The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (35 page)

Matt shuddered at the implications. What manner of deviltry was he going to see tonight?

Looking down at the courtyard below, he realized that the masses against the walls were trash dumps. The peasants who moved so silently below were thin as whipcord under their smocks--and filthy. Not that body odor was terribly unusual in medieval society, but they had taken it to new heights here. Of course. Water from the river or no, they were rationing. Everyone had enough to drink, but they portioned out the baths.

Matt resolved to speak to Sir Guy about it. Lack of sanitation could kill them just as quickly as poor nutrition.

But there wasn't a murmur of protest or of discontent. Matt looked at people stretched almost to the breaking point, and marveled at the grim purpose that kept them moving. He wondered at the events that had brought them here, and if there were a soul in the castle who didn't have a harrowing tale to tell of cruelty and viciousness. Lean as it was, beleaguered as it was, this castle must have seemed a sanctuary to those who had suffered from Gordogrosso--and his imitators.

"This is a dirty war," he muttered.

"Aye." Robin nodded beside him, hard-faced--and Matt was startled; he hadn't realized he had spoken aloud.

"It is indeed," Sir Guy agreed, "and no quarter is given, or asked for." Matt shrugged. "That was always the way of it, with the army of a sorcerer." Sir Guy shook his head. "These lice of Ibile are far worse than those forced soldiers we fought in Merovence, Sir Matthew. There, the greater number of the soldiers were impressed into service and would take any chance to escape their own ranks. Here, though, even the lowliest soldier is thoroughly and completely dedicated to evil, in the anticipation of the power and preferment his lord may grant him. There's not a one of our besiegers but wishes to be here, not a one that would not delight to see us expire in torment."

Matt turned to look out at the enemy, surrounding them for as far to each side as he could see, and half a mile deep. The sun had set, and the dusk was hurrying on toward night. A strange, growling sound, half mutter and half chant, was rising from the churning mass before him.

Suddenly, a crimson ball shot up from the circling army, arcing toward the castle. A half-dozen others followed it, all along the walls.

"It begins," Sir Guy said grimly.

Surprisingly, Alisande did sleep, though her slumber was interrupted. First had come the attack of the fire snakes, but they were gone by the time she came out of her tent; Sauvignon, prompted by the apprentice wizard they had brought along, had simply told the men to throw snowballs. There followed the plague of rats, to be scared off by the young wizard's quick summoning of a hundred terriers. Finally, near dawn, Alisande was up, feeling moderately rested, and she sent Sauvignon back to bed just before she had to greet the flaming skeletons that came stalking up over the lip of the plateau. The snowballs worked again, of course, and the bones stayed scattered, but it did take her a little while to overcome her footmen's terror enough to get them all to pitch in.

And their yelling woke the sleepers again. That was the bad part. So, all in all, it was a rather creaky army that finally greeted the sun that morning. Alisande paced through the camp, eyeing her soldiers like a worried mother, and murmured to Sauvignon, "Perhaps we should bid them sleep this day, then watch through the night."

"They would then be weary in the morning," the young nobleman pointed out, and a grizzled veteran looked up to agree. " 'Tis true, Majesty. Lead us out against them, that we may send them packing. 'Tis the only road to a sound night's sleep for us, now."

"You have the right of it, Sergeant." Alisande sighed and turned to give the orders to pack up.

The Siege Perilous

Matt nodded. "Your wizards are ready to quench those fireballs, aren't they?

"Our wizards all are dead," Sir Guy said, his voice flat. "The last of them, a monk, died yestereen when an evil spell overcame his ward, in a moment of distraction. 'Twas a foul thing, a liquid that burned--as are these, I doubt not. There was little enough left of him to stack up with the dead. Now we are left without benefit of clergy--for he was also our last priest, and though there are two nuns left us, they cannot consecrate the Host, nor say Mass."

"Best argument I ever heard for female ordination." Matt stared at the crimson globes, watching them arc closer, then realized he was hearing a voice chanting a low, sonorous Latin to his left. He looked up, startled--and saw Tuck, his hands folded in prayer, his eyes on the crimson globes.

"Praise Heaven!" Sir Guy cried. "You have brought a friar! But ward him, wizard--it was such a globe as one of these that burned our monk to death!" Matt jolted out of his trance, his mind kicking into overdrive. A liquid that burned? An acid, or a base--or some magical thing that was neither! He readied an all-purpose spell against fire.

Tuck shouted the last phrase aloud, hands snapping out, spread wide--and Matt realized he'd been reciting the Dies Irae. What good could that do?

One of the globes veered toward them, then suddenly puckered and gushed, like a bubble of water pricked, the surface tension that was holding it suddenly gone. Liquid fire ran from it, cascading down over the battlements. Naphtha! Matt thought. It had to be a petroleum derivative--one of the sorcerers had gotten hold of the formula for Greek fire. But even as he was starting to chant the counterspell, he saw the fire arc away, running over an invisible curve to course down the outer battlements. For a moment, it masked their sight; then it was gone. Matt glanced quickly along the battlements and saw that the other streams of fire had similarly been shed without hurting anyone. He whirled to Tuck incredulous.

"I asked Him to shield us," Tuck explained, "and He did."

"You're a wizard!" Matt pointed the accusing finger. Tuck shrank in on himself, shaking his head. "Only a friar, Lord Matthew--only a poor, humble sinner of a friar. Nay, I can pray, but not conjure."

There was no time to debate the topic, for roaring filled the night. Whirling, Matt sprang to the crenels and saw a semicircle of lions advancing on the castle. But what lions! Their manes were fire, and their teeth glinted like daggers. Their tails were tipped with stings, and their coats glowed with an unwholesome radioactive sheen.

"Hell lions!" Sir Guy cried. "We can do naught till they come nigh--but we can be ready! Cold water, men of mine!"

" 'Tis boiling, Sir Guy." A footman pointed at a huge cauldron, suspended over the holes beneath the outslung crenels.

"It'll do as well as anything," Matt assured him--and became aware that Tuck was chanting again. He glanced at the friar, then turned to see what would happen to the lions--and saw greenish-blue streaks stabbing downward toward the battlements. "What in Hell...?"

"From it, rather!" Sir Guy snapped. "Firedrakes! Shield men! Ward the friar!"

"Nay!" Tuck broke off his chant, lugging out a broadsword. "If there are enemies to fight, then in the name of all that is right and good, I--"

"You must wield magic!" Sir Guy cried, his voice hoarse with anxiety.

"Others can wield sword and shield, friar, but only you and the Lord Wizard can protect us from ill sorcery!"

Tuck's hand fell nerveless from his hilt. "You are right. In my pride and lust for a fray, I would have cast away our chances. Nay, then..." And he began to chant his Latin verse again.

But Matt hadn't been terribly aware of what had been going on; all his attention had been focused on the firedrakes--or rather, the grotesque parodies of firedrakes, their snouts wrinkled like prunes, their teeth dripping venom, their wings swept back in a delta shape, their tails like scorpions'. Matt glared at them and chanted a verse designed to change them into ducks--when suddenly, Stegoman swept into the sky with a roar like a jetliner taking off. Flame stabbed out fifteen feet ahead of him. Wherever it touched a firedrake, the creature exploded. Matt could only think of matter and antimatter, good colliding with evil--until he could also think of the enemy archers, and the evil enchantments that must be on some of their arrows. "Stegoman, no! You're a sitting duck!"

The dragon must have heard him, because he began to weave across the sky as if he were drunken again. Matt couldn't see the arrows and bolts of the enemy; he could only try to shield his friend...

And Narlh? Matt ducked a quick glance back at the other side of the castle and saw a much smaller jet of flame sweeping the skies there, weaving in imitation of Stegoman's broken-sky flying.

Two to protect! Matt shouted out,

"...take arms against

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...

And by opposing, end them! They shall

Be set at naught, so we importune!"

He couldn't see the results--except that his two flaming idiots stayed in the air. If either of them were to fall, he would have failed. Then he heard a change in the roaring from below--a note of outrage. He leaped to the battlements and peered down.

The lions had made it halfway to the walls--the enemy soldiers had pulled well back, leaving each beast an avenue to prowl. But now, suddenly, they were confronted with huge, bulbous beasts twice their size, apparitions with four legs like sections of tree trunks, huge bodies, and heads with huge, clamshell mouths surmounted by snouts that aimed at the lions and sprayed, each body squeezing smaller as the fluid gushed out. The jets of water washed over the hell lions from nose to tail, exploding into steam--but taking the lions with them. Even as they sublimed into nothingness, though, each cat sprang at its pachyderm nemesis, and the two beasts annihilated each other in a blast of steam.

Matt took a quick glance back at the friar, who was watching the results of his work as avidly as Matt. So he knew nothing about wizardry--sure! Only enough to pair opposite elements against each other--the fire lions opposed by the hippopotami, the "water horses" of Africa.

But it was his turn for the next magic offensive. He was scanning the field, wary for monsters, when the infantrymen along the wall let up a shout. Ladder tips slammed against the walls, and enemy soldiers were scurrying up even as the ladders landed. The pikemen bellowed their war cry and lit into the attackers---even as a malvoisin materialized out of the darkness and began to spew armored and half-armored men onto the wall.

With a shout, Sir Guy leaped at the enemy knights--and Tuck gave in to temptation and hauled out his broadsword, howling with heathen glee as he pounced on the grinning, gloating invaders. They saw him coming, huge sword windmilling, and they lost their grins--even as pikes pushed their ladders away and back, crashing down with their loads of soldiers crushed into the earth. But the men-at-arms hewed away, chopping off heads and stabbing through breasts, kicking the wounded and dying off their walls without the slightest compunction. They had fought this siege too long to have anything of pity left. All, that is, except Tuck. He staggered back against the tower wall, burying his face in his hands and moaning, "Lord forgive me! I have slain evil men unshriven of their sins!"

The soldiers stared, stricken, unable to cope with a priest overcome with remorse.

Matt, however, had a more realistic view of the clergy. He stepped up to clap Tuck on the shoulder. "If you had given them the chance, they would have used it to stab you through the liver! Christ never said to let your enemies kill the people you were protecting! Buck up, shepherd, and guard your flock!" Tuck looked up, amazed, his guilt evaporating on the spot. "Why, 'tis even as you say! How unmanly of me, to give way to remorse unmerited!" He was bleeding from at least three wounds, Matt noticed, but none of them looked serious. "Just resist the temptation for hand-to-hand combat, okay? It's only you and me, countering those enemy sorcerers!"

"Aye. Aye, even so." Tuck heaved at his sword belt, settling his huge belly more firmly in place, and turned toward the battlements.

"They come!" a sentry shouted. "They come still, by their hundreds!"

"Why, aim and loose, man!" one of the knights cried.

"We have so few arrows!"

Tuck looked up, then bawled, "Robin! Little John!"

"Robin guards the north wall, and Little John the south," the tall, red-clad man said, stepping forward. "You shall have to manage with me, friar!" Tuck relaxed, smiling. "Then all is well, Will Scarlet! Come, send your two score archers to prickle these invaders."

"Up and loose!" Will Scarlet bawled, and he leaped up to a crenel to begin suiting action to word. Matt spared a quick glance at the ground below, watching charging enemy soldiers fall flat on their faces, twenty-five at a time--then suddenly realized that Tuck was chanting again. He scanned the sky quickly, aware that he'd slacked off on his own duties, turning in place for a 360-degree survey, since Tuck was looking downward. He had almost decided everything was clear, in fact had looked down at the courtyard to see Narlh and Stegoman having arrows pulled from their wings--then suddenly looked back up at the sky. Yes, it was! The moon was getting bigger!

Not the moon, he realized--it was high in the sky; could the night really be half over? This other crescent, then, must be something sorcereus--and now he saw three more, one coming from each point of the compass, swinging closer and closer-Giant scimitars! He didn't need to know if anything was swinging them; he chanted,

"There is hissing like the serpent's,

From the blade so widely feared,

It whirls down through the darkness,

But is caught in unseen weird,

And strikes a hidden, viewless shield

Its counter and its curse,

Like a strong gong groaning as it shivers

blades to burst!"

Screams echoed a!! about him. He whirled to see a huge blade sweeping the battlements behind him--and its point was chopping straight at him! He yelped, leaped back, stumbled--and fell just far enough so that the blade swept over him.

Then it shivered, and all the battlements quivered with the shock of a sound wave so low that no one could hear it, from a gargantuan collision between the crescent and its invisible opposite. A vibration sprang up all along its length, shivering it into a million fragments that faded and disappeared before they even landed on the stone.