FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Saldibar’s face paled. “Impossible. Reinforcements are several days away.”

  “Not that army,” Whelan said. “Kratians, from the south and riders from the Sultanates. The gates. We have to close the gates.”

  Saldibar turned toward the gates, but Kallia held his arm. “Get our men inside first.”

  “If they reach the open gates,” Saldibar protested, “we’ll never stop them. Some men must be sacrificed.”

  “We won’t leave our men to die.”

  Saldibar said, “Please, Khalifa. Close the gates.”

  She looked at Whelan. He looked torn, but at last he shook his head. “We can’t abandon them. Give me a horse and I will lead a sortie to protect the retreat.”

  “Yes,” Kallia said, relieved and frightened at the same time. For Saldibar was right. If an army breached the gates Balsalom would fall.

  Whelan groaned. “The griffin. I can’t leave him untended. I have to look after his wounds.”

  Kallia opened her mouth to protest, but had seen him ride down on the magnificent animal. It was more than a dumb beast.

  Whelan said, “And my friends. I have to find them.”

  “Your friends can care for themselves. I know a man who rode once with the griffin riders. I will send for him and he can look after the beast,” Saldibar said. “Kallia, go to Toth’s View and tell Pasha Boroah.”

  They went their separate ways. Kallia hailed a horseman, who stopped in amazement to see his queen. She sent him from the horse and galloped toward the tower, which stretched above the north side of the city. She reached the tower in a few minutes, and gave the news to Boroah, who sent messengers and blew trumpet messages to assemble more men to guard the Gates of the Dead.

  She stood in the tower next to Boroah. He was a large, older man with a bushy growth that spread from his sideburns to his mustache. He wore a blue turban and rubbed nervously at his smooth chin as he surveyed the battle. Most Selphan stayed in their traditional trades of money lending and silver working, but Boroah had risen amongst the ranks of fighting men, winning their increasing respect. Cragyn had deemed him too old to ship east to Veyre, but perhaps he had been overly hasty in his assessment of the man’s battle-worthiness.

  The rain began to fall again. Overhead, jostling amidst the storm clouds, cloud castles positioned themselves over the battle. Kallia wanted to shake her fist at them, watching as if this were some jogu ball match instead of a battle for a great city teetering on destruction.

  Whelan rode from the gates with his cavalry and headed north to intercept the enemy. The Balsalomians abandoned their attack on Cragyn’s Hammer. Saved by fortune only, the enemy in the tombs overcame their confusion and moved to retake the bombard. Kallia groaned, seeing victory snatched away.

  Kratian camel riders howled like winds from the desert, riding hard to meet Whelan’s cavalry. And to the right flank, men of the Sultanates on fast desert horses, wearing flowing robes and carrying long, graceful scimitars. For a moment, the two sides met, and then the newcomers, several times as strong, pushed Whelan back. Kallia bit her thumb, wishing she rode among them instead of sitting up here, useless. At last, Whelan turned his forces to flee.

  Whelan’s delaying tactics had only bought them fifteen minutes, but it was enough. If the Veyrians at Cragyn’s Hammer had been better organized, they might have better pressed their new advantage; as it was, Kallia’s footmen reached the gates safely, as did Whelan’s cavalry. Archers on the walls drove the enemy from the gates.

  One of the men standing next to Kallia let out an alarmed shout. Pasha Boroah cursed. Kallia followed their gaze and her heart sank.

  Mol Khah fought his way from the palace. His troops savaged the thinned positions guarding the palace. Had she kept adequate forces outside the palace, had she owned such forces, Mol Khah would have exposed himself. Instead, his men cut through the defenses and pressed toward the Great Gates. She had no forces with which to contain him. The nearest reinforcements were on the other side of Balsalom some five miles distant, and they were needed to stop the assault on the Gates of the Dead. Mol Khah fought his way west, ready to open the Great Gates to destruction.

  And had the new army on the Tothian Way pressed its attack, that is exactly what would have happened. But she noticed an amazing thing from her perch atop Toth’s View. Instead of turning from the Tothian Way toward Balsalom, the enemy army continued west, toward the mountains. Even the Kratian camel riders and the cavalry rejoined the army once they’d freed Cragyn’s Hammer. She could see the small force that had guarded the siege weapon dismantling it.

  Pasha Boroah saw this lucky stroke of fortune at the same time that she did. Trumpets blared to order men from the Gates of the Dead to the Great Gates.

  Pursued only by the remnants of the small force that had guarded the palace, Mol Khah’s garrison reached the Great Gates about fifteen minutes later. They seized the gate towers. This fighting raged below Toth’s View; the enemy could capture the khalifa and Boroah had Mol Khah not more pressing needs. His army threw open the Great Gates.

  No doubt Mol Khah expected to see a friendly army, either at the gates or approaching quickly. What he saw instead was the empty expanse north of Balsalom, with only the tail end of his ally visible on the Tothian Way.

  By now, Balsalom’s first reinforcements arrived from the Gates of the Dead. Mol Khah’s men met this new threat in the only way they could. They turned to fight, but even from where Kallia stood it was apparent that the sight of their allies fleeing had broken their spirit. Archers on the walls drove Mol Khah’s men back from the gates and slaughtered them in the gate towers.

  Men on horseback drove a wedge through the Veyrians. Mol Khah stood by himself, shouting for his men to stand by his side. A man rode his horse at the pasha, but Mol Khah caught him across the breast and knocked him to the ground. A second man jumped from his horse to wrestle the pasha to the ground. Mol Khah rose a moment later and nearly decapitated the man with the force his blow. Two others fell before the pasha’s scimitar and Kallia feared that the battle would turn on the strength of his fighting alone.

  But his army collapsed around him. Kallia’s guardsmen and the remnants of her army, only a ragged force that morning, had become a real army. They put Mol Khah’s men to the slaughter. The pasha found himself surrounded by twenty or thirty men, all pressing in to attack him. He threw down his sword and raised his hands. The surrender spread from the pasha to his men until there was no more fighting.

  In the tombs, the enemy army carted away Cragyn’s Hammer. One victory had eluded Balsalom. But they had won the most important. Men seized Mol Khah and tied his hands behind his back.

  Boroah turned to her with a wide grin. “Oh khalifa—may you live forever—shall we kill the mongrel?”

  She shook her head. “No, I prefer to see the look on his face when he discovers that the dark wizard values his siege engine more than he values the life of his grand vizier.”

  She kissed the grizzled old Selphan on both cheeks.

  That night, every cricket in the city fell silent. Instead, the sound of baying hounds filled the air while the people huddled frightened in their beds. Always, the sound came from only a few hundred feet from the listener. Throughout the night, the Harvester feasted on the souls of the dead, of which there were many.

  Chapter XIV

  MARKAL’S MAGIC WAS A SHADOW of Chantmer the Tall’s, but none understood the old ways like Markal. He read not only the common tongue and the ancient forms of the old script, but knew more cartouches than any wizard or scholar. Few suspected the depth of his knowledge.

  Few suspected Markal’s knowledge because none knew his age. Even wizened old Narud was only a child when Syrmarria fell to Toth’s army. But Markal remembered the glory of that greatest of cities, and the slaughter that followed its destruction. Survivors had founded Balsalom, which had grown into its own power over the centuries, but Balsalom was nothing to Syrmarria and the rich lands of Aristonia.
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  Markal remembered those lands from before Toth turned Aristonia into the Desolation. Markal had studied with the Crimson Path before that order’s destruction, including Memnet the Great, who alone had defied Toth. Markal remembered when Toth built a tower to the sky to battle the Sky Brother.

  Markal had seen Cragyn’s tower in his mind—the Dark Citadel, Chantmer the Tall named it—and he recognized the similarities. As for the dark wizard, Cragyn was a child by the reckoning of wizards, eighty or ninety years old, and would have no memory of King Toth or his tower. So why did he build this tower so much like Toth’s?

  Because of Markal’s preoccupation with the Dark Citadel, he had overlooked the steel book he’d found in the Tombs of the Kings. He’d thumbed through the first few pages, seen diagrams of cloud castles and archaic siege engines, together with maps of long-vanished countries, then put the book away. The book would prove useful, he thought, perhaps containing a clue about the fate of the Lost Kingdoms, but it would have to wait.

  Cragyn’s men didn’t follow Montcrag’s survivors into the mountains, perhaps afraid of griffins or wild stone giants, but more likely wishing to fortify Montcrag and forge west. Taking the castle had cost the dark wizard dearly: several hundred dead and wounded by Markal’s estimation. If each castle in the mountains cost the dark wizard as much, his army would be a shell by the time it reached Eriscoba.

  To say nothing of the Teeth.

  The Teeth were three towers built so long ago that nobody knew their true age. Markal thought that they predated the Tothian Wars by at least eight hundred years. Built of white granite, and protected by a tangle of magical spells, the towers were to the western passes what Montcrag was the east. But Toth had encircled the three towers with walls to form a powerful new castle to guard his new road thrusting through the mountains, and the castle could hold a much larger army than Montcrag.

  A man named Lord Garydon held the Teeth. Garydon swore allegiance to King Daniel and kept the western passes free of bandits—for a fee, of course. But Markal didn’t trust Garydon’s shifting loyalties and couldn’t be certain the man would defend the Tothian Way against so powerful an army as Cragyn’s.

  “Hurry up old man,” Hoffan shouted at him. “Moss is growing in your beard.” Surprisingly cheerful after the fall of his castle, the warlord stood at the rear of his men, who hiked a deer path along the spine of the crag rising to the mountains.

  Markal followed Hoffan, joking with the men in the back, but kept one eye on the sky. He thought it unlikely for wasps to dare griffin country but wanted to be careful.

  Ahead, Hoffan and Ethan struck an immediate friendship. Ethan was like his brother Whelan in many ways: strong, loyal, and murderously adept with the sword, but also fiercely independent. Those traits made the two men natural leaders of the Knights Temperate, who shared those traits. If King Daniel hoped to drive the dark wizard from the Free Kingdoms, he would have to command the loyalty of such men, and that meant forgiving Whelan.

  Dark clouds gathered to the east, piling against the hills and slowly creeping up the mountains. A storm was coming. As of yet, however, the air in the mountains was clear and cool, with a hint of autumn. They stood at the cusp of two forests, the hardwood of lower elevations and the pine forests up ahead.

  Markal noted a familiar sparrow chirping at every turn of the trail. The bird was following him, flying from its branch to soar to another tree or a rocky clearing as soon as he passed. Narud trusted birds more than humans, and Markal wondered if the bird was a messenger from the Order, but when he stopped to see if the sparrow had anything to say, it merely cocked its head and waited until he left, then darted ahead to repeat the process. Markal considered and then rejected the possibility that the bird was one of Cragyn’s spies and ignored the nosy little fellow.

  The mood of Montcrag’s defenders improved as they climbed. There was something invigorating about the mountain air. Sofiana and Ethan shot a mountain goat and the men dressed it for dinner, starting a camp fire as soon as it grew too dark to travel.

  A dream woke Markal during the night. In the dream, Darik hunched over the book from the tombs, while a blue light glowed from its steel pages. Markal floated over the boy’s shoulder. A face looked back from the steel page. Cragyn. Dreamily, Darik stood and walked toward the door, stepping into the night air.

  Markal woke. He wondered what the dream meant. Jethro the Martyr, founder of the Order and the Brotherhood, had trained his followers to interpret dreams. “A dream is a window to the soul,” Jethro taught. Markal wasn’t sure if he agreed with the statement, some dreams were no more than random nonsense, but there were times when Jethro’s words rang true. This was one of them.

  The interpretation came in a burst of insight so clear it stunned him that he missed it before. The Oracular Tomes. Was the book one of them? Didn’t scholars refer to leaves of hammered gold and brass? Why not steel?

  References to these mystical books began in the cartouches carved in stone pillars and monuments that survived the war, throughout the khalifates and Eriscoba. References began some fourteen hundred years ago if Markal’s estimation was accurate. Oblique mentions and even direct quotes persisted into early forms of the old tongue. The Oracular Tomes, if they truly existed, imparted knowledge that gave power to create life and matter, to control death, to build mountains: in short, the very powers of the five brothers to create Mithyl itself.

  As for their number, early references mentioned three tomes, later references five. By the time of most references, some three hundred years before the Tothian Wars, the tomes had long vanished. He only had one clue as to their fate, a fragment that had survived the burning of the libraries. It named the destruction of three tomes, naming them the Tome of Creation, the Heart Tome, and the Shadow Tome. The first of these was taken by the Sky Brother, its apparent author, the second destroyed by fire salamanders, and the third—the Shadow Tome—lost at sea.

  But the last two tomes, including the Tome of Prophesy, had not been destroyed, according to the writer, merely lost. Yes, Markal had thought at the time, but lost for so long was as good as destroyed anyway. Now he wasn’t so sure. According to ancient writings, the Tome of Prophesy could show the future and control the weak minded or the young. It also changed words and pictures, sometimes appearing a meaningless jumble to the untrained eye. That might explain why he’d not thought the book special upon first glance.

  A hooting owl startled Markal from his thoughts and he climbed to his feet. A horned owl from the sound of it. His ears picked out a bear snuffling on the hillside some two hundred yards above them.

  Bits of the bear’s blurry thoughts grumbled into his mind. Peoples. I smell peoples. No good peoples, no good stings on their hands. And then a new thought crossed its mind. Peoples. Food. Good food, sweet and salty food. Peoples food.

  The wizard turned his own thoughts at the bear before it caused mischief. No good food here, friend. Only stings. Nasty, sharp stings from peoples. Find berries down the mountain, black, sweet berries. No stings in berries.

  Markal turned his attention down the mountain, but heard nothing there except a skunk licking the salt from a leather glove dropped by one of Hoffan’s men. Bats clicked overhead, searching for insects.

  Hoffan’s men camped against a hillside beneath the protection of pine trees. Men snored, some stirring in the strange environment. Markal searched out Hoffan and Ethan and woke them.

  “I’m leaving. Don’t ask where or why. I can’t tell you.”

  Hoffan grumbled as he sat up in his bedding and yawned furiously. “Even a blind dog can sniff his own butt, I suppose.”

  Markal blinked. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Hoffan yawned again, looking confused. “Damn it, wizard, I don’t know. It’s dark, and I’m still half asleep.”

  Markal laughed and turned to Ethan, who had wakened instantly, much as his brothers could. “I’ll meet you at the Citadel. If you reach it first, do what you can to so
ften the king’s heart.”

  “What is all of this, wizard?” Hoffan asked. He yawned again, but the haze began to fall from his eyes. “You act decent enough most of the time, and then you skulk off in the middle of the night like any other wizard.”

  Markal clapped the man on the shoulder. “Could be worse, highwayman. There’s a bear on the hill. I could have smeared honey on your face to make up for the times you’ve stripped me of every last shekel, dinarii, and guilder when I passed Montcrag. I daresay some wizards would have been hard pressed to pass on such an opportunity.”

  “I’m not afraid of bears.” Hoffan snorted and lay back down. “Hell, I’m half bear myself. That fellow on the hillside might just be my cousin.”

  Markal left the camp, slipping into the darkness. When he reached the ridge, he crouched to his knees, summoning the proper incantation. This time, vows of the Order, don’t fail me.

  There were three components of active magic, that is, the magic greater than the ability to speak to animals and such. The first element was knowledge, and Markal knew more of the chants and incantations than anyone. He knew when it would be better to use the spells developed by each of the old orders: the Crimson Path, or the Seven Crippled Wizard Knights, or other, more minor orders. There was a difference between the right spell and the almost-right spell. This knowledge compensated for his other deficiencies.

  The second component was life force. The Order of the Wounded Hand drew life from their own hands, which shriveled and blackened after use. Other orders had drawn life force from animals, or grew hugely fat before casting magic, fat they burned off in a riot of energy, leaving flaps of skin behind. An evil wizard, of course, used human life; it was said that King Toth burned alive a hundred thousand children to bind the Way. Cragyn often drew magic by impaling his victims on spikes.