The swamp fauns were pouring over the wall now. They seemed confused by the lack of resistance, but were making short work of what little they found. One of the youngsters by the water seized a firebrand and ran towards the wall.
Olly! What’s he doing here? I told him to stay in a tower.
Jubal saw two swamp fauns swing their swords at Olly, but he dodged. He reached the barricade and dashed up a rickety ladder. Jubal saw him fling his firebrand out over the sea of swamp fauns. Then an arrow took him in the chest, and he toppled backwards in a limp sprawl.
Jubal took a step towards the child. Then he heard a soft whoosh! Light and heat exploded beyond the barricade.
* * * *
Meuril stood in his daughter’s study as the sun set on a troubled day. His court was at supper, but he had not taken his meals with them since he returned to Laven-lay. In truth, he had taken little food. Meuril scanned the books that lined Capricia’s shelves—books about history, about wizards, books in languages he could not read.
Where did I fail her? He pushed a strand of nearly-white hair from his eyes. Be honest, Meuril; where did you not fail her?
She had never called him father except upon the most formal of occasions. In public, he was “your majesty,” and in private, he was Meuril. Who decided that? He couldn’t remember. I pushed her away when her mother died. I knew I was doing it, and I didn’t try to stop. I felt guilty about the wolflings. Is that why I did it? Did I punish my daughter for my own crimes?
He had seen their faces night after night in his dreams—the faces of all those who had died that bloody fall—his wife, Natalia, as well as Malic, the wolfling king, his family and so many others. Strangely, in his dreams it was not the wolflings who killed and devoured Natalia. It was Demitri and his cats.
Malic begged for my help before the end. I would have given it, even against Shadock’s wishes, but not after what they did to Nattie. Why does she accuse me in my dreams?
Meuril drew in a deep breath. The room still smelled like his daughter—mingled odors of lilac perfume and tea, old books and ink and leather. He leaned on her desk and let the tears fall—silent sobs that wracked his thin body. He raised his head at a furious pounding on the door. A muffled voice shouted, “Your majesty! King Meuril!”
Meuril straightened and wiped his eyes. “Enter.”
The door flew open, and two guards stood panting on the threshold. Meuril noticed with alarm that they were wall guards, dressed for duty. “Sir, you’re needed at the Wizard’s Gate.”
“Wolflings,” panted the other guard, “fighting with swamp fauns. They came in where we’re making repairs to the gate. We think it’s the Raiders, sir.”
* * * *
The next thing Jubal saw clearly was Tavaris’s blood-streaked face. The old shelt stood over him. Jubal realized that he was sitting on the ground, holding something warm and limp, something dead. Tavaris was trying to talk to him, but the whole world seemed full of noise.
The old guard reached down and made Jubal let go of Olly’s head. It flopped bonelessly towards the pavement, blonde curls trailing crimson across Jubal’s arm. Tavaris leaned close and shouted in his ear. “We must retreat! Too many already over the wall! Follow me!”
Jubal’s vision cleared a little, and he saw Tavaris had half a dozen of the larger guards with him. Several of them helped pull Jubal to his feet. They made him leave Olly’s body at the foot of the barricade, put a sword in his hand, and started towards the palace.
Swamp fauns contested them most of the way, although they seemed uncertain, demoralized by the fire and the screams from the other side of the barricade. They still outnumbered the cliff fauns, but were not pressing their advantage nearly as effectively as they had...a moment before? Could it really have been only a moment?
As the cliff fauns crossed the plaza, they picked up more of the guards who had survived the storming of the barricade. At last they reached one of the entrances to the palace, now with a force of perhaps twenty. Jubal had expected Tavaris to stop in some narrow entrance where one or two fauns might hold off many hundred. The flaw to such a plan was, of course, that the palace had too many entrances, too many routes by which the defenders could be flanked.
Tavaris had, apparently, no such plan. He kept going deeper into the palace. Most of the swamp fauns seemed unwilling to follow them beyond the plaza, and as soon as they’d left the last enemy behind, Tavaris led at a full run towards the tunnels that burrowed into the stone beneath the cliff. He was heading, in fact, for the dungeons.
Jubal saw the logic in this at once. The dungeons had only one entrance that he knew of, and that entrance was infinitely defensible. Jubal could, however, foresee one big problem.
When Tavaris stopped to unlock the heavy metal doors, Jubal spoke. “I think,” he panted, “we may have time to get supplies. If we trap ourselves with no food or water—”
“We’re not trapping ourselves.” Tavaris flung open the door.
Jubal stepped back at the nauseating stench. The dungeons had never smelled pleasant, but he didn’t remember an odor quite like this. Tavaris fumbled for the torch and lighter that always hung on the wall beside the door. Jubal heard noises out of the darkness and racked his brain to remember how many prisoners were down here. He couldn’t think of more than a handful— dissidents who’d threatened to disrupt Lupricasia. They were all more-or-less mad, and he felt certain they were not what Tavaris would call reinforcements. The air in the dungeon seemed hotter than usual, aggravating the stench.
The torch flared, and the cages that lined either side of the wide path bloomed with reflected green and gold and silver eyes. Somewhere in the darkness, something growled and then came a noise like a child weeping. The hair on Jubal’s ears prickled.
“Cats.” Tavaris shoved the torch into Jubal’s hand and took out his keys again. “Shadock had every cat at Lupricasia rounded up and put in the dungeons when Capricia disappeared.”
Jubal could have kicked himself. He’d forgotten entirely. Everyone had, including those that were supposed to feed and water the prisoners. As he followed Tavaris down the aisle, he saw that some of the cats looked weak and ill, packed into the cages so tightly they could hardly turn around. Most only looked angry and ravenous, their eyes following the fauns. Some reached through and tried to slap at Jubal as he passed, their paws filthy with the excrement that had piled up in the cages. The dungeons had not, thankfully, been designed by idiots, and the paws could not quite reach him. “We’re thirsty,” rose their cry. “Thirsty! Hungry! Thirsty! Hungry!”
Tavaris stopped beside one cage and raised his torch high. A lynx sat in the middle of the floor. He’d been caged alone. “Loop?”
The lynx made not a sound. His exquisitely lined eyes, pretty as a painted satyr, gave nothing away.
Tavaris continued, “You were the only one of Lexis’s officers taken during the arrests. May I assume that you speak for all the cats here?”
Nothing. Just those glittering eyes.
Tavaris unlocked the cage. “I’m coming in.”
Jubal grabbed Tavaris’s arm. “I don’t think that’s a good—”
Tavaris shook him off. “How else are we to show good will? There’s no time to do this slowly. Besides, we were eating and drinking with them a few days ago. Surely I can trust one to have a civil conversation without tearing me apart.”
“That was before—” said Jubal.
“Before we arrested them on dubious evidence, packed them away in squalid conditions, and left them to starve. Let us hope they have a better sense of honor than we do.” Still, Jubal kept his grip on Tavaris’s arm. “They’re not wolflings,” said Tavaris quietly, “so they don’t deserve justice from us; is that it?”
Jubal released him as though stung, acutely aware of the puzzled gazes of his subordinates. The guards were strung out in an awkward line between the cages, staring uneasily at the cats and at Tavaris and Jubal.
“Who are you?” The lynx
had come to the bars so quietly that neither shelt had heard him.
“We’re palace guards,” said Tavaris. “Danda-lay has been all but taken by the swamp fauns. We believe they kidnapped Capricia to cause confusion and remove the cats from the battle. Shadock and his court have fled with the army and the citizenry. We were left to defend the palace.”
Tavaris pushed open the door of the cage and crouched on his haunches. The lynx came forward and sniffed his face. Jubal’s knuckles whitened around his sword hilt, but he did not draw. Loop looked them over critically. “How many of you are there?”
“Maybe twenty,” said Tavaris.
The lynx considered. “And I assume there are a great many more of the...enemy?”
Tavaris nodded.
The lynx looked at the rows of feline faces, their ears pricked forward. The dungeon had gone absolutely silent. “Well...” murmured Loop. “Twenty is hardly a meal for so many.”
He glanced at Jubal’s stunned face, and his teeth flashed in the torchlight. “A joke, little hornfoot. Forgive me; hunger makes me crude. Yes, we’ll fight for you. I’d advise you to stay down here while we’re at it. Some of us can be undiscerning when hungry.”
Chapter 16. At the End of the Race
At the end of every race lies the beginning of another.
—Wolfling proverb
Loop wanted to give the swamp fauns a chance to get well into the palace before attacking, and Jubal wanted to give any surviving cliff fauns a chance to reach safety. To this end, Loop sent out several swift cats to search covertly for cliff fauns. Throughout the next half watch, a trickle of exhausted guards staggered into the dungeon. Jubal’s archers were the only adults who came uninjured. Most of the children returned from their towers, and there were a handful of wounded from the fight in the plaza. When the last of Loop’s searchers returned, Jubal counted forty-eight known dead, thirty-five in the dungeon, and twenty-six still missing.
The cats gave ever-increasing news of swamp fauns swarming through the palace. Dogs had been seen, and it was only a matter of time before they tracked the cliff fauns to their hiding place. At last, Jubal agreed that they had searched long enough, and several hundred eager predators bounded out the door. The palace guards of Danda-lay shut themselves in the dungeon, sat among piles of cat excrement, and counted themselves lucky as the screams began outside.
* * * *
Laven-lay’s castle sat closest to the southern wall of the city, and only a narrow grassy strip separated it from the east gate—the Wizard’s Gate. The ancient road that had once crossed that green sward had long ago disappeared, but the gate was the largest and most beautiful in Laven-lay, and king after king had let it stand—massive doors of ironwood, banded with metal wrought in fabulous shapes of dragons and griffins and creatures of flame.
This was the spot the Raiders had chosen to blast as a distraction during Sham’s hanging. They had left several gaping holes, and Meuril had decided the gate represented too much of a risk to maintain. He had ordered it removed and walled over, but the job had taken considerable effort, and the masons had yet to finish when all work ceased for Lupricasia. Upon his return, with war on the horizon, Meuril had ordered the task renewed. The masons had made a mighty effort. Only a half dozen holes remained, though one could still ride a buck through the largest.
Now swamp fauns poured through the gaps and over the grass, driving before them a handful of wolves and wolflings. The old stones reverberated to the clash of their swords and the snarling of desperate wolves. Far above the melee, two figures were fighting furiously on the parapet of the city wall—one dressed in tattered black, the other in pale blue.
Meuril squinted. “Is that who I think it is?”
* * * *
Fenrah dared not take her eyes from the sword. She almost forgot Daren behind it. She knew she should be watching him, but right now she could barely keep ahead of his blade—its jaws always questing after her own. Her ears registered the agonized snarling of a wounded wolf, the shriek of steel on steel. She even imagined she could hear beneath it all the ragged breathing of wolflings too exhausted to call to each other—the failing heartbeat of her pack. She wanted to look around—wanted and feared to see who lived and who was bleeding out on Meuril’s bright lawn. But if she looked around, she would die and lose all chance of helping them. Daren’s blade whispered around her head, past her shoulder, beyond her throat, a hair’s breadth from her belly—the sword filled her world.
Fenrah tried to remember how she’d gotten onto the wall. Daren had driven them so hard towards the end. The choice had been to put their backs against Laven-lay or face the mounted fauns in the wood. She wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision, wasn’t sure there had been a right decision. Her luck had deserted her when they came to the wall and found it full of holes. The swamp fauns flushed them through like rabbits through a ruined thicket. Then a goat kicked Dance so hard he stumbled. She fell, and Daren was on her. He pushed her up the first steps they came to—up and up the wall, away from her pack, stumbling, nearly falling, gaining her balance and losing it and gaining it again. If he hadn’t broken her arm in Selbis, she might have been a match for him. At the least she might have made him bleed, but fighting left-handed with her broken arm still bound against her side, it was all Fenrah could to do stay alive.
The small size of her weapon helped. The huge dagger was shorter than traditional swords, and did not offer Daren the leverage he needed to twist it from her grasp. Still, he’d managed to separate her from her pack if not from her weapon. This is how it ends. Alone.
Fenrah was dimly aware that she must look a ridiculously easy target for the wood faun archers and wondered why they hadn’t fired. Maybe they’re afraid of hitting Daren.
Somewhere on the ground, she heard Dance howl. The sound tore at her. Got to get down there. She made an abrupt offensive, caught Daren slightly off balance, and gained the head of the stairs. Fenrah risked turning her back on him and bounded down the steps, expecting any moment to feel his sword between her shoulder blades. She jumped over the edge a dozen steps from the ground and heard him curse as his blade cleaved the air above her.
Her eyes swept the field—knots of fighting wolflings and snarling wolves. A few dead fauns and dogs. A dead wolf, but she could see no dead wolflings. Turning towards Dance’s terrible howls, she saw that a group of fauns and dogs had him at bay against the city wall. He had an arm’s length of broken spear protruding from his chest, yet he fought on. Fenrah started towards him, but her momentary respite had ended, and she had to turn and defend herself as Daren drove her with teeth-jarring blows towards the castle wall.
He expects the wood fauns to intervene, thought Fenrah. Why haven’t they? During her brief glimpse of the field, she was certain she’d seen a mass of spectators on the castle parapet.
Closer and closer to the castle wall, and still no arrows. And then he finally broke her guard—a blow meant for her chest, but, in parrying, she caught it across her good arm. Daren swatted Gabalon’s dagger from her grasp and stepped on it. Fenrah bared her teeth at him, bloody hand clenched, but before he could deliver the killing stroke, Sham jumped between then. Fenrah had not seen him coming, and for a moment all she could think of was relief that he was still alive.
Daren did not miss a beat. He rained blows on Sham, driving him backwards so fast that he nearly ran into Fenrah. Sham retaliated with all the strength he could muster, but he was outmatched and exhausted.
Got to get my weapon back. Daren seemed to read her thoughts. He could not bend to pick up the dagger, but he was staying near it. That helped Sham a little. Fenrah circled them, waiting for a chance.
She never got it. All at once, Sham’s sword slipped through the opening in Daren’s and went spinning away. Fenrah saw its track of flight and despaired. I can’t get it in time; I can’t get my dagger. Daren will kill us.
“STOP!”
The voice came while Sham’s sword was still in the air.
It came through a speaking cone from the wall. “STAND STILL OR YOU WILL BE SHOT!” As though to emphasize this, one of the running swamp fauns dropped with an arrow in his chest.
Daren stood still, his sword within killing distance of Sham’s head. Keeping them in her peripheral vision, Fenrah turned her gaze up towards the wall. Blinking hard against a trickle of stinging sweat, she saw a crowd of fauns, some in courtly dress, a line of archers, a slight figure who could only be Meuril, and beside him, a large faun with a booming voice and the speaking cone. He continued, “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. SUBMIT QUIETLY, OR BE SHOT.”
The field quieted a little. Knots of fighters hesitated. Daren was the first to recover. Still holding Sham at sword point, he made an elaborate bow to Meuril. Fenrah had to admire his stamina. They were all panting, but Daren mastered his voice enough to sound almost untroubled. “King Meuril! I bring greetings from Kazar. Have you any news of your daughter? I was disturbed to hear that she is missing.”
Meuril said nothing. Daren drew another deep breath and continued. “Upon returning home, our noble queen sent me with search parties to help look for Capricia. Sadly, we have not found the princess, but we did find these outlaws whom I believe have been bountied in your city for a number of years.”
He paused, glanced at Sham, and went on in a nastier voice, “Queens of Laven-lay have met with ill luck among wolflings before. I am sorry to report that my searchers found the remains of half-eaten fauns in the Raider camp. One or two of them may have been female.”
Fenrah shut her eyes. It’s happening again. And there’s nothing I can do. Nothing. Fauns will believe anything about us. They don’t need proof.
A hollow laugh cut him short. Fenrah opened her eyes. Two more persons had stepped into view beside Meuril. Fenrah glanced at Daren and had the satisfaction of seeing some of the color leave his face. She reflected that if she had to die, the conditions had at least become more palatable. Chance and Laylan were not only alive; they had beaten Daren to Laven-lay.
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 34
