The Anvil of Ice (44 page)

They were no more than a half-league now from the city walls, on a level with its highest towers, and it lay spread out before them. To Elof's eyes it seemed to spill outward from a central hill, outward across the flatter lands to either side. A great encircling wall, fronting the harbor and running from there inland in a horseshoe shape, seemed barely able to contain such a vast sprawling scatter of rooftops, all shades of slate, gray-green and weathered ivory. It seemed to Elof that his village and every other village and town he had ever seen, whether of men or duergar, might be dropped among them all together, and never noticed. Ivory also were the high walls which meandered here and there between the rooftops, setting off one section of the city from another in a way that looked at first meaningless, till he realized he was seeing the history of its growth, outward like the rings which mark the passage of seasons in a tree. In their way these rings were also a mark of time and growth. When, every few generations, the community dwelling beyond the walls had grown too large to defend from within, they would simply build another section of wall, or even an entire new encircling wall, round it. Sometimes the wall behind might be demolished, but most often it was left as an extra line of defense. Elof traced these walls inward, and marveled at the great number of them. This city was an ancient place.

And no part of it seemed more ancient, or more noble, than what he saw at its heart, wellspring of all that growth. The heart of the brooch, the shield-boss, was a rising promontory of rock, a gentle slope on its narrow landward side but dropping as a sheer cliff to the waters of the harbor. Atop this, like a high crest on a helm, it bore up a great fortress of seven high towers. Gray were the lower slopes of the citadel, for they were carved whole from the living rock. But above them the towers were of ivory stone, as also the walls and roofs that ran between them. They stood like a diadem on the brow of the rock, the tallest of them rising straight up from the cliff face above the waters. And the tops of the towers glowed under the noon sun, more brightly even than the sea which lay beyond them, for they were roofed all with bronze, and crowned in bright gold.

So much Elof would have seen if he had first gazed upon Kerbryhaine the City in the days of its peace. There might perhaps have been great ships stirring in the harbor, white sails spread, or a thin wisp of smoke arising from some great cooking fire in the citadel, where an evening's banquet was being prepared. But now there was much, much more. The sun still shone mellow upon the tower tops, the many-hued banners they bore swirling proudly in the wind from the sea. But against them rose banners greater and more telling, dark reeks that heralded no feast fit for men, the high plumes of black smoke from the ruined lands around.

From here the devastation worked upon those lands was all too clear, the scatter of camps, emplacements, trenches and hasty fortifications, and the files of black-clad warriors that flowed among them like ants from a nest. What had once been buildings beyond the walls were but blackened shells now; what had been fields and pastures and parks were trampled down and strewn about with litter of war gear, loot and debris. What must once have been pleasant groves beneath the walls had been hewn down and stacked against the gates, or made into great laddered platforms to be pushed on rollers against the walls, and spill warriors inside.

The harbor, too, was despoiled, its waters choked now with the skeletal remains of ships, some beached, some thrust up out of the polluted water. Beyond the seawall the sails that crowded shore and sea around, like a spreading stain, were every one of them black. The grim hulls of the Ekwesh rode at anchor, the livid faces painted along their flanks menacing the city with gaping jaws. From their decks, as from the land, catapults raked the ramparts with terrible volleys of arrows and harpoons and shot of metal and stone.

But it was not only from field and sea that the banners of destruction arose, for new fires had sprung up. The ruin outside had entered. The outermost encircling wall, that only the day before had stood a stern bulwark against the spreading reek, now bore a terrible wound in its northern flank, a great jagged collapse of stone, scarred black and ashen as if by blasting heat. Into it, like a plague, streamed the black and white banners of the Ekwesh. Beyond it rooftops of gray and cream lay broken, and among them danced triumphant fires. Through the shattered streets figures of men flickered back and forth in bitter conflict, darting and dodging among the buildings, and on parts of the wall above, defenders still strove to turn back the enemy, lest they be pinioned from both sides. But the banners pressed even further and further on, and more advanced from outside. It was like a blight that had settled on a fair flower and now was creeping inward by degrees, toward the heat. Already the somber ensigns flew above a high round tower at the harbor end of the wall, and behind its battlements of sea-whitened stone robed figures were gathering. The first wall was breached; overwhelmed, futile, the first circle taken. The Ekwesh had overwhelmed the outer defenses, and were within the city.

"How?" whispered Kermorvan in anguish. "That wall should have held many days yet, even against this force. Yet already they stand atop Vayde's Tower! They dare… What sorcery has done this?"

Elof looked long and hard at that blasted gap, and in his memory embers burst into sudden flame. Suddenly he was back on another hillside, above another town, with the echoes of another thunderbolt yet ringing in his ears.

"Sorcery indeed!" he breathed, and a black anger awoke in him. "For so my town was taken. If there was any doubt it ends now!
He
is here! For he has woken the lightning to break your walls."

"Is that then what we heard?" muttered Kermorvan, shaking his head. "But the outer wall only has fallen. The inner ones are in less good repair. Why should he not strike them at once?"

"Because the spell exhausts him. He must dance himself to a frenzy in heavy costume and mask, and put forth great power—greater here than he used against Asenby, where he had only to strike down a man, not a wall. He will not do that again this day! But tomorrow…"

"By tomorrow's dawn," grated Kermorvan, "his dance will be still forever. Look there!"

Kermorvan's keen eyes narrowed, he was staring across to the roof of the captured tower, almost level with them now. Elof followed his look. Even at this distance the figures were distinct in the clear light; some bore spears and black and white armor, most wore the robes and hats of chieftains, but among them walked one whose robes were plain black and without ornament, though he bore some great crested headdress. To the ramparts he came, mounted them and leaned over with arm outstretched. And as he did so, as trumpets brazened rising discord, the smoky sunlight flashed sullen and strange from the blade he swept in a wide arc, like some terrible scythe of the unseen. One of the crude siege platforms was hauled rumbling forward against the defended end of the wall. The first warriors were poised ready to spring down, when grapples were flung from the ramparts, and a smoking barrel of oil or tar was rolled out and down into its heart. It blazed at once like a gigantic torch, and shadows capered in the flame and fell from its ladders, ants caught in a bonfire. Then the grapples were hauled back, and the whole ramshackle structure lurched, tilted, folded inward and collapsed upon the fleeing Ekwesh beneath. But even as it crashed in ruin, banners dipped and signaled from the tower, and catapults, mangonels and other engines were drawn up to harry the wall anew. Boulders drummed upon the stonework, smashed the turrets, sent crenellations flying in deadly splinters. Darts hailed down on the parapets, and stricken men toppled over onto the heads of their foes. Another platform was pushed forward, files of men gathering around it, but they seemed to falter a moment in their advance as they came within range of the burning tower. Again the sword scythed out into the air, the invaders' battle line blurred, blended and streamed together like the orderly traffic of an anthill stirred by a child's stick. The new assault washed forward through the flaming ruin of the last as if it were not there. Onto the plat-

form men crowded as it was thrust forward, and even before it crashed and swayed against the wall they were hurling themselves down upon the very spearpoints of the defenders, overwhelming them in a tumbling, insane wave. Flame raced among the dry fields from the fallen tower, and smoke hid the scene.

Elof turned away, hand to his mouth. A great emptiness seemed to open up inside, a chill void in which thought and feeling alike were swallowed up. Kermorvan looked at him fiercely, questioningly. Elof nodded once, and felt a bitter, salty taste flood his mouth, a sickening, bloody taint. He spat into the bushes at his feet, and it was blood, and there was a sudden sting in the back of his hand; he had bitten deep into his finger without noticing.

"Then all that remains is to bring you to him," said Kermorvan calmly. His cold eyes met Elof's, and his face was as bleak as his words. "For this I have passed over Ice and sea and many other perils, and I will not now fail. Will you?"

Numbly Elof shook his head.

"Very well, then. We will wait here until dark, and then I will bring you to the city and tower through the Ekwesh lines. But you, lady," he added, turning to Ils, "you have come further with us than you meant. You will best stay here for now, where you may yet turn for home should things go ill."

She glared at him. "Skulk here when things are just getting interesting? Do you think you'd have got this far without me? No, my lad, I come also. Or do you fear they will not welcome me in that fine burg of yours?"

"They will," said Kermorvan grimly, "since you are with me. But later there may be many old errors to be set right."

Many times that day they saw the sword sweep out over the city, and watched visions of fear and horror take form in its shadow. Men made mad were driven against their adversaries like chaff in a wind, till blood ran in dark streams down the warm stone. Sometimes the sword would be brandished out toward the harbor, and more of the dark ships would come crowding ever closer in among the hulks, sweeps threshing in the narrow channels as if to waken the drowned who lay below. At last one small ship dared to sail right in under the shadow of the high tower, tilting its bow catapult skyward. A harpoon-sized bolt struck into a tower window with a wide gallery beneath, a rope was hauled up by its cord, and up this swarmed Ekwesh with bows and spears slung at their backs. Half dangling by their hands, half walking up the rock face, they were almost at the gallery, some sixty feet above the harbor, when the next window opened, a pikehead caught in the rope against the rock and severed it. The climbers had never a chance, but fell away with it, to land shattered against deck or water. The oars began to back water frantically, but then some thing of great size and weight was tilted over the gallery rail. It fell spinning straight down upon the hapless ship, clove its foredeck and smashed through the planking. Water fountained upward, the ship lurched and listed, the mast toppled, and bodies spilled into the water on either side. The defenders leaned over the gallery with jeers of triumph. But the stern catapult was still manned, and a hail of heavy shot pounded all around the window. The great gallery cracked, fell away from the wall and crashed down in ruin upon the sinking vessel and the swimmers around it, bringing defenders and attackers alike to a common end. Sickened, Elof rested his head in his hands; only the sounds could he not shut out.

As dusk gathered, these slowly stilled, and it was smaller fires that sprang up in the gloom, the attackers retreating to their camps. But there was no peace in the quiet that settled over the beleaguered city then. It was a taut, watchful quiet, the desperate stillness of the wounded beast shivering in its retreat. And over the camp was the quiet of the hunter, watching, waiting, with the blood scent already in the wind. The three travelers could sense that watchfulness as they slipped out from among the trees. There was a faint glow of moonlight; they made their way slowly, from bush to bush, from tree-shadow to line of hedgerow or fence and across the fields these guarded. But the fields bore no crop now save ashes, and among them many bones of those who had not had time to reach shelter, men and animals both. The first onslaught had been sudden, the city ill-prepared, that much was obvious, and Kermorvan ground his teeth as they passed. Many of the human skulls were small. "It will be paid for!" he muttered. "And not only by the Ekwesh, if I have my way."

It was two hours, perhaps, before they came within sight of the besiegers' outer lines, and found just beyond them a wide chain of picket camps, with many men patrolling the darkness between their fires. "They are alert," muttered Kermorvan, as they crouched in the shadow of a tumbled wall, by the blackened skeleton of a tree. "Victory or defeat must hang on a hair now. Tomorrow morning…" He said no more, but they knew. Tomorrow would bring a bolt to shatter another wall, and perhaps with it the flagging will of the city. "And that alertness will make our task the harder. To reach the tower we must enter the city somehow, and that will mean getting past the guards at the beach—see their fires?—and slinking through the streets. A slow and perilous task that will be! It would be quicker simply to cut around the top of the walls, but—"

Elof coughed hesitantly. "There is something that might make it easier—at least as far as the walls. I am not sure… a token… I had it from the forest." He reached into his pack, and pulled out the sprig of wood.

The others eyed it uneasily. "A token, you say?" whispered Ils. "But how will that serve…"

She was answered as the scent reached them, a warm smell, resinous, heavy, heady. It seemed to flood the mind and sing there like the thin song of insects in a warm still twilight. Elof held up the sprig, and it was as if the dead tree above them awoke, summoned up the ghosts of its leaf-heavy limbs and set them swaying in the strange breeze, casting their old wide shadow in the pale light. Then Elof turned the sprig, and it seemed that the shadow spread outward from his arm, flowing and pooling in the darkness like blood from a secret slaying. And through it ran that heady heaviness, rich with soft rustle of a quiet forest, a safe place to rest one's weary limbs, to forget one's troubles and fears, to let one's leaden head nod a moment and find peace.