"Obey their every command." Women had been saved as well, the younger, prettier ones. No children, though. "You'll have wealth and power beyond your dreams, all the best of everything," Archas said. "But-"
He waggled the sword again. "-never dare disobey me!" The cities here on Charax had walls of brick instead of using stone over a rubble core like those of Telut. A furlong of wall-what was this city's name?
Archas wasn't sure he'd ever heard-still stood, including one square tower. The Worm, moved by some impulse of its own, bent suddenly in a hairpin and advanced on the remaining section. Its circular maw pulsed open and closed. The creature's body towered over the thirty-foot battlements. "Youcan send it away, can't you?" Tam asked uneasily.
"Archas! Are you listening to me?" "Of course I'm listening to you, Tam," Archas said with false good-humor. He bobbed the talisman in his left hand as if he were estimating its weight. "And of course I can send the Worm back. You've seen me do that a score of times already, haven't you?" It was easy to underestimate his one-armed deputy. Tam wasn't smart, exactly; nobody would say that. But he was perceptive in a way few smart people ever were. In the old days he'd twice noticed plots against Captain Archas-and had quashed them with strokes of his axe before anybody else knew what was going on. "I'm just giving a warning about what it means to try to fight us," Archas said. "It'll be easier yet if they open their gates when we arrive, the way places had started to do by the end on Telut." Tam sighed. "I suppose," he muttered. "I don't like it, though. I'm no saint, Archas, but…"
The last of the ramparts disappeared in a rumbling earthquake, partly crushed but also swallowed by the enormous mouth. Orange-red dust rose in a cloud that staggered forward like a line of cavalry advancing. It covered the foreparts of the creature that had worked the destruction, but hundreds of feet of gray horror continued to grind forward like an unending landslide. "Even if they surrender, it's all the same for most of them," Tam said. "You give the city to your, your thing. And all the ones who don't join us. Who we don't let join." "Well, what do you care?" Archas shouted. "What did cities ever do for you, Tam? Why, if we'd tried to get in here a year ago, they'd have arrested us at the gate and likely hung us just for what we looked like!" And he and his men sure wouldn't have attacked a place like this, whatever its name was. Archas had never had more than six ships under his command-three hundred men, maybe; certainly not more. They'd have had as much chance trying to gnaw through these walls-the walls that the Worm had just finished destroying-as they would assaulting them.
Archas looked at the army he'd assembled in his march north, straggling across the landscape. There were several thousand men, now.
Most were slaves and farm laborers who'd joined the band because the life was better than what they were used to. They weren't very different from the pirates he'd commanded before the Change. The men Archas had taken from captured or surrendered cities were generally soldiers who came with their weapons and knew how to use them. Despite how they feared the Worm they might've been dangerous to him if there'd been more of them, but he saw to it there weren't. The Army of the East had been attacked several times during its advance. Because it had proper scouts and flankers, only one of the ambushes had forced Archas to loose the Worm. He hadn't been sure the creature was going back to its own world that time. Hill tribesmen had attacked in a rocky gorge. They were after loot, not trying to halt the column, though by by luck they'd swept down on the carriage in which Archas rode in state. He'dhad to bring out the Worm to save himself, but there hadn't been much for it to destroy once it'd devoured the mountaineers' meager village. The Worm had taken his orders at last, but he hadn't been sure it would until the last moment. He'd allowed it to destroy the next city they reached, down to the last mouse and pebble. He hadn't given the populace even a chance to surrender. "I know, captain, I know," said Tam with a sigh. "I never thought I'd have all the wine and all the women I wanted, all the time. We've got it good, I know we have. Only…" He'd turned his eyes toward the women. There were more of them than the men by now and almost entirely captives from the cities. Not all whores, either: there were councillors' wives and priests' daughters. They'd volunteered after they learned the alternative, too, because Archas' men didn't need to bother with the unwilling. Except for the men who liked a struggle, of course. The Army of the East had no few of those, but they generally discarded the women after they'd used them, picking out fresh companions when the next city fell. "Look, Tam," Archas said. He was cajoling his deputy, but it was really his own heart that he was trying to convince. "They're lucky we're here, that's the truth. If they waited for the rats to spread this far, you know what'd happen.
They'dall be sacrificed, right? They'd ask us to capture them if they knew the truth." There was nothing left of the walled city but a pall of dust which continued to churn as the Worm writhed through it.
Archas held the talisman close. He'd use it shortly, but he needed to ready himself for what he knew would be a struggle. "Have another drink," he said to Tam, offering the wineskin he'd slung over his left shoulder. It was almost empty, but there were others. Tam tossed his helmet to the ground to free his hand. He took the skin and drank deeply. Gesturing toward the helmet with his toe, he said, "Wouldn't be much use against that thing, would it? And there's nothing else I'm worried about here." "You!" Archas shouted to a man standing nearby, staring transfixed at the Worm's continued progress. "Find some wine and bring it here. Now!" Tam hadn't needed to explain what "that thing" was. "I just keep thinking…," Tam said. He looked critically at the wineskin, then shook it; there was enough left to slosh. "Pretty soon the rats are going to swarm over the whole rest of the world, right? Everything's going to be Palomir, except us. What's going to happen then, captain?" "Don't worry about that, Tam," Archas said with a confidence he didn't feel. "As soon as we take Dariada, everything's going to change. Everything'll be all right as soon as we do that!" He touched his tongue with his lips. He was sure that things would change. But he wasn't sure that they'd be all right.
Chapter 9 Cashel looked at the stele's carvings again. Rasile, Liane, and the priest were doing that too. There must be half the city trying to watch Liane and the rest of them. If it hadn't been for the company of soldiers making a half-circle to give them space, Cashel would've been pushing the crowd back with his staff to keep it from trampling the two women. It seemed like the people here had heard stories about the thing that was eating its way north toward them.
Looking between him and Liane-Rasile was squatting on Cashel's other side-Amineus said, "That's the hero Gorand, your ladyship. He's shown strangling the Serpent, as we thought." He coughed in embarrassment.
"We, ah, thought," he continued in a lowered voice, "that the story was an allegory of a great military leader who defeated an attack of pirates from the Outer Sea. Because the sea encircles the Isles like a serpent swallowing its tail." Liane looked at the priest. "It appears that before the Change, Archas and his men were pirates on the Outer Sea," she said. "But no, I don't believe the image is a serpent. Or an allegory." "The face looks like the one in the tree," Cashel said. "I think." "How can you tell?" Amineus said. He wasn't trying to sneer, but he wasn't exactly trying not to either. "This is so small. And ancient." Cashel shrugged. He moved to the other side of the stele, stepping carefully around Liane. "Master Amineus?" he said as he stared at the sand-smoothed stone. Kneeling, he began grubbing in the dirt at its base with his knife. "Was this always here? This stele?"
"Well, there are no records about it being erected, I can tell you that," the priest said. "Though that doesn't prove it wasn't set up or moved here from somewhere else without anybody bothering to mention it. Or the records could've been lost, of course." "The reason I ask is…," Cashel said. Yes, it was there like he'd thought, a row of letters in the swirly Old Script and maybe another row beneath them.
"There's still some writing here where it got covered before the wind could smooth it away." "Let me see!" Liane said, squatting beside him.
"Ah-please, I mean. And ah-" "Ma'am, would you like my knife?" Cashel said politely, offering her the haft of the simple tool. A blacksmith had forged the iron blade and pinned wooden scales to it. It could do everything from carving at meals to picking stones out of ox hooves.
Or digging dirt away from the base of a stele. "No, Cashel," Liane said with a laugh. "I'd like you to finish clearing the inscription, as you were doing before I interrupted you. My pardon, please." "It's more my line of work," Cashel said mildly. He scraped the back of the blade through the gritty earth like a plow breaking unpromising soil.
He had to be careful not to snap the iron, because it might be hard to replace. City folks here didn't wear knives any more than they did in Valles or Erdin, and he didn't guess Liane and Rasile would want to traipse about the countryside looking for a smith with a sideline in knives. Liane rubbed the last of the dirt away with the hem of her cape. The letters were worn, especially on top. But not so they couldn't be read, apparently. "When the priests have carried out these rites," Liane said in a clear voice, her finger tracing the line to keep her place along the faint letters, "they may summon Lord Gorand from his rest. Lord Gorand will defend the people of Dariada from the Devouring Danger-I think that's what it is-as he defended them in the past." She rose to her feet and turned. "The rites would've been on the upper part of the stone," she said quietly to Rasile. "I think."
Rasile wagged her tongue in laughter. "Wait," she said. "And read when you see." The wizard settled herself arms-length from the stone and tossed the yarrow stalks onto the pavement. They fell-just fell as best Cashel could see-into a star with a hand plus two fingers of points. Rasile started to keen. Because Cashel had been around her, he knew the sounds were Coerli words of power instead of a bellyache. A column of wizardlight lifted slowly from the center of the star. It was as pure as the sun through a ruby. Folks watching from the other side of the guards shouted, some thrilled but the rest sounding scared. A soldier glanced back over his shoulder, saw the light and dropped his spear. He fell to his knees crying. The crowd wasn't pushing in the way it had been, though, so that didn't matter except probably to him. The rod of red light twisted over slowly like a pine tree in a high wind. When the tip of it touched the stele, it spread across the sand-scoured face the way water soaks into a cloth. Instead of coarse gray stone, the background was a pink shimmer on which burned letters as sharp and solid as if they'd been cut from carnelian. "If the Devouring Danger threatens again," Liane read, swinging into the business just like she'd been waiting for it, "the priests will speak the following words of power: "Abrio set alarpho…" Rasile yowled something that didn't have a syllable in common with what Liane had said. Cashel didn't think a human throat could even have made the sound. The cadence of the chant was the same, though. Liane read, "Alar alarioth…" She stood just as straight and calm as if she was talking to Sharina about how formal to dress for a meeting. As her words spilled out, Rasile sang them back in Corl fashion. The air was turning red like the surface of the stone. The crowd and soldiers had all run off by now. Some had opened their mouths open to scream, but Cashel hadn't heard anything over a sound like the wind rushing through a stand of hemlocks. Amineus was gone too; back into his office, Cashel supposed. If you hadn't seen it before, this sort of business was scary and no mistake. "Orthio!" said Liane and there were more Coerli screeches. It seemed to Cashel that Rasile was responding even before she heard Liane, though he hadn't any real way to tell. He couldn't understand the words either one of the women were using. The air glowed brighter than a ruby, as bright as pure flame. Cashel stood behind Rasile and Liane, his quarterstaff crossed before him. He wondered if he ought to turn to watch their backs, but this seemed the right choice just for now. A flash of intense light swept everything else away. Dry heat engulfed Cashel and his companions. *** Sharina could hear the click of tiny claws as Burne patrolled the mosaic floor. He was much more active at night, though he adapted to a human schedule as he had to. She smiled against the pillow. A year ago-a week ago!-she'd never have believed that she'd feel soothed by the sound of a rat walking around her bed… but she did. Still smiling, she slept; and as she slept, she dreamed.
"Come to me, princess," the voice called. She didn't see Black this time. Perhaps he was below her on the blue world rotating slowly. "You have nothing to fear. Lord Scorpion exalts you over all women: He has chosen you for His priestess." Land turned into view from the edge of the sphere, set off by a white border of surf. Sharina recognized the outline of the Isles against the Outer Sea: they'd been etched on the crystal floor of a room in the palace. Around the map cut by a great wizard of the Old Kingdom was written a legend added in the blocky New Script by a Duke of Ornifal before he seized the throne of the Isles: the navel of the cosmos. That had been a lie, of course. It was doubly a lie now that the Isles no longer existed as an archipelago but had rather become the periphery of a great continent. Valles was becoming a ghost town, sinking into a swamp because the River Beltis had drained into an Inner Sea which no longer existed. "Youwill submit, princess," Black said, cajoling her in a voice of thunder. "And even if you could resist, you would be mad to attempt it. From Lord Scorpion you will receive power and unexampled riches, but if the Gods of Palomir should take this world under Their suzerainty-" The new continent had rotated so that it was directly beneath Sharina's vantage point. For the first time since she'd begun to dream tonight, she realized that she had a body. Pandah swelled in her awareness; not the real Pandah of mud and wicker around a core of ancient palaces but Pandah as rebuilt in black granite to honor Lord Scorpion. "If the Gods of Palomir came to rule this world, princess," crooned Black as the great temple grew toward her, "then your best hope will be to be sacrificed quickly. Lord Scorpion alone can defend you against Palomir. You will have power second only to that of the God!" Black stood in the middle of the plaza, his arms spread to receive Sharina.
She rushed downward with no more control of her movement than water in a torrent has. The scorpion on Black's shoulder curved its barbed tail into the sky. Above, clouds swept together into a monster image of the God, as black and dense as the granite temple. Sharina fought, but there was no escape and- Black shouted and looked over his shoulder.
Sharina sat bolt upright in her bed; shards of the dream shimmered down the sides of her consciousness. Burne bounced back from the wall to the floor; he must've leaped while she was still asleep. His jaws clicked, scattering bits of chitin. "Go back to sleep, Sharina," he said. "No scorpion is going to reach you." "You can't do anything about my dreams," Sharina muttered, but she put her head down on the pillow anyway. To her surprise, she felt sleep returning as soon as she closed her eyes. She slept soundly until her maid Diora woke her at dawn. *** Ilna set the lantern on top of the box she'd just freed and backed slowly away. There might be a way out of the cave in the direction the hulking creature was coming from, but she didn't wasn't going to try going past the monster until all else had failed. There might be an exit on the other end too. That didn't seem likely, but Ilna wasn't in a mood to pass up even slim chances. She was reasonably confident that the pattern dangling from her right hand would hold the thing, whatever it was, butshe wouldn't be able to do anything else while she held it. Eventually she'd fall asleep, or faint, or the candle would burn out. She'd rush the creature with her little bone-cased kitchen knife rather than use her strength up in delaying what would shortly become inevitable. The creature walked on its hind legs, placing its feet with obvious deliberation. The rock shook beneath each step. She couldn't be sure how tall it was since the shadows might be exaggerating, but it was at least half again her own height and much, much broader. Ilna took the box with her because both Brincisa and Hutton had thought it was valuable. She took the lantern because without light the creature couldn't see her patterns, so they'd be useless. There was always the possibility that it was friendly. She figured that was less likely than her walking through a solid wall, but she was willing to be pleasantly surprised for a change. The creature suddenly lurched onto all fours, throwing its face into the lantern light. Its muzzle was as long as a baboon's; great tusks in the upper and lower jaws crossed one another. The deep-set eyes glittered a savage red. It snuffled Hutton's corpse, then lifted its head in a howl that made the cave shiver. Ilna's shoulders hit rock. There was no way out in this direction- And she no longer entertained the slightest hope that the creature was friendly.
It stepped forward like a beast, then rose onto its hind legs and shrieked in fury. Turning its head away, it clawed toward the lantern.
Its arm, covered with coarse reddish hair, was longer than that of a man of the same impossible height. It's afraid of the light. Ilna lifted the lantern to the height of her arm. The creature howled and staggered back. Filth matted its long hair, and its breath stank like a tanyard. Ilna waggled the lantern overhead, then regretted it: the candle guttered, dimming the light for a moment. Nothing in the cave would make a good blaze. The cloth was shot through with damp and mold; it would resist burning even if tossed on a fire, let alone be able to sustain one. The creature turned its shaggy back on her and hunched. It didn't have a tail. It lifted Hutton's corpse, then snarled over its shoulder as if afraid Ilna would try to take away the prize. She drew in deliberate breaths. The flame had steadied, for which she was thankful. The creature bent and bit off the face of the corpse. Thin bones crackled like a fire in dry bracken. It swallowed, then took a bite from the base of the neck. The ghoul's great jaws must be as strong as a sea wolf's; Hutton's collarbone snapped loudly as the fangs sheared it. Throwing the rest of the corpse over its shoulder, the creature returned to the darkness. It didn't look back at Ilna, but it paused before its shadow disappeared into the greater shadows. Lifting its head, it gave another shivering cry. Surely they must hear those bellows in Gaur? But perhaps the townsfolk were still under the weight of Brincisa's spell. Ilna set the lantern in a niche in the cave wall. The candle would burn out shortly. By what light remained, she examined the box. It was wooden, which meant she could break it open with the hilt of one of the daggers rusting on the cave floor. Even better, it was unlocked so she wouldn't have to. That pleased Ilna, because the craftsmanship of the box was good enough to impress her. She'd have regretted smashing the dovetailed joints and the panels fitted so that the grain was almost undistinguishable each from the next-though shewould have broken it if she'd had to, of course. She wondered if Cashel would be able to identify the wood.
Ilna slid the simple catch and lifted the lid, tilting the box toward the light so that she could see the interior. Packed in raw wool-which was so white that first glance made her think it was bleached-was a human head no bigger than her clenched fist. The lips were sewn shut with knots easily as complex as those which had bound the box to Hutton's chest. Ilna ran her fingers over the knots. They'd been tied by a different hand; a human hand, she suspected. Hutton's? She couldn't be sure because she hadn't seen his work, but she didn't think so. She smiled to remember the sound of the ghoul chewing Hutton's corpse. That was a proper end for people who kept the sort of friends he did. Ilna began to pick out the knots. She had no better reason than that it amused her to test herself, but that wasn't a bad reason. Very few things involving fibersdid test her. The head felt leathery; well, it was leather, she supposed. It was packed with something, but she didn't think it was bone. Had the skull been removed and the skin shrunken over an artificial core? Ilna removed the last knot and lifted the fiber to the waning lantern light. She couldn't tell what the material was; it had no feel at all. She couldn't remember ever having had that experience before. The miniature head moved. Ilna's first instinct was to leap up and fling the thing off her lap. Instead she held still. Worms-no, tinyhands wriggled from the severed neck. The skin there hadn't been tied, just folded and shrunken into a tight mass. The hands were on the ends of arms which jerked their way out by fits and starts; Ilna had the impression of somebody trying to find the neck and arm openings in a tunic that was too small. And itwas too small. The arms were miniatures also, but they were far too large to fit into the shrunken head. When the arms were free, Ilna saw that the shoulders had appeared also. What had been a head was now a bust. The arms pumped up and down. The hands squeezed into fists and opened, then reached back into the stump of the neck. After much struggling they tugged out the whole remainder of the legs and torso of a man. He was wizened and incredibly ugly, besides being no taller than Ilna's knee if they were both standing. The little man hopped off her lap and looked up at her.
"My name's Usun," he said. "Who are you?" The candle guttered out. For a few heartbeats the wick remained as a blue glow; then that too vanished. The darkness was complete. *** Even before a trumpeter signaled the squadron on watch to mount up, the commotion at the gate roused Garric from the table where he sat with Chancellor Royhas and Lord Hauk. He jumped to his feet, grabbing the sword belt hanging from the back of his chair. That was Carus' reflex, but it wasn't a bad one. Their meeting on prices and sources of draft animals took place under a marquee set up beside the headquarters tent at the intersection of the camp's two principal streets, surrounded at a respectful distance by aides. Garric would've had a view to the gate if it hadn't been for the clerks, secretaries, and runners now goggling either at the prince who'd risen or at the gate to see what was happening. "Duzi!" Garric shouted. "Willyou get out of the way so that I can see?" The flunkies who were staring at him looked stricken and mostly dodged to the side, though a pudgy youth from the Chancellery simply flattened on the ground as if Garric's glare were a ballista about to release. Those who were looking in the opposite direction didn't make the connection between their behavior and their prince's frustration until he shoved through them to get onto the street. Part of Garric winced at his impoliteness. On the other hand, the ghost in his mind was ready to move them out of the way with the flat of his sword and curses much more colorful than Garric using the name of a friendly shepherd god.
The royal army had built a rampart around its every marching camp since Garric-better, since Carus-began leading it. Fortifications took a great deal of work and meant shorter marching days besides, but Carus firmly believed that no campsite was safe until you'd made it safe. Garric had read enough history to accept the truth of that assumption. His ancestor's vivid memories reinforced his acceptance.
Waldron kept a cavalry squadron and an infantry regiment ready to move on five minutes' notice. That meant the horses were saddled though their cinches weren't tight, and the troops wore their body armor-though again they'd have to do up the straps and laces. At the trumpet, detachments stood to at the four gates. The whole camp was a clanging bustle as the rest of the army grabbed weapons and equipment in case the next signal was a general alarm. There were various ways Garric could respond to the signal, but there was only one way that wouldn't lead to the ghost of King Carus bellowing in fury inside his mind. He took off running for the gate a hundred double-paces away, buckling the twin tongues of his sword belt as he went. Six Blood Eagles ran in front of him, and Attaper at his side bellowed, "Gravis, horses at the gate for the platoon soonest! Move!" Garric arrived at the same moment as Lord Waldron, who'd been inspecting the horse lines when the summons came. He'd ridden, which wasn't surprising: he'd come from almost the far end of the camp. He was bareback and using a rope halter, though, which for a man in his sixties was an impressive demonstration. "Rats, milord!" shouted a trooper who'd just dismounted from his lathered gelding. He ignored Garric to speak to Waldron-like him, an Ornifal cavalryman. "Foraging parties, not an attack, but Lieutenant Monner thinks there's three hundred maybe. Five miles southeast. Monner's watching them, but he won't try to engage. Ah, unless you want him to?" "Why in the Sister's name did he send back a whole squad?" Waldron barked. "Are the rest of them here to hold your hand, Bresca?" "Milord?" the squad leader said. "The rats're scattered across the countryside from here to the Underworld. The l'tenant, he thought we might run into something on the way back and, you know, he wanted to make sure the message got through." Lieutenant Monner's subordinates assumed he'd be willing to fight several hundred rats with twenty or so cavalrymen… and he had foresight enough not to entrust a critical message to a single courier. Garric didn't need the grim-faced approval of King Carus to know that Lieutenant Monner should be commanding something more than a troop of horse. "Right!" said Waldron. Turning to Garric: "Your highness, I'll take the ready squadron, they're my old command, and the regiment of javelin men from Northern Cordin. You follow with five thousand infantry and all but one squadron of the horse as soon as they get organized, right?" The ready squadron was divided with a troop at the west, south and east gates; the north gate was guarded by cavalry from a Sandrakkan squadron. They could be pressed into immediate service if necessary.
Waldron had apparently decided it was, because they their blue and silver pennant was trotting down the cross-street to join the Ornifal red and gold. In Garric's mind, Carus was estimating how long it would be before the support element arrived. It'd be an hour before they marched. Besides, heavy infantry regiments wouldn't move as quickly as cavalry and skirmishers-Cordin shepherds turned soldier, carrying only light javelins and hatchets. "We'll both accompany the alerted troops," he said. He surveyed the cavalrymen walking their horses through the gate to form in the trampled ground just outside. Carus picked a rangy chestnut. "I'll take that horse," Garric said.
"Trooper, get your remount and follow." "Your highness!" said Waldron, looking up from the waxed tablet on which he was scribbling an order.
"I'm going, butI have a deputy." "And I don't, milord," Garric said,
"which is whyI'm going. I need to see the rats in action as soon as possible so that I know what we're dealing with." "Your highness, that's pointlessly dangerous!" Attaper said. "Nobody doubts your courage, nobody. Unless you distrust your officers to bring you an accurate information, you'll gain nothing from this." "I'm going, Attaper," Garric said, grasping the horn and crupper of the horse he'd appropriated. He mounted. By now he could probably have made a smooth business of it without his ancestor's reflexes. A squad of Blood Eagles rode up, each trooper holding the reins of two or more additional horses. Carus, watching through Garric's eyes, said,
"Attaper knew he couldn't argue you out of it, so he made sure he'd have a platoon ready to go too." After a moment he added with a mixture of amusement and regret, "I never had anybody who'd fight me as hard as Attaper does you, lad. I'd have taken their heads off if they tried. Which was all right as far as it went, but it meant people with good sense made sure to keep shy of me." A trooper had saddled Waldron's mount while he was scribbling out orders to his subordinates. Tossing the last tablet to a runner, the army commander swung into the saddle. Checking the four troops waiting in neat columns-and the skirmishers who weren't in the least neat but were certainly ready-Waldron snapped to his trumpeter, "Sound the advance!"
The trumpet call and the horns of the line troops-the Sandrakkan unit used a cow horn which sounded harsh and thin in comparison the brass instruments curling around the bodies of the Ornifal cornicenes-set the patrol into motion. Garric's borrowed horse stepped off even before he tapped its ribs with his right heel. "A trained soldier obeys commands in his sleep," Carus said. "Likewise a trooper's trained mount." He sounded wistful. Perhaps the ghost was remembering the time when he too needed sleep. Lord Waldron rode with the leading troop; so did the squad which had brought the alarm. It'd been remounted, and at least one of the replacement horses was clearly unhappy with his present rider. Garric smiled faintly. He was sorry for the trooper, but he was very glad that he hadn't borrowed a skittish mount himself. Prince Garric could've ordered somebody else to trade with him-but he wouldn't have. They trotted into woodland, a mixture of sweet gum and pine that must've sprung up from land that'd been clear within the past generation. The edge of the woods had been a mass of cedars sown too thickly to be of any size. The returning scouts had ridden the trees down as they approached the camp, providing easy entry for the Waldron's troop and the rest of the column. The forest proper was open enough that the cavalry had little difficulty beyond having to break ranks. The skirmishers hadn't seen any point in ranks to begin with. Here among the tree boles they were the equal of cavalry man for man, and the cheerful way they trotted among the troopers showed that they were well aware of the fact.
Waldron shouted something to a man riding with him, a member of the squad that'd brought the warning. That fellow reined back slightly so that the Blood Eagles just ahead of Garric overtook him. "Let him through, Attaper!" Garric shouted. "I want to learn about the terrain ahead!" The Blood Eagles parted, but Attaper himself dropped back with the line trooper. The man was Bresca, the squad leader who'd delivered the message. He leaned toward Garric as they rode along together and said, "It's the next valley and it's mostly cow pasture, sir. There's apple orchards on the north slopes, though, so they won't bloom till it's full spring and they can't catch frost. We'll come out through the apples. The l'tenant, he said he'd keep this side of the crest and not push unless, you know, he had to." There were challenges and less formal shouts from close ahead. The instinct of King Carus slapped Garric's hand to the hilt of his sword. He drew the long gray blade, either forged by wizardry or by a smith as skilled as Ilna was in her different craft. There didn't seem to be anything magical about the sword, but you couldn't dull its edge even by slashing rock. "That's the l'tenant, sir!" said Bresca. He hadn't learned that 'your highness' was the correct form of address when speaking to a prince.
It wasn't something that line soldiers often had to worry about, of course. "We're up with the rest of the troop!" "Hold up!" a cavalryman shouted. "Pass it back, hold up!" The call wobbled through the woods, each man turning in the saddle to send it on to those behind him.
"Waldron isn't using the horns because the rats are just over the hill," Carus noted with grim approval. "They'll have spotted the scout troop unless rats are stone blind, but horn calls will tell them to expect more company." He paused, then added, "I could've used more officers like Waldron." Garric joined Waldron and an officer he didn't think he'd met- "You have," snapped Carus. History claimed Carus had known the name of every man in his army. From what Garric had experienced in the years that his mind had been haunted by his ancient ancestor, history hadn't exaggerated very much. "Monner, of course." -along with the four troop leaders of the reaction force, and a grizzled fellow with a silk sash over his goat-wool tunic-the commander of the skirmishers. Though on foot and as old as Waldron, he'd kept up with the trotting horsemen. "Your highness," Waldron said with a bare nod to royal authority. "Monner's been keeping watch. The enemy's scattered through the valley, rounding up the livestock. The horse will charge the length of the valley in line so that the rats don't have a chance to form ranks, with Ainbor here's-" He gestured with his left hand to the skirmishers' commander. There was no love lost between cavalry and light infantry, but Waldron had always used the latter intelligently. "-men following to mop up those we don't kill in the first pass." The ghost in Garric's mind gave a curt nod of approval. "Carry on, milord," Garric said. He managed a smile to show that his approval was more than formal. The troop leaders trotted toward their guidons, snarling orders as they tried to align their men despite the broken forest. Waldron spoke quietly to the trumpeter; he nodded, holding his instrument ready. Garric's blood trembled with anticipation of the coming battle. He started to draw his long sword.
Attaper touched his elbow. "No, your highness," he said. "You're not wearing armor, and you'll seenothing beyond the point of your sword if you rush down into a melee. If you're an honorable man, you'll watch from the brow of the hill." "The bloody man's right!" snarled Carus.
"But by the Lady! if it was me-" Which fortunately it wasn't, as Carus knew as well as his descendent did. "Yes, of course, Attaper," Garric said mildly. "We'll find a suitable vantage point. Though I reserve the right to defend myself if the rats attack me." Attaper looked startled, then nodded agreement and removed his hand from Garric's arm. He wasn't a man who could laugh about his duties as a bodyguard.
The trumpeter sounded Advance, followed instantly by the horns of the cornicenes; they'd been waiting for the signal. The reinforced squadron, about a hundred and fifty troopers, trotted up the last of the rise and over it. "Not a man of them but thinks they could do the job themselves without any infantry," Carus said. "I'd think the same.
But speaking as a commander, I'm just as glad of those javelins. If the rats keep their heads and hamstring the horses… and who knows how good troops rats turn out to be?" You and I are going to know in a few minutes, thought Garric as he clucked his horse over the crest.
Which is why we're here. The trumpeter signaled Charge. Again, the horns echoed him-four deep, mellow calls and the blat on the cow horn.
The Ornifal cavalrymen had their long swords drawn; on the right of the line, the Sandrakkan troop couched short lances that were light enough to have thrown if they'd been facing a shield wall. The troopers started downhill, disarrayed at first by the apple trees but not slowed. The javelin men whooped and began loping along after them.
Garric and his guards trotted through the orchard. Beyond spread a broad valley several miles long, with a right dogleg extending it unguessibly farther. Instead of individual homesteads, there'd been a hamlet straggling along both banks of the stream in the middle. A neck-roped coffle of the human residents, fifty or sixty of them, was almost out of sight to the southeast. A score of ratmen guarded the prisoners. Hundreds more of the creatures were scattered by tens and handfuls throughout the valley, rounding up brindled cattle. The horn signals had drawn the narrow muzzles of all the ratmen toward the northwest slope down which the cavalry charged. Lord Waldron was in the center of the line; Ornifal's golden lion on a red field flapped above the standard bearer to his left. The rats were the size of short humans and wore bronze caps and breastplates. They stopped what they'd been doing and drew short swords, then began to trot forward to meet the attack. The nearest clot of ratmen was only two furlongs south of the apple trees through which the cavalry rode. They were directly in front of Lieutenant Monner's troop, but the Sandrakkan unit on the far right of the line was edging over to snatch the kill. Lord Waldron stood in his stirrups screaming abuse at the lancers, and King Carus' hot rage snatched the sword from Garric's scabbard before intellect could restrain him. Nobody seemed to notice. Garric grinned faintly.
Drawing your sword while you watched a battle swirl wasn't the sort of thing that aroused comment. Monner was on the right of his troop and slightly ahead of his men. He held his sword vertical, ready to slash down at the rats, but he was trusting his mount to find its own course as he bellowed at the lancers crowding him. The horse suddenly planted its feet in the cropped turf. Monner went over its head-nobodycould've kept his seat. The horse had stopped as abruptly as if it'd charged into a stone wall, then nearly somersaulted over its rider. Other mounts were going wild also, pitching and bucking. A pair of Sandrakkan geldings collided as they turned toward one another while both trying to flee back uphill; one had already thrown off its rider.
Chittering in delight, the rats-there were six or eight of them-rushed the sudden chaos. They ran on their hind legs, but the way they bent forward suggested they were about to drop onto all fours. Their swords were short, deep-bladed, and almost square-tipped. Several horsemen dismounted or regained their feet after being bucked off. They poised to meet the oncoming rats, but the rhythm of the battle had shifted to the beastmen. A mare reared, then pitched forward; her rider managed to land on his feet though momentum flopped him on his face an instant later. Freed of her burden, the mare charged into the ratmen, whinnying and kicking with all four hooves. A rat went down, its skull crushed, and another flew backward with a dent in the middle of its breastplate. The surviving rats slashed at her, one carving a line of blood all the way down the mare's ribs. The saddle rolled off her back when the cinch was cut. She squealed and twisted back to clamp the rat's muzzle with square, strong teeth. With jerk of her head, she sent the rat flying. Its limbs twitched spastically, and its head lolled from a broken neck. Rats and dismounted cavalrymen met in a clanging melee. One of the humans went down, but thanks to the mare's berserk attack the remaining ratmen were easily dispatched. Bleeding from a dozen stabs and slices, that horse continued to stamp and pivot on what had once been a dangerous enemy. "May the Sister suck my marrow!" Attaper said in furious amazement. "What's happening? It's wizardry! They're bewitching the horses!" The first skirmish was the model for those to follow. Every time cavalrymen bore down on the rats, their horses went out of control-either panicking or-in a handful of instances-attacking the ratmen in a foaming rage. Generally the dismounted cavalry were able to defend themselves until the infantry reached them, but sometimes the rats hacked down a horseman who'd been stunned in mind as well as body by the unexpected turn of events. "It's not wizardry!" Carus said. The face of the ghost was sallow with cold anger. "It's the smell! The stink of the beasts sets the horses off. I've seen it with camels, and it's the same with thesebloodyrats!" There'd been no wind in the forest. A fitful westerly blew on this side of the ridge, bringing not only the high-pitched chatter of the ratmen but their rank odor. Garric's mount shied. Carus' reflexes clamped his knees tight against the horse's barrel and sawed the reins savagely when the beast tried to pivot to its right. The Blood Eagles around him were in similar straits.
Attaper and some of the others were horsemen by birth or training, but half the detachment came from infantry regiments and rode by dint of single-minded determination. That wasn't enough when their mounts began to pirouette and buck. Garric's horse made a sound that was more a scream than a neigh. It thrust its head forward like a battering ram despite Garric trying to haul back on the reins. They thundered downhill with the suddenness of eagle stooping. Duzi. This gelding's one of the handful that the smell drives into a killing rage instead of a panic. "Jump, your highness!" Attaper shouted. "Sister take this Sister-raping horse! Jump!" Some of that must be directed against his own mount, though he probably wasn't any more pleased with Garric's… The bubbling laughter of the ghost of King Carus was infectious. Garric too chortled as he hurtled toward the ratmen. Carus had picked a horse that wanted to fight. Why would that surprise anybody who knew him? The tall gelding galloped through clots of javelin men and dismounted cavalry. Some fighting was still going on, but the horse apparently didn't think it was worth his attention.
Instead he rode straight at about twenty- "Twenty-two," Carus corrected. -twenty-two rats, several smaller groups which had merged and were advancing uphill in a shallow Vee. Garric was too busy to be afraid. Oh, this was a disaster, no question, but there wouldn't be time to worry until it was over-and probably no opportunity then either, of course. He couldn't jump from the galloping horse, not with a bare sword in his hand. Attaper would've known that if he'd been thinking instead of reacting. Nor could Garric sheath the sword: under these conditions, not even Carus' skill could guarantee the point would find the scabbard mouth instead of the flesh of his thigh. Of course Garric could've hurled the sword away before jumping and taken his chances of being able to escape uphill unarmed while the ratmen pursued. He didn't figure that was an option he'd choose in this lifetime-nor would Carus choose it in another thousand years. He might as well laugh. The gelding charged the center of the line of ratmen.
There was nothing wrong with the rats' courage: the one which the horse had marked for his own stood his ground. His sword was raised and his little round shield advanced, though nobody could imagine that the impact of a horse weighing a hundred stone plus rider was going to be survivable. They crashed together. The gelding pivoted. Garric gripped the saddle horn with his left hand and cut down to his right at a ratman. His sword sheared the rat's helmet and into the narrow skull, but the beast stabbed deep into the horse's flank before thrashing away. A rat slashed from the left, slicing the back of Garric's thigh. Time later to worry about how bad that was. The screaming horse reared, kicking with both forefeet. Garric swung his left leg over the saddle and slid to the ground over the gelding's bleeding right haunch. Four ratmen were coming at him. He thrust the first through the throat, notching the little shield the beastman tried to interpose. Thank the Lady for this sword! Or better, thank the Yellow King. The other three would've had him but the gelding, continuing to turn, crushed them down, bathing them in gouts of blood from a deep cut his neck. Garric drew his dagger in his left hand and turned to his left to meet the ratmen coming from that direction.
Carus was in full charge of his mind now. There was neither time nor need of anything but reflex, and the ancient warrior had honed his reflexes in a hundred battles like this one. Five or six ratmen were squirming toward him, getting in each other's way. Their shields were wicker with thin bronze facings. Garric thrust through the center of the nearest, deep into the forearm of the rat holding it, and flicked his sword sideways to drag the squealing creature into the path of its fellows. Garric jerked back on the sword to clear it. The preternaturally sharp blade screeched free, but one of the ratmen vaulted the struggling knot and cut at his head. He got the dagger up in time to catch the stroke, but the rat cannoned into him. Garric stepped back with his left foot, tripped on a furry corpse, and fell over beneath his attacker. It struck at him with its shield, numbing his left arm. He twisted the sword around and pounded the pommel into the beast's ribs. He heard bone crack, but the rat tried to hit him again. Garric shoved the rat away. It didn't weigh more than eighty pounds, but Duzi! it was strong. Three more of the creatures pushed close. Garric was still on his back. He kicked a rat in the crotch.