“Why would she be so determined to hold the Raftery?”
Tracka shrugged.
“The same reason the Mindak wanted it?”
“His Lordship didn’t confide in me.”
Gathrid leaned toward the general, whispered, “I think we’ll become allies again. I’ll join your next assault. Will you go afterward, win or lose?”
Tracka did his peering. He had flat, narrow eyes. He was intimidating. Gathrid wondered if there were something wrong with his eyesight. “If your effort satisfies me.”
Gathrid returned to Bleibel, who immediately protested the arrangement. Gathrid ordered him to clear the streets for the Brigade’s evacuation. “We won’t spill any more blood if we don’t have to, Colonel. While you’re at it, assemble some boats in case they have to go off that way.”
“Sir.... “
“I’ll get them off the hill,” Gathrid promised. “But without us paying for it in blood.” He allowed his hand to drift suggestively near Daubendiek.
Bleibel accepted the orders.
Gathrid returned to Tracka. “How soon can we begin? Some of my officers have a taste for blood. I’ve put them to work. I’d like to finish before they get back.”
Tracka smiled. “I’ll start it now. You’ll have Toal to face in a minute.”
Gathrid glanced at Rogala. The dwarf had fallen into one of his dark, brooding moods. He could not stop thinking about Ahlert having called out to Aarant. The possibility that Gathrid had shared his predecessor’s soul had shaken him deeply.
Tracka did not exaggerate his timetable. By the time Gathrid had climbed to the Winged Victories four Toal were leading a counterattack. Small witcheries had set the slopes of Galen aglow. Another two Toal had taken station halfway up the Hundred Steps. No Ventimiglian would battle past them.
“You’ll have to guard me for a while after I make each kill,” Gathrid told Tracka. “I’ll be making real kills, not just separating them from the flesh. I have to leave my body to manage it.”
The Thaumaturge-General nodded.
The first two Toal were easy. They were not expecting the fate he brought them. The next two fought more desperately, with more cunning. They consumed more of his strength. They were vicious. They did not mind having their bodies killed, but wanted no part of being done for themselves.
Six more, Gathrid thought when he finished the fourth. His knees were wobbly. He leaned against the plinth of a Victory. That last one had been tough. He glanced round. The Brothers were losing ground fast now that they had no Toal to give them backbone.
He pushed off the column, allowed Daubendiek free rein amongst the Raftery’s mortal defenders. He and the Sword devoured their energies. That no longer seemed such a wicked thing to do.
Reds and Mulenex street bullies, the defenders began scurrying amongst the Victories and Pillars in vain flight. A mob surged up the Hundred Steps, only to be turned back by unsympathetic Toal. Daubendiek feasted till they scattered.
Gathrid went for the Toal. The first was almost too easy.
The second proved to be a master bladesman. He was a genius both at surviving and delaying.
Gathrid began to wonder why the thing insisted on holding its ground. It had no long-term hope.
He saw why soon enough.
On the narrow veranda surrounding the Raftery the remaining Toal were assembling ballistae and training them down the Hundred Steps. One salvo would end the threat of the Swordbearer. He might deflect a shaft or two, but not an entire flight.
He retreated a dozen steps, sheathed his weapons, vaulted from the Steps to the steep, rocky slope of Galen. He felt neither trepidation nor lack of self-confidence as he scrambled across and up the hillside. The knowledge and skills of mountaineers came to his mind and muscles freely. He reached the veranda before the Toal could realign their weapons.
He had, he thought, achieved his potential as Swordbearer. This was the state to which every would-be possessor of the blade aspired.
Two more Toal perished before his ferocity.
He staggered to a wall. The last had taken him to his limit. His heart was determined and his will demanding, but his flesh could be pushed no farther.
And three Toal remained. One held the Steps. One blocked the Raftery door. The third was among the ballistae, the strings of which Gathrid had slashed. It was closing in on him, sensing his weakness. Its sword swayed like a cobra about to strike.
Tracka engaged the Toal on the Steps. He used a blade plundered from one of the thing’s comrades. Rogala scampered back and forth behind the general, looking for a chance to plant his knife. Down among the Pillars and Victories Ventimiglian artillerymen were setting up engines with which to support the assault. The last defenders there had surrendered.
Gathrid knew the artillery would not save him. It could not be brought to bear in time.
He tottered away from the Toal, scattering mortals, slaying several. Each gave him a bit more strength.
He stalked them in moments when he was not beating back some thrust by the Toal.
His bad leg began to bother him. His conscience called him vampire.
He went on, ignoring that pitiful little voice. They were just cattle. He would use or slay them as he saw fit....
With the fulfillment of the Swordbearer’s potential came Nieroda-thinking, Suchara-Chuchain-Bachesta-Ulalia thinking. He did not realize he was becoming more and more like the things he hated.
It was ever thus. The more mighty, evil and implacable the foe, the more like him one had to become to overturn him. Then, lo! There was a new power risen, scarcely distinguishable from that which had fallen.
So it went. The Lords of Darkness are crafty.
There were not enough Reds to give Gathrid the strength he needed to face several Toal. And the Toal guarding the Raftery entrance was spiriting the few available inside.
Gathrid glanced down the Steps. Tracka continued his duel. The Toal appeared on his way to victory. The general did not possess the tireless energy of a Dead Captain.
He caught Rogala’s attention, beckoned him.
Now, he thought, we’ll find out where Suchara stands.
She was not yet ready to write him off. But she was tempted. Nearly a minute passed before Rogala plunged off the stairs. He scrambled up the slopes like some hairy rock ape.
Gathrid’s antagonist pushed him hard, driving him to an edge of the veranda overhanging a precipice.
Rogala charged the Toal from behind. He hit as the Toal spun to face him.
Gathrid drove Daubendiek into the thing’s side.
This time he avoided meeting the Toal on the nether plane. Having driven it from flesh sufficed. He could regain strength for a killing match while the thing sought a new body.
He pushed through oily smoke to survey the course of the battle.
Heavy bloodshed had not been avoided.
Tracka was weakening. But now the ballistae below were ready. That would be the Brigade’s final victory.
A human wave had hit Ventimiglian positions along the line where rubble met housing the besiegers had not razed. Nieroda had ordered Bleibel back from the waterfront.
Gathrid turned to the Toal blocking the doorway.
There would be no passing the creature. It stood deep inside an entranceway too narrow for effective swordplay. It had discarded its own blade in favor of a fire-headed lance.
“Keep it busy,” Rogala growled. “I’ll fix it.”
A roar drew Gathrid to the head of the Steps. Halfway down them smoke boiled up from a corpse porcupined with ballistae shafts. The Ventimiglians had disposed of Tracka’s Toal.
The Thaumaturge-General staggered onto the veranda, looked at the doorway. “So close. So damned close.”
The remnants of his Brigade were being battered by a mob. Gathrid supposed Nieroda had begun assembling them even before his departure from the Maurath.
She always seemed aware of his movements.
Rogala barely had time to complete hi
s task, securing the Staff of Chuchain from Gathrid’s horse as Bleibel’s first armed breaker arrived. He had wasted time rescuing his boxed intimate, Gacioch. He barely outhustled the surge, which washed against the Pillars before receding. To Gathrid’s eye it looked like every adult male in Sartain had come to relieve the Raftery.
The dwarf collapsed on his behind, gasping, after galloping up to the veranda. Attempts at speech gurgled through his foam-flecked lips. Retreating Ventimiglians cursed him as they tripped over him. Weakly, he offered Tracka the Staff. He communicated his idea by gesture.
Tracka caught on. He barked orders. Soldiers dragged a ballista around. They restrung and cocked it. Tracka tumbled the Staff into its trough. “Move!” the general growled at Gathrid.
The Toal saw what was coming, but had its orders. It could do nothing but try to turn the Staff with its lance.
It failed.
The Staff lightninged into its chest, smashing armor and bone. The Toal hurtled backward, clacking as it tumbled into the deeps of the council chamber. A wail of dismay rose inside the Raftery.
Gathrid whipped inside.
Down on the main floor the Toal thrashed like a cat with a broken back. The Brothers were fighting one another to get through exits to lower levels.
“Inside! Inside!” Tracka growled. A stream of Ventimiglians poured in. Bleibel had reached the Steps. The once strongest and proudest of Ventimiglian brigades had been reduced to a handful over two hundred men. More were fighting below, but they were doomed.
“Clear them out!” Tracka ordered, indicating the Brothers. His troops went after them. They were too panicky to use their sorcerous skills. Tracka told Gathrid, “Hell of a mess, isn’t it? Now they get a shot at kicking the door in.”
“Uhm.” Gathrid stepped back outside.
Rogala, with Gacioch hooting him on, was tottering toward the doorway. Bleibel’s face appeared over the marble horizon of the veranda. Combat clamor continued among the Pillars and Victories.
The lower slopes of Galen were carpeted with citizen corpses. The mounds of dead were only lightly freckled with bodies in Brigade uniform. Sartain would have much to mourn.
“You lied to me!” Bleibel panted.
“When? I didn’t say I’d save the Raftery. I told you I’d get the Brigade to leave without fighting the Guards. But you wouldn’t let me.”
“Why did you do this?”
“Because Nevenka Nieroda is running this place.”
“The Emperor sent orders to seize you. You have to answer for treason and the murder of Count Cuneo.”
Gacioch guffawed. He made rude remarks concerning the intelligence of a prince who expected Daubendiek to swear fealty.
Gathrid smiled at the Colonel. “Did he tell you how you were going to arrest me?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“But, being as stubborn as everyone else, you’re determined to get yourself killed trying.”
“Who knows?”
“You’re too late to rescue the Raftery. Tracka is cleaning it out. Tell Elgar that.”
“I’m supposed to take Tracka in too. He’s Ahlert’s most likely successor. He’ll have to answer for Ventimiglia’s crimes.”
Toal-sword in hand, Tracka tried to push past Gathrid.
“Easy, General. Colonel, did your orders come from Elgar himself? In person?”
“His messengers brought them.”
“That’s not the same. Doesn’t tell me what I need to know. Tell you what. Give us fifteen minutes. Then we’ll come with you.”
Tracka protested.
Bleibel muttered, “I don’t know.... “
“It’s better than getting yourself killed, isn’t it? All I want is a chance to find out why someone is so desperate to keep us away from here.”
Bleibel surprised Gathrid. “It may mean my head. You’ve got fifteen minutes. No longer. I’ll do what I have to when they’re up.”
Thirteen of Gathrid’s minutes swifted past without result. He and Tracka swept through chamber after corpse-choked chamber on level after bloody level. There were a stunning number of rooms secreted beneath Galen. They contained nothing but the mundane. Tapping the walls turned up nothing but solid stone.
“I’m beginning to think you outguessed yourself,” Tracka growled. “Or were misled. That’s the woman’s style.”
“No. There’s something here. She doesn’t want it found. I’m positive.”
The lowest level was a small, dank chamber footing a long, jagged stair. “This’s got to be it,” Gathrid said. “It can’t just be a dead end. Look close.”
Had the entrance not been left open by Brothers fleeing Tracka’s soldiers, the downstairs itself might have gone undetected.
Tracka found the concealed doorway when he noted scrapes in the slime on the floor. Rogala then located a trigger mechanism hidden beneath a wrought bronze sconce.
“We’re cutting it fine,” Gathrid observed. “Just a minute left.”
“You won’t get back to Bleibel in time,” Rogala grumbled.
A great slab of a door stuttered open. Its rusty hinges howled like a chorus of singing dragons. Light exploded from the other side.
Gathrid flung Daubendiek ahead of him and charged.
The sole occupant of the chamber was Gerdes Mulenex. The fat Fray Magister lay on his back on a stone bench, breathing shallowly. His bloated face was pale and without character.
“Let me,” Rogala said, gesturing them back. He approached the fat man. After prodding Mulenex with a blunt finger, peeling back eyelids and smelling Mulenex’s breath, he announced, “A Toal. With the demon on vacation.”
“That explains a few things,” Gathrid said. “And I think I know where the demon is. Hold it!” Tracka was about to use his blade. The youth pushed it aside. “She’ll know what’s happened if you do. We can’t let her. Not yet.” Slowly, like a sleepwalker, he eased round Mulenex and stalked toward the source of the brilliant light.
“Theis, look at this.”
Rogala grunted. “No wonder Count Cuneo was pushing us about betraying Anderle.”
Gathrid probed the glow with his left hand. “He knew this was here.”
“Undoubtedly. Yes. No wonder.”
Gacioch had grown strangely silent. Till now he had been providing a barrage of unsolicited suggestions. Gathrid frowned. Gacioch silent was more an attention-grabber than Gacioch with his normal logorrhea.
“Misplaer would have known,” Gathrid reasoned. “And Eldracher, Elgar and Ahlert. This was why the Mindak wanted Sartain so bad. Mulenex probably didn’t know till the end.” The youth’s fingertips brushed what felt like solid, polished iron. “The Shield of Driebrant.”
He found the Shield’s handgrip and armstraps. Laying Daubendiek aside, he fixed the Shield on his left arm. The Sword protested. Gathrid said, “We’d better hurry if we want to get to Bleibel in time.”
Tracka nodded. The Thaumaturge-General’s face remained expressionless. It seemed nothing fazed the man.
“Theis, stay here. If Mulenex starts to come round, kill him. Give it half an hour. Then do it anyway.”
The dwarf protested, but found himself talking to the Swordbearer’s back. Gathrid last heard Gacioch trying to convince Rogala that this was the best strategy.
Bleibel met them in the council chamber, ten minutes past deadline. Tracka’s soldiers had managed to stall him without further bloodshed.
The Colonel stared for a long time. Finally, “You’ll come with me now?”
“Yes,” Gathrid said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Yes,” said Tracka, distracted. He was lost in the nuances of sorceries he might need to survive this day. Gathrid had shared his suspicions during their climb from the Shield Chamber.
“Your weapons, then.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Tracka’s hand went to his hilt. “I know only one way to give a weapon, Colonel.”
“We’re going with you,” Gathrid said. “But d
on’t expect us to put ourselves at your mercy. The grandest fool wouldn’t do that after all that’s happened.”
The right side of Bleibel’s face twitched. His sword hand strayed weaponward. He thought better of it, spun, stamped up the stairs. Gathrid followed. Tracka assembled his men, followed too. Near the door, at Gathrid’s gesture, he recovered the Staff of Chuchain.
Lines of ragged Guards Oldani formed to their flanks once they descended the Hundred Steps. Glancing back, Gathrid reflected that this tattered, limping parade was a microcosmic cross-section of the continent west of the Nirgenaus. It had been a bitter, demanding, devouring series of wars. A lot that was good had been destroyed.
To what purpose?
It was not finished yet. He might find an answer.
He hoped it would be acceptable, and feared that it would not be.
Chapter Eighteen
Imperial Palace
The palace was more impressive than the Raftery. Like the Queen City itself, it had grown with the centuries. Its vast maze rolled down Faron’s flanks like melted wax down the sides of a candle. In places it had begun insinuating fingers into the surrounding city.
The Raftery, externally, had remained little changed since the reign of the Immortal Twins. The Frays Magister, when unable to resist the desire to expand, had added new chambers underground. Not so the Emperors. They had insisted that their works be on public display. Many had built to overawe the memories of their predecessors.
Plain vanity was the raison d’être for most of the vast stonework crowning Faron. The palace had become a city within the Queen City.
Gathrid had no time to sightsee. He was busy learning the ways of the Shield. By concentrating he could compel it to remain quiescent. When not shining it looked like just another battered instrument of war.
The thing was as slippery as Daubendiek. He had to stay with it every second.
The route they followed was so jagged Gathrid stopped the guide they had collected at the palace gate. “Straight on from here, fellow. No more stalling. Unless you’d prefer the Kiss of Suchara to that of your wife.”
The man gulped. Internal conflict revealed itself in stance and expression. “Yes, Lord.” Two minutes later he opened a door on a vast hall with a floor of jade.