The web of wizardry (30 page)

There were few flame-tipped arrows shot now. But bowstrings still sang and rains of barbed shafts flew in both directions as the Markuand archers and Deki's few bowmen dueled. Whenever one of the arrows or catapult stones broke through the wizard's barrier and struck home, the soldiers and Dekans cheered mightily. However strong his enchantments, it seemed the Markuand wizard could not protect all his forces at once. Some rocks smashed into boats and tipped or sank them. The archers on the walls cut down many a Markuand with their cruel arrows.

They did not die screaming. When a man defending the walls was hit, he might gasp in shock or cry out if he was from The Interior. But as the Markuand went down, there was no sound. The sappers had died silently, too. And unlike the Destre, these Markuand had no battle shouts, no ululating shrieks to terrorize

their foes. Did their commanders tear out their tongues to bind them to such muteness? Or . . . was this more evidence of magic?

Danaer had no bow, and the boats were still too far away to waste a lance. But he loosed his sUng and risked peeping over the wall and trying for a kill. It took four attempts before he at last struck cleanly. The white uniforms reflected star and torchlight and distant campfire well, and he saw a Markuand officer topple off the edge of his raft. At once another moved to assume his place. There was no moan or plea for help, no confusion.

The deadly, silent Markuand . . . Deki's defenders now sensed why the Clarique had been stunned to meet such a foe, and ripe for the conquest. Krantin had been warned, and though this thing made men shiver, they did not panic and flee.

Boats and tower floats rode above the stony barricade strewn against the walls, and white-clad soldiers debarked, scampering forward. The smack of wood against stone warned those above that ladders were being put in place, ladders of incredible length to scale Deki's mighty walls.

Now the Markuand siege towers used their own catapults, aiming high for their opposing members and for the groups of archers on the lofty parapets. A storm of countering fire raged back and forth as the towers groaned ever closer.

Danaer dared a peek through the lookout's grille, seeing the towers creeping inexorably over the ruins of the quays and wharves. Over broken stone and the bodies of their dead, they came. By morning, the river would be thick with blood and splintered weapons.

"Steady, now!" Branra bellowed, in a voice any Troop Leader would envy.

Arrows hummed like bees, and to Danaer's left a man screamed and clutched an arrow which caught him full in the breast. He lunged upright, then toppled over the wall, smashing down on the rocks. One of his friends wailed in anguish, "He would never keep his head down!"

One tower was now directly in line with Danaer's

section of wall. There was a room built near its top, and Markuand milled about inside. Arrows and rocks continued to bounce away before they could seriously damage the machine.

"Ready, warriors!" Branra again. His voice was like his sword, cutting fear away from them all, steeling them with battle fever.

Like some tremendous wooden demon, the mouth of the tower opened. Running across plankwork and toward the walls, on a new-made bridge, came the Markuand—silent, white-clad, with swords and lances and axes in their hands.

XVI

Wizardry Most Profound

There was a gap between planking and wall, and the foremost Markuand threw down pieces of wood to span the rest of the distance, bracing the device atop an attack ladder. Defenders thrust at the makeshift bridge with pikes and lances, trying to dislodge it. Noise ruled the scene, for though the Markuand did not scream in pain, they could not still their feet or the sounds of their weapons; and Deki's warriors cursed and shouted and cried in triumph or agony as blade or lance or arrow met flesh.

As the j&rst wave of invaders clambered atop the wall, Danaer drove the flat of his sword against a Markuand belly. The man tried to strike with his ax. Sprawled on the parapet, the Markuand was easy prey, and Danaer brought down the blade hard between shoulder and neck. Then he upended the slain Markuand, flinging the body over the wall.

The white-clad foe was everywhere now, weapons in constant play. One Markuand leaped over the

crenel to Danaer's left; before he could turn to counter, Branra was there, as swift as a lightning stroke. The invader dropped in a gory heap and Branra immediately attacked another opponent.

A Markuand fell heavily against Markuand as Dekan pikemen dispatched him. Together the Dekans and Danaer heaved the corpse down into other enemies just mounting the wall. In a tangle, living and dead disappeared into the darkness below with a sodden splash.

As each head or body appeared, Danaer struck re-flexively, and so did most of the other defenders. Men moved in concert, a ritual of slaughter, a deadly dance.

"Archers!" Branra yelled above the din. "Now! Set the towers afire!"

They strove to obey him. At first the fire-arrows and globbets of balled fire bounced away uselessly, as they had before. But as the barrage kept on, Danaer felt an odd pressure building, a tautness in the air and a crackling.

Lira? Hurling her magic against the mighty Markuand wizard?

She was taxing him, while he must be put to his utmost powers, for the assault of the Markuand pressed forward all along the river, and surely he could not be everywhere at once.

Danaer's talisman was quiet, but he sensed Lira's presence, though he could not see or hear her. The tension in the air grew, like stinging nettles raking along his skin, and an eerie blue glow limned the siege towers—the unseen barrier, becoming solid!

And then it burst! All at once the fire-arrows struck home, and so did the catapults' missiles. Markuand plucked out the blazing shafts embedded in the towers and tried to throw them away before their siege machines caught fire. Their white clothes in flames, they fell like living torches. The towers were now so close that Deki's archers skimmed their shafts barely above the heads of the defenders, a whistling melody accompanying the raging man-to-man battle.

Indeed, it was a battle, true and untainted by wizardry at last! Arms and courage alone would now

decide this outcome. The fearful cloud of wizardry which had shielded the Markuand melted away. Every man on the walls seemed to feel the same release Danaer did, an inner knowledge that he could strike and no magic would thwart him.

For long minutes they were all absorbed in the business of keeping alive. Arrows sped toward targets, the Markuand hurled back flaming torches, and men died. Again and again Danaer slashed at the oncoming white wave, a wave of soldiery seemingly without end.

Branra howled elatedly and others took up the cheer. The siege machines were ablaze, and the Markuand were climbing out onto ropes, trying to escape the flames. Silent or not, they feared death. The ropes burned through and many fell to the rocky waters. Others dived off, preferring a quick end to a pyre. The pikemen seized on that confusion, put their shoulders to dislodging the makeshift bridge, and succeeded. The bridge carried with it those Markuand who had been crossing to the walls at that moment. One jumped off and clung to the parapet ledge. A soldier, using a shield against the onslaught of Markuand arrows, leaned over and prodded until the enemy's fingers lost their grip and he too fell.

Branra exhorted his troops to press the counterattack. "This must be their main assault! Get oil on tiiose scaling ladders, quickly!"

In the bright light of the burning towers, the scene below was order being rebuilt of chaos. With superb discipline, the Markuand paddled forward in small landing boats to take the places of the dead and injured. They did not help the wounded but kicked them aside mercilessly or walked over them.

Heavy cauldrons were wheeled out of special bastions and slid out into the machicolations Deki's wise defenders had constructed long ago. Soldiers drew back to permit the sweaty operators to work their contrivances. Ropes were pulled and chains fed through pulleys, and the cauldrons poured their boiling contents of searing oil onto the Markuand below.

Even then, there were no screams. But a chorus of

shocked, strangling noises rose, as if agony caught in tens of throats of the tortured and dying. There was a terrible hiss and a column of steam as hot oil and scalded bodies fell into the cold river.

A second siege machine cast grappling hooks into the flaming wreckage of its predecessor, attempting to pull apart the remains to clear a path for its own approach to the walls. Still other towers vied for attack vantages all along the walls at other points.

"Save the ricochets," Branra commanded, and the word was passed. Troopmen retrieved spent Mar-kuand arrows and returned them to Deki's archers. Soon more fiery shafts were winging toward the second row of towers, setting those ablaze, too.

But some of the Markuand arrows could not be retrieved without the aid of surgeons. At least five men lay near Danaer, writhing and pleading for help as they struggled in their own blood. How many more defenders had been wounded or were dead?

Though their aim was sometimes shaky and the fusillade ragged, the archers succeeded in setting more towers and barges afire. The burning platforms and the accumulation of bodies began to block all further attack at those places. Branra regrouped his units at the vulnerable spots as Markuand swarmed up the ladders not hit by the boiling oil, undeterred by the fate of their comrades.

Danaer parried and thrust and slashed mindlessly now. The Markuand must not cross the wall, and any who did must die. The banquette was slippery with blood and the footing treacherous. It was difficult to move now without treading on the fallen. Markuand and defenders were tangled together. No man had the leisure to discover if those groaning forms were friend or foe.

More oil, more arrows, little feathered lances— blows from the Death God tipped with deadly metal.

No more did Deki's defenders shout defiance. They became almost as silent as the Markuand, too spent to exhaust themselves in speech.

Danaer did not know how long this had gone on. He had never fought so desperately, not in any of

Yistar's campaigns, not in any knife fight in a Zsed. But finally he heard Branra ordering men to hold their arrows and rest on their weapons. Danaer, sore-eyed with weariness, slumped against the wall and stared out at the river, uncaring that he exposed himself to possible return fire. There was no longer a need for such caution.

The river was clogged with tens upon tens of Markuand boats, but most were burning. All the siege towers were in flames or already blazing to the water-line. And everywhere were bodies, crushed or impaled or broken. Piled in bloody heaps on the rocks' broken teeth. Some dangled lifelessly from the towers or across the sides of boats. Some floated in backwaters, the current tugging at them, a few beginning to drift downstream. Dawn was starting to dapple the sky with gold, and showed Deki a vista of unallayed carnage. Redder than the flames ran the mighty Irico River, streaked with the gore of the dead and dying Markuand.

Men lay down where they had fought, heedless of the hard stone bed beneath them or the stench of death or the cries of their fellows. Surgeons came and carried the wounded to their workrooms below, and the dead were shrouded and borne away.

There was no relief. Every warrior who had been able to wield a weapon had gone to the walls this night. In a half doze, Danaer knew that Yistar and and the Siim were conferring with Branra, speaking in low and worried tones. The Captain's helmet was badly dented, and clotted blood smeared his brow and cheek. He too had waged personal war on the Markuand. Despite his stamina, even Branra looked tired. In disjointed sentences, the officers and Lorzosh-Fila talked of losses and regrouping and how they must withstand other attacks.

Danaer watched them listlessly. There was something he meant to say, to the officers or to Lira—some important thing he had learned amid the battle. But he could not remember what it was. It could not be so important as sleep. Nothing could.

He wanted to go back to his barracks and sink into

his pallet, vermin-riddled or not. But they were commanded to stay where they were. And sleep was difficult to find, even if they were exhausted. Day had come, but that was no respite. The sun was barely above the horizon when a thick fog rolled out from the Clarique bank. The Dekans muttered in superstitious fear and said the fog in these regions never behaved so. The strange mist crept over the river until it reached the destroyed siege towers, and there it hovered. In the fog there were sounds—oars and creaking of boats and noises that might have been men shifting about in craft or clashing weapons together softly as they prepared a foray. One false alarm after another was cried, and weary officers and men stared into the alien mist, unable to penetrate its secrets. If Lira was countering this latest magic, she could not remove it completely. Now and then the fog moved back a pace, only to roll in again, and the sounds came with it.

And while they endured the uncertainty of the fog sounds, a cold sleeting rain began to fall on the defenders. This, too, was unnatural and unseasonal, as had been the mirages and the storm which tore the Destre council tent. Men shivered miserably and crawled beneath whatever shelter they could find, their chance for sleep ripped from them by discomfort and fear. Lookouts like Danaer kept short watches, taking turns trying to see into the fog, until their eyes drooped and they were told to sleep—if they could.

Danaer had cursed bad conditions often during war and campaigns in Yistar's service. But it was patently unfair to suffer the plagues of witchcraft in the form of weather. Silently, he begged Lira to find some measure to give them surcease.

Yet she was alone, days away from her Web, and the Web was busy in other matters they deemed equally important. Lira had to fight this battle alone. She had broken the wizard's barriers and let the arrows reach the towers. But like all the defenders, such terrible exertions must exhaust her. She too needed rest, though she wielded no sword and shed no blood.