EXILED Defenders of Ar

by Jack Lovejoy

  Mithmid had kept himself dry and comfortable in the meantime. He sat in a shadowy corner of the council tent, his thoughts concentrated through the bracelet on his left wrist, and not once did his enemies so much as glance toward him. They were a grisly lot: cunning and battle-scarred, the survivors of malice, treachery, and unspeakable crimes, Their council was a pandemonium of threats, curses, and accusations; again and again they leapt to their feet, claws extended, teeth bared, eyes flashing mayhem. They agreed only in their mutual dread of the Evil One.

  Not that they ever referred to him by that name, or any name at all, for that matter. Their references were always oblique, always deferential. There was no argument over the proposal that messengers not be sent to Cragsclaw until after the forthcoming assault, now scheduled for two days hence. Then surely they would carry only good news....

  The news Mithmid carried with him as he left the council tent—the armed guards outside all looked the other way as he emerged into the night—was not encouraging. He had had to concentrate much of his attention on concealment, and had grasped through the pandemonium only a sketch of the forthcoming assault, but he brought away a frighteningly clear picture of the effect it would have upon The Three, upon their ultimate struggle with the Evil One.

  Forge the Demon Sword after the battle, so all the exhaustible mind power of The Three could be focused on destroying the siege engines of the enemy? Or concentrate first upon the sword, at the risk of losing the battle? It was lucky the alert Ortakh caught up with him when he did, for the question so perplexed him that he tended to forget about concealment. Among so vast a host, this was unlikely to have gotten him safely home, in any case.

  They found the boat waiting for them at the appointed place and time; two strapping highlanders at the oars, as soaked and miserable from the incessant rain as they now were themselves. As he looked up at the mighty walls of Ar, looming nearer and nearer as they crossed the river, Mithmid knew that even these might have to be sacrificed to the forging of the Demon Sword. The fall of Ar would be a disaster, but the Khavala in the hands of the Evil One could mean the very annihilation of the mrem.

  Was it even now in his hands? Had he already launched another expedition to the Shadow Islands, to that remnant of a lost continent where for a single night, at a single point, the evil dimension conjoined the world? Had he launched an entire fleet?

  Mithmid’s thoughts, as he climbed stiff and soaking wet from the boat and entered the city, were as depressing as the night around him.

  •

  Young Tristwyn had often been awake until dawn; sometimes long into the next day. But on this particular night he was not carousing. His companions, as he roamed the city, were reputable captains, not Crockercups. His purpose was to hearten his people, to encourage their utmost efforts both tonight and on the morrow.

  The revelations by Ortakh of Maragadan this morning, before an assembly of the League of Ar, had brought consternation. The sight of towers, siege machines, and other massive constructions being rafted across the river this afternoon, both upstream and down, had thrown the entire city into panic.

  It was to calm this, to direct the energies of the people into readying constructions of their own, that Tristwyn moved—albeit with frequent halts for refreshments—from rally to rally, from workshop to workshop, all through the night.

  As he encouraged the people, so his grandmother encouraged him. Sruss was too elderly now for such exertions; she could not follow him everywhere, not had she any wish to lead. But her advice, when asked, was always profound and to the point. Above all, it was always worthy of a king. For the first time in his life he began to feel he was truly his father’s son.

  Sruss herself meanwhile had other duties to perform.

  Her faithful Pepik had ordered the household with faultless efficiency and decorum; only in the cold formality of his bearing was his disapproval of tonight’s meeting evident. The first gathering of wizards here could be excused by the exigencies of war. But now they were making a habit of it: gorging and swilling brazenly, helping themselves to anything they found in his pantry, depleting the larder of edibles. This last was particularly galling, now that the city was completely invested, and its supply lines dangerously constricted.

  Nonetheless he did his duty. After dismissing the last of the kitchen wenches for the night—he had little doubt how the bold minxes would spend it, with so many soldiers crowding the taverns—he bade a formal good night to his mistress, and took himself off as well.

  As he left, he was surprised to find special watchmrem posted outside in the street. No one was allowed to loiter anywhere near the garden wall. All three moons now shone in the sky. Shaking his head, he turned in the direction of his married sister’s house, where he would spend the night. What were the pack of scoundrelly wizards up to this time?

  As it turned out, they did not know yet themselves. Only when Mithmid was assured by Sruss that there were no spies or interlopers anywhere in the vicinity of her gardens did he reveal their full peril.

  Most had heard legends of the Shadow Warrior, how he had brought back some corner fragments of the Khavala from the Shadow Islands; all knew the power of the Third Eye, the largest and most powerful of these fragments. Nor did any doubt, when Mithwid at last finished his narration, that the Evil One would grasp the first opportunity to increase that power, to renew his quest for the entire Khavala: to unleash all the evils of its dark dimension upon the mrem.

  “The Eastern Lords seek only plunder and slaves and empire,” he added. “Khal wants nothing less than the restoration of the Old Race to world supremacy.”

  Silence hung shroud like over the assembly. Not a wizard present had to be told that the restoration of the Old Race meant the annihilation of their own. The question about why the Evil One had not used all his power thus far in the overthrow of Ar was now answered. He wanted besieged and besiegers alike mutually exterminated.

  “Be sure he hasn’t got the Khavala yet,” old Dollavier said bluntly, “or he’d have used it against us by now. But what if he’s already sent out another expedition, led by some new Shadow Warrior, to get it? We may be too late.” “We have no choice but to believe we’re not,” said Mithmid.

  “Besides, we have a Shadow Warrior of our own. His last living son, and a formidable swordsmrem.”

  “Do we know that for certain?” asked Dollavier.

  “We know for certain that the young man is with Severakh,” said Mithmid.

  There were grins and nods and chortles among The Three, a few outright guffaws. Severakh’s reputation as a drillmaster—when not overruled by foolish superiors—was known throughout the land, and wizards, as a matter of survival among a people hostile to magic, were alert for all such knowledge. Nothing more needed to be said, and the wizards joined hands in seven concentric circles.

  The sword itself had been furnished by Sruss. It was an heirloom, the renowned sword of Talwe, tested in scores of battles, over many years. The ceremonial blade worn by the present king was shinier, and encrusted with a treasury of gemstones, but this was the sword of a true warrior.

  Chanting in counterpoint, the concentric circles rotated slowly in alternate directions; round and round, their chant rising and falling, their mind power tapped and concentrated, the wizards drifted into a ceremonial trance. Mithmid stood at the focus of the circles, his left hand extended toward the sword at his feet like a mystical lightning rod. The tempered steel did not actually glow, but all who saw it afterwards knew that it was somehow different from any other sword.

  Mithmid at last picked it up; its weight strained his spindly arm as he brandished it in shadow passes. Appropriate, for the magic of its new temper girded it against shadows; against the phantoms of an evil dimension; against reptile demons.

  Sruss smiled maternally as she watched Mithmid brandishing the sword, for she knew what he was thinking. However, she was a
lso concerned about the exhausted condition of some of the elder wizards, and served refreshments with her own hands. Would The Three be able to wield their powers effectively tomorrow? At the moment they just looked like tired old mrem.

  •

  Another ceremony, in another quarter of the city. No watchmrem were needed to discourage curiosity here. The legends of highland berserkers were all the more terrible to city dwellers because theirs was a form of magic—if it was indeed magic, and not some form of insanity—alien to their experience. They wanted no part of the hundred or so highlanders gathered in the courtyard of an abandoned hostelry—abandoned when the owner and clientele saw the highlanders coming—near the Northland Gate.

  Kegs of mountain wine stacked the cellar, but they went unbroached, for the drunkenness the highlanders sought was of another kind. The chant of their priests was in an older, more primitive tongue than the incantations of the wizards now forging the Demon Sword. Wilder and more guttural, the words less and less intelligible, the primal meaning of the chant was yet increasingly manic and possessive; each was in his soul drawn back through time, reminded of prehistoric savagery, of cruel ages when their bestial ancestors hunted the night on four paws. Then was combat total; then was all the power of tooth and claw and muscle concentrated utterly upon the kill; then did they drive the Old Race into caves and desert haunts; then did they conquer the world.

  Hour after hour, throbbing like the primitive cadences that with the passing of time had become true music, the chant of the highlanders echoed the litany of their priests, echoed the hunting madness, the blood fury, of their ancestors. The passion did not exhaust them, but only made them stronger, more savage. None remembered now that it would be a mere hundred highlanders against thousands upon thousands of enemies, veritable nations. Fear had become as meaningless as time itself, and at dawn they were led forth by the mighty Ortakh through the deserted streets of the city—deserted by the first rumor of berserkers at large.

  Towers and siege machines lumbered out of the north like avenging giants, ominous and fell in the rose-purple light glimmering behind the dark mountains of the east. Closer and closer, the shrill of grinding wheels sounded to the thousands watching hopelessly from the ramparts above like cries of agony, the crack of whips like omens of eternal bondage. News of an even more terrible host advancing upon the south walls made their plight more desperate still.

  The hastily constructed machines now being winched up to the ramparts seemed pitifully few and inadequate, the defenders vastly outnumbered.

  Then, to the astonishment of all, the colossal machines and towers ceased to advance; the shrill of wheels, the ominous cracking of whips, fell silent; an inexplicable hush fell upon the morning. All that was visible in the rose-purple light was a commotion around the towers nearest the Northland Gate. The cries of agony were now genuine, the crash of arms beat like the tattoo of metal drums; enemy platoons rushed forward—and were at once driven back, littering the field with casualties. The commotion spread outward to the flanking towers and machines, one after the other, until the entire host weltered in confusion.

  A cheer rang from the walls, and every highlander there—no matter what his clan, forgetting old feuds and enmities—swelled with pride. It was madness, suicide; glory that would never be forgotten. Wielding their great two-handed claw-swords, the berserkers, a mere hundred strong, had in their fury checked a horde numbering tens of thousands. The colossal wheeled bridges could not approach near enough to the river to extend their spans across to the walls.

  Magic? Insanity? No matter which, so long as the berserkers held back the enemy hordes from overrunning the northern walls, the strength of the city could be concentrated on throwing back the still vaster hordes menacing from the south.

  •

  The Three again assembled upon the ramparts above the Southland Gate, their mind power concentrated through Mithmid upon the advancing towers of the enemy. The one nearest the bridge shattered into sawdust; then the one beside it, being trundled ponderously forward by a train of herd-beasts; then a huge mounted catapult. Screens of hide had been erected to shield the wizards from the rain of missiles sweeping the ramparts, but nothing could protect them from exhaustion. The towers advancing upon them were too many and too huge, their own resources of mind power too quickly exhausted. They could not check the enemy alone.

  The young king had, to his mother’s shrill displeasure, opened all the shops of the palace, all its storerooms and all its hoards of treasure, to the city’s master builders. His authority had also provided them with all the manpower they needed, and a prodigious array of machines was now mounted along the southern wall. He directed their fire—literally fire—in person.

  Sruss did not meddle with the directives of her grandson, even when his boyish enthusiasm carried him too far. She only saw that this enthusiasm did not foolishly endanger his life, and a pair of stolid shield-bearers paralleled his every move along the ramparts, screening him from the rain of missiles.

  The missiles arcing down from the walls were fewer in number, but more effective. Fire-spears riddled the great wooden towers, igniting them, delaying their advance. Brigades of skirmishers had to be diverted to bucketing water from the river, to extinguish the fires, further delaying the advance. This gave The Three what they most needed: time. Time to bring their flagging mind power to bear upon shattering every great siege tower within range, one after the other.

  The rafts and barges on the river below, crammed to the gunnels with marauders, grappling hooks, and scaling ladders, were now deprived of missile cover from the towers. Boulders crashed down on all that drifted too near the walls, and the current bore downstream a ghastly flotsam of wreckage and bodies.

  Dreading the consequences of failure, the enemy warlords pressed their merciless attack, and casualties mounted until the very battle priests began to rebel. Resistance was furious, terrible, unanticipated. But though their own attack had stalled, the expectation that soon the northern wall of the city would be overrun encouraged them to persist.

  Then messengers brought the grim tidings that that attack had also stalled. The thousands of defenders atop the walls could no longer restrain their cheers and taunts, as one after the other, minutes apart, the towers of the enemy continued to shatter into sawdust. The hail of missiles sweeping the ramparts momentarily slackened into a mere nuisance, while the barrage of fire-spears and boulders hurtling down from those ramparts grew ever more terrible. So dense became the smoke that at first the defenders did not perceive the new menace trundling toward them across the plains.

  Maddened by anger and the dread of failure, the enemy warlords threw all their remaining strength into one last desperate assault. While a giant catapult hurled boulders directly at The Three, massed on the parapet above the gate, with a force that mere hide screens could not deflect, a pair of strange machines were hauled to the riverbank facing the remote ends of the wall. Through the billowing smoke, their purpose was not immediately apparent.

  Though the tallest of all the siege machines yet thrown against Ar, they mounted neither catapults nor archers; no sling-stones or pots of fire rained down from their lofty turrets; no grapnels arced across the river. They were shaped like monstrous T’ s, with crossbars longer than their stems, crossbars that lengthened farther and farther, once the machines were anchored on the riverbank, until they over swept the walls. Only then was it realized that the machines were nothing but giant cranes, whose deadly claws began to pluck defenders from the ramparts—five and six at a clutch—and swing them back across the river to their doom.

  The Three could not at first resist them. Mithmid was now too hard pressed just to keep his wizards from bolting, while at the same time tapping their mind power to deflect the boulders hurtling down at them out of the sky. He was unable to concentrate long enough to destroy even the catapult pinning them down, let alone the giant cranes.

  It
was now that young Tristwyn first truly showed his mettle. Through the renewed hail of arrows and sling-stones, he had three of his own siege engines mounted on the parapet, and their barrage of fire-spears soon ignited the towering catapult facing them, hampering its crew with blinding swirls of smoke. Moments later, it exploded into sawdust and ashes.

  Then thousands of enemy troops could be seen retreating through the smoke and reek of battle; neither their battle priests nor their captains could rally them, nor did they dare try.

  A thundering cheer rang from the walls. But the battle was not over yet, and The Three, moving along the ramparts beneath a roof of shields like some monstrous shelled reptile, made their way toward the western battlements.

  The few defenders still alive here had taken cover; the huge crane, having plucked scores from the walls, was even now being repositioned along the riverbank to put hundreds more within clutching range of its deadly claw. Mithmid positioned The Three just beyond that range, and pointed his left hand at the crane. Minutes passed. Then a new explosion of sawdust and ashes sent the enemy into retreat here as well.

  It was over a mile back along the wall to reach the other crane, but word arrived that it was already in flames. Then word that the northern wall, even farther away, was threatened. Brain-weary, stumbling with exhaustion, the scores of wizards descended into the city. They were cheered to find carts waiting for them, thanks to the foresight of Sruss, and crawled gratefully inside. But there was no chance for the nap many so dearly cherished. The draft animals were whipped to a lather, to rush through the streets with all haste, and they had to hang on with both hands.

  Fewer than half the berserkers were still alive, but they fought on with the same magic—insane fury, as oblivious of danger as they were of the siege machines that now began to explode around them. The wheeled bridges were Mithmid’s first targets. They were too colossal for the enfeebled powers of The Three to destroy utterly, but he so crippled their undercarriages that they were immobilized. Barrages of firespears did the rest, and soon the enemy hordes were in full retreat here as well.