The Silver spike (16 page)

Toadkiller Dog kept one eye on the mantas gliding overhead and
around the monastery, eternally probing for soft spots in the shell
of magic shielding the place. Bolts ripped through any they found.
Only one in a hundred did any damage, but that was enough to
guarantee eventual destruction.

The wicker man’s triumph over the windwhale had given a
respite of two hours. Then another windwhale had appeared and had
resumed the struggle. There were four of them out there now, at the
points of the compass, and they were determined to avenge their
fallen brother.

Toadkiller Dog rose, bones creaking and aching, and zigzagged
his way between dangerous spots to the low, thin wall that
surrounded the remains of the monastery. He limped badly. His
wicker leg had gone in the conflagration that had come when the
Limper’s firedrake had turned back upon him.

He consoled himself with the knowledge that the Limper was worse
off than he was. The Limper had no body at all.

But he was working on that.

How the hell had they managed that turnaround?

Toadkiller Dog rose on his hind legs, rested his paw and chin on
top of the wall.

The picture was worse, as he had expected. The talking stones
were so numerous they formed a circumvallation. Groves of the
walking trees stood wherever the ground was moist, feasting. They
had to endure eternal drought on the Plain of Fear.

How long before they moved in and began demolishing the wall
with their swift-growing roots?

Squadrons of reverse centaurs galloped among the shadows of
gliding mantas, practicing charges and massed javelin tosses.

That weird horde would come someday. And there would be no
turning them back while the Limper had no body.

They would have come already had they known how helpless were
the besieged. That was the only smart thing the Limper had done,
getting himself out of sight and lying low, so those creatures out
there did not know where he stood. He was counting on the White
Rose to think he was trying to lure her into a trap by pretending
to be powerless.

The Limper needed time. He would do anything, would sacrifice
anyone, to buy that time.

Toadkiller Dog turned away and limped toward the half-demolished
main structure of the monastic complex. A frightened sentry watched
him pass.

They knew they were doomed, that they had become rich beyond
their hopes but at the cost of selling their souls to death. They
would not live to enjoy a copper’s worth of their stolen
fortunes.

It was too late now, even to find hope in desertion.

One man had tried. They had him out there. Sometimes they made
him scream just to remind everybody they were irked enough to take
no prisoners.

Toadkiller Dog squeezed through the tight halls and down steep,
narrow stairs to the deep cellar the Limper had taken for his lair.
Down there he was safe from the monster boulders and whatnot the
windwhales dropped when the urge took them.

The Limper had set up in a room that was large and as damp and
moldy as might be expected. But the light there was as bright as
artificial sources could make it. The sculptors needed that light
to do their work properly.

The bodiless head of the Limper sat on a shelf overlooking the
work in progress. Two armed guards and one of the witch doctors
watched, too. The actual work was being done by three of the dozen
priests who had survived the massacre of the monastery’s
inmates.

They had no idea what their reward would be if they did a good
job. They labored under the illusion that they would be allowed to
resume the monastery’s work when they finished and their
guests departed.

In the southwest corner, the highest of the enclosure, there was
a small spring. The monastery drew its water from this. Below the
spring, kept moist by its runoff, lay a bed of some of the finest
potter’s clay in the world. The monks had been using it for
ages. The Limper had been delighted when he had learned of the
deposit.

The sculptors had the new body roughed in to the Limper’s
satisfaction. It would be the body he’d always wished
he’d had, not the stunted, crippled thing he’d had to
endure when he’d had a body of his own. With the head on it
this would stand six and a half feet tall and the body itself would
fit what the Limper imagined was every maiden’s dream.

About a third of the detail work was done and it was very good
work indeed, with all the tiny wrinkles and creases and pore holes
of a real human body, but with none of the blemishes.

Only one of the three monks was doing any sculpting. The other
two were keeping the clay moist, basting its surface with oil that
would keep that natural dampness in.

Toadkiller Dog glanced at the clay figure only long enough to
estimate how much longer their good luck would have to hold. He was
not reassured. Surely those things out there would stop
procrastinating in a day or two.

He retraced his route to the surface, prowled from wall to wall,
eyeing potential routes of escape.

When the hammer fell he was going out of there at a gallop,
straight at the talking stone and jump over. They would not expect
him to bolt and leave the Limper to his fate.

He would find a more reasonable patron somewhere else. The
Limper was not the only one of the old ones who had survived.

It was not a companionable camp where we were set up east of the
monastery, where the smell of bodies wasn’t as bad. I mean, I
did my best and me and the Torque boys and the talking buzzard and
a couple of the talking stones had us some pretty good bullshit
sessions around the old campfire. But the rest of them acted like a
bunch of little kids.

Raven wasn’t going to talk to Darling unless she made the
first move. Silent wouldn’t have nothing to do with Raven on
account of he thought Raven was going to try to steal his girl. A
girl he never really had. Darling wasn’t talking to Raven
because she figured he owed her about twenty giant apologies and he
had to pay off before she gave him the time of day. And she was
pissed at Silent because he was being presumptuous, and maybe at
herself some, too, for maybe having given him grounds for his
presumptions.

Just between you and me and the pillow book, I don’t think
she’s no blushing virgin.

But maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Been so long since
I been in rock-throwing range of a woman that the females of those
back-assward centaurs are looking good.

The Torque boys swear by them.

Old wizard Bomanz ain’t getting along with nobody.
He’s full up to his eyeballs with ideas about how this show
ought to be run and there ain’t nobody will listen to him but
the talking buzzard. The buzzard’s name is Virgil but the
stones call him Sleazeball or Garbagemouth on account of the high
intellectual content of most of his conversation.

Already I’m getting blase about all those weird critters.
They kind of rattled me at first, but we been here eight days now.
If I ignore what they look like I knew stranger guys in the
Guards.

What I can’t figure is why we’re sitting around.
From what I hear there’s only a few guys holed up in that
monastery. With what we got we ought to be able to take the Limper
even in top condition. But Darling is the high lord field marshal
here. She says we wait.

She gets her orders from Old Father Tree. Must be he’s
happy so long as the Limper is buttoned up in a sack where he
can’t cause nobody no grief.

Raven said, “I misjudged her. She’s not just sitting
on her hands.”

“Eh? What?” I wanted to go to sleep. So suddenly he
wanted to talk.

“Darling isn’t just sitting here. There’s a
dozen kinds of these Plain creatures so small you don’t
notice them or so much like something you’re used to seeing
you don’t pay any attention. She’s got those sneaking
in and out of there all the time. She knows every breath they take.
She’s got somebody on every one of them all the time. The
mantas and centaurs and rock dropping are all for show. If the
order comes down, the real main attack will be carried out by the
little creatures. They won’t know what hit them in there.
She’s a genius. I’m proud of that girl.”

When it came to sneaky petey I figured she had some pretty good
teachers, bunking around with the Black Company all them years. I
told him, “Why don’t you go tell her she’s a
genius, you’re proud of her, you still love her, will she
forgive you for being such a butt way back when? And let me get
some sleep.”

He didn’t go see Darling. But he did get pissed at me and
left me alone.

Not that that did much good for long.

What nobody knew but maybe Silent—since Darling
can’t hear and she can’t lip-read the stones because
they got no mouths—was that she already had the go-ahead from
the boss tree. She was just waiting for the right hour to give the
signal.

Naturally she timed it for when I just got sound asleep.

Things were quiet in the basement where the Limper was hiding
out. There was one armed guard, one shaman overseeing, one monk
keeping the clay moist, and two more making a leg for Toadkiller
Dog.

The earth shook. A windwhale had hit the building with an extra
big stone. Everybody moved to protect the claywork.

A dozen Plain creatures exploded out of cracks and shadows.
Little missiles flew. Little blades flashed. The fastest creatures
climbed all over the soldier and the shaman. They let the monks
escape. Once the soldier and witch doctor went down the creatures
began defacing the claywork.

It was the same elsewhere. None of the Limper’s men
survived.

That monster Toadkiller Dog came flying out of the monastery and
landed smack in the middle of a gang of centaurs. Blades flashed.
Javelins flew. So did bodies. Then the monster broke loose.

Mantas swarmed overhead so thick they kept running into each
other. The thunder of their lightnings made a drumroll.

The monster got to the barrier of talking menhirs and walking
trees. He jumped over that, too. His fur smoldered and his flanks
were pincushioned with darts. The walking trees tried to grab hold
of him. His strength was too violent for them.

He kept right on coming, straight at us.

Menhirs popped into his way, stalling and tripping him. Mantas
tried to cook him. Centaurs galloped with him, pelting him with
javelins and dashing in to try to hamstring him. Me and Raven and
the Torque boys all put three or four arrows apiece into him. He
never seemed to notice. He just kept on coming, howling like all
the wolves in the world at once.

“Go for its eyes!” Raven yelled. “Go for its
eyes!”

Right, old buddy. Sharpshoot when I’m shaking so bad I
figure if I live through this one I’m going to be cleaning
the brown out of my drawers for a month.

The monster was only about forty feet away when Silent said
hello by smacking it in the face with a bushel of snakes, snakes
that hung on and tried to crawl into its ears and mouth and
nostrils.

The snakes never slowed it down but they did take its mind off
whatever it had planned for us. It just plowed through.

I went flying ass over appetite. As I sailed through the air I
saw Darling step in, as cool as if she was in a kitchen slicing
bread, and take a cut with a two-handed sword I wouldn’t have
figured a woman could lift. She was a little high. She hit ribs
instead of opening the thing’s belly.

I hit ground and spent the next couple minutes doing an
astronomical survey of a couple hundred newly hatched
constellations.

A savage rain shower soaked me and brought me out of it and to
my feet, where I realized that I hadn’t been rained on after
all. A windwhale had passed over, dumping a little ballast to slow
its fall as it came down after Toadkiller Dog.

The monster was still headed west. Right behind it was a
shimmery something that looked like an elephant with a nest of
tentacles for a head. Bomanz’s contribution to the cause.

That was the last minute when anything made sense.

The talking stones went berserk, started popping all around.
Walking trees jumped up and down. Centaurs ran in circles.
Everything that could talk started yelling at everything else. The
windwhales went to booming and started dropping like they meant to
commit suicide by smashing into the ground. The scarred-up menhir
was jabbering at Silent in a lingo I didn’t get and Silent
was practically doing a combination flamenco and sword dance trying
to tell Darling what the rock was saying.

I stumbled over to Raven and said, “Old buddy, this looks
like a good time to duck out of the party. Before the keepers come
to drag them all back to the asylum.”

He was watching Silent. He said, “Hush.” And a
minute later, “The tree god has called the whole thing off.
Something’s happened up north. He wants everybody to drop
everything and head for home.”

I looked around. Two windwhales were on the ground already.
Critters were piling aboard. The only talking stone around anywhere
was the one hanging out with Silent. “There goes our
whaleback ride to catch your buddy Croaker.”

The young tree in the Barrowland had been in a coma since the
fire, intelligence damped down while its hurts healed. But there
came a day when externals finally registered. There was a bustle
and fuss in the Barrowland such as had not been seen since the
great battle that had taken place there.

Curious, and compelled by the mandate of his father, the tree
dragged himself out of his fugue, though he was far from completely
healed.

The Barrowland was crawling with soldiers of the shadowed
western empire. He sensed the foci of power that had to be their
commanders. They were going over every inch of the surrounding
ground.