Who they were, or what they were doing there, he did not care; and still more warily he drew his head back. In times like these it behooved one to mind one’s own business, and he stealthily resumed making himself comfortable for the night.

  And it was well that he did, for a closer look at the hooded figures would surely have robbed him of a night’s sleep—if it did not cause him to think he was already sleeping, in the midst of the most terrifying nightmare he had ever experienced.

  Khal himself was unusually circumspect. “A battle is not a war,” he said in a low rasp. “Be sure your masters—that is, our masters—realize that tonight’s victory is but a first step to conquest. Powerful forces are still ranged against us, forces which I alone command the sorcery to overcome.”

  Huge round eyes glared suspiciously out at him from beneath drawn hoods; lizard claws extended beyond full sleeves. Every figure in the semicircle confronting him ranged over six feet tall, one over eight feet. If they represented the Eastern Lords, they also represented the various races of liskash; never trustful of each other’s motives, even in a war of extermination against hereditary enemies.

  “The Eastern Lords have done much for you, Khal,” hissed the smallest of them. Intelligence was not an evolutionary strength of the reptilian races; among the liskash it was inversely proportional to size. “Yet you never did for them what you promised.”

  “Look about you.” Khal waved a bejeweled webbed hand toward the chaos that was now Kazerclawm. “My agents promised your masters—our masters, that is, destruction of mrem. Have I kept my promise, or not?”

  The slow reptilian minds of the liskash needed several moments to turn this over. Kazerclawm, heretofore an impregnable obstacle to conquest, had indeed been overthrown. And though they feared and hated Khal, just as they distrusted each other, none doubted the power of his magic.

  “Promises work two ways,” he continued, while they were still pondering his last words. “Were the promises made me by the Eastern Lords truly kept? Ask them yourselves. Would I have been thwarted the first time, had they supported me as they promised? They’ll tell you I would not, if they are honest.”

  This needed more rumination by the liskash. First of all, the Eastern Lords were never honest about anything—else they would never have survived the reptilian struggles for power. Nor did underlings, under any circumstances, ever question their actions.

  “Do not show your claws until I have opened for you the gates of Ar,” Khal once more continued before their slow minds had quite caught up with him. “The mrem are an inferior race. So long as they can persuade themselves that this is but a raid by brigands and desert marauders, our superior cunning can negotiate them step by step toward annihilation. We must never let them unite. Besides,” his voice assumed a low, insinuating rasp, “is it not fitting that we use mrem to destroy mrem?”

  This time there was vigorous assent all around. Here was a principle instantly grasped by even the tallest liskash, a gangling reptilian nightmare, concealing a two-handed battle-ax beneath his cloak. Using mrem as screens or shock troops in battle was their regular tactic. They also grasped at once what it would mean to have the gates of Ar thrown open for them. Their claws flexed as if already seizing a furry victim; their jaws slackened hungrily, exposing rows of hideous teeth.

  “Assure your masters,” Khal said with false candor, “I mean our masters, of course, that I shall soon complete what I started years ago. But they must not be impatient this time. Above all, they must not interfere—until the hour comes for them, and for you as well, to reap the spoils.”

  “
It shall be as you say, Kahl,” replied the smallest liskash. “But be warned, the Eastern Lords have granted you a second chance. They will not grant you another.”

  Kahl nodded his acquiescence. He had no illusions about his position. The Eastern Lords also feared and hated him; they without doubt intended to dispose of him cruelly, once he had served their purpose. But he had intentions of his own, certainties about which would ultimately be the Master Race, about how the spoils would really be apportioned after the overthrow of the great city of Ar. He performed the farewell ritual with all his teeth showing.

  Meanwhile Nizzam finished padding a nest for himself with arm-loads of dried grass. The gap in the ancient wall was now both snug and secure, and he scrambled over the rubble nearby for a last check on Kahl’s whereabouts. He spotted him just taking leave of the mysterious hooded figures, no doubt regarded by him as his “servants.” He seemed to regard all the world more or less as his servants. How had he coaxed so vast a horde to launch a razzia at this precise moment? Or how had his agents found the Third Eye for him, or gained possession of a fragment of the Khavala?

  Nizzam shrugged. This was hardly the time for abstruse questions, when his own safety and well-being were jeopardized. Then he was startled to find Kahl peering in his direction, and ducked back into the shadows. Had he been seen? In any case, he had better lie low for a while, and turned to slip back into the snug gap in the wall ... and the stout wooden door opened before him, and he again found himself inside the mountain. Confused, he turned to leave; but the door was gone, and he stood alone in the middle of a palatial hall.

  Then he became aware of a lovely young she-mrem beckoning to him from the shadows. Srana? What was she doing here? Or was it really Srana? He peered closer, but the shadows around her were too deep for him to be certain.

  She beckoned, and he followed.

  A Pounding at the Gates

  A DEATHLY silence hushed the last straggle of revelers at the Blue Dragon, as if the heavy thudding outside had stunned them. It was the rankers from the garrison who first realized what was happening, and they rushed and tumbled and staggered out into the street.

  Leaderless, they at first only milled about in confusion, as the ominous thud-thud-thud continued to reverberate from the Watersmeet Gate. At last some hurried in that direction, while others ran toward the armory for weapons; a few old veterans merely shrugged and ambled back into the Blue Dragon for a nightcap.

  Young Branwe had followed the rush into the street. Mamre had given him leave to turn in for the night, but he had prudently decided to stay on the job. Working overtime tonight might make Grujekh—who had glowered at him for returning late from school—more amenable tomorrow, when the time came to request leave to help Srana’s grandfather.

  He heard passing remarks that Kazerclawm was under attack, and his first thought was of Srana herself. Should the walls be breached, the garrison would fall back into the fortress; only those citizens prompt enough to slip inside before its gates closed would be safe. He knew that Srana would never leave home without her invalid grandfather, and doubted the help Nizzam would give her to carry him to safety. More and more people were now pouring into the streets and heading toward the fortress.

  Branwe started to head back into the Blue Dragon but then hesitated, and circled to the kitchen door. Grujekh would need help to lug all his money and valuables to the fortress; Mamre would probably want someone to carry her prize mirror there, even in its mutilated condition. Right now, he had more urgent tasks.

  Scrambling up the ladder to the storeroom where he slept, he rummaged in the small locker at the foot of his pallet for the old practice sword Cajhet had salvaged for him from the armory trash can. He had had its cracked basket resoldered, and sewn a scabbard for it out of a pair of discarded leather leggings. It was a rude weapon, but all he had, and no garrison soldier had ever drilled with more heart.

  A lone bugle sounded timidly from the direction of the fortress, as he feverishly buckled on the scabbard, dodged back through the congestion of kegs, bales, and grain sacks, and peered warily down into the kitchen. It was deserted, but the moment he started down the ladder, Mamre bustled into the room.

  “Oh, there you are, Branwe! Hurry, lad, we need all the help we can get—” Then she noticed his rude sword and scabbard, and stared silently at him for several moments, before asking, “Srana? Yes, I should have thought of her myself.”

  “She needs help with her grandfather, and I didn’t think Nizzam—”

  He was interrupted by an impatient shout from Grujekh, but Mamre bustled back to the door and shouted him down—for the moment. “Do what you can for them, lad,” she lowered her voice. “And don’t bother about that Nizzam’s helping anybody but himself. But first there’s something I must tell you. Desert marauders, bandits, maybe the Eastern Lords themselves are trying to get at us. Who knows if we’ll ever see each other again?” She took out a handkerchief and began dabbing at her eyes. “You were abandoned here as a kit. I’ve told you that, but there’s more to the story, which I thought too wicked to bear repeating—though I meant to tell you someday. You see, the nurse that left you here was found murdered that same night, with another kit she’d picked up somehow or other. And not just murdered, lad,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. “Tortured and mutilated, as if it was revenge ... Yes, yes, I’m coming!”

  She again went to the kitchen door, and exchanged more angry words with her husband, before hurrying back.

  “The old screw’s frantic about his money. I thought I knew all his hiding places, but he surprised me. As I was saying,” she continued, “the nurse was murdered, and on her way to see the Sentinel—who was a fine figure of a mrem in those days, by the way. It seems she sent him a note, saying that she had something important to tell him. But whoever was after her got to her first, and she never saw the Sentinel at all. He retraced her steps back here to the Dragon, but no farther. Who she was—who you are, for that matter—or where she got that other poor kit, or what secret she was going to reveal, nobody knows to this day.”

  “Has Srana heard this?” His mind raced with wild romantic fancies, although none so strange as the truth.

  Mamre shrugged. “Yes, yes, I said I was coming, didn’t I?” she shouted out the kitchen door. Then she lowered her voice. “Do what you must, lad. Don’t worry about me. There’s plenty willing to turn a few coppers to move our goods to the fortress. Grujekh’s just looking for somebody to do it for nothing, that’s all. Now hurry before he spots you. She groomed him maternally. “You’ve been like a son to me, Branwe. May the All-Mother guide and protect you.”

  He had no chance to reply. They heard Grujekh approaching the kitchen, and she fairly shoved him out into the night.

  The relentless thud-thud-thud continued to reverberate from the Watersmeet Gate, barricaded with carts, wagons, and futile heaps of lumber, but now came also the ominous crack and splinter of wood. Shouts and battle cries raged above; whole sections of the wall had already been abandoned; there were too many marauders clambering up too many scaling ladders for the surprised and out-numbered troops to repel, and they began falling back in confusion upon the fortress.

  Mrem fled by the thousand, some trying to rescue valued possessions, most trying only to save their own hides; the streams of panic swelled into a roaring flood. Few who tripped or were knocked down ever rose again. Branwe was carried several streets beyond the stone dragon before he could at last—pushing, dodging, elbowing his way—break free into a crooked narrow lane.

  Was he too late? Refugees from Srana’s quarter pinned him again and again to the wall as they rushed past him in terror. Hordes of enemies were already over the ramparts, looting, murdering, raping. The fortress was the last hope. Hurry! Where were the soldiers? The All-Mother protect us!

  Then the sky began to redden. Fire! It came from the very direction of Srana’s house.

&nb
sp; Forcing his way anxiously into the street that led there, he found himself once more driven the opposite way. The armed mrem who now rushed at him were not panicky refugees. Bandits? Desert marauders? Shops and houses fell one after the other into their greedy hands. They seemed in fact greedier for loot than blood, but still butchered anyone in their path.

  Branwe drew his sword and fell back into another crooked narrow lane, driven farther and farther from Srana’s house. The sky over Kazerclawm now glowed like an evil dawn.

  Srana stared across her darkened bedroom in alarm. There was a mrem standing in the doorway. Why hadn’t her danger sense awakened her sooner? Was she in fact in danger? The shadowy figure seemed to be listening for something.

  Then she became aware of a muffled thud-thud-thud somewhere in the distance. Her danger sense was alerted as it never had been in all her young life—also by something in the distance. She sensed no danger from the direction of her doorway.

  “Get up, dear,” said her grandfather. “What we have feared for over two generations has now come to pass. A great evil flashed through my dreams like a shooting star.”

  “Khal?”

  “He has the Third Eye,” replied the old wizard. “Nothing else could explain so powerful a surge of evil.”

  Srana was out of bed and dressed in minutes. “We must escape while we can.”

  “There is no escape for me, dear. Khal’s sole god is vengeance, his sole delight a sadistic cruelty. I must never fall into his hands alive.”

  “The fortress,” she cried. “We’ll be safe there, until the King of Ar sends reinforcements.”

  “It will be too late, even if he does send them. Those now attacking the city—renegades, bandits, desert marauders, what ever villainy Khal’s agents have scraped together into a thieves’ army—might have been resisted. But not if Khal abets them with the Third Eye.”