by David Drake
“You’ve had me,” he said. “You’ve seen what I did, what you did yourselves when I showed you. You can do it again.”
“But Lord Garric,” said a woman Garric didn’t recognize. She’d been one of the captives, he thought. “There are so many Coerli and we are few. This was only one keep.”
“There’s other keeps, sure,” Garric said, “but there’s many more human villages. Metz, uniting your neighbors is as important as attacking the Coerli. You can unite and the cat men never will. This—”
He gestured at the smoking ruins of the keep.
“—was a real fight for your village alone, but if there’d been three or four villages together Torag wouldn’t have had a prayer. You’ve got booty for trade, Coerli tools and fabrics—”
“And excess women,” Carus added. “There’s many a chief whose opinion could change if you offered him the sort of young, healthy woman that the cat beasts picked for their own uses.”
That was true, but it wasn’t something Garric was going to say or even allow himself to think. He continued aloud, “—that’ll help you convince other villages that this isn’t a wild risk. And you’ve got Coerli weapons. They’ll impress neighbors who aren’t completely willing. It’s the world’s safety at stake.”
He took a deep breath. He felt oddly euphoric; the root that Lila’d pushed into his wound must have more than a simple healing effect.
“You’ve got to do it yourselves, Metz, all of you,” he said, “but you can. And you should, because it’s your world you’re saving, not mine.”
“Lord Garric?” said the woman who’d spoken before. “If you could stay with us for just a little while, then we’d be able to take over ourselves when you left. There’s so much we don’t understand!”
Carus watched through Garric’s eyes with grim humor, his knuckles on his hips and his arms akimbo. “Just a little longer,” was the most common plea a king heard…
“There’ll always be things you don’t understand,” Garric said, speaking to Metz but pitching his voice so that all the villagers could hear. “There’ll always be things that’re new to me too. This is your world. You’re better off running it than I’d be—and if you’re not, then you’ll be leaving it for the Coerli. I hope and pray that’s not what happens, but the choice is yours to make.”
Donria whispered something in Metz’ ear. The former hunter, now chief, straightened and said, “Garric? You’ve helped us. What can we do to help you?”
“By the Lady!” Carus said in delight. “That Donria’ll be the making of this world. This kingdom before long, I shouldn’t wonder!”
“Bird, what must I do to get home?” Garric asked. His conscience still troubled him, but he knew what he’d said was the truth: there’d never be a time that he couldn’t be of some benefit to the Grass People, but he really had given them sufficient tools to save themselves.
“We must go to the cave in the abyss from which the Coerli enter this time,” the Bird said. “I am not a wizard, but I can analyze potentials and adjust them. We will be able to do what you wish and what I need. We will go alone.”
“But Garric?” Metz said, frowning in consternation. “That place is full of monsters. And the cat people as well, going to and from. We never went near it, even before the cat people came to the Land. Things live there that live nowhere else, terrible things.”
Garric held the axe he’d taken from the Corl he’d killed when escaping. He turned to get a little room, then swung it back and forth in a wide arc. His shoulder felt like glass was breaking in it, but the weapon moved smoothly nonetheless.
He looked down, expecting to see blood start from the entrance wound; it didn’t. Lila was back at Marzan’s side; she gave him a smirk of satisfaction.
“When I have to,” Garric said, “I can be pretty terrible myself. If the Coerli can pass that way, so can I.”
The Bird jumped/flew/fell onto Garric’s left shoulder. “Then let us go now,” it said. “You’re tired, but time is critical.”
“Yes,” said Garric. “Metz, fellow humans—my heart will be with you as you reclaim your world from monsters.”
“And I suspect it’s time and past time to do the same for the Kingdom of the Isles,” said Carus. “Because I don’t believe the wizardry that brought you here didn’t have more effect than that!”
Captain Ascor cleared his throat and said, “Your highness, it’s best you and Lady Tenoctris start back for Mona now. Things are apt to get—”
He paused to look down to the fog-wrapped plain.
“—pretty busy here soon.”
Sharina smiled despite herself. Those weren’t the words Ascor would’ve used if he’d been talking to another soldier.
She drew the big knife from beneath her outer tunic. “Ascor,” she said, “provide a detail—a section, I think—to escort Lady Tenoctris to Mona. I’m going to remain here with the army.”
“Your highness, it’s not safe!” the captain snapped.
“I know it’s not safe,” said Sharina, an edge in her voice as well. “That’s why it’s my duty to stay. With respect, Captain—precisely what do you think I could save by running away? Except my life, that is, which of course would be worthless if I were a leader who abandoned her troops.”
“Oh, I’m not leaving, dear,” Tenoctris said. “Apart from anything else, Cervoran hasn’t been defeated yet. That was just a skirmish, another skirmish.”
Sharina’s eyes and the Blood Eagle’s too shifted to Double, who’d arranged on the ground several objects he’d taken from his case. One was crinkled and amber. At first Sharina took it for a tortoise shell, but closer attention convinced her it was the husk of a cicada of remarkable size; her spread hand wouldn’t have covered the thing.
Double bent and scribed a hexagram in the soil with his athame. He made the strokes separately instead of angling each side into the next in a combined motion as most people would’ve done. The amulet containing the lock of Ilna’s hair wobbled on a silver neck chain.
One of the small ballistas released with a loud crack, sending out a caustic-headed quarrel. It struck at the base of a hellplant’s torso, just above the squirming legs. All down the line of catapults and ballistas, men with long wrenches were tightening the springs of their weapons. The artillery couldn’t be left at full tension for very long without warping the frames and weakening the coiled sinews. This morning the crews hadn’t started cocking the weapons until they realized Double’s wizardry wasn’t going to save them.
“Huese semi iaoi…,” Double chanted, dipping his athame to a different angle of his hexagram with each syllable. “Baubo eeaei.”
The cracks of more artillery—including a heavy catapult which must’ve had a picked crew—echoed around the bowl of the hills. Several plants ruptured and collapsed, already beginning to decay into the sodden ground. Another staggered in a wide curve to the right, gushing steam from its wounded side.
“Sope…,” said Double. “San kanthare ao!”
The ground seemed to bubble. Tiny sharpnesses jabbed Sharina’s feet between the sandal straps and up her ankles; she shouted in surprise. A guard jerked off his cape and began slapping it at his feet as though he were beating out a fire.
Locusts, some of them the length of a man’s middle finger, were hatching out of the ground. That’s all it was—locusts; but thousands upon crawling thousands of them.
“It’s all right,” Tenoctris called. Sharina doubted whether any of the soldiers heard her or if they’d have paid attention if they had. “This is Cervoran’s doing. He’s helping us!”
Crawling, fluttering, flying in slow, clumsy arcs, the locusts converged where the linked threads had crushed Double’s mirror. The air was full of them and the ground for as far as Sharina could see shivered as still more insects dug up through it.
“Eulamon,” Double chanted. “Restoutus restouta zerosi!”
Sharina held the Pewle knife in her right hand and clung to Tenoctris with her
left. She knew she was reassuring herself instead of supporting the old wizard; though perhaps she was supporting Tenoctris as well.
The hump of smothering vegetable matter vanished under the insects’ jaws, individually tiny but working in uncountable numbers. The hellplants had slowed their advance, but fresh threads swept up on a rising breeze. Locusts curved to intercept them, snatching the strands from the air like falcons stooping on doves.
“Benchuch bachuch chuch…,” chanted Double. His puffy, waxen face showed strain, but a look of triumph suffused it as well. “Ousiri agi ousiri!”
The film of silver lifted again to catch the risen sun. For a moment the swarming locusts distorted it, but they hopped and flew out of the obstructing pile that had devoured the linked threads. White light glared on a hellplant, ripping it instantly apart. The claw of light shifted and destroyed the next plant in line.
Lord Waldron spoke to his signallers; horns and trumpets blew Retreat. Troops began thankfully leaving the earthworks even before their own unit signallers passed on the command. When Double’s wizardry was ascendant, all humans could do was to get in the way.
“Lady, thank you for Your support,” Sharina whispered. “Lady, I will build a temple here for the salvation You have worked for the kingdom and for mankind.”
The wind died, dropping the threads which it’d lifted from the sea. The locusts continued to circle in swirls and clusters.
The sea’s surface danced with foam. Birds rose from it, sweeping toward the ridge of the hills.
Not birds, fish! Fish flying!
They curled out of the water and flew low over the fields, leaving faint ruby trails in the dense fog. At the base of the hills they swooped upward, silvery bodies writhing and pectoral fins stretched out like sword blades. Their slender bodies reminded Sharina of mackerel, but their heads were things out of nightmare or the deep abysses: the eyes bulged, and the jaws hinged down into open throat sacks like those of pelicans.
When Sharina was a child, an earthquake had shaken the Inner Sea. Barca’s Hamlet was protected by a granite sea wall built during the Old Kingdom. The shock had slammed great waves into it, kicking spume a hundred feet in the air. The next day the tide brought in fish with heads like these, their bodies burst when they were sucked up to the surface.
A fish dived toward Sharina, its open mouth fringed with ragged teeth. Sharina stepped in front of Tenoctris and brought her knife around in a quick stroke. The fish wasn’t attacking. Rather, it’d swept through the cloud of locusts, gulping down a mass of them and then cocking up its rigid fins to bank away.
Sharina’s blade sheared off half the right fin and the tail besides. The fish tumbled out of the air and slapped the hard soil, its body trembling as its mouth opened and shut. Wizardlight dusted the air around it scarlet, then vanished as the creature died.
Fish slashed and curvetted through the mirror. The silver film reformed after each impact like water pelted by raindrops, but the ripples robbed its surface of the perfect focus which alone could concentrate the light into a sword. The hellplants resumed their march.
“Tacharchen!” Double shouted, pointing his athame toward the sea; his film of silver collapsed again into the soil. Double turned and stalked back to his case of paraphernalia.
“Oh, my goodness…,” Tenoctris said. Sharina glanced at her; the old wizard was staring raptly at what seemed empty sky.
Tenoctris was aware of—perhaps ‘saw’ wasn’t the correct word—the play of forces with which all wizards worked. Sharina suspected from past experience that Tenoctris actually understood those forces better than did wizards who had greater ability to affect them.
“What’s—” Sharina said, but she fell silent because her coming question—what’s going on, what do you see?—was idle curiosity and Tenoctris was clearly busy with important things.
Using Sharina’s arm as a brace, the old wizard seated herself on the ground and pulled out a bamboo split. She quickly drew a pentagram in the thin soil. As she concentrated, she muttered, “Don’t let anyone disturb me, if you please.”
“Captain Ascor!” Sharina ordered, much more sharply than she’d intended. “Put a ring of men around Lady Tenoctris. Don’t let anyone or anything close to her, anyone!”
A squad Blood Eagles shuffled about the old wizard, facing outward and lifting their shields as much by instinct as for cause. Sharina, glancing between the men’s legs, saw Tenoctris scoop a shallow depression in the center of her pentagram. She filled it with what seemed to be water from an agate bottle with a stopper of cork.
Double took a spray of black feathers from his case. He crossed them on the ground into a six-pointed star, then began chanting. Sharina couldn’t hear the high-pitched words over the whistle the fish made as their fins cut the air.
Tenoctris bent toward her image, mumbling words of power. If the guards heard her chanting, they kept that awareness out of their stolid faces.
Fish swooped and sailed, gulping down locusts but paying no attention to the assembled troops. Some soldiers batted at them with swords or spear shafts. They were harder to hit than they seemed, banking and curving more easily than such stiff-bodied creatures should’ve been capable of.
When a fish was knocked down, it flopped brokenly for a few moments, then died in a haze of escaping wizardlight. It didn’t matter: there were thousands more flying, and a roiling sea from which any number could lift if the Green Woman found it necessary.
“Anoch anoch…,” Double shouted, raising his athame like the staff of a banner. “Katembreimo!”
Though fog thick as a storm cloud darkened the basin of the hills, the sky overhead was blue and promised a hot day when the sun rose higher. Flecks speckled it suddenly: growing, diving; screeching like steel on stone. Each speck was a bird with a feathered serpent tail and its toothed beak open. They screamed as they tore into the fish. The birds had come from a clear sky and they continued to come, as many as raindrops in a summer storm.
The birds struck their prey with beaks, talons, and sometimes the hooked claws projecting from the angle of their stubby wings. They knocked the fish down with gaping wounds and flew on to kill more, never pausing to devour past victims. Sometimes locusts, freed from the torn bellies of falling fish, fluttered off dazedly.
Double was chanting again, his words barely audible through the chorus of his terrible birds. Familiarity made the spell ring in Sharina’s mind, though: “…benchuch bachuch chuch…”
The mirror rose, catching the full sun and sending its blazing radiance onto the plain again. Light carved through the mist, spinning pale whorls to either side and striking a plant that was mounting the abandoned breastworks. It fell apart.
The birds dived and screamed and killed. Friends—allies, at least—though the creatures were, Sharina kept her knife ready in case one flew too close. Seemingly the birds avoided humans in their circuits, but they fouled the air with the stench of a snake den.
The sea was silent, almost glassy smooth, while the mirror licked another hellplant and the next. The plants moved sluggishly, lacking the inexorable certainty with which they’d begun their assault.
Double was chanting. The skin over his white forehead was tight but his lips were twisted in a grin and he stood as firm as a tree with deep-driven roots. Sharina knew how physically demanding wizardry was. She had no trust or affection for Double, but as Tenoctris had said from the beginning: his strength was remarkable.
The thought made Sharina glance at Tenoctris, who continued to mouth words of power. Though her bamboo wand tapped out the syllables, no flicker of wizardlight brightened the air above her figure. The water in her bowl shivered.
The ground trembled faintly but unmistakably. Sharina felt as though she were standing on the back of an ox, feeling the beat of its great heart through the soles of her feet. She turned to Tenoctris, but the old wizard’s concentration was so fierce that Sharina didn’t even start to ask the frightened question that instinct had brought t
o the tip of her tongue.
The fog over the plains below cleared. Everything within the bowl of hills was as clear as the facets of a jewel. The wind and the birds were silent, and the hair on the back of Sharina’s neck rose.
The hills softened and slumped the way dunes collapse when the surge undermines them. Men shouted, losing their footing and dancing in desperate attempts to keep from sinking into what had been rock or firm soil. The violent shuddering sifted the breastworks back into the trenches from which they’d been dug and shook the emplaced artillery. A large catapult toppled onto its side, and several ballistas pointed skyward.
Double kept his feet, but the frame of posts and canvas twisted in tatters as the ground gave way beneath it. The silver film smeared the surface instead of sinking into the subsoil as it’d done in the past. Looking to the west, Sharina saw flat marshes for as far as her eye could travel. The ridge had vanished utterly, leaving mule-drawn wagons mired where there’d been rocky switchbacks up the hills.
The hellplants were advancing with renewed vigor. On soil this wet, they could move as fast as a man. Their tentacles writhed, ready to grip and rend.
Ilna stepped around an oak growing at a corner of the maze. The hedge down the aisle now before her was holly to the left and quickset to the right. Crouching in the middle was a three-headed dog as big as an ox.
She raised the pattern she’d knotted in anticipation of this meeting or one like it. She hadn’t anticipated three heads, though: the great dog lunged toward her before stumbling and crashing onto its shoulder with a double yelp.
Chalcus shouted and drove past her with his sword and dagger out. He’d wanted to lead—but then, he’d wanted to guard the rear and also to fly over Ilna and the child so that nobody could approach from above. Ilna’d insisted on leading because she could capture rather than merely killing or chasing away whichever Prince they next met. That logic still held.
“Get out of the way!” Ilna said, making a quick change to the pattern—gathering a bight in the middle of the fabric because there wasn’t time to do the job properly with an additional length of yarn. She was furious: with herself for not being better prepared and with Chalcus for assuming—well, acting as if—she wouldn’t be able to recover from her error in time.
