Book of Silence tlod-4

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  He dropped the lamp where he was; it flickered, but stayed lit, as it bounced once and came to rest on the stone floor at a sharp angle, tilted up on the curve of its metal oil reservoir and prevented from rolling by the thick dust.

  The circular chamber offered few places of concealment, with no corners, alcoves, or hangings that might hide him. The looming shadow of the central column, stretching up the wall opposite the spot where the lamp had fallen, would provide some cover, but Garth decided against it, preferring the more obvious place behind the only door. Whoever was approaching would probably not realize immediately that he had reached a dead end in the little room. The person would wonder why the lamp was there, certainly, but would probably not think to check behind the door before entering. Putting out the lamp would leave Garth in total darkness, and he did not care for that idea; let his pursuer wonder, then.

  Besides, he had no time to think of a better plan.

  The sounds were drawing nearer; in the pauses between beats, he could make out footsteps and the rasping breath of human exertion. He pressed up against the wall behind the carven door, sword ready in his right hand, axe swung around within reach, awaiting whoever might come.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sedrik's pursuit of the overman was delayed slightly by the darkness of the temple; he had assumed that he would find his quarry on the streets or in some well-lighted shop and had not bothered to equip his men with lanterns. When it became clear that Garth was not to be found anywhere in the dim precincts of the temple proper, and giving due consideration to the fact that the overman was a newcomer to Ur-Dormulk who could scarcely have known of secret exits, Sedrik had no choice but to conclude that Garth had taken the stair to the crypts. Sedrik had his orders, and his own hatred as well, and was eager to follow-but no glimmer of light indicated the overman's presence: surely he would not have ventured into the depths without a light of some kind! Sedrik had to assume that Garth had either built up a considerable lead, or turned corners, or passed through doorways. To pursue him in total darkness would be reckless to the point of abject stupidity. Therefore, lights were needed, and Sedrik had to wait with half his company at the head of the crypt stairs while the other half returned to the street to fetch torches or lamps from the surrounding shops.

  As he waited, the faint, fetid warmth that drifted up from below made his skin crawl.

  Finally all his men were together again, torches in hand. No lamps or lanterns had been secured, but a plentiful supply of torches intended for lighting temples and storefronts had been available; the rightful owners had been willing to give them up without payment beyond a promise of government recompense later. The possessors of other means of illumination had not been so obliging, and the soldiers had not cared to argue.

  With one man in four carrying a lighted brand, Sedrik and his party descended the steps, following in Garth's wake. Sedrik, in his impatience at the delay and in his eagerness for battle, tried to hurry the soldiers along, but with limited success. The worn steps, the evil reputation of both the temple and the crypts, and the unsteady torchlight all served to keep the pace down.

  At the foot of the first flight, some of the men sighed audibly with relief; Sedrik paid them no mind but moved forward more briskly, now that the floor was solid underfoot.

  They passed through the gray room, the red, and into the black; here one of the men whispered, "Shh! I think I hear something!"

  Sedrik gave the command to halt and held up a hand for silence. His men obeyed, and all listened.

  Uncertain, they looked at one another.

  "Do you hear it, commander?" one murmured.

  Sedrik nodded, reluctantly.

  "What is it?" another asked.

  Sedrik shrugged.

  "'Tis the heartbeat of the god!" someone said.

  "Dhazh?"

  "That's only a myth!"

  Sedrik spoke at last. "This sound is no myth; we all hear it. Perhaps it is what first gave rise to the tales of Dhazh's existence. I suspect it to be an underground waterfall; after all, we must be near Demhe here, and no one knows where its bottom may be, or where its waters come and go."

  "I don't hear anything," a soldier at the back confessed.

  "Then it's your hearing that's at fault, for the sound is there," one of his comrades retorted.

  "Whatever it is, men," Sedrik said, "it is no concern of ours, wherever it comes from. It may well be beyond the walls of the crypts entirely. I doubt that anything could fit into these rooms that we would not be able to handle; certainly the monster-god of the old legends could not squeeze beneath this roof!" He gestured at the low ceiling; someone chuckled, which pleased Sedrik. He saw about an even mix of smiles and worried looks; that was worse than he had hoped, but better than he had expected. Even the best fighters could be discouraged by empty darkness and narrow passages.

  "We go on," he said. "We have an overman to catch."

  They moved on down the length of the black chamber in formation, six ranks of two, with Sedrik to one side of the second rank. At the door at the inner end, the first rank balked. The foremost torchbearer, in the second rank at Sedrik's elbow, held his light high and forward, its flame spattering on the ceiling, its smoke lost against the black stone, its light spilling down the second stair.

  "I cannot see the bottom, commander," the torchbearer reported.

  Sedrik stepped forward and peered over the shoulder of one of the first pair. "And I cannot see the overman, nor have we seen anywhere he might have turned. We go on." He noticed, but did not mention, that the faint roaring-the god's heartbeat-seemed to be coming up the stairway from somewhere below.

  "We don't know what's down there!" another soldier protested.

  "The overman is down there!" Sedrik said, repressing the urge to bellow as if on a parade ground; there was no knowing how far an echo might carry, and he had no desire to alert Garth to his presence. "I see no sign of any danger, save that one of you clumsy fools might stumble and crack his skull on the steps." Despite his anger, Sedrik immediately regretted those words; they would only serve to make his men more nervous, which would in turn make their descent still slower and more cautious. "We have orders, from the overlord himself, to hunt down and kill this inhuman foreigner. He's somewhere below, and I intend to find him. Now, come on!" He pushed past the leaders and started down, thinking to himself that he should have taken the lead position right from the first.

  Reluctantly, his men followed.

  The length of the stair eventually became daunting even to Sedrik; he heard his men muttering unhappily when the rearmost torchbearer had lost all sight of the top, but he forced himself onward, determined to show no fear in front of his subordinates, and resolved that he could face any dangers that an overman could face. The distant rhythmic rumble became more distinct as they went on; Sedrik had hoped that they would pass its source and lose it, but so far there had been no sign of that happening.

  It was fortunate, he thought, that the stair remained barely wide enough to march two abreast; had they been forced into single file, he knew that his men would have been even more anxious.

  At last the company reached the short corridor and, with visible relief, continued on, up the ascending steps beyond. They emerged into the long gray room at the top of the final stair, and the beating sound was clearly audible even over the rattle of armor and their heavy footsteps. Sedrik stopped and raised his hand for silence; the men stopped, the first rank just inside the chamber, the rest still arrayed upon the stairs.

  He was not absolutely certain, but Sedrik thought he had at last glimpsed a dim light somewhere in the darkness ahead. He pointed to the torch nearest him and made a passing motion; its bearer understood and obeyed, passing it back to the men farthest down the steps, who held it and the two other torches down low so as to disturb the darkness at the far end of the chamber as little as possible.

  Sedrik stared into the gloom, shading his eyes against the glare from behind, and made
out that there was indeed a light ahead, just beyond a wide doorway.

  The light was not moving; whatever the overman had come for, he had presumably found it. Sedrik did not think he had merely paused to rest; the natural place to do that would have been at the foot of the long stair, or the top of the last.

  Unless, the commander thought, yet another stair lay beyond the door, and the overman had paused before tackling it.

  Still a third possibility occurred to Sedrik. The overman might have brought more than one light and abandoned this one when it burned low. Staring at it, Sedrik observed that it was low, far dimmer than any of his own three torches, which had burned almost to stubs.

  "Change torches," he whispered, reminded of their state.

  Word was passed down the steps, and three new torches were lighted, flaring up brightly; the old were stamped out and cast aside.

  The presence of the doorway was not helpful; Sedrik had no way of knowing what lay beyond it. Marching his men in without further investigation would be stupid and reckless. He was tempted to go forward himself and scout it out, but that was not a commander's job, and he knew it. If he were to stick his head through the door and be slain, his men would flee; if another were to do the same, Sedrik knew he could fire up the survivors with a lust for vengeance and lead them to the attack.

  Reluctantly, he signaled for one man to step forward.

  "Nalba," Sedrik whispered, "I want you to go and see what's beyond the door there." He pointed. "Be careful about it; I don't want you killed. If the overman's in there and you have a chance, jump him and call for help; we'll come. If you don't think you can get him, or if he sees you coming, you come back here and tell me. If he's not there, come back and report; don't do anything foolish." Sedrik pointed to the mace on the soldier's back. "Use that if you can; it's harder to parry than a sword, and overmen are strong. You're more likely to keep him busy with that than with your sword, even if you can't kill him. Have you got all that?"

  Nalba nodded silently, then crept cautiously past his commander and down the length of the room, unslinging the heavy mace as he went, so that it was ready in his hand when he reached the arch.

  He peered through, and saw the lamp flickering on the floor. He glimpsed the tapering column and thought for an instant that it was the overman, crouched to spring. He swung back out of the way; then, when no attack came, he inched forward again.

  This time he made out the column's nature more clearly and determined that it was not an immediate threat. He advanced, slowly and carefully, into the room.

  Behind the door, Garth watched and waited.

  Nalba paused a few paces in, just short of the trough encircling the central pediment, and peered around into the darkness. He saw nothing-no overman and no way out of the room.

  A chill ran through him, despite the chamber's muggy warmth, as the notion arose that the overman they pursued had vanished by means of sorcery.

  His first thought was to run back and tell the marshal that the overman had disappeared into thin air. He stopped himself, however, and tried to think it through.

  It was undeniable that, as far as he could tell, the room was empty of everything but dust, shadows, and the abandoned lamp; but he could not see all of the room. Sedrik would be disappointed in him if he were to turn and leave now, and if it were later discovered that the overman was hiding behind some secret panel lost in the gloom.

  Besides, he saw no actual danger.

  Mace held out before him, Nalba began to make his way around the room, poking his weapon at the wall every so often and peering into the shadows. He came at last to the deep darkness behind the broad door and paused; any concealed opening there would just lead back out into the long chamber, but he knew he should check it for the sake of completeness. Something about it made him nervous; he thought he saw something glinting, or heard something breathing, or perhaps both. He could not be sure of his sight in the unsteady light and clinging darkness, or of his hearing while the dull throbbing pounded on his ears, or of his thoughts in the foul, moist air of the chamber.

  If the overman were hiding there behind the door, Nalba told himself, he would have jumped out and cut my throat long ago. The soldier prodded with his mace.

  Steel flashed, and the tip of a sword slipped between his chin and the throatpiece of his helmet.

  "One word, human, and I sever your head," Garth warned.

  Nalba froze, fighting a sudden urge to swallow, his teeth clenched to hold in a scream.

  "Put the mace down, slowly and quietly," the overman said.

  Nalba tried to obey; he lowered the head, but was unable to handle the weight of the weapon. The metal ball struck the stone paving with an audible thud, and the terrified soldier discovered that he could not reach down any farther to place the handle on the floor. If he dropped it, it would rattle; if he bent down, the sword would be forced into his gullet.

  Garth grasped the situation and said, "Drop it." He did not see how it could matter; anything listening would have heard the sound of the mace's head falling.

  Relieved, Nalba dropped the mace; the handle rolled down and clicked against the stone.

  That done, the two stared at each other, Garth seeing a shadowy backlit figure wearing the green uniform and bronze helmet of Ur-Dormulk's soldiery, while Nalba could see nothing but a great black shape holding a sword at his throat. A few inches of the blade caught a stray glimmer from the fallen lamp, and the soldier thought he could make out something shiny and red where his captor's eyes should have been.

  At the head of the stair, Sedrik had been watching Nalba's actions as best he could. He had seen the soldier begin his circuit of the chamber, vanishing to one side, returning to visibility for a brief moment as he crossed back into Sedrik's line of sight to the rear wall, and then disappearing again along the other side.

  Nalba seemed to be taking plenty of time to search the second side, Sedrik thought; then he heard the thud, just barely audible over the steady beating sound, of the mace hitting the floor.

  Something was wrong, Sedrik was sure. He did not know what, but one possibility was obvious: the overman had been hiding there and had caught Nalba by surprise and cut his throat so quickly that he had no time to cry out. The monster had not managed to catch the mace before it fell, though, and that might prove his undoing.

  Sedrik knew there were other explanations available, but he was certain that this was what had happened. He ordered his men, "Weapons at ready!"

  Swords slid from scabbards, shields were raised, the thongs of maces were looped around wrists, crossbows were cocked and loaded-.all as silently as the dozen men could contrive. Sedrik unslung his war axe, hefted it with his left hand, and drew his sword with his right. The deep throbbing covered much of the noise they made.

  Still, Garth heard something other than the beating. He had intended a leisurely questioning of his captive, using long pauses to increase the man's nervousness, but he suddenly realized he might not have time for that.

  "Are you alone?" he asked.

  Nalba stared, petrified, unable to nod, not wanting to shake his head in a truthful answer, lest it enrage the monster that held the sword.

  In the long hall, Sedrik whispered, "Something's gotten Nalba; it must have surprised him somehow. I don't know if it's the overman or not, but it probably is. I don't want him to surprise us. If we charge in there at full speed, we may startle him out of attacking; then we'll be able to see where he is and fight him fairly. Understood?"

  Most of the men nodded; he ignored those who did not. They would follow along and do well enough, he was sure.

  "We want to catch him off guard, so no yelling until we're through the door; then you can bellow your lungs out if you want. We're going to run in there and kill him before he knows what's happening. Right?"

  This time almost all of his men nodded.

  "Good. On the count of three, then. One…"

  Garth pressed the point of his sword forward slight
ly, forcing Nalba's head back. "You're not alone, then. How many of you are there?"

  Nalba moved back a step, but the gleaming blade followed, keeping the pressure on his throat. His head was tilted so far back that the base of his helmet was digging into his neck.

  "How many?" Garth insisted. "Five? Ten?"

  Nalba managed to shake his head.

  Sedrik advanced a step, allowing the rest of his men to come up off the stair and into the room. He half-turned toward the door beyond and raised his sword. "Two," he said.

  "Twenty?" Garth demanded, his voice slipping into a growl.

  "Three!" Sedrik breathed. He charged toward the open door.

  Nalba was trying to take another step back, his head forced up by the sword so that he could no longer see the floor, when one of the slow beats ended, allowing both Nalba and Garth to hear the clinking of metal and the pounding of booted feet running toward them. Hoping that the overman-if it was indeed an overman that held the blade to his neck-would be distracted, Nalba groped for the hilt of his sword and tried to twist aside.

  Garth was not sufficiently distracted to forget his prisoner; he saw the hand reaching for the belt, though he could not clearly see what weapon hung there. He knew that the man might be of value as a hostage, but he might also be dangerous, since Garth had no time to bind him. The overman could not afford to divide his attention. Unhappily, he rammed his sword forward, through the human's throat; it scraped past the spine and thunked against the back of the bronze helmet.

  The soldier died without a sound; Garth pulled the sword out and sank back into his shadowy corner, letting the corpse fall to the floor with a sodden thump. The helmet bounced off and rolled noisily to one side.

  An instant later a stream of men burst into the chamber, steel blades flashing in every direction; the first stumbled over the lamp and sent it spinning away toward the far wall.

  Startled by the number of foes, despite what Nalba had indicated, Garth did not wait for them all to arrive and surround him; he braced his back against the wall behind him and kicked out with all his strength at the carved door.