by John Barnes
The tumulus rolled through the big castle gates, and all the ladies of the court were there. They gasped to see the King dead; Cedric did not even wipe his face, but commanded them sternly to "dress his body and build a pyre here in the courtyard, for he must be burned lest his bones fall into foul hands."
The women scurried to obey him, and he strode on into the tower. The barest shreds of a defense were available. Most of the guards who had been left on duty on the West Battue, which faced the city, were the too old or the too young. The East Battue, which joined the city wall and towered above it, was so strong that they had nearly stripped it of defenders, so though the men who held it were good enough, they were few in number. Still snuffling and feeling alone, the old Prime Minister, occasionally bellowing for messengers, climbed up the tower to the High Terrace where not long ago he had sat and drunk tea with Amatus and Calliope. From here he could see the parataxes of both battues, as well as most of the city. It would do as a command post, and perhaps the Duke would be able to fall back here with enough forces to make a stand.
As he looked out, he could see the city given to the flames. The streets began to fill with people trying to flee to anywhere that was not burning, and new fires erupted every moment. The smoke was getting dense, and bitter on the tongue, even up here. Even if miraculously they won tonight, the city would never again be what it had been.
Down below him in the courtyard, the women gestured upward; he gave them a sweeping motion of his arm, indicating that they were to light the pyre. There was great power in the body of a king, and Waldo had shown himself to be a skilled resurrectionist. King Boniface's body must not be turned to such an end.
The pyre flared; the Prime Minister whispered "Goodbye, Majesty," and the women of the Court keened, the sound rising to him. Such was all the funeral that could be accorded to Boniface the Good.
The castle went unattacked for a long while; Cedric ordered that anyone who could reach it be granted refuge, for supplies and weapons there were far in excess of what he and his tiny forces could use, but few enough came through the gate. He saw houses fall and goblins boil up from below, so Cedric set women to guard the drains and wells with pikes and halberds, but no goblins came through. Apparently the castle rested on tougher rock than the rest of the city.
After a long while, there was a stir in the streets below, and with a slightly lightened heart, Cedric saw that it was Duke Wassant and a sizable body of troops. They thundered in over the drawbridge, and the Duke bellowed at once for it to be raised behind them. In no time at all the parataxes of each battue were fully manned, and now, bleak and bitter as the situation might be, at least they were in a place designed to stand a siege.
Beside him, the Duke gasped out, "We were nearly cut off. The city is now in such panic with goblins boiling out of every well and cellar that nothing can move in the streets, and citizens are being eaten where they stand, or changed to undead en masse. The city is dying, sir, it will never be the same."
Cedric sighed. The flames of the King's pyre now roared and danced high, in what might almost have been defiance. "I had surmised as much. Nothing is moving in the streets near the castle as yet, so I would suppose they either have something special waiting for us, or they are waiting to clear the streets so that they can bring up forces in an organized way. I've issued swashes, with three pismires each, to all the women; most of them will be able to take two of the foe with them if they choose, and still reserve a ball for themselves."
Wassant shuddered involuntarily. He knew the sort of thing that would happen to women taken alive. "There is one marvelous thing that I should tell you," he said, "and we saw only one bit of it, but when that huge monster took off down in the press of the fighting—"
But he did not tell Cedric just then, for at that moment the great flock of vampires swept in out of the night. The battle was hard and furious on both battues, and the omnibuses with their charmed slugs wrought havoc among the oncoming vampires, but even so there were far too many of them. In very little time there was the clash of escrees and the roar of pismires on the parataxes, for they had not been able to keep the vampires off, and then, with a rumbling groan, the drawbridge fell open, as a few vampires seized the works tower. Waldo's army poured up the dark streets toward the opening gates.
Cedric and Duke Wassant tried to be everywhere at once, but all they managed to do was to keep finding places where more men were dying, slaying three and four for every life they gave up, but losing because they faced twenty or thirty times their own number. As Waldo's army poured in it seemed to lose force—to grow weaker, as if some ailment had struck all of them—but still it came on, and if they grew weaker, they grew in numbers more quickly.
A moment came when the Duke and the Prime Minister crouched, with Roderick, in the Royal Library. They had been driven steadily back and it had been their only route of retreat. For the time being the enemy had lost track of them, and they were in a place they all knew well, and so did not need candles or lights. "There is a back way from here," Cedric breathed, "but I am loath to take it while our people fight on."
Most of the shots being fired now were by the ladies of the court, to be sure; above, they would hear two quick bangs, and a third one slightly delayed; some other lady had taken her two shots at the foe before she cocked the chutney, placed her lips over the muzzle of the pismire, and took the lesser evil. Women had locked and barricaded themselves in, wherever they could, dying alone or in groups, always fighting. No doubt many more were hiding in places not yet found, and unquestionably sooner or later some of them would manage an escape. It was not much consolation, but anything that could be kept from Waldo's hands, now, was as much victory as they dared to hope for; and while the fight went on, even in that small way, and even though they could do nothing to assist it, the old Prime Minister and the Duke could not bear to flee.
"We may wish to escape," Wassant said, keeping his voice low in case something might be listening, "not to save our own hides, but to join the Prince. What I had wanted to tell you was that—"
The door burst in. More of Waldo's odd soldiers poured in. In the dim light it seemed even more to Cedric that they did not have faces of their own, that if you threw back the helmets you might see eyes and noses and mouths but it would not add up to a face. They all seemed curiously alike—except for two taller ones in the rear—
The three men's pismires boomed again and again in the dim library, always finding a mark, but all that happened was that more of the faceless men came in to replace the ones who had fallen. Then Roderick and Duke Wassant drew their escrees, but there was only room for one in the narrow passage, so the Duke stepped forward to hold it.
Waldo's men attacked as if they had never been trained, or had no minds of their own. But there were many of them, and the Duke was tired, and his own bulk was in his way in the narrow passage.
And, this time, when one of the foe fell, the rest seemed to acquire more courage and energy almost at once, as if it had crossed over to them from their dead comrade.
A thought struck Cedric, who was still frantically ramming home the balls in his pismires, and without knowing why, he cocked the chutney of one, raised it, and carefully shot past the Duke into the face of one of the two foe who were not faceless.
The man fell, and suddenly, all of the faceless ones sagged. At once the Duke cut two of them down, but he took a cut under his triolet as he did so. Cedric aimed and fired again, and the other man who was different collapsed.
The faceless ones seemed to lose all heart and nerve, weapons dropping from their limp grasps, and the Duke slashed into them fiercely, carrying to the end of the aisle, slaughtering as he went, opening up a space so that Roderick could lunge in as well. In a moment, the three were the only living ones left in the library.
But the Duke's cut was deep and grievous, and even in the dim light it was clear that it was heart's-blood staining his triolet. He sat down, gasping, and spoke softly, "Now, at once
, Cedric, you must know. The Prince lives, and so do the Lady Calliope and Sir John, outside the city. I do not know if Sir John will be able to convey them where you wished, but you can . . ."
Bloody coughing interrupted him. "Tell Amatus . . ." but whatever it was that he wanted to communicate to the Prince, at that moment Duke Wassant died.
Gently, Roderick lowered their fallen comrade to the floor, and slipped a wreath of garlic and roses that he had worn under his own triolet around the Duke's neck. "If it takes them any time at all to find him, he'll be spoiled for their use. My lord, do you believe him?"
Cedric spoke softly. "I do. And what I have just learned may be enough to take the Kingdom back, if we use it well. What will you do now?"
"Well, my lord, if there's not some good reason to stay with you . . . er, that is—"
Cedric nodded. "Of course, Roderick. You have a wife to look after, and you will want to look for her. Come with me through the passage, and then go your own way for a while. You will know when the time comes to fight again."
"And I will be glad to do so, sir. Er—if I don't find Gwyn—"
"Then I suggest you load a moneybag with a great number of rocks, and a few small, jingly coins, and hang that on your belt, and ride north along the Long River Road to where it forks. Take the fork to the right, away from the Great North Woods and Iron Lake, and continue for a day up into the mountains to where the road curves back toward the source of the river. And if you should by any chance meet with robbers, I suggest you mention that you are an old friend of Escree Jack."
Roderick repeated the directions, and then asked, "And my lord, what will you—"
"You might mention, if they seem about to torture you, that when last you saw me I was walking south, toward the Bitter River. There is now work to be done everywhere."
As they had been speaking to each other, Cedric had carefully slid back one bookcase, and now he waited a moment by the door this had revealed. "We cannot be sure what will be at the end of this passage, so we must go through it silently, and be prepared to fight without sound at the far end. Poor Wassant—besides himself we will miss his pongee."
The passage was dry, but cool and utterly dark. When at last Cedric cautiously opened the door, there was no one there; they were alone on the rocky hillside. Behind them, bright as full dawn, the city blazed, and the smoke of its burning reached like a great hand to blot out the stars and turn the moon as red as an infected wound.
"Remember," Cedric whispered to Roderick, though there was hardly a man alive who remembered more things more completely than Roderick.
Moments later, they had parted, Roderick heading back toward the city, and Cedric setting off to the south, until he was sure that Roderick would not see him double back and head north on the Long River Road. There was much to grieve for tonight, but if he did not reach the Prince with what he knew, there would be more.
It seemed strange that the fate of the Kingdom should come down to one old man with too many memories and slightly sore feet. But at least the Kingdom still had a fate, or a possibility of a fate, and at least there was one person still bearing it. He kept his pace moderate and cautious, but he kept it up, and dawn found him many furuncles to the north, along the banks of the Long River.
6
A Man Who Will Stand His Ground
When the monster's head reared up from the underground, Amatus felt the story moving away from him, and his heart sank inside him for he knew that this must presage some great shift in the tale, and likely someone dear to him was to die. Nevertheless he pulled his omnibus to his shoulder and took aim at one of the monstrous eyes.
But just as his thumb turned to cock the chutney, Psyche shoved the barrel up into the air, and shouted, "Don't!"
Amatus lowered the omnibus for just an instant, and saw Sylvia running straight for the monster. He shouted at her to come back, but she paid no heed. He sighted the omnibus again, but the Twisted Man beside him said, "Psyche is right. Sylvia has come back into our tale for a reason. Since she told you not to, do not, Highness."
It was a strikingly mild thing for the Twisted Man to say, and that was why Amatus lowered his omnibus for the second time, inwardly groaning with the hope that all this would eventually make some sense. Sylvia ran on, through the scattering and screaming crowd, to the very point where the stones of the crumbling walls were rattling on the pavement, and shouted something up at the creature.
With a gesture that looked like a bird who was not sure whether to eat an object or not—and like a cat who had just discovered its tail to be inexplicably wet—the beast sat back on its enormous haunches and stared at Sylvia. Then it gave a whimper that all but deafened them, and then—eagerly, happily, it bobbed its head from side to side, climbed farther from its hole, and arced its neck downward so that Sylvia could scratch its enormous nose.
"It's the Riddling Beast!" Calliope exclaimed.
Not knowing anything of the riddling beast life cycle, it was hard to say that it had grown remarkably in the last ten years, but it had most definitely grown. Sylvia beckoned and it followed her into the square, as joyfully as a lost puppy finding its owner.
As it came all the way up, they all gasped in wonder, for it had tremendous wings; a house might have sat on either of them with room for a modest garden in back and perhaps a fountain in front. Now that it drew closer, it seemed to recognize all of them, and it shivered all over.
"It's like a big dog," Sir John said, awe in his voice.
"I beg your pardon," the Riddling Beast said. "Would you care to be described as 'like a big monkey'?"
The Twisted Man shouted and they turned to see a mob of goblins rushing them. Pismires banged and escrees slashed, destroying the few in the lead—
And suddenly the night was pitch dark; an instant later it was moonlit again, and the Riddling Beast, who had flown just over their heads, had landed among the goblins, crushing dozens on impact, squeezing more between its powerful claws, and sweeping with its head to gobble down many of them whole and alive before biting the last one in half. The rest fled screaming.
"We were the first ever to speak kindly to him," Sylvia said, "and to scratch his nose, and when Mortis reversed his spell he got to eat goblin, which he likes much better than human. So he likes us, and when the spells were broken, down below, by Waldo's warlocks, he came up here to find us."
The beast had mopped up the remaining goblins, not so much in the way a mop does water or soldiers do opposition as in the way that a hungry man does gravy, and as he turned to them he was still chewing, faint shrieks and groans emerging from between his champing teeth.
"Well, we surely have use for him," Amatus observed, "but I think we had best fall back to the castle before—"
"Highness, even with this beast on our side, the city is lost," the Twisted Man said.
"This is despair!" the Prince said, turning to him, his hand moving as if he might strike his guardian down.
"This is truth." The Twisted Man flung his words with the same abandon with which he might fire bullets into a mob of goblins. "You may look in any direction and see many hundreds more burning corpses raining down. You can hear the groan and thunder as the earth yawns open over and over again to vomit up more goblins. There is no—"
And he groaned and pointed to the moon. A dark cloud with many holes seemed to move across it—
Calliope swore, under her breath. "Vampires! A great flock of them!"
Psyche spoke to Amatus gently. "My dear one, were you only yourself, you might choose to stand and die anywhere, and none would argue with you about it. But you are a prince and you matter, and if you die then there is no restoration of the Kingdom, and if there is no restoration then no one's death will mean anything. This is a debt which you owe to us all."
"What do you propose?" the Prince said, and his eyes flashed with dark anger. "I shall stay and fight, with my father and the others," he added, for he had no way of knowing that Boniface was already dead, hi
s pyre already blazing.
Sylvia softly said, "We might all ride on the beast's back to somewhere far away. And a fight may be started again while you live; if you do not, it cannot."
Then the Prince stepped back and looked from one of his Companions to the other, and said, "I no longer know whether you are here to help me, or to harm me, or whether perhaps you are just here. I have a duty, and I know it well enough."
The light from the flare of a collapsing, burning building flashed on his face, and his mouth was set in cold determination. "I owe the Kingdom my life. I do not owe it my honor. Brave men are dying everywhere and the city falls while we stand and argue. I cannot—"
And at that moment he felt his outspread hand, with which he had been pleading for their understanding, seized and snapped behind his back. He turned to see Sir John Slitgizzard holding his single wrist with two of his, and then, deftly, the Twisted Man tied Amatus's hand together behind his back.
"Can he escape?" Sir John asked, as they struggled.
"Had he two hands, he might," the Twisted Man said, "but since he has only one, it is tied twice as much together."
Amatus fought as well as he could, but there were four hands to his one, and in very little time he found himself being thrown onto the back of the Riddling Beast—who had sat watching the whole thing with a sort of amused detachment. There was room enough up there for everyone, and for twenty more besides, and the rest climbed on around him while Amatus continued to kick and struggle.
"Can you move him somewhere where he doesn't thump right on my spine?" the Riddling Beast asked. Calliope and Psyche dragged Amatus to the side. He had tried shouting, but the fur of the beast was long and thick and all he could succeed in doing was getting that into his mouth. He managed to roll himself over and sit up, but found he could not stand with his hand tied behind him.
