“Just a boy?” he shouted in fear and fury. “A boy I might be, but am I not the wind? The sky is mine!”
Jute turned and ran. He was heavy and clumsy at first, his body weighing more than it should. He slipped in the snow. But as he ran, with each successive step, he seemed to grow lighter and lighter until his boots barely touched the ground. He skimmed over the snow. The earth pulled at him, but he was beyond it now. He was free. The wind whistled in his ear, full of delight and terror.
Don’t look back, chattered the wind.
Don’t look back!
Don’t look back!
Of course, when he heard this, Jute had to look back. He immediately wished he hadn’t. The black rider and his horse thundered along behind him at a dreadful gallop. The horse stretched out its neck low, reaching and reaching with its terrible jaws. Snow and ice flew up from its hooves as they thundered across the ground. Steam billowed from the horse’s mouth in gouts. Behind the horseman, the army came to life. Rank upon rank twitched and quivered and then marched forward, quickly and quicker yet. The air shook with the rumble of their armor. The earth trembled under them. But Jute no longer ran upon the earth. He sped through the air, ascending higher as if he ran up a staircase built of sky.
Those watching from the city walls could not see Jute at first. He was only a tiny blur flashing through the air. He flickered in and out of sight through the veil of falling snow. What lay beyond him, however, while further away, was much easier to see. It looked like a dark wave rolling down the valley, advancing at a tremendous speed. The closest point was the rider galloping along behind Jute. The wave stretched back on either side of him, as if he were the tip of a spear being rushed along by the darkness. That sharp edge drew closer. Those on the wall could hear the sound now. It was a muted rumbling at first, a muttering thundering roll that grew louder and louder. The stones of the wall under their feet vibrated with it. The clouds in the sky seemed to tremble with it. And the city grew silent so that it might listen in breathless horror to that sound.
“The lad’s going to make it,” said Hennen Callas, leaning forward against the parapet. “He’s going to make it!”
“Yes,” said the duke of Harlech, “and surely his pursuers must realize that. I don’t think, however, that they’re showing any intention of slowing down.”
“Archers, on my word,” said Owain Gawinn.
The flagsman standing near him tensed at the pole, waiting for his command. The dark wave thundered closer. Jute was visible now, hurtling through the air and at a height that would bring him high above the city wall.
“Away!” said Gawinn.
The red flag shot down the pole. Instantly, as it shot down, the air was darkened with thousands of arrows launched from the wall. They rose up into the air in a hissing arc, higher and higher until they seemed to almost touch Jute in his flight. A second and third launch followed just as quickly, in deep, twanging thrums. And then the first wave of arrows slashed down from the sky and slammed into the advancing soldiers. The arrows hit with a savage rattling clatter as iron tips punched through armor. The first few lines of soldiers crumpled and a cheer went up from the wall.
“And how many dozens were shot at the rider?” said the duke of Harlech quietly. “Not a single one touched him or his steed. Not from want of skill from our archers. I fear that horseman alone, even if we felled his army to the last soldier. I daresay he’ll ride unscathed by arrow or any other weapon we bring against him.”
As if to add weight to the duke’s words, more and more archers began targeting the galloping horseman. Arrows flew at him from all along the wall, fast and thick, slashing through the air so quickly that it was impossible to follow them with the eye. Arrows struck the rider with tremendous force but fell away, shattered, as if they had hit a rock wall. The horseman did not waver under the blows but continued on his way, unmoved in the saddle.
“Good grief,” someone said. “Is the horse on fire?”
“Not the beast. The arrows!”
It was true. Every arrow that struck the horse burst into flames. From the vantage point of those on the wall, it looked as if the horse ran along with a mantle of fire streaming from its black hide. The horse was not bothered by this but seemed to gain speed, galloping on, a dreadful apparition wreathed in flames and the morning gloom. Behind it, the army marched, trampling down the bodies of their fellows slain by arrows. The arrows flew, again and again, decimating their front ranks. With each fallen soldier, though, another stepped forward to take his place.
Jute hurtled by the wall, checked himself in midair, and then angled down to land on his feet beside Owain Gawinn. His face was white and strained. Owain clapped him on the shoulder and the duke of Harlech nodded, smiling.
“Declan’s safe?” But Jute answered his own question as he glanced down into the courtyard of the Guard below. The party of horsemen was clattering across the cobblestones toward the stables at that moment. Declan’s lean form was visible among them. “Well, that’s at least one thing that’s gone right. Hawk! Where are you?”
“Here, as always,” said the hawk. The bird settled onto the parapet beside Jute. “Someone has to keep their head while you’re haring off bent on death.”
“I’m not dead yet, am I? It was a close thing, yes, I’ll admit, but I’m fine. Besides, I think I know who he is now. I’m sure of it!”
“Who?”
But before Jute could answer, the horseman answered for him. He was quite close now, perhaps only several hundred yards off. It was then that the lightning struck. With a thunderous boom, the bolt flashed down through the air and struck the horseman. White fire blinded the day. The air smelled of hot metal. The horse burst into flame. His whole body raged into fire. His eyes were shining points of molten light. Scarlet flame dripped from his mouth. The air around the horseman hissed and sizzled as snowflakes exploded into steam. Despite it all, the rider did not move but sat as if carved from stone in his saddle of fire. The reins, ribbons of flame, hung motionless from his gauntlets. The horse continued its thundering gallop across the ground on four hooves of flame.
Silence and horror fell on the wall. Even the city sprawling out behind them seemed to fall silent as well. The only sounds to be heard were the drumming tattoo of the hooves of the approaching horse and the rattling, crashing wave of the army advancing behind him.
“I know him now too,” said the hawk. His voice was sad. “His name is Aeled. He is the fire that always burns. He was the eldest of the anbeorun. He burned in the darkness, in the cold spaces between the stars where the awful distances reach beyond time. He was light and warmth and the fierce sun that rose from the house of dreams. He was the captain of the four, the captain of the host that fought on the plains of Ranuin and brought Nokhoron Nozhan to ruin. And he himself has fallen into darkness now. How many years ago, I do not know. I saw no sign of it in the sky. I heard nothing in the wind. The sea slept for so many long years. And now, I fear, he holds the power of the earth captive in his hands.”
“And she’s close now,” said Jute, staring out over the wall into the falling snow. “Close indeed. She is somewhere nearby. I could feel her presence in the wind. What has he done to her? Is she broken to his will, or has she fallen into darkness as well? Whatever the answer, the earth is his to command, for it sought to hold me. He's using her. I felt as if I were turned into stone, pulled down into her domain. But look how he rides. Almost as if he would gallop right through the wall, and him without any siege weapons.” Jute paused, as if he were considering his own words. The hawk hissed and flung himself into the air, beating higher and higher into the wind. Jute shouted, his voice spun into the booming of the wind and carried along the length of the wall. “Get off the wall! Get off! Now!”
But it was too late for most of those on the wall. The parapets were crowded with soldiers. The only ways down were the stairs descending on both sides of the main gates, as well as smaller stairs every several hundred yards. There was
, of course, the option of jumping off the wall, but this meant falling from a very great height to the cobblestones below.
There was little response to Jute other than a few blank faces turned his way. He shouted again, throwing his voice through the wind until it rattled the windows of every house in the city. Birds exploded up into the sky, shocked from their perches under eaves and against the warmth of chimneys. Down at the docks, a flock of seagulls scattered, screeing and calling in amazement. Dogs howled in dismay in every neighborhood. The cats of the city paused wherever they were, but they did not remark on the noise, for they were already well aware of what the day was bringing.
But on the wall, hardly a soul took notice of Jute’s desperate shout. Everyone stood mesmerized: ranks of archers, the Guardsmen with their pikes, the officers and attendants waiting upon the dukes, the dukes themselves. They all stared at the galloping horseman. The horse blazed with fire. It grew larger and larger with every second. Fire rimmed the horse’s eye, licking against the white socket of bone. Fire raged through the air. Thunder rumbled in the clouds overhead. And within the fire, in the dreadful furnace of those flames, the black rider sat as still as stone. Closer and closer, he rode on. The ground trembled with the shock of the horse's hooves. The wall shook. The snow was melting in the sky around them as it fell. It lashed down as rain. It hissed into steam, boiling up from the molten mud as he rode past.
“Get off the wall!” screamed Jute.
Time slowed. At least, it did for Jute. A snowflake drifted past his eyes, dissolving into water as it fell. The duke of Harlech was turning toward him. Stone and shadow, but he had never realized how old the man was. The duke’s eyes met his, widened as knowledge gripped him. He whirled and snapped out an order, but Jute did not hear him. The ranks of soldiers on the wall stood like statues. Far beneath the wall, beneath the city, underneath them all, the earth groaned.
I did not choose this.
The voice whispered through Jute’s thoughts. A girl’s voice. It was the slightest of whispers, no more noise than a leaf would make drifting down onto the damp earth. It trembled in his mind, full of sorrow.
I did not.
But then the voice was gone. Instead, there was only an impression of heat and darkness that slammed against his mind, full of malice and hatred. The day, as dark and gloomy as it was, darkened even more. It was as if the clouds had thickened their weave into the impenetrability of stone. It was as if the whole world turned under a night sky with no moon or stars, even though surely the sun still shone.
Jute threw himself off the wall. He grabbed hold of the wind and then flung it out, whipping across the top of the wall. The blast swept up hundreds of soldiers. The wind knocked them off their feet and sent them flying off the wall. It blew them end over end like so many ragdolls. The wind did not drop them, however, but wafted them down until it deposited them, not so gently, on the street below the wall. Frantically, Jute hurled the wind again, even as he mounted higher into the sky. Dukes and officers went flying this time, Owain Gawinn among them, whirling away down to the courtyard of the Guard, unscathed except for bruises and the loss of their dignity. That was all Jute had time for.
The horse glared up at him as it galloped across the ground, neck outstretched and teeth gleaming with flames. Its mane streamed out in draperies of scarlet and smoke. It was surely a giant of a horse. A monster. Even bigger than the legendary Min the Morn, the impact of whose hooves had shaped the hills of the Mearh Dun. But this horse would not shape anything unless it was destruction.
The horse and rider hit the city wall. Flame and speed and darkness collided with stone, with stone laid twenty feet in width and a hundred feet in height. The wall had been built centuries before by the master masons of Siglan Cynehad, the first king of Tormay. They had built with love and skill. Each stone had been hewn to marry its neighbor without seam. The wall had withstood wars, sieges, catapults, and the relentless depredations of weather and time. But it could not withstand this.
The wall exploded. Flames shot up, red gouts of blinding heat, dirty with smoke and billowing dust. Chunks of rock sang viciously through the air. The ground shook as tons of stone collapsed. The wall toppled for a hundred yards in either direction. The arch over the gate collapsed, splintering the massive oak gates with a crash. The wood burst into flame with a roar. Hooves rang on stone and the horse and rider emerged from the smoke. The air shimmered around it, as if in the heat of a furnace. The rider was only a dim shape in the fierce blaze, a dark shadow of iron in the maelstrom.
A voice spoke from the fire. It echoed against the walls of the buildings still standing nearby. It was a deep and dreadful voice, a voice from nightmares and dark nights. Those who heard it found their minds full of terrible thoughts—of dead and decaying things, of hunger and desperation and the ravaging fire. The voice seemed as if it spoke within each man’s mind rather than his ears.
Thou hast made thy choice, city of men. It is before thee. Behold, I hold the keys to death and darkness.
Shadows stirred behind the horseman in the shifting half-light of the flames. Figures emerged from the darkness, marching up through the wreckage of stone. Firelight glinted on spears, on helms and armor. The horse’s eyes burned with fire. The rider sat motionless like stone. The voice continued, but the words were now in a strange and foreign tongue. The words echoed and trembled and shivered in the deepening darkness of the day. There was a dreadful beauty in the words, as if they were formed by a once-graceful tongue that could now speak only of death. The sound seemed as if it were woven of the shadows of starfire, though none of them understood that except for Jute and the hawk, and, perhaps, the old duke of Harlech. But deeper than the starfire was the darkness of Daghoron itself, and it was from there that those words came. The fire flickered amidst the broken stones of the wall. The soldiers behind the horseman waited in silence.
One thing might save thee. Give me the boy. Life and death stand before thee. Give me Jute and find thy salvation.
Owain Gawinn limped forward. His face was streaked with blood and dust. Sweat burned in his eyes. His whole body ached with fatigue. He tried to speak, but his throat was so dry that he found himself unable to utter a sound.
Not that it matters, he thought tiredly. We've already made our choice. We've been making the same choice for hundreds of years, haven't we? Ever since our forefathers fought and died in the forgotten lands of the east, fighting the darkness. Even before that. If the legends are true. Their children fled into the west and came to Tormay. And what will our children do? Can they flee even further into the west, beyond the sea, or will the darkness still follow them? Is death the only end?
The horse swung its head toward Owain. Its burning eyes stared as if the beast could read his mind. It advanced a step. Flame dripped down its legs and guttered among the rubble.
Choose wisely, little man.
Owain did the only thing he could do. He drew his sword.
With a sudden cheer, a rabble of Guardsmen charged forward behind him. They were not alone. The duchies charged with them: the men of Harlech, Thule, Hull, Dolan, and Vo. They came with spears and swords, with axes and maces, a line of iron and fury. A hail of arrows preceded them, snarling through the air, all aimed at the burning horseman, and all to no avail as each one exploded into fire and falling ash. The defenders of the city did not care. They charged forward over the rubble, through the falling snow in the dim light of the burning gate. They swept past Owain Gawinn and surged on toward their death. And death awaited them. A wave of black-armored soldiers marched through the gap in the ruined wall, shoulder to shoulder. The wave parted around the horseman and smashed against the advancing men of Tormay with a tremendous crash. Iron broke on iron. The line reeled back and forth, trampling the ground into blood and death. A wedge of the men of Harlech, angled behind the deadly sword of Rane, drove into the dark ranks and cut their way toward the horseman. The closer they came, however, the stiffer the opposition became until
it seemed as if they cast themselves upon a stone wall that did nothing except run bright with their blood.
The horseman laughed at this. At least, those nearby thought he was the one who laughed. They could see no movement in the rider and, of course, his face was not visible behind its iron helm. But the laugh boomed out across the violent fray. It was a deep and dreadful noise, full of malice. The sound was like stones shattering, like death laughing beside the grave of a child, like cold, dead starlight. Everyone on the battlefield froze for an instant at the sound.
The horse stamped a hoof and the earth shook. The ground reeled and shuddered and quaked. Buildings collapsed. Walls cracked and fell in on themselves, bringing down roofs in shattering showers of splintered tile. Choking clouds of dust billowed out from the streets. The city walls still standing on either side of the ruined gap swayed this way and that until they collapsed outward in a thundering roar of stone.
But despite all this, despite the dead and dying and the broken bodies crushed under stone and fallen walls, the defenders surged forward undaunted. The black-armored foe met them in silence. Sword rang on sword, on helm and breastplate. Men died. They died well, fighting in ragged formation around their dukes, the Guardsmen fighting and dying to defend their city, to defend their captain, to defend their wives and families, their children. They died, cursing and spitting and calling out defiance even as more and more ranks of the enemy marched over the ruins of the walls to join the fray.
The Wicked Day Page 37
