Terisa hardly heard the King’s daughter. She was thinking, Choose your risks more carefully. And she was thinking, We’re useless where we are. Geraden had the strongest feeling—
Unfortunately, no flash of inspiration came to her.
The sky began to grow pale. Laboring urgently, Master Barsonage and his companions translated unnecessary food and bedding and encumbrances back to Orison. Scouts were sent to watch the foot of the valley. Shifting through the gloom, the army moved into its battle formation: wedge-shaped, like the valley, but reversed, so that an attack from the foot of the valley would meet the point of the wedge and split, be forced against the walls itself; a wedge with mounted troops at the edges for mobility and a core of foot soldiers for strength.
When the sky grew pale enough to cast the valley rim into stark relief, everyone saw that during the night siege engines had been pulled into place.
Catapults: black against the pearl heavens: six, seven – no, nine of them around the valley, ready to pitch rocks or boulders onto the heads of Mordant’s defenders.
Terisa groaned uselessly.
A murmur rose from the army. At first, she thought it was a reaction to the catapults. But then she saw King Joyse striding toward her from among the troops, holding his standard high in his fists. On the hillside leading up to the Tor’s tent, he fixed his plain purple pennon, drove the butt of the standard into the snow and the ground.
The flag rose and fluttered there as if he had brought it straight from the Masters’ augury.
‘Here we stand.’
Terisa had the impression that King Joyse wasn’t shouting. Yet his voice carried as if it could reach every corner of the valley.
‘Let them come against us if they dare.’
No one cheered. No one got the chance.
Without warning, the beat of a wardrum throbbed in the air. The sound came from far away, down below the foot of the valley; yet like the King’s voice it carried, a flat, fatal pulse so visceral that Terisa seemed to hear it with her throat and chest rather than her ears.
And from below the foot of the valley the darkness gathered into motion.
FORTY-EIGHT
THE CONGERY AT WORK
The beat of the drums didn’t waver. It continued to labor up the valley like the march of doom.
During the night, the sky had blown clear. Now as the sun rose, the heavens modulated from pearl to an ineffable purple-blue, transforming to vastness the mere scrap of King Joyse’s pennon. Although the valley remained in a clenched gloom, enshadowed by its walls, the effect of clear daylight around the ramparts was to make the catapults look smaller, less imposing. According to the sun, those siege engines were only sticks of wood lashed together, as capable as toys of throwing a few rocks at irregular intervals. And the snow gave the ramparts themselves an aspect of enchantment and play.
Terisa didn’t believe it. King Joyse’s men were vulnerable to toys which threw rocks.
King Joyse obviously didn’t believe it, either. After he had set his standard and cast his defiance, he called together Castellan Norge, his captains, and Prince Kragen, as well as all the Masters who weren’t already deployed. Terisa, Geraden, and the lady Elega joined him in time to hear him say, ‘We are readier to meet the High King than he thinks – thanks to the forces of the Alend Monarch, and to the dedication of the Congery. Nevertheless he has sprung his trap well. We must find a reply to those catapults. Men who must dodge danger from the sky will not fight well on the ground.’
‘The best thing,’ Norge observed, ‘would be to circle around behind them. But we can’t do that. I’m willing to wager Festten has the defile sealed.’
‘Find out,’ commanded the King.
With a nod, Castellan Norge sent one of his captains to lead a scouting party.
‘Do you have any ideas, my lord Prince?’ King Joyse asked.
Prince Kragen squinted up at the walls. Slowly, he said, ‘There are regions of Alend – especially among the Lieges – where the villagers cannot get to market without scaling cliffs as bad as these. I have men who are good with ropes and rock.’
‘My lord Prince,’ one of the captains objected, ‘Cadwal isn’t going to leave those catapults unprotected. Anybody who climbs those walls is going to be defenseless on the way up – and outnumbered at the top.’
‘We must make the attempt in any case,’ King Joyse pronounced. He wasn’t looking at Prince Kragen or the captains. He was looking at the gathered Masters. ‘Any harm we can do to those catapults will be worth the cost.’
Several of the Masters shuffled their feet. Some of them studied the ground. In their robes and chasubles, they seemed decidedly unadventure-some. Without the mediator to lead – or goad – them, they had the air of men who would have preferred to be at home doing research.
After a moment, however, Master Vixix cleared his throat. ‘My lord King.’ He rubbed a nervous hand through his thatch of hair. ‘I have a small glass I shaped as an Apt. It shows little more than a puddle of dank water. But when I translated a bit of that water – purely as an experiment – it ate a hole in my worktable.
‘I carry it to defend myself.’
King Joyse nodded sharply. ‘Very good, Master Vixix. Can you climb?’ The Master shrugged, showing as much discomfort as his bland features allowed. ‘I fear not, my lord King.’
‘He can be carried,’ said Prince Kragen.
Vixix faltered for a moment. Then he took a deep breath. After all, he was old enough to remember Joyse’s years of glory.
‘I will do whatever I can, my lord King.’
‘Very good,’ King Joyse repeated, and turned his attention to the other Masters.
Eventually, three more Imagers admitted that they carried personal mirrors which might be useful against a catapult – or a catapult’s defenders. With Master Vixix, they were hustled away by one of Prince Kragen’s captains.
Geraden met Terisa’s gaze and shrugged ruefully.
Elega studied the lower end of the valley as if she expected some kind of alteration to take place when the sun rose high enough, changing the churned and clotted snow until it became a setting for wonders.
The mass of the Cadwal army below the valley was plainly visible now: sunlight blocked from the valley itself caught the standards and armor of High King Festten’s forces and made them shine. Twenty thousand men? Terisa wondered. They looked like more than that – more than enough to crush King Joyse’s mere twelve thousand. Of course, the High King had had plenty of time to bring up reinforcements during the siege of Orison—
When were the catapults going to start?
Was she going to spend the entire battle trying to run away from falling rocks?
Abruptly, the wardrums ceased.
The absence of the beat snatched at everyone’s attention.
After the silence came the hoarse, bleating call of a sackbut.
A rider left the massed front of the Cadwal army. His armor burned with sunlight as if he were clad in gold.
At the end of his spear, he displayed a flag of truce.
‘An emissary,’ observed King Joyse. ‘The High King wants to speak to us. He means to offer us an opportunity to surrender.’
Growling through his moustache, Prince Kragen asked, ‘Why does he bother?’
‘He hopes to see some evidence that we are frightened.’
‘Will you meet him?’
‘We will, my lord Prince,’ the King said; his tone didn’t encourage discussion. ‘It may surprise you to hear this, but in all my years of warfare and contest, I have never had a chance to laugh in High King Festten’s face.’
Elega’s eyes shone at her father as if she were delighted.
The Cadwal emissary was stopped and held at Mordant’s front line, and a horseman brought to the King the message that High King Festten did indeed wish to speak to him and Prince Kragen. In reply, Joyse sent back word that he and Kragen were willing to meet Festten midway between the two armies as soo
n as the High King wished.
Mounted on sturdy chargers which had been trained for combat, King Joyse and Prince Kragen rode down the valley, accompanied only by Castellan Norge. Before them stretched the Cadwal army, as unbreachable as a cliff. And above them on the ramparts, the catapults watched and waited, apparently oblivious to several hundred men with ropes and four Masters who were already attempting to scale the walls at a number of different points.
At the front of their army, the King and the Prince waited until they saw High King Festten emerge from his own forces.
‘Watch for treachery,’ Norge warned, stifling a yawn.
‘Treachery?’ King Joyse chuckled grimly. ‘The High King only betrays those he fears. At the moment, I feel quite certain he does not fear us. That is his weakness.’ At once, he amended, ‘One of his weaknesses.’
‘My lord King,’ Prince Kragen said like a salute, ‘I admire your confidence.’
King Joyse gave his ally a fierce grin. ‘You justify it, my lord Prince.’
When they saw the High King leave his guards behind, they rode out alone to meet him, crossing clean, white snow unmarked except by the emissary’s passage.
At the agreed spot – a long bowshot from both armies – the three men came together. No one offered to dismount; and High King Festten kept some distance between himself and his enemies, as if he expected them to do something desperate. The stamping of the horses raised gusts of dry snow around the riders.
He was a short man – too short, really, for all the power he wielded. He compensated for his shortness, however, by wearing a golden helmet topped with a long spike and an elaborate plume. Between the cheekplates of his helmet, his eyes were stark, as if he had outlined them with kohl to give them force. His beard as it curled against the gold breastplate of his armor was dark and lustrous, probably dyed; only the lines and wrinkles hidden under his whiskers betrayed that he was older than King Joyse – and dedicated to his pleasures.
Ignoring Prince Kragen, he said, ‘Well, Joyse,’ as if he and the King were intimately familiar, despite the fact that they had never met, ‘after years of success you have come to a sorry end.’
‘Do you think so?’ King Joyse smiled a smile which held no innocence at all. ‘I am rather pleased with myself. At last I have a chance to deal with all my enemies at once. It was only with the greatest reluctance that I allowed the Alend Contender to persuade me to offer you this one last chance for surrender.’
If this remark surprised Prince Kragen, he didn’t show it.
‘“Surrender”?’ spat the High King. Clearly, King Joyse had caught him off balance. ‘You wish me to surrender?’
King Joyse shrugged as if only his sense of humor kept him from losing interest in the conversation altogether. ‘Why not? You cannot win this war. The best you can hope for is the chance to save your life by throwing yourself on my mercy.
‘You may be unaware,’ he went on before High King Festten could sputter a retort, ‘that your Master Eremis has offered me an alliance against you – which I have accepted.’
‘That is a lie!’ the High King shouted, momentarily apoplectic. Quickly, however, he regained control of himself. In a colder voice, a tone unacquainted with pity, he said, ‘Master Eremis is mendacious, of course. But I have not trusted him blindly. Gart is with him. And he knows that I have commanded Gart to gut him at the slightest hint of treachery. Also he is aware that I no longer need him. I can crush you now’ – he knotted his fist in the air – ‘without Imagery.
‘You have no alliance with him. And the strength of Alend is as paltry as your own.
‘No, Joyse, it is you who must surrender. And you must surrender now, or the chance will be lost. You have thwarted me for years, denied me for decades. The rule which is my right you have cut apart and dissipated and limited. You have opposed my will, killed my strength – you have denied me Imagery. There is no day of my life which you have not made less. If you do not capitulate to me here, I will exterminate you and all you have ever loved as easily as I exterminate rats!’
At that, King Joyse looked over at Prince Kragen. Mock-seriously, he said, ‘Come, my lord Prince. This discussion is pointless. The High King insists on jesting with us. In all the world, no one has ever succeeded at exterminating rats.’
Casually, he turned his horse away.
His dark eyes gleaming, Prince Kragen did the same.
Together they rode back to their troops. The High King was left so furious that he seemed to froth at the mouth.
That was Joyse’s way of laughing in his face.
Behind them, the sackbut blared again – and again. With a palpable thud, the wardrums resumed their labor.
Around the valley rim, all the catapults began to cock their arms.
‘Now,’ said King Joyse to the Prince and Castellan Norge, ‘If Master Barsonage is ready, we are ready. I do not doubt that High King Festten and Master Eremis have a number of unpleasant surprises in store for us. For the present, however, we will stand or fall according to our success against those engines.’
Prince Kragen considered what could be seen of the men climbing the walls. Quite a few of them were out of sight, concealed among the complex rocks. That was a good sign: perhaps the men would also be hard to spot from above.
Grimly, the Prince reported, ‘Each catapult will be able to throw at least twice before it is threatened.’
King Joyse nodded. ‘Castellan, only the front lines are required for battle – say three thousand men. Unless Master Barsonage miscalculates. Instruct the rest of the men to watch the catapults and protect themselves as best they can.
‘Oh, and ready the physicians,’ he added before Norge could ride off. ‘Provide horses for litters. Tell them we will use Esmerel as our infirmary. It is unpleasant, but we have no other shelter to offer the injured.’
‘Yes, my lord King.’ Castellan Norge spurred away.
The King and Prince Kragen returned to the pennon, where Terisa, Geraden, and Elega waited, fretting.
The massed front of the Cadwal army was in motion, marching to the insistence of the wardrums.
As that army approached the foot of the valley, it took on its attacking formation: a core of horsemen like the shaft and point of an arrow; flanks of foot soldiers on both sides to provide the cutting edges of the arrowhead.
The pulse of the drums quickened slightly. The army increased its pace. All the catapults were cocked; now they took on their loads. Apparently, High King Festten wanted to time his charge so that it coincided with the first throw of the engines.
King Joyse remained on his mount to improve his view down the valley. From horseback, he looked tall and sure, capable of anything. ‘Sound my call,’ he said to his standard-bearer, who stood guard at the pennon.
Putting his trumpet to his lips, the standard-bearer raised a blast like a shout into the morning.
The sackbut bleated in response: three hoarse bursts.
With their spears set, the Cadwal horsemen kicked their chargers into a controlled canter, an attacking stride.
The King’s forces braced themselves to receive the assault. Castellan Norge had gone to join them, so that his orders wouldn’t need to be relayed down the length of the valley.
‘Now,’ King Joyse commented to no one in particular, ‘we shall see if Master Barsonage is as good as his word.’
Terisa’s chest hurt as if she were holding her breath. Involuntarily, she clasped Geraden’s hand, gripped it hard. He tried to murmur something reassuring, but she didn’t hear him; she was focused on the drums and the horses, the coming thunder of hooves.
Over the heads of Mordant’s defenders, she saw the Cadwal horse charge into the valley.
At that moment, all the catapults threw.
The brutal sound they made as their arms hit the stops caught at her, jerked her head up.
Boulders this time: nine of them, imponderably graceful as they arced against the sky’s blue; stones as big as ponies,
just to show what the engines could do.
A chaotic yell went up from the army – shouts of warning, cries of fear, urgent commands. Cadwal responded with a battle howl. The shock as the forces came together resounded from the walls, broke into bloodshed against the ramparts. Only the boulders seemed to make no sound as they hit the snow, scattering men in all directions, splashing white into the air – white streaked with red where the soldiers of Alend and the guards of Orison didn’t dodge well enough.
At once, the cocking of the catapults began again.
The King’s lines bent under the weight of the Cadwal charge. Men and horses recoiled, retreated, as if they could see Festten’s full strength coming at them and knew they had no hope. Spears thrust forward and either hit or failed. Swords flailed against each other, against shields, against armor; a metal clamor among the cries and whinnies of the beasts. Mounts reared, blundered, trampled. Bodies were buried in the snow, marking their own graves with their blood. The Cadwal battle howl took on a note of triumph.
Then the Congery struck.
Hiding themselves as well as they could in the jumbled rocks at the ends of the valley walls, the Masters had set two tall mirrors facing each other – exactly facing each other across the foot of the valley. The positioning of the mirrors to face each other exactly was a problem with which the Congery had wrestled for days; but it had been resolved by the simple – if imprecise – expedient of memorizing the Images as they appeared from every side, so that the mirrors could be held at angles which complemented each other. Their alignment across the intervening ground was more easily achieved: from their hiding places, under cover of darkness, the Masters had used lamps to orient themselves.
As the horsemen of Cadwal broke into the valley, they passed between two mirrors which showed the same Image – but the same Image seen from opposite sides, and from positions nearly a hundred yards apart.