Night Winds (28 page)

Another horse screamed and fell, hamstrung from behind. Its rider vaulted clear, landed heavily. Steel flashed low to the ground and the mercenary's head rolled free.

The man nearest swung his torch. In its flaring light something spider-like scuttled back into the shadow. It was a man--or half of a man. He ran on his hands, legless torso swinging between his thickly muscled arms. He clutched a heavy knife in his teeth; there was blood an its blade.

Then an arrow sprouted from the torchbearer's chest. The link dropped from his hand, struck the stones, and went out.

Kane lunged for the horseman nearest him. Stunned, the Waldann remembered his shield an instant too late. Kane's upward thrust disembowelled him.

Another scream of pain from the darkness. Kane caught a glimpse of a mercenary on foot being dragged down by a twisted shape that rose from the darkness of a fallen wall.

"Down!" a bass voice yelled.

Kane dropped as a springald snapped. A wooden shaft as thick as his arm drove its iron head through the mail of the Waldann opposite him, scarcely slowing as it lifted the man from his saddle and carried him back into the darkness. Another arrow hissed past, and the remaining torch was smothered beneath its bearer's toppling body. In the darkness another man shrieked, more in terror than pain; his second outcry was cut short.

Two horsemen remained. Kane went for them, but they had had enough. They bolted past him, driving for the gate. One of the riders made it. His hoofbeats clattered for a long while up the winding roadway.

Kane could still hear their echo as the half-men gathered about them.

On the ground a fallen torch snapped and flickered to life, spreading a pool of wan yellow light. Sesi shivered against Kane's arm, leaning heavily on it for support. The sword in Kane's left band was poised to strike.

"Get the torch," he grated.

Sesi hopped quickly to the sputtering link, scrambled back to Kane. Her leg was badly lamed, but she was able to limp. Kane judged her knee had not been broken, only wrenched and numbed by her fall.

"You can put down your sword," said a voice from beyond the ring of light. "We're allies, it seems."

The speaker stepped into the light. Kane thought for an instant it was a two-headed hunchback. The figure came closer and Kane saw it was one man carrying another--or part of another man. Walking toward him was a tall, heavily muscled man, who appeared quite normal except for the eyeless mass of scar that was his face. Over his shoulder peered the head of the other man--a limbless torso slung in a harness to the blind man's back.

"Stop here, Semoth," he spoke in his bearer's car. "We've saved their lives, but they're still not certain we are allies."

Behind the blind giant scampered the man without legs, his knife sheathed in a sling behind his neck. No, this man was beardless; the one Kane had glimpsed earlier was shaggy as a bear. Another man stepped toward them--the archer, from his bow and quiver. His face and arms were misshapen knots of burned scar, though an upflung arm had spared his eyes from the spewing phosphorus. Another man joined them. Kane thought him a dwarf, but he had not been born with wooden clogs on the stamps of his thighs, or a steel hook where his right arm should have been. Others moved about in the shadow--maimed, twisted things whose misfortune had been not to die from the hideous wounds that had transformed men into freaks.

"We have overheard much," the limbless torso spoke. "It's easy to hide and watch when you're only half a man." Several others joined his mirthless laughter.

"Who are you?" Kane asked.

"I am Byr," said the torso. "In my other life I was Captain of the First Guard. Masale's soldiers left me for dead beneath a fallen wall, and gangrene did the rest. My friend Semoth commanded a trebuchet crew, until a chance stone struck the throwing arm as they were loading a phosphorus bomb.

"We all have similar stories as to who we were in past lives, and how we became creatures who must shun the sight of men. We are the creatures of war, the veterans for whom there was no victory, no spoils, no poems and parades. Our comrades who are past caring are the honored dead, while we who must live are the despised and pitied cripples. "

"You've lived here since the battle?"

"We have. Though we fought on opposite sides, the aftermath of war found us a nation of the maimed--united by our afflictions. And where would you have us live? When we returned to our homes, our wives and children cringed from us; our neighbors laughed and threw stones when we entered our old towns. How could we live? As beggars or as freaks to amuse the crowds? No, we chose to dwell in Lynortis, where no man ever comes--to live out our wretched lives in dignity where our fellows would not jeer and pity.

"And is it not better? Once we were men and enemies who hated and killed. Now we are half-men and comrades, and we live here in peace."

"Your peace has ended," Kane told him. "Jeresen will be up here in force in another hour."

"To all things must come an ending," Byr stated heavily. "It is the law of nature. Even to the war there was an ending, although I think there was no victor. The war was the ending for three hundred thousand. Tonight may be the ending for the handful who have survived."

"Masale is coming back to Lynortis."

"We know." Byr's smile was quiet, but not serene. "Masale is already here."

"Here! How can you know?"

"We watch where no man sees us," the legless man snickered. "In thirty years we know every hole and mound of rubble here. The Crawler saw Masale's scouts sneak in two hours ago. He told Glint," he nodded to an armless man, "and Ghot brought word to us."

Kane warily stepped past them. Sesi limping at his side, he climbed to the parapet and looked down. There were more torches now, many more. In places the motes of light rushed together; sometimes one winked out.

Semoth climbed after him, Byr guiding his blind steps. "Masale always was a good general," Byr commented without admiration. "He learned the Waldanns' position from his scouts, then encircled them in the dark--using no betraying light. They'll fight for a while between themselves, and at dawn those who are left will doubtless come to Lynortis."

"What will you do? They'll take Lynortis apart stone by stone looking for Sesi."

"We will not hide from them." Semoth spoke for the first time. "Sesi is our queen. Masale shall not have her."

"This is hardly a time for idealism," Kane protested. "The passage through the mountain is still open--Masale not have it guarded yet."

"Where would we flee?" asked the blind man.

"To all things there must be an ending," Byr repeated.

"You'll be butchered," Kane stated. "And aren't some you Masale's old soldiers?"

"That was in our other lives," Byr said calmly. "Now are outcasts--half-men. Lynortis is our home, and Sesi is our queen. Outcast and hunted, she shares in our suffering and Lynortis is her home. The war has not ended for us, nor has it ended for Masale. Now there will a final battle and a victor, for that which began thirty years ago must have an ending."

"You're all mad."

"Yes, we're all mad."

Kane swore in exasperation.

"Come with us to the Temple of Peace," Byr invited gently. "It may help you to understand."

Kane considered his chances of getting Sesi away from Lynortis. The roadway would certainly be guarded now, and Masale had brought more than a hundred men, by their torches. The outlook was grim. Lynortis was shelter for the moment, but Lynortis was also a trap.

Since there was nothing he could do for the moment, Kane followed the half-men to where they all now were going. Sesi limped painfully while holding his arm; she could walk, but without a horse they were not going to outrun any pursuit.

"This is the Temple of Peace?" Kane queried, as the half-men entered the featureless basalt monolith that squatted in an open court not far beyond the city's gate.

"It is now," Byr declared. "The old days, the old gods are no more--they died with Lynortis. We who survive worship a new god."

"The darklings...?"

"The darklings are no more--fled down into the nether regions from which they came, and only their burrows remain. A thousand screaming sacrifices were given to them, but their hell-spawned vials of killing vapor and searing phosphorus would not bring us victory. We rolled their poisons and fires back down into their burrows, and now we worship the god of Peace."

Nerves on edge, Kane followed the half-men past the wreckage of the temple doors and into the black stone temple. Its walls were stark and barren of any embellishment, drab and somber as an unmarked tomb. Once inside, the featureless walls were as claustrophobically oppressive as the inside of a sepulcher.

Within the sanctum several torches flared brightly. Here had once yawned an open pit into which uncounted sacrifices had been drawn down to Hell. Now the tunnel mouth was closed with great blocks of stone--an altar. And from the altar rose the statue of a man--a giant battle dress, sword upraised in fierce challenge. The statue's face had been obliterated.

"The Peacemaker!" intoned Byr.

"The Peacemaker!" echoed the others.

"Kane! What is it?" Sesi whispered anxiously, as Kane balked inside the sanctum.

"The Peacemaker--our god," Byr told her. "The bringer of peace."

"But that's the statue of a warrior!" Sesi protested.

"A special warrior!" Byr explained. "He is the man who led Masale's army up through the passages of the mountain. His face is missing, for no man knows his face."

"You worship the man who betrayed Lynortis!" Sesi exploded in disbelief.

"We are soldiers from either side of that battle--and are we not equally maimed? The soldiers never win in any battle--only their leaders are victors. The soldiers fight and suffer; some live, some die--many like us don't quite die, but must live on as miserable human wreckage, while our leaders grow old in the luxury we suffered to win for them. Generals and princes live in glory, but the soldier dies in pain."

Byr's braids flew as he shook his head fiercely. "No, the Peacemaker did not betray us. He brought a swift end to two years of nightmare."

"But tens of thousands died because of him!"

"Tens of thousands died below, and died here. Who can say how many more would have died had the siege dragged on for two more years--for ten more years--with Yosahcora bartering wealth and souls for men and weapons, and Masale whipping thousands more of his subjects to add their bones to their brothers'?

"The Peacemaker brought an end to this, and for this we give him thanks."

Byr's face was calm, for all the hate and anger of his words. "But now we shall worship for what may be a final time. Take me to the altar, Semoth."

The blind man obeyed. The burned archer helped him with the harness and Semoth carefully propped Byr's limbless trunk at the foot of the statue.

"Hail to the Peacemaker!" Byr's bass voice intoned. The assembled half-men echoed his chant.

"Hail to the Bringer of Peace!"

"Hail to the Bringer of Death!"

"Hail to the Bringer of the End!"

"Bring to us now an Ending!"

Kane grabbed Sesi's arm and steered her out of the Temple of Peace.

There may be a way out. We can make a break while the half-men engage Masale. It may draw men away from the passage through the mountain. Masale will be confident and attack up the roadway."

"Kane, I can't run any more," Sesi said wearily.

"You sure as hell can't wait here!"

"Does it matter? If Masale defeats them, he'll hound me wherever I run."

"If I can get us out of his lands, he'll never find our trail."

Sesi glanced at her swollen knee. "We'd never make it. You know that. It's me they all want. You can get away by yourself."

"I can try it with us both."

"It's hopeless. My best chance is to stay here with the half-men. If they can drive back Masale--"

"Sesi, they aren't going to defeat Masale! They're too few, too old, too crippled--and they're mad! You are, too, if you don't come with me."

"Stay and fight with them."

"Dead I can't spend that gold."

Sesi bit her lip. "Kane, damn you--there isn't any I gold!"

Kane stared at her without expression.

"If I knew the secret of a hidden treasure room, do you think I'd be in this wretched situation?"

"You might--if you hadn't had time to figure out how to make use of that knowledge. You couldn't just pick up a chest of gold and go walking off to the nearest city."

"Kane, my life hasn't been much, but I want to keep living, and I can't stand pain. Jeresen could have had the secret on his terms--if I only knew it."

"We've been over this, Sesi. Someone's lying somewhere."

"I don't know what Amenit made out of what he heard. I think he liked to sneak around and watch me undress--he jammed the bolt and came into my room through the main cellar the night Orsis beat him and drove him away. Mother was out of her head as the fever got worse. She talked a lot about her girlhood in Lynortis. Not much of it made sense. Several times she tried to tell me about a room filled with gold, where she'd taken her own necklace to add to the pile. But she never said where it was or what it was all about. Kane, she wasn't ten when Lynortis fell!"

"Is that the truth?" Kane asked finally.

"Damn you, Kane! Of course it is! I've wanted to tell everyone this from the start! Only everyone knew I was lying when I wouldn't say what they wanted to hear."

Kane seemed lost in thought. Sesi could not read the feelings in his face.

"Look," she pressed him. "If I knew the secret of the treasure, I'd tell you before I'll tell those who have hounded me. You've done all in your power for me--I'd tell you now. No, I'd hold the secret over your head to make you throw your life away against Masale's attack. Kane, believe me--I don't know the secret of any hidden treasure!"

"I believe you," said Kane softly. "Masale won't."

Sesi shuddered and clung to him. "When Jeresen's men surrounded us on the plaza, I got your dagger. I thought I wouldn't let them take me, but I don't think I could have done it. I don't want to die, Kane."