by David Drake
The Last were extending their faceted fortifications around Pandah, moving only sunwise rather than in both directions as they'd done before the royal army arrived. They took terrible losses from the artillery's bolts and heavy stones, but slowly, panel by panel, their walls advanced.
The Last undermined Lord Waldron's cross-walls, filled in trenches, and stolidly cut apart infantry sallying in attempts to demolish the fortifications from the inside. The army slowed the inhuman advance, but no human endeavor could halt it.
At Sharina's decision—though with the enthusiastic support of all her officers—the army wasn't cooperating with the brigands of Pandah. Those renegades were barely able to defend their own walls, and they'd do that to the best of their ability regardless.
Sharina sighed. She was looking out at the citadel because behind her Rasile talked with ghosts and demons. Sharina knew what was happening, of course, and she realized it was necessary . . . but it made her uncomfortable nonetheless.
The enclosure curtained Rasile's wizardry from the eyes of the troops who'd be distressed by it. They knew what was going on—and indeed, anybody who wanted to could watch through the coarse wicker as easily as Sharina now looked out. The troops had laced brush together in much the same way as they made great earth-filled baskets which formed the walls of the encampment.
The Last weren't present in great enough numbers to attack the camp, not yet at any rate, but Lord Waldron was careful to prepare against unexpected dangers. There was nothing to be done against the expected danger, however.
In a few months, despite Waldron's efforts, the Last would complete a ring around Pandah. They could then wipe out anyone still in the city . . . and simply wait and prepare behind polygonal walls which the troops hadn't been able to breach. If the Last filled Pandah before they opened the sides of their glowing black fortress, they'd outnumber the royal army and any possible human army.
Sharina remembered Tenoctris' vision of black monsters appearing on the lens of ice. Even arriving only one or two at a time in the fortified pool here, it wouldn't be long before the black not-men were in overwhelming strength. That would be the end of Mankind.
Thinking that, Sharina turned to look at the Corl wizard. It's not as though watching the Last grind their way through my world is comforting, after all. She grinned again.
Rasile stood in a figure drawn with yarrow stalks. She'd spilled them in what'd seemed an aimless fashion to Sharina, but the stiff yellow lengths had fallen into a real pattern: each stalk lay end to end with two others.
There was light with her inside the figure, occasionally as bright as a desert sun but more often a dim hint like the moon through overcast. Now it was a faint blue glow coming from something spindly and inhuman. The creature's clawed arms gestured fiercely as it spoke to Rasile.
No sound crossed the figure. Sharina could see the wizard's face it was as calm as if she were ordering lunch.
The creature lifted its long jaws in what seemed to be a despairing shriek, threatening the sky with its claws; then it faded into darkness. Sharina expected another world, another denizen. Instead Rasile slumped.
Sharina jumped to the Corl's side, careful not to disturb the yarrow stalks. She'd acted without thinking; she might've been jumping into a realm in which only a wizard could survive—
But nobody was safe unless the Last were defeated, and Rasile had a better chance of accomplishing that than Waldron and the whole royal army did. Besides, Sharina wasn't one to worry about her own safety when a friend was at risk. By now the Corl wizard'd become if not exactly a friend, then at least a trusted confidante.
"Their own strength works for me," Rasile murmured. She hunched with her eyes were closed. If Sharina hadn't caught her, she'd probably have lain scrunched together on all fours on the ground. "I could never have accomplished that if the Last hadn't concentrated so much power in this place."
"Are you all right, Rasile?" Sharina said. The Corl's body felt hot and her heart was beating quickly, but Sharina reminded herself that the wizard wasn't human. This might be normal for the catmen.
"I'm tired, princess," Rasile said. She didn't open her eyes, but her voice sounded stronger. "I think even your friend Tenoctris would be tired after that. But I have an answer."
The old Corl straightened. Sharina stepped away as she'd have done if she'd been supporting Tenoctris following wizardry. The initial shock to the system seemed to pass more quickly than would that of comparable physical effort, though sometimes Sharina got the impression that spells left mental scars that never healed.
Rasile took Sharina's hands in her own and examined them closely. The Corl's fingers were short and the palms narrower but longer than a human's.
"Can you swim, princess?" she said. "Yes, I see that you can."
Her eyes met Sharina's. They were both smiling.
"Yes," said Sharina. "I swim very well."
"The Last enter this region through the pool in the center of their citadel," Rasile said, her voice getting a saw-toothed edge to it. "At the bottom of that pool is the First Stone. It is the focus which draws them to this place rather than to another. You must fetch the First Stone up from the pool and bring it to me."
Rasile laughed. "It is well that you do swim, princess," she said. "Who else could we trust to do this thing without flinching? Your warriors are very brave, no doubt, but they—"
She moved her index finger through the air as though tracing letters. Azure wizardlight trailed away from the stubby claw, each spark taking the flickering form of an armored soldier.
"—wouldn't have stomach for what's necessary, would they? To deal with the Great Wisdom?"
"Cashel would," said Sharina. She tried to keep emotion out of her voice, for fear of learning what emotion she might show if she didn't. "He's not afraid of wizardry. But he's not here; and anyway, he can't swim."
She cleared her throat. "How will I get to the pool, Rasile?" she said. "There's only the two entrances and they're both guarded."
"You'll have to be invisible," the Corl said. "And that means—"
A catapult fired. The heavy stone smashed into ricocheting fragments almost as soon as the levers crashed against their stops. One and maybe several of the Last were surely dead, but an endless number of the creatures remained. Like water dripping against a cliff face, they'd eventually wear away the royal army.
"—that you will be blind. Therefore—"
"Blind?" said Sharina. She felt cold and nauseous, as though she'd been punched in the pit of the stomach. "I don't understand!"
"If you cannot be seen," Rasile said, "then you can't see. You will use my eyes."
She stretched. The old wizard seemed to have become more limber as a result of the exercise she'd gotten during the march.
"If you say so," Sharina muttered, looking out at the night again. The thought of being blind still chilled her. "Ah . . . . When will we do this?"
Rasile repeated her throaty laugh. "Not until the morning, princess," she said. "I must sleep and replenish my strength. And even then, I will be able to accomplish the spell only because of what the Last have created, this strong pillar that I will climb."
Sharina nodded. "I'll get to sleep also, then," she said.
And in her mind, she whispered, Oh, Cashel. Please come back tonight.
But she knew in her heart that she would sleep alone.
* * *
The tar lake was a jumble of blocks broken upward as monsters crawled out of it, and the air was thick with the stench of bitumen. Garric would've felt queasy if he hadn't been so angry at being carried like a baby through the chaos. He'd managed to twist in Kore's arm so that he was at least facing forward, but he couldn't pretend he was in control of what was happening to him.
The snarls of beasts rising from the lake were as loud as the howl of a winter storm. Torches were alight on the spit of hard ground ahead, twitching in agitation. No doubt Lord Holm's retainers were shouting, but mere human racket couldn't b
e heard in this cacophony.
A hairy elephant stood facing them at the end of the causeway. It was much larger than the others Garric'd glimpsed in this place, easily twelve feet high to the top of its humped shoulders. It curled its trunk between its great tusks and lowered its head to meet the oncoming ogre. To either side of the monster the surface glistened with pools of liquid tar; there was no way around.
"Drop me!" Garric shouted.
He'd made the demand repeatedly during Kore's run for the shore, but now the ogre had no choice. She skidded to a sparkling halt and decanted Garric to the ground, surprisingly gentle despite the necessary haste.
Shin was skipping down the causeway ahead of them. He turned a double somersault in the air, landed on his hooves, and sprang skyward like a stone flung from a trebuchet.
The elephant's trunk uncoiled to swat him—but too late. The aegipan landed on the beast's bulging forehead, then backflipped to its shoulders. He grinned at Garric and Kore as he pointed toward the asphalt.
Blue sparks shot from Shin's index fingers. Where each struck the tar, the surface bubbled. Saber-toothed cats hunched upward from both pools. The elephant started backward, swinging its head to one side and then the other.
The cats sprang simultaneously, gripping the elephant's shaggy withers with their claws as their long fangs slashed into its neck. Laughing, Shin sprang free.
The elephant screamed and stepped to its left, twisting as it tried to gore the cat on that side. Prey and hunters splashed into the gleaming asphalt with a burp; a wave surged onto the causeway. Garric jumped over the clinging blackness, reaching the gravel shore before Kore could gather him in her arms again.
"This way, champion!" Shin called. The aegipan's tiny horns shone like sun-struck diamonds. "To the boat!"
"What have you done, damn you?" cried Leel. Holm's henchman stood with an asphalt torch raised high in his left hand and his sword bare in his right. "Have you raised demons?"
Shin pointed. A shaggy creature the size of an ox shambled past Garric and swiped Leel out of the way with a forepaw. Its claws were black and longer than a man's fingers, but it wasn't a bear as Garric first thought: the beast's narrow face and long tongue were those of a leaf-eating sloth.
"This way!"
Garric followed the bounding aegipan. A wolf with massive jaws loped toward them. Garric struck with Carus' reflexive skill, feeling the keen edge bite through bones as heavy as a lion's. The wolf sprang into the air, landed on its feet again, and stumbled into the darkness with its head hanging between its forelegs. Is eyes had glazed.
They'd reached the southern edge of the gravel spit. The air smelled of salt instead of asphalt, and the moon picked out touches of foam on the slow surf.
A barge with a rounded bow and stern was tied up on the end of a timber jetty. Shin darted up the planks well ahead of Garric and the ogre. He hopped to the vessel's railing and perched like a rooster on a fence, calling out in an amazingly loud voice. Garric didn't recognize the language.
Lord Holm and a guard carrying a long-hafted axe reached the jetty. Holm snapped an order. The heavyset guard raised his weapon. Kore grabbed him by the back of the neck and snapped the body outward like a housewife killing a chicken for dinner.
Lord Holm squawked and turned with his thin-bladed sword. The ogre smashed the dead man into him. Holm and the guard fell into the water and sank. Neither came up again.
Shin continued to call from the railing. Garric jumped onto the barge. It rode high; the open hold was empty. There were four sweeps on either side, swung inboard while the vessel was at dock. The looms were long enough to be worked by two or three oarsmen apiece, standing on the port and starboard catwalks.
Kore stood at the end of the jetty, facing the shore. She leaned forward and spread her arms with the claws extended. From the front she'd be terrifying.
People ran toward the barge. The ogre gave a hacking roar, bringing the oncoming mob to a halt.
Garric was trying to get one of the sweeps loose. They'd been lashed to the railing with willow splits and he couldn't figure out the knot in the darkness. He heard children crying.
"Kore!" he shouted. "Let'em pass!"
"Yes, let them come aboard, Mistress Kore!" Shin said. "They're our crew!"
"Faugh!" Kore said in a thunderous murmur. "I'd rather share with a flock of chickens . . . and they'd be better eating than these swarthy runts, too."
Despite the ogre's complaints, she stepped backward into the barge without looking. Garric'd realized as Kore carried him down the causeway that her balance was as good as Shin's. He'd always thought of himself as well-coordinated, but he was a toddler compared to his present companions.
The crowd piled aboard the barge. All of them were laborers who'd been working in Lord Holm's orchards. The aegipan harangued them in their own language. The males untied the sweeps with none of the trouble that Garric'd had, while the women settled in the hold. Those with infants clutched them to their breasts.
A pair of long-horned bison lumbered down the beach, kicking gravel. One lifted its head and bellowed like the wind blowing through a hollow log. No more refugees came toward the jetty, and the only torches Garric could see were blobs of tar lying motionless on the ground.
There'd been hundreds of laborers in the camp; fewer than fifty had managed to board the vessel. Perhaps others had escaped to east or west along the strand. Regardless, there was nothing more Garric could do about the situation.
The barge's ragged bow rope was looped around a bollard at the end of the jetty. Garric tried to twitch it clear. When that failed the second time, he cut it with the sword as easily as he'd split the wolf's spine as he ran.
"Push off!" he said. Shin called something, perhaps relaying the order in the laborers' language. At any rate, those at the landward sweeps shoved them against the jetty. It probably wasn't proper procedure—one of the blades split—but the vessel wallowed out from the shore.
A guard ran toward the jetty. He carried a bow and looked back over his shoulder in terror.
"Come back!" he shouted to Garric. "Come back and take me!"
The barge was a dozen feet from the jetty and the oarsmen were beginning to swing the bow seaward. "Swim to us!" Garric called. "We'll pick you up, but you've got to swim out to us!"
"May the Sister suck your marrow!" the man shrieked. Perhaps he couldn't swim. He nocked an arrow and began to draw his bow.
"Get down!" Garric warned.
The barge rocked as Kore sprang from the railing, smashing the archer to the gravel. Grasping him by the neck and one thigh, she bit into his lower chest. Blood sprayed.
A pair of wolves loped toward her, then paused as they judged her size. The ogre's arms flexed and tore the corpse apart. Laughing, she threw half the body to each wolf.
"Shin, hold the rowers!" Garric said. "We have to wait for—"
Kore loped down the strand on all fours, licking her bloody lips. After the third long stride, she turned seaward.
"Kore, you can't jump this far!" Garric shouted. "Swim—"
The ogre leaped with the momentum she'd gathered. She caught the stern. Though her grip splintered a section of railing, she held and swung herself into the hold. The refugees sheltering there surged toward the bow, silent except for the whimpering of some of the children.
"Swim indeed!" Kore said. "I could've waded, noble master; the water isn't deep here. But why should I get wet?"
The ogre's tongue snaked out to get the last of the blood that splashed her long face. And as the barge glided southward across the sound, the laborers at the sweeps began to chant a cheerful cadence.
* * *
The hair on the back of Cashel's neck rose. Tenoctris held the sword they'd taken from the Last. She pointed it toward a wooden burial marker and called, "Rathra—"
She lifted and dipped the blade, marking a segment of an arc. She hadn't bothered to draw anything on the ground before she started chanting.
"—rath
ax!"
Wizardlight flared, as rich and saturated as a sheet of red glass. It hung in the air between the two points, shimmering and distorting the nighted slope beyond.
"Bainchooch, damne, bureth!" Tenoctris said. She slashed the sword down at each word, throwing another panel of wizardlight into the sky.
As Tenoctris sang the incantation, she turned. Cashel stepped sideways to keep his back always to hers. He held his quarterstaff before him, gripping it a trifle more firmly than he'd have done if he'd been happier about what the wizard was doing.
"Astraleos chreleos!"
They stood on a hillside where short lengths of cane sprouted like a stunted grove. Originally a split in the top of each marker had held a slip of paper with the name of the person whose ashes were buried beneath it, but storms quickly shredded and dispersed those diplomas. The canes could last for years, but when they finally rotted away there'd be a new burial on top of the cremated bones of the earlier ones.
