by John Barnes
The fear became more real with each passing hour, for although Waldo's main force was encamped while daylight prevented the great bulk of his troops from moving, his living human foragers were moving on as broad a front as they could, driving everyone before them. Isolated lords in their castles took in as many as they could, and awaited the night with dread, but most of the ordinary farmers, merchants, and workmen of the Kingdom preferred to take their chances in the city, behind Cedric's army.
Toward late afternoon, things changed drastically again, for now the numbers were almost beyond counting, but no one had saved any possessions. Thus almost no inspection was required, and the crowd began to flow swiftly into the city.
The delay had even done some good, for it had allowed at least some temporary shelter and some kitchens to be set up. The Hektarian Ambassador, daring Waldo to make anything of it, opened his gates and took in hundreds; not to be outdone, the Vulgarian Ambassador followed suit. Calliope quietly moved to an apartment in the palace and ordered her servants to take in as many as they could; inspired by her example, many of the city's nobility followed suit, so that the castle quickly came to resemble a gigantic dormitory for the nobility.
That, and the efforts of the city to take everyone in, allowed the population to spend a few hours not thinking about what was approaching, and the hard work helped to make everyone cheerful and pleasant, so that Cedric made a mental note (there was no time for a diary entry) to write about how well they had all borne up, and Roderick, returning to guard, witnessed several moments of warm friendliness between people who ordinarily would not have gotten along, and thought that he must include them in The Third Part of Prince Amatus.
They struggled to make the city accommodate twice its usual population, and they succeeded. They worked endlessly in those last hours to get in enough food from the East to feed everyone for a long siege. Every man who knew anything of smithing, and many who did not, labored at the forges, shaping iron for the battle to come, and wagons of powder rumbled through the streets endlessly.
And still they knew that none of this might be enough. The fort in the Isought Gap should have held Waldo for some weeks, allowing the army to come up; it had fallen in less than a day, and no one knew how or why—or no one in the city did, anyway. Militia and the lords around the south shore of Iron Lake should have been able to make a stand where the glacier sloped down to Bell Tower Beach and the passage was narrow, but no word came from there, and whether the Second Battle of Bell Tower Beach had been fought and lost, or they had died to a man in their beds before they even knew of Waldo's attack, was unknown.
"It's the lack of knowledge that brings the fear," the Duke said, pacing on the West Battue with Sir John Slitgizzard and the Prime Minister. "If Waldo is behind it, it is some trick, because he is treacherous and crafty, and some simple trick, because he is stingy and cheap. If we knew the trick . . ."
"Then we would only know what he used before," Cedric said, impatiently. "He is not so stupid as to use it repeatedly."
"But he would not seem quite so fearsome. And if the trick were low and evil enough—and perhaps if it were the sort of thing one would kick oneself for succumbing to—" The Duke persisted more than usual, for he felt useless in the city and longed to be about doing something.
"That would be some gain," Cedric said. "I will grant that. But truth to tell, Duke Wassant, I have a mission for you here that is vital—and only you and Sir John are to know of this." He sat down upon the parataxis, drew a deep breath, and said, "It is an old law that one may not contemplate the death of a living king; it is a foolish law for the King himself is forced to break it from time to time. King Boniface, may he live a century more, says he will not be driven from the city; which is to say, he will conquer here, or he will die in the blazing wreckage. Now, if the former should happen, there is no problem, but in the event of the latter, we must secure the lineage.
Therefore . . . lean in close, for I do not wish to speak such things aloud . . ."
The two men bent inward until they bumped heads in front of Cedric, and after a moment's adjustment, the Prime Minister barely breathed, "We must secure the lives of Amatus and of the Lady Calliope. Don't start at me, this is not the sort of tale in which a minor character marries a prince, and she is much more than she seems to be. It is possible that the Kingdom might be retaken by the raising of a rebellion, but only if the Prince or the Lady are available for the purpose . . . unless you would prefer to try to get someone to follow one of our republicans?
"Now, your Prince has a fierce and loyal heart, and he will want to stay and fight. Duke Wassant, you must keep the battle going to prevent his being trapped. You know as well as I what that might mean as a practical matter."
"If Boniface dies—"
"You will take over the defense here, for you will be my second-in-command. If Boniface dies it is unlikely I shall survive him. Fight on until your army is gone—or perhaps until you win, if fate should be kinder to you than to the Royal house."
"Sir John, your duty is simpler, and smaller, and there are those who will not approve of it. You must take the Prince and the Lady—by force if need be—and conduct them to the Far North. There you will meet Deacon Dick Thunder—no, no, honestly, you fellows jump every time I mention anything I am not supposed to know. I know your youth was wild and bad, Sir John, and should anyone ever step forward to mention that he knew you when you went by the name of Escree Jack and rode with Thunder and his men, there is a pardon waiting for you in my strongbox. You'd never have been a suitably bad friend for the Prince if you hadn't done a few such things, eh?"
"Er, the last I knew, though, sir, the Deacon was no great friend to the Royal house—"
"Ah, but he's less a friend to Waldo, and being a practical man of affairs he's no republican either. And besides, there are two caches of gold along your way, so that you can probably buy the services of himself and his men—"
"If he doesn't just take the money."
"Just take the money when someone is tickling his vanity? Just take the money when there is a Robin Hood motif in the air? Surely you recall his aesthetic sense—"
"You're right," Sir John admitted. "Silly of me."
Cedric was to remember that last conversation for a long time, and in his mind it grew more important as years went on, for he had grown terribly fond of the two friends of the Prince, and come to rely on them as his most energetic agents.
In this, he had violated his own precepts, for many, many times he had told Amatus not to grow too fond of any man he might have to send to his death, to learn to command men's loyalty while seeing them only as tools to be thrown away, for just such betrayal is the essence of statecraft. Yet, here he was, wishing that it might be someone else he would ask to do these hard things.
Sir John was not a reflective man, and so he did not perceive any of it; and since Duke Wassant was not to write any memoirs, we have only Cedric's word that the Duke saw something in his eyes.
As if reluctant to part company just yet, the three of them walked down the stairs together, remembering this, talking about that. They had almost reached the foot of the staircase before the shouts came, and they had to run all the way back up.
As they looked to the west, they saw the Long River and the Winding River join; beyond them lay fields of wheat and flan, and little villages, fading into green. In the distance a great black wave spread across the whole plain.
"They cannot be undead," the Duke breathed. "They are out in the daylight."
"Nor can they be all living men; Waldo could not feed so many," Cedric rejoined. "There is some silly secret behind this. I feel that in my bones. If we but knew what we had to do, one little deed would be enough."
King Boniface joined them then, Amatus directly behind him. "So," he said, "it comes now. I've read your orders, Cedric, and I agree with all of them in light of the circumstances; is there anything more in the way of preparation we can do?"
"Only wha
t is already under way. We will be as ready as we can."
"It will be enough," Boniface said firmly, looking at the three men firmly, first at Sir John Slitgizzard, who drew himself up taller with pride, then to Duke Wassant, who inclined his head slightly in obedience, and finally to Amatus, who merely looked back.
Cedric realized the old King was trying to rally their spirits with a confidence that he might not—or might?—feel. And he also realized that he was the only person alive who knew King Boniface well enough to see that. It made him feel sad to have lived so long; he must justify it by service to the King, one more time, before this was all over.
There was great fear in the town, naturally, and more once the sun was fully down, for whatever the secret that allowed Waldo to travel with an army of such size, it also seemed to allow his goblins and undead to catch up with his forces just after dusk. "They may just take us by front assault," Boniface said sadly to Amatus.
"Father," Amatus said, "I am glad we have had so many years together."
As for whether that was premonition, or just something important for Amatus to say, no chronicler ventures an opinion. All do say, however, that Boniface threw his arms around his son and Amatus threw his arm around his father.
Just what the invaders were could not be told, for as they drew near a black lid of cloud had swept over the city, and it was so dark that every man on the walls was constantly, nervously checking to make sure that those at his side were his comrades, and dreading what must happen if he were to turn and find that they were not.
By sound alone they knew that Waldo's army flowed around the city as the tide flows around a sand castle whose careful constructor has delayed the inevitable by putting it on a hummock. First came the swift rushes of cavalry in the growing darkness, and the alarming realization for everyone in the city that they were riding as fast as, or faster than, ordinary horsemen might ride in broad daylight on level ground—so these could be neither ordinary horses nor ordinary horsemen.
The night resounded with the hollow booming of hooves, and with miserable shrieks of despair as whatever-they-were caught the last stragglers outside the city. The worst of it, by far, was that sometimes the shrieks would be followed by sobbing or pleading.
After the horsemen came the tramp of Waldo's infantry. It was not perfectly rhythmic, and there were stumbles and occasional crashes in it, but much of it was curiously voiceless, and many thought to themselves, It is an army of the undead, and shuddered deeply, and the rare occasion when a crash or a scraping sound from Waldo's side was followed by swearing or bickering almost raised their hearts, for it made the foe sound like living men.
And after the tramping came the squeak and boom of the little tumuluses, looted from thousands of farms or from refugees on the road, carrying supplies to the surrounding army. Still it remained dark, despite the best efforts of the dozen brilliant witches in the center of the castle courtyard; nothing, seemingly, could raise the blackness. The noises outside the walls might have been the making of camp, or the forming up of lines—it was impossible to say.
The sound that made hearts sink everywhere in the city was the groaning of big timber axles, and the squeak and scream of awkward, hastily made wheels, and the cries of mules and oxen as they were whipped bloody and forced to drag the great weights on. "They are bringing up siege engines," Cedric murmured, speaking everyone's thought. "Many hundreds of them, and heavy ones, from the sound of it. Cannon perhaps, or great trebuchets. They do not mean to besiege us long."
Runners continued to return to the castle with each new piece of news, and every runner was dirty with having fallen in the crowded streets, for they could see almost nothing in the darkness, and every so often one would arrive much later than the others, having gotten lost outright. They were boys, almost all of them, and from the lower parts of the city, bright lads who had been given a chance through some beneficence here or there, and in the candlelight of the King's chamber they showed their raggedness more than usual. The dark places where they had fallen and scraped themselves were black with blood. Yet each composed himself and spoke the brief message from the different captains of the wall, and the message was always the same—that the horsemen, the infantry, the supply tumuluses, and finally the siege engines had passed that way, heard but not seen.
Last of the runners was a young man taller than the rest, and ill-fed looking, with his bony ankles and wrists sticking from his livery. He had buck teeth, and his ears protruded. He drew himself up and gave a sharp salute, and then spoke the news. "Majesty, the watchers on the East Battue of the castle beg to report that the two siege trains were heard to join up below their walls."
Cedric nodded gravely, and again spoke what everyone was thinking. "Then they are in place all around us. I do not think they will be long in coming." He clapped the messenger on the shoulder. "Back to your watchers, then, with our compliments, and tell them to carry on, and that the King's eyes are on every man tonight."
The youth bowed and raced from the chamber.
"Well," King Boniface said, putting the last of the tiny wooden counters that marked the positions of Waldo's forces into place on the great map of the city, "the King's eyes would be on them if the King could see two feet outside this chamber. Are there horses for us saddled outside, Duke Wassant?"
"There are, Majesty," the Duke said. "Without delay, we can be wherever the battle is joined."
"We will go down to the horses, then," the King said, "and Cedric, you will come with us that far. There is nothing to be learned now from the map, except that we are surrounded and outnumbered and that the enemy would be a fool not to attack now, while his strength is greatest and we still know nothing of him. And I think many ill things of Waldo, but not that he is a fool."
Amatus and Calliope stood to follow the King, but he turned to them and said, "One task remains before we join the battle. If we can just raise the blackness, even for one instant, the heart might go back into our army, and then who knows what they might not do, with their backs to each other and everything at stake? Amatus, you have some gifts, and you are yourself in part magical; as for what magics your Companions carry, none of us know. Will you, and Psyche, and the Twisted Man, be so good as to join the witches in the courtyard and see what might happen? Sir John, I give you to help guard them, and Calliope, since I know I cannot forbid that you go along, I permit you to follow."
This was not entirely to Amatus's liking, for he knew that the assault might come from several quarters, and he had passed the point of false modesty, so that he knew that his presence might be needed to rally forces where the King could not be. But it was an order, and this was war. With a light clutch of forearms, he took leave of his father and headed for the courtyard, Psyche, the Twisted Man, Sir John, and Calliope following.
As the door closed behind him. King Boniface said softly to Cedric, "I wish this parting had not had a falsehood in it," and Cedric bowed his head, feeling a bit of shame at what he had brought his King to, though he saw no other choice. Perhaps because of the shame, he did not record the incident himself, but the indispensable Roderick, patiently standing by as guard, witnessed it, and put it without change into King Boniface, where many have said it is his finest scene.
Then a runner burst in, gasping, and said, "Majesty, the gate of the Bridge of a Thousand Faces—the watch at the gate—reports that many hundreds . . . many hundreds—" and fell dead, a red stain spreading on the back of his triolet.
In an instant the Duke, the King, and Cedric, were down the stairs, and in one more they were mounted, and, surrounded by Roderick and his men as escorts, clattering through the city toward the gate, fearing it was already fallen, but going in all the greater haste because of it.
5
Fall, Fire, and Flight
Amatus and those with him just reached the witches at the moment that the other party set out for the Bridge of a Thousand Faces. Without a word Amatus stepped into their circle, concentrating on offering u
p whatever strength might be concealed in him to lifting the dark. His insides tingled, his eyes felt sore and old, and there was a half-sob born in his chest, but nothing happened. Beside him, he felt Calliope and Psyche join, and a moment later the Twisted Man and Sir John. He could feel the new strength surging into the circle, but nothing changed. For a long time they stood, giving all their strength to the witches, growing tired and old but making no gain. Though they did not move, they ached with effort. Then the Twisted Man seemed to glow with a blue fire like lightning, and something surged through them all with a wild, fierce cry in it, an icy fury that looked and saw and judged without pity or compassion, that ripped through the dark to look on Waldo as he was—
There was a deep groan in unison, and a flash of lightning crackled through the dark lid of cloud above the city, tearing a widening rent in the black clouds. Starlight suddenly shone down, and in a moment the bold, silver light of the moon was reaching across the city.
All around them lay every witch, on her back, stone dead. Their eyes were wide open. What they had seen had killed them.
Amatus turned to the Twisted Man and asked, "What have you done?"
"What we were ordered, Prince. No more than that. To lift the dark, one must see; and no good witch could see such things and live. If it will make you easier, you may believe that if they were truly good witches they would have chosen to die in the service of their King in any case. And if they only pretended to be good, we are well rid of them."
The Twisted Man's tone was flat and bland, as it often was, and yet Amatus felt deep in his bones that there was a streak of cruel pleasure there. It disgusted him, he realized, and as he looked around at the poor broken bodies of the witches he said, "It will be long before there is this much magic in the Kingdom again."
"Would you rather have hoarded it so that Waldo might have use of all of it?" The Twisted Man's voice was bleak and bitter. "The shouting, Highness, announces that battle is joined at the Bridge of a Thousand Faces. Let us go there to fight, and if the world, as it is, is too much for you to bear, then you can depart it there, I am sure."
